the crown prince Jacaerys finds himself falling for his mother's new queensguard.
Jacaerys Velaryon • Masterlist | @sylasthegrim
My dear betrothed | @slaytheusurper
After years of not seeing each other, you are to be wed to your cousin Jace, but can you hold off your desires for each other before the wedding?
I am yours and you are mine, whatever may come | @/slaytheusurper
After your mother Rhaenyra ascended the iron throne you were finally able to wed your betrothed. But with a royal wedding comes a bedding ceremony.
Grief | @jacaerysgf
Plagued by you, Part two, Part three | @/jacaerysgf
Otto doesn't go to Dragonstone you do. And you are faced with a past you never thought you would see again right before the war.
Forbidden | @illyrianbrat
BOUND BY DUTY | @house-strong
THE TORMENT of a life time | @/house-strong
LOVE, PARENTS, and truths | @/house-strong
i love you | @murdocksdaughter
jacaerys finally confesses his feelings at the oddest hour
missing you, kissing me | @/murdocksdaughter
leading up their wedding y/n and jacaerys has had any alone time together
teaching his wife how to fight | @sourcherryandsprinkles
Saving Jacaerys during the battle of the gullet | @/sourcherryandsprinkles
IMAGINE | @/sourcherryandsprinkles
the scene where Ulf disrespects Jace | @/sourcherryandsprinkles
Blessing disguised as a Curse | @asumi2020202
You were Alicent's daughter. Younger than the three, Aegon, Aemond and Helaena but older than Daeron. After returning from Dragonstone, Rhaenyra proposes a marriage pact between her eldest and you. A man your mother had warned you about.
Midnight Battle | @/asumi2020202
The Kingdom was at peace when a small battle began inside the Red Keep. But.. it was not a normal battle.
Crossroads | @hxtd
prince charming does not merely exist within fairytales, though he might be a little more unorthodox than expected.
𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜n | @/hxtd
grieving prince jacaerys needs a distraction from the pain.
𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑏𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑒𝑛, 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑠𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 | @/hxtd
here we stand | @controld3vil
news had broken out that the throne has been usurped. jacerys rides his way to winterfell, the end to the north where he meets cregan stark. and in evidently, you, lady mormont of bear island.
mormont!reader
Cracked | @toms-cherry-trees
No one ever said duty would hurt like this
Something wrong with me | @maidragoste
Jacaerys comforts his wife after she tells him her worries.
Nothing Can Happen | @chloe-skywalker
Jace fall’s in love with Cregon Stark’s twin sister.
the other one | @delulujuls
heart want what it wants, and y/n's heart belong to young prince from dragonstone, not to the future cruel king of westeros.
the right one | @/delulujuls
the hardened and hateful heart of the future king of westeros is no match for the tender and loving heart of the young prince of dragonstone. so it's not difficult to guess whose heart belongs to the young targaryen princess
Saving Face | @hughesmybaby
with what was supposed to be a happy moment in the new chapter of your family with jacaerys, only wounds linger when your mother is unhappy with your child’s appearance.
Overprotective | @imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul
Jace’s overprotective nature begins to grate on the reader’s nerves as the birth of their first child looms closer.
Safe and Sound | @/imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul
Jace comforts the reader after they wake up from a terrible nightmare.
LINGERING IN OUR MEMORIES, PART 2. | @goldsainz
Death does not scare me | @eunoiathewriter
They all thought she was only feeling a bit under the weather, but that soon proved to be wrong. It made Jacaerys realise one thing, the forever he wanted with her would not last long so he had to, one tell her how he felt and secondly do something so he knew they would be forever.
ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ɴᴏᴛ | @anatay004
Ever since you were kids, Jacaerys detested you. And, quite honestly, you didn’t know the reason behind his hatred towards you (or cared enough to), until one night you’re betrothed to no other than him.
under the weirwood | @targaryen-jpg
Hunger | @vhagarsback
jacaerys just wants to see all of you, despite your shyness.
Warm | @/vhagarsback
jacaerys finds you, and he will never let anything happen to you.
Not ideal | @starless-starkov
reader is known as daemon’s bastard daughter but jacaerys doesn’t care
Kerosene, part 02, part 03 | @aphroditesmoon
after you find out your family has been orchestrating a plan to use you as a scapegoat to assure your brother's reign. You pledge your allegiance to the black queen and switch alliances as pleaded by your secret lover himself, prince jacaerys velaryon.
Replaceable, part 02, part 03, part 04 | @/aphroditesmoon
After your twin sister decides to run away weeks from her wedding to the prince and heir to the throne, Jacaerys Velaryon, you are left with no choice but to step in her place.
Sweet Nothing | @its-vannah
Question…? | @/its-vannah
Vigilante Sh*t | @/its-vannah
RUEFUL | @januaryembrs
Jace says goodbye to his pregnant wife as he leaves for the North
WHAT ONCE WAS | @urblondiebaby
for the lovers who found a mirrored heart | @enviedear
amid the dance of dragons, queen rhaenyra’s prospects blossom after the discovery of a potential and powerful alliance. she sends her firstborn to enact a plan of union, condemning him to a marriage of duty—or so he believes.
The coronation | @thesongoficeandfir3
The Great War, PART 2, PART 3 | @vividxpages
Jace and you are lovers, but stand on opposite sides of the war, not allowed to see each other anymore. But love always finds a way.
“lay it all on me” | @/vividxpages
With the Queen and your betrothed Jacaerys’ delayed arrival, you are left in charge of the day’s council meeting. When one of the lords starts to speak of a possible bedding ceremony for your upcoming wedding, your thoughts begin to spiral badly…
𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 | @flowersforjude
You could not leave him. Not when your very breath was the only thing that kept him tethered to this world
Beacon of Hope | @princessbellecerise
After the war, Jacaerys finally finds his purpose for living again
Court Shenanigans | @/princessbellecerise
Missing their father, your children decide it’s a good idea to interrupt him in the middle of court
Husband Jacaerys | @/princessbellecerise
Headcanons about married life with Jace
Rotten Soil, Rotten Fruit | @/princessbellecerise
You are Alicent Hightower’s pride and joy. Sweet and innocent, you’re the apple of the Queen’s eye more than her own children are. But how will she react when you slip into the hands of her enemies?
Starry Nights | @/princessbellecerise
Jace takes his little family on a night ride when they can’t sleep
Leap of Fate | @idkyetxoxo
A young woman’s daring climb over a wall to escape an arranged union leads to an unexpected encounter with her betrothed himself. What begins as a night of escape becomes the start of an enchanting story of love and destiny.
Family Legacies | @/idkyetxoxo
Amidst the chaos of war, two childbirths unfold. A mother’s potential agony and a new mother’s fear collide, as life and loss intertwine in a moment that will define their family’s legacy forever.
War Between Kin | @bumblesimagines
When Rhaenyra Targaryen takes her throne back, she ensures to take care of the remaining Greens in the Keep. Jacaerys attempts to figure out the whereabouts of the Usurper King Aegon by questioning his younger sister.
Vermax | @spxllcxstxr
Jacaerys takes a servant girl to see Vermax
My King | @creganslover
You find your dear husband sulking in his study.
SPOILS OF WAR | @luvrottt
The war between kin was not long fought; culminating in the bloody battle of kings landing a mere moon after the battle of rooks rest in which Aemond ‘kinslayer’ slew his brother Aegon the usurper. And yet; thousands lay dead, the realm is uneasy— there still lies a dragon in the reach whose motivations are yet to be known. A Queen is in chains, a princess is amidst salt and sea, and another feels a prisoner in her own home enclosed with walls that have both eyes and ears.
Honeyed | @eldrith
“After we heard news of your success in the rebellion, Her Grace was eager to have you sit council with us. She seems to remember you quite fondly.” He says honestly, “She believed we would get along quite well.”
and his will be the song of ice and fire | @ophelieverse
during his first stay at Winterfell,Jace and Y/n got much closer than they should.Now,after knowing the prophecy about the song of ice and fire from his mother,Jace is determined to make it true with the most beautiful lady he had ever seen.
A silver haired girl | @realmsdelght
a visit to a brothel leads to sharing feelings that had been buried deeply within the twins
summary: One glitchy tablet, one HR email, and suddenly you’re married to your attending, Jack Abbot. HR thinks it was intentional and has already started merging your records. Claim it was a mistake, and your residency could be delayed. With only three months left until you're an attending, Jack agrees to play along. Pretending to be married might save your career—but can your heart survive the side effects?
tags: accidental marriage, slow burn romance, HR involvement, nosy coworkers, reader is a PGY-4 resident, jack is not a widow in this fic, possible medical/legal inaccuracies, fluff, smut
word count: 8.7k
a/n: ahh it's the final chapter😭 honestly such a bittersweet feeling. i've loved writing this fic and finding that passion again, and i can't thank you guys enough for being here and encouraging me! it's been such a blessing to have you engage with this fic almost every week for months now (!) i appreciate you all lots!! i'm gonna take some time to write the other things i've been wanting to, while, of course, still checking in on these two here and there :D and who knows, maybe someday, i'll even write a sequel...😚 as always, i hope you enjoy!! <333
p.s. to anyone who cares, i might go back in the future and edit the chapters (stuff like minor grammar things and sentence structures that i don't like etc)
i'm not keeping a tag list for this series!
Diagnosis: Married | Masterlist
The Pitt | Masterlist
Main | Masterlist
Previous part | The end
The early afternoon sun beats down on the backyard as you stand a few steps from the pavilion, one hand shielding your eyes while you squint up at the string lights.
Jack, balanced on top of a chair, glances over at you. "Higher?"
You nod. " A little."
He raises the strand another inch.
You tilt your head, taking another step as you study it. "That's perfect."
He climbs down, brushing his hands together as he steps beside you.
The pavilion stands in the corner of the yard, a couple of tables stashed under it along with some chairs. White tablecloths flutter gently in the breeze, little jars of wildflowers scattered across the tables between empty serving platters waiting to be filled.
Jack had spent most of yesterday putting it all together, with the help of Robby, refusing to sit down for more than a few minutes at a time until everything looked just right.
"One more thing to cross off the list," he says.
You sigh. "Only twenty thousand more to go."
"Hey," he murmurs. His fingers find your chin, gently turning your head toward him. "Breathe. We've got this."
You take a slow breath as you look into his calm eyes. His thumb brushes along your jaw before he releases his grip.
"We need to get the drinks outside—they're ready in coolers inside the garage—but I'm gonna wait to bring them out. Otherwise, they'll get warm." His hand finds yours. "We'll fire the grill after the guests have arrived. Everything needed for that is either by the grill or in the fridge." He glances around the yard as his thumb brushes your knuckles absentmindedly. "What else do we need to do, honey?"
You take another breath, collecting your thoughts. His fingers squeeze yours gently. "Uh… The welcome drinks still need to be made. More chairs. Oh, and the snacks need to be plated and brought outside." Your gaze sweeps over the yard before finally dropping to yourself. "I also need to get ready."
Jack nods. "I've got the chairs and snacks—" He waves away your concern. "Robby'll be here any minute to help me."
Your brows pinch together. A flutter of nerves runs through you.
He steps closer, his expression softening. "You go get the drinks and yourself ready, okay? No stressing. This is supposed to be a fun day."
"Yeah… You're right."
"I usually am." He smirks and pinches your side gently. Your startled yelp dissolves into laughter before he catches your lips with his. His kiss is warm and eager, and you happily let him drag you closer.
"Ahem." Olivia's voice cuts through the moment from the open patio doors.
You freeze in Jack's arms but still allow him to steal one more kiss. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch her standing in the doorway, hands planted firmly on her hips.
"When I agreed to come by and help," she says, "I didn't realise that meant you two making out and me doing all the work."
"We are working," you reply.
"Mm." She doesn't look convinced.
You slip out of Jack's arms and turn towards her, gesturing to the pavilion. "Look."
"Very pretty," she concedes, "But I've been watching from the window. No one did any work the last ten minutes."
"Creep," you mutter.
"Please," she waves you off. "Somebody had to make sure you two actually got something done."
You stick your tongue out at her.
She rolls her eyes but can't hide the smile that tugs at her lips. "Come help me before I start looking through your closet for my sweater. I know you have it."
"It's my sweater," you shout as she disappears inside again. You turn back to Jack. "I'd better go."
He grins. "I didn't know your thieving streak went that far back."
"I didn't steal her sweater."
He shrugs as he steps closer. "Well. You keep stealing my hoodies, so the evidence—"
"It's not the same," you argue but still step into his arms again.
His face nears yours again. "Is that so?"
"Mm," you hum. You press a quick kiss to his lips, then spin out of his grip before he manages to hold on. You point at him from a few feet away. "Snacks. Chairs."
"Yes, ma'am." He gives you a mock salute.
You grin, shaking your head as you slip away to the kitchen.
The kitchen counters are a mess by the time you walk in. Half a dozen bottles clutter the island alongside empty bowls, bunches of mints, straws and more glasses than you remember owning.
Olivia is standing in the middle of the chaos, wooden spoon in hand as she stirs a huge bowl of punch.
She looks up when she hears you come in. "Finally."
"I didn't take that long," you say.
She sends you a look.
You nudge her shoulder as you pass her to wash your hands. "Cut me some slack. It's a special day."
"I'll cut you some slack after we finish these drinks." She shoves a lemon into your hand, the second after you've dried your hands, then points to the mountain of citrus fruits lining the counter. "You'd better start cutting if we wanna be done before the guests arrive."
Your eyes widen, lips turning downwards. "Damn."
"Yeah," she laughs. "You were the one who wanted to decorate the drinks."
"I regret that now," you murmur.
A comfortable silence settles between you as you work through the pile of fruit. Olivia begins pouring the punch into glasses, carefully finishing each one with slices of citrus and fresh berries.
Having Olivia here since yesterday has been your saving grace. She's so in tune with you that she knows exactly when to tease you and when to go easy. She's kept track of everything your frazzled mind has forgotten, stepping in to organise Robby and Jack whenever they needed direction. You honestly don't know what you'd have done without her.
"So," she says after a moment as she begins cutting strawberries. "How are you holding up?"
You shrug, reaching over to grab a watermelon. "I think I'm okay."
"Yeah?" She looks over at you.
You nod. You're nervous, yes—but underneath it all, you're excited. "I just want everyone to have a good time."
"Oh, trust me. They will," she assures you. "I honestly can't wait to see their faces."
You grin at her before turning your attention back to the cutting board. You cut the watermelon into bite-sized pieces, placing them in a bowl that Olivia brings you.
She leans against the counter next to you. "You know, I'm really happy for you. I know I've said it before, but—"
You blink, caught off guard by the emotion in her voice.
"I've seen you in relationships before, and yes, you were happy," she says, "but this is different. You're different."
"I am?"
"Yeah. It's a good different," she says, popping a strawberry into her mouth.
"Phew," you say, laughing.
She pushes her foot against your leg. "You know what I mean. I'm just—I'm happy for you."
You send her a soft smile. You do know what she means.
Because it is different.
You still work ridiculous hours. There are days when you barely see Jack because day shift needs help, and all you get of each other is a few minutes during handoff. Some mornings are nothing more than sleepy kisses over coffee before you crash. Some evenings are takeout on the couch because neither of you has the energy to cook.
It's so different from what you shared with previous boyfriends. It's also so much better.
It's not just the easy days. It's knowing when he needs his wheelchair and getting it without him having to ask. It's him reminding you that you've earned your job—that you're good at it—on the nights you can't believe it yourself. It's showing up for each other when there's nothing glamorous about it all.
You wouldn't change a thing about it.
"I'm happy, too," you admit quietly.
Olivia smiles as she steals a bit of watermelon. "Good. You deserve to be."
The room falls quiet for a moment as she helps you scoop all the fruit into different bowls.
"I was also," she says as she sets a bowl down, "wondering if the two of you have talked about…" She looks at you, wiggling her eyebrows. "You know."
You narrow your eyes at her. "We're barely married."
She scoffs, glancing down at the stone that glints off your finger. "I don't know anyone who's getting married twice."
You make a face at her.
"Besides, with the two of you, you never know."
"Oh, so that's how it is, huh?" You point a spoon at her. "What about you and Robby, then? How was the drive from the airport yesterday? Did you talk?"
She glares at you before lifting both hands in surrender. "Okay. Truce. You fight dirty."
"That's what I thought," you say, grinning smugly. You clap your hands as you look over the counter of finished drinks. "All done."
Olivia nods. "Just missing you, now."
You glance at your strawberry-patterned pyjamas. "I don't know—I feel like this screams 'Summer Barbeque' attire."
She huffs and grabs your arm to pull you with her. "You and Jack need to work on your jokes. He's been making the same ones all morning. We get it. It's not just a barbecue."
Through the open bedroom window, a muffled burst of laughter drifts in from outside. You don't say anything, but you notice the way Olivia's mouth pulls into a tiny smile at the sound of Robby.
She stands beside the chair she'd ordered you into, a makeup brush tucked between her fingers and an open eyeshadow palette balanced in her hand. She's already worked her magic on your hair, rearranging loose strands until every piece sits exactly where she wants it.
She sweeps a shimmer across your eyelids, tilting your head gently with her fingertips whenever she needs a better angle. It feels strangely familiar.
For a moment, you're back in college—sitting on her dorm room floor while she helped you get ready for parties. It's the same teasing, the same steady hands, the same feeling that she's got your back no matter what.
Twenty minutes later, she twists the lid back onto your lipstick. "Done," she says.
"Can I look?"
"Not yet." She steps over to her bag and returns with a pair of small blue pearl earrings. "Your something blue."
"Oh." You hadn't expected that. Warmth spreads through your chest as she helps you put them in. You catch her hand. "Thank you."
She just nods at you, then takes a step back. For several seconds, she just looks at you.
"Liv?"
Her smile wavers, and she blinks rapidly. "You look stunning." Her voice comes out softer than usual.
You swallow around the sudden tightness that has climbed up from your chest. Before either of you can get too emotional, she reaches for the dress hanging in the closet.
"C'mon. Let's get you into that dress before you make me cry."
You laugh softly as you step out of your pyjamas and into the dress. It's a white, flowy dress that you found a couple of weeks ago. It's simple enough that nobody would think twice about seeing you wear it to a summer barbecue, yet beautiful enough that it feels perfect for today. Olivia's fingers work quickly, tying the delicate bows on top of each shoulder before smoothing the fabric across your back.
When you look into her eyes, they're glistening. She blinks and smooths a wrinkle that isn't there.
"Hey, don't. You'll make me cry," you say.
"Don't you dare," she warns you. "I just spent ages doing your makeup."
"Well, you stop then," you argue, but your voice comes out hoarser than intended.
Olivia clears her throat and nods toward the mirror. "Go look."
You walk over to the full-length mirror. For a second, you just… stare. The woman looking back at you looks completely at peace. No pretending. No forcing a smile. She's just… happy.
Beside you, Olivia leans against the dresser.
"I…" You laugh softly, smoothing your hands down the fabric. "I actually look nice. Thank you."
She snorts. "Nice? You're drop-dead gorgeous."
You huff but don't disagree, turning to wrap your arms around her. She hugs you back just as tightly.
She lets you go after a moment. "Right. I should probably make myself look presentable." She nudges you toward the door. "Go make sure everything's ready outside."
"You sure?"
She nods. "I'll be out in a minute."
You step into the living room, heels clacking against the hardwood floor. The patio doors stand halfway open, carrying in bursts of conversation from outside as well as the scraping of chairs.
Just as you're about to head outside, the door slides fully open.
Jack steps into the house, a clean dish towel in one hand. He's changed into the navy polo you'd once casually mentioned brought out his hazel eyes.
He looks so handsome.
He takes one step, then looks up. Then he stops.
Completely.
The towel slips from his fingers onto the floor.
For a heartbeat, neither of you moves. His eyes travel over you slowly, lingering as though he's trying to memorise every detail.
Your smile turns shy. "Hi."
He doesn't answer. His throat works around a swallow. For a moment, he just looks at you.
"Jack?"
He blinks once, dragging a hand across his jaw. "…Hi."
You laugh softly. "Are you okay?"
He lets out a shaky breath, finally meeting your eyes. "I don't…" He shakes his head, sneaking another glance across your body. "I don't think I've ever seen anything as beautiful as you."
Heat blooms across your cheeks at the awe written so plainly across his face.
"You.." He laughs quietly to himself, still looking completely overwhelmed. "Sweetheart…" He shifts his weight uncertainly.
You close the distance. As your arms wrap over his shoulders, his hands find your waist automatically. "You really are trouble."
You grin. The nickname has followed you through almost every version of yourselves—colleagues, friends, something complicated in between, and now this.
Now love.
You lift a hand, brushing your thumb gently beneath one of his eyes. "Are you crying?"
He catches your hand, but instead of pulling it away, he presses it closer to his face. For a moment, you can see him considering a lie, but then a tear slips free and lands on your skin.
He closes his eyes. "…Maybe."
"Oh, honey." You laugh.
He laughs, too, and the sound is lighter than it usually is. He cups your face carefully, looking you deeply in the eye. "I can't believe you're mine."
You tilt your cheek into his hand, nuzzling closer. "Well, you'd better believe it soon, because I'm not going anywhere."
"Good." He kisses you softly. "I wouldn't be able to take it if you were."
Your lips part to answer, but Robby's voice booms through the open doors before you can.
"Abbot! Where should I put the chairs?"
Jack closes his eyes briefly. "…Give me ten seconds," he shouts back.
"You've already had ten!"
You giggle.
Jack sighs dramatically, but the smile gives him away. He presses one lingering kiss to your lips before he steps back. "I should probably go make sure he doesn't leave them all in one pile."
When he reaches the doors, he glances back, still grinning. Still looking at you with that expression that makes you feel like he can't quite believe you're standing there.
By the time you step back outside with the final tray of welcome drinks, the backyard is buzzing. Music drifts softly from the speakers, mixing with the chatter of half a dozen conversations. Coolers are already open, bottles clinking as people help themselves. The snack bowls are half empty, and the fruit platters already have generous gaps in them.
It's rare for healthcare workers to have time to eat without being interrupted, and judging by the speed the food is disappearing, everyone's making up for lost time.
"Oh, wow." Parker sidles up beside you, looking you up and down with an appreciative grin. "You clean up pretty well."
You laugh as you do a spin for her.
"Honestly," Trinity cuts in, reaching for a piece of watermelon. "Abbot better watch out. If he ever fumbles this, you let me know."
"Girl, get in line," Parker says, throwing her a sideways look.
You shake your head, laughing at them. You hand them both a drink.
Parker smiles. "What? I can't remember the last time I saw you out of scrubs. I'm allowed to appreciate it."
You hum, shrugging lightly. "Not that many chances to get all dressed up."
"I invited you out last week?" Trinity says.
"Okay," you concede. "Not that many days where I'm off and can get dressed up. Better?"
She scrunches her nose, but nods. Her gaze then drops to your hand where your engagement ring glints in the afternoon sunlight. She blinks. "Damn. Abbot's loaded."
You roll your eyes, but before you can answer her, Shen appears with a drink in hand. "I'm letting you know as a courtesy that I expect this to be a yearly tradition."
You raise an eyebrow. "Oh?"
He shrugs, taking a sip. "Yeah. Good food. Good company, and nobody's calling me about a patient. Only thing missing is—"
"Coffee," Parker finishes with a groan.
"That's not what I was gonna say," he says, turning to her with an affronted look.
"Uh huh."
You smile as you watch them get into their usual bickering.
Before you can linger, someone catches your arm, and the next twenty minutes disappear in a blur.
A hug from a nurse you worked with in your surgical rotation. A quick conversation with one of your old pediatric attendings. A resident from the ICU stopping you just long enough to compliment your dress before getting distracted by someone calling their name.
The backyard feels impossibly full. Nurses, residents, attendings, people from departments you only crossed paths with during rotations—somehow they're all here now, laughing together like they've known each other for ages.
Most importantly, your people are spread all over the garden. Mel sits nearby with Frank, Dennis, Perlah and Princess, all waiting their turn to hold Donnie's baby. Dana stands near the grill with Robby, Jack and Lena. Lily catches you as she passes by with her boyfriend, squeezing your arm with a smile, before heading to the corner where the other nurses sit and chat.
Jack's friends from SWAT start arriving not long after. Introductions are fleeting but still warm, and Jack's face lights up as more of his teammates arrive.
Someone compliments the decorations. Someone else asks where you found the flowers. Two of Jack's teammates stop you to properly introduce themselves, explaining that they've heard so much about you. They also try to convince you to get Jack back on tasks, which he hasn't done since that day. You tell them politely that it's up to Jack, secretly grateful that he hasn't been back.
Somewhere between the drinks and the laughter and people filling the backyard, you realise how much bigger your life has become. From being the disappointment at home, the daughter that never could be enough, to being and working with people who think you're enough as you are.
For a moment, you just take it all in.
You catch Jack's eye as your gaze sweeps over the yard. He tilts his head, asking a silent question, and you nod. You walk steadily through the crowd toward him as he mutters something into Robby's ear.
Just as you step up onto the patio, Jack clinks his bottle, the clear ringing note carrying across the space. Conversations slowly begin to fade, heads turning to you. Jack's arm wraps around your waist, pulling you close.
He clears his throat, his fingers tightening around your side for the briefest moment before relaxing again. "Thanks for coming, everyone. We know getting this many healthcare workers together on the same day is basically impossible. So…thank you for making it happen."
He takes a slightly deeper breath than usual as he glances around the yard. "Now, I know we called this our end-of-summer barbeque—"
You feel your heartbeat start to pick up. Jack's thumb strokes absentmindedly along your side, grounding you like he knows exactly what your nerves are doing.
"—but there was another reason we wanted everyone here."
Confused looks pass through the crowd.
"We've all heard the complaints," you say. "So…" You take a slow breath, a twinkle beginning to shine in your eye. "We figured we'd do something about it."
You can see Shen's frown deepening.
"We thought…maybe you'd all like to come to our wedding?"
For a moment, nobody reacts. Samira stares at you. Parker looks from you to Jack, then over at Dana, who's already smiling, clearly trying to figure out if everyone else knew something she didn't.
Trinity is the first to find her voice. "You're kidding."
And then it starts to click. The dress. The decorations. The way you and Jack had been acting about this 'party'. The realisation moves through the yard like a wave—then chaos erupts. It's a loud jumble of disbelief, laughter and cursing.
Shen is still trying to process what just happened. You catch Parker shaking her head at you, grinning wider than you've ever seen. Off to the side, Olivia is already recording the moment with a wide smile.
Robby steps forward beside the two of you after people begin to quiet down. He grins. "Shall we get to it?"
He gestures for people to move closer, and waits until everyone has settled, then he turns to look at you and Jack.
"So, I was one of the people complaining I didn't get to be there for the first wedding. I guess my nagging paid off because you asked me to officiate this one."
You smile.
Robby's smile softens. "I'm really glad you asked. But frankly, I would have been offended if you didn't—I've aged at least ten years because of you two."
"Okay." You hold up your hands as Robby laughs.
"It was worth it." He turns back to the crowd. "Because you two were always meant for each other."
"I've known Jack for a long time." He glances at him. "When I first met him, I honestly wasn't convinced anyone would ever be able to put up with him."
Jack glares at him.
Robby continues, nonetheless. "He works too much. Forgets to eat if no one reminds him. Also keeps insisting he doesn't need help when he very obviously does. Like earlier when he tried to carry seven ch—" Robby's voice catches as Jack puffs his shoulder.
Dana laughs loudly.
"Never mind." Robby's gaze shifts to you. "And then you came along." The teasing leaves his voice. "I've never seen him happier."
You glance at Jack. He's already looking at you.
"I've also never seen him so thoroughly outmatched."
Jack laughs.
"You keep him honest. You remind him to slow down. And somehow…" He smiles at you both. "…your craziness matches. You make each other better."
He turns back to you. "You were a pain in my ass when you were a resident. Headstrong. Unafraid. Always getting into trouble." He lifts a finger when your mouth opens to argue. "So damn argumentative. But you were also one of my best residents. So smart and brave. Always able to see things from a different perspective. We were lucky to have you."
You swallow.
"Now, Jack's the lucky one."
"Damn right," Jack murmurs.
Robby takes a slow breath. "So. Speaking as someone who's had a front-row seat to every stupid thing these two have done…" He looks from Jack to you. "I can't think of two people better suited for each other."
He lets the silence linger for a moment before clapping his hands together. "Right. I am, apparently, supposed to say something official." He reaches into his pocket and unfolds a piece of paper. "We're here today to join two people in matrimony—well, for the second time. We're here because marriage isn't just one day. It isn't just paperwork. It isn't even the vows you're about to hear."
He looks up. "It's every ordinary day that comes afterwards. It's the early mornings, the late nights, the takeaway dinners because you're too tired to cook. It's choosing each other over and over again. On the easy days, and especially on the hard days. Today isn't about starting your marriage. It's about celebrating it."
He folds the paper in half and slips it back into his pocket. "Now, I think that was enough from me." He looks between the two of you. "I believe you have something you'd like to say."
You nod and feel every gaze settle on you. Jack smiles, his eyes warm with reassurance.
You unfold your paper. "When we met…" You start, already laughing softly as you admit, "I tried really hard to find a reason not to like you."
Laughter sounds across the yard.
"But you just kept being nice and being ridiculously good at your job. And..." You glance at Jack as a grin spreads across your face. "Well...being really fucking hot."
Jack laughs.
"You've always been the person I looked for first. The person I wanted to tell things to. The person I wanted beside me after a difficult shift."
Your eyes don't leave his.
"I used to think love was supposed to be the big moments. The ones people write stories about." You shake your head gently. "I was wrong. It's coffee waiting for me when I wake up after a night shift. It's the way you always know when I need a hug before I ask for one."
A smile tugs at your lips.
"It's you pretending not to notice when I steal your hoodies. It's arguing over what to order for dinner, knowing we'll end up sharing anyway. It's coming home and knowing you're there. It's laughing until we can't breathe because one of us said something stupid. It's every ordinary day somehow becoming extraordinary because you're in it."
You crinkle the paper between your fingers. "When everyone talks about soulmates..." You swallow. "I don't think they're talking about someone who completes you. I think they're talking about someone who makes you feel yourself completely."
You bite your lip. "That's what you've given me. Somewhere I never have to be anyone but myself. Somewhere that feels like home."
Jack's jaw tightens, blinking a bit more rapidly than usual.
"I know our story hasn't been... conventional." A few guests smile knowingly, assuming you're talking about the elopement they'd all heard about. Only Robby and Olivia nod with a truly knowing smile.
"But if I had the chance to do it all again...I'd do it. No hesitation."
You hear someone sniffle behind you. It sounds suspiciously much like Lena.
"I promise..." You reach for Jack's hand. "…to keep choosing you. When life is easy and when it isn't. I'll remind you to eat lunch."
Robby chuckles.
"I promise to tell you when you're being stubborn."
Jack raises an eyebrow. "When am I ever—"
You squeeze his hand, sending him a look, and he drops it. You laugh softly before continuing.
"I promise to celebrate every victory with you and help carry every burden. I promise to keep laughing with you. To keep dancing with you in the kitchen. To keep making this house our home."
"And lastly..." You smile through the tears gathering in your eyes. "I promise I'll never stop feeling lucky that somehow...after everything..." Your voice catches. "...I get to call you my husband. "
Jack lets out a shaky laugh, squeezing your hand tightly. Tears drip down his face, but he makes no effort to hide it.
"How am I meant to go after that?" he jokes, wiping his face.
He reaches into his jacket and slowly unfolds his own piece of paper. "Well..." He chuckles softly. "I should probably start by admitting I liked you straight away."
Everyone laughs as he takes a moment to gather himself.
"When people ask how we met, I usually give them the short version." He glances at you. "The real version is a lot messier and involves a surprising amount of paperwork."
You huff a quiet laugh.
"I don't think either of us expected any of this. I definitely didn't expect to fall in love." His voice softens. "But then you kept showing up. Every shift. Every conversation. Every bad day."
He shrugs lightly. "And somewhere along the way... you became the person I wanted beside me for all of it."
He folds the paper and slips it back inside his pocket, then reaches out and grabs your hands. "I like to pretend I have everything under control. I push away the things I don't want to think about. You've seen me at my worst… and yet, you stayed."
The words hit you harder than you expect.
"You love me despite it. Because of it." His voice catches. "And I don't think you realise what a gift that has been."
Now, it's your turn to cry.
"I've never met anyone who gives so much of themselves to other people. You worry about everyone. You carry everyone. You'll stay an hour after your shift ends because someone needs help. You'll pretend you're not exhausted because you don't want anyone else to worry."
He gives your hands a gentle squeeze. "I wish you could see yourself the way everyone else does." He pauses. "The way I do."
A tear drops down. Jack reaches up automatically, brushing it away with his thumb.
"You make every place feel like home." He smiles. "I don't care where we live. This house. A tiny apartment. Somewhere halfway across the country. As long as you're there... I'm home."
Robby sniffles, trying to be discreet but failing.
Jack smiles without looking away from you. "I promise..." He takes a steadying breath. "...to keep choosing us. Even when life gets busy. Especially when life gets busy. I promise to never stop flirting with you."
"Yeah, no kidding," Parker mutters.
Jack ignores her. "I promise to keep making coffee for you every day, because you still don't know how to use the machine."
You laugh.
He grins back. "I promise to hold your hand every chance I get. I promise to dance with you in the kitchen...Even though I can't dance."
"You really can't," you whisper.
"I promise to remind you that you don't have to carry the world on your own. You've got me now, too." His eyes search yours. "And I promise..." His voice breaks, and he laughs at himself. "...I promise I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you've made me."
You can barely see him through your tears.
Silence settles over the yard once more. No one speaks. No one moves. Looking around, you can't find a single dry eye.
Jack leans forward just enough for only you to hear. "I love you."
You smile. "I love you, too."
Robby quietly clears his throat, wiping discreetly at one eye. "I think..." He glances toward Olivia. "...it's time for the rings."
Olivia steps forward from where she'd been standing beside Bridget, carrying a small velvet box in both hands. She stops in front of the two of you with a warm smile. "I've been told these are important."
She opens the box. Nestled inside are two simple wedding bands. Nothing extravagant. Just the two rings you'd chosen together months ago, now engraved with two dates. Your fingers brush over the tiny inscription before you lift one from the box.
The date of the convention. And today.
Jack takes the second from her.
Olivia closes the empty box before looking between the two of you. "I love you both." The words are quiet enough that only the three of you really hear them.
You step forward and hug her. "Thank you."
She kisses your cheek, squeezes your hand once, and quietly rejoins the others. You barely hear Robby through the rush in your ears.
All you take in is the feeling as Jack reaches for your left hand. The gold catches the late afternoon sunlight as he holds it just above your fingertips.
He looks up, waiting, as though silently asking one last time.
You answer with a smile and a nod. Always. He slides the ring onto your finger smoothly.
You slide the ring onto his finger with slightly shaky hands. Jack's fingers fold into yours. He looks elated, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he grins at you,
You're married again.
The words "You may now kiss the bride" barely leave Robby's mouth before Jack surges forward.
For the next twenty minutes, you're fairly certain neither you nor Jack actually touch the ground. Applause, whistles and laughter erupt across the yard after the kiss. People talking over one another as they surge toward the two of you.
Dana reaches you first. She's crying before she even wraps her arms around you. "Oh, sweetheart."
You laugh into the hug. "I know."
"You sneaky little thing."
"We've been planning it for weeks."
She sighs. "I should've noticed."
"You really should have. You're losing your touch. "
"It won't happen again." She pulls back just enough to cup your face. "You look beautiful."
"Thank you."
"And your vows—" She stops, pressing her lips together as her eyes fill all over again. "You've built such a beautiful life."
"Oh no," you laugh. "Don't. You'll make me cry again."
"I'm trying."
You hug her again, feeling her laugh through the tears.
Parker is next. She shakes Jack's hand firmly before immediately pulling him into a hug anyway. "I'm happy for you."
"Thanks."
She steps back, looking between the two of you. "You've done well."
Jack glances at you, unable to hide his smile. "I know."
She rolls her eyes, but it quickly softens into a grin. "The dress should've tipped me off."
You beam at her.
Shen steps up beside Parker. "I knew."
Parker raises an eyebrow. "You absolutely did not."
"I suspected it."
"Yeah, yeah." You laugh. "You can't take credit for this one, too."
After that, the congratulations blur together. Trinity nearly squeezes the air out of your lungs. Lily's eyes are already shining before she even reaches you, mumbling heartfelt congratulations. Perlah and Princess both admit they're impressed you managed to keep such a huge secret.
You just shrug. If only they knew.
Beside you, Jack is surrounded by his SWAT teammates. They clap him on the shoulders, pull him into hugs, and give him enough grief that his laugh carries all the way across the yard.
The conversations begin blending together after that. Someone starts arguing over who cried first. Trinity insists it was Robby. Robby loudly denies it, but video evidence is quickly produced, and he ends up conceding.
At some point, Dennis ends up standing on a chair, trying to organise everyone into something resembling a group photo while at least three people completely ignore him.
You don't move straight away. Instead, you watch.
Dana is already fussing over the food despite repeatedly being told to sit down. Parker has somehow accumulated a drink and three different appetisers. Lena is laughing so hard she has to wipe at her eyes while Vivi quietly shakes her head beside her. Across the yard, Jack catches your eye and smiles, then turns back to the grill.
Olivia quietly slips beside you while Dennis is still unsuccessfully trying to direct traffic. She doesn't say anything at first. She simply loops her arm through yours. You lean your head briefly against hers.
You laugh. "I don't think this is how weddings normally go."
Olivia follows your gaze. "No." She pauses. "I think yours is better."
Ten minutes later, as you're scanning the coolers to make sure there's still enough drinks, your hip gets nudged softly. Jack stands beside you with a plate in his hand.
"Eat."
You narrow your eyes. "Is that an order?"
"It's a request." He pushes the plate into your hands. "You've had approximately one strawberry and half a glass of spritz all afternoon."
"You've been monitoring my food intake?"
He shrugs. "I'm married to you."
"So?"
"So I know exactly how easy it is for you to forget."
You smile despite yourself. "Well, what about you?"
He lifts the plate he'd been hiding behind his back. His brow lifts. "Gotcha."
You scrunch your nose at him.
His smile softens. He turns your hand over, his thumb brushing slowly across your wedding band. For a long moment he simply looks at it. "This feels different."
It does.
"Everyone was here." You hadn't realised how much it would mean to share this part of your story with them. You lean over and kiss him. "I love you."
"I love you." His forehead rests against yours for a second. The hiss of the grill interrupts you.
"You should probably save dinner."
Jack sighs. He starts walking backwards. "I'll be back." He disappears into the crowd, greeting someone who immediately claps him on the shoulder. Still, he glances back one more time to send you a smile.
Jack has just finished rescuing a couple of burger patties from Robby's questionable supervision when the two of them find themselves alone by the grill. Well…as alone as either of them can be with fifty or so people scattered around the yard.
He puts the final patties on and closes the lid of the grill, resting the spatula on the plate next to it. "Almost done."
Your laughter carries across the yard, and Jack turns toward it without thinking. He finds you standing with Olivia, both of you laughing loudly. He smiles at the sight.
Robby crosses his arms next to him and follows his gaze. "They're something else when they're together."
"Tell me about it." Jack nods. Most of last night had been spent screaming in excitement about the following day, catching up on the latest gossip, and, of course, teasing Jack.
He loves it when Olivia is in town.
Tearing his eyes away from you, he flips the lid to turn the patties. "I don't think today's really sunk in yet."
"No?"
He turns back to look at you. "I never imagined…" He shakes his head, pulling Robby into a hug. "Thanks, man. For everything."
Robby nods, clapping his back twice. "Of course."
Jack clears his throat and moves to flip the final patties onto a plate. He closes the valve, waits for the lines to clear and then turns off the knobs. When he turns back, he finds that Robby is still looking across the yard.
You're laughing at something Parker says as you steal a sip of Olivia's drink. A second later, you splutter dramatically, and Olivia doubles over laughing at your expression.
The corner of Robby's mouth lifts before he seems to realise he's smiling.
Folding his arms across his chest, Jack nudges Robby's shoulder lightly with his own. "Careful."
"What?" Robby asks, still watching.
"She'll catch you staring."
Robby tears his gaze away a little too quickly. "I'm not staring." He reaches for the tongs, unaware that Jack has already turned off the grill.
Jack just raises an eyebrow. "If you say so."
It takes all of five seconds before Robby's eyes drift back again. The tongs hang between his fingers, forgotten again.
Jack chuckles.
Robby huffs. "You're no better."
"She's my wife," Jack says, unable to hide his grin. He slides the burger buns onto a platter before glancing sideways at Robby. "What are you two?"
Robby's jaw twitches. "Shut up."
The evening slips by almost without you noticing. As the sun sinks lower, the warm string lights begin to glow around the garden, casting everything in a softer light.
One conversation melts into the next as music drifts through the yard. The last of the burgers has disappeared, and most of the dessert has already been devoured.
You duck into the kitchen in search of more ice.
"So this is where you're hiding."
You look over your shoulder, finding Robby leaned against the doorframe. He's got an empty stack of bowls in his hands.
"Jack put you on clean-up duty?" You sit down to rummage through the fridge.
"Volunteered." He shrugs, stepping toward the kitchen.
"Who are you and what have you done with Michael Robinavitch?" you gasp.
"Ha. Ha." He sets the bowls down.
You laugh, pulling open another drawer. "I think we're officially out."
"Good."
You glance back at him. "Good?"
He nods. "Means people are having a good time."
You guess he's right. You close the fridge, standing up to lean against the counter. Neither of you moves to go back outside just yet.
From here you can still hear the party through the open patio doors—bursts of laughter, the clink of glasses, and soft music.
Robby leans against the island opposite you. His brown eyes trail over your face. "You belong here."
You blink. "What?"
"With us." He gestures toward the yard where most of the Pitt is having fun. "You're family."
Your throat tightens. This is everything you'd wanted for years without quite believing you'd ever have it. Before you can find the words, you step forward and wrap your arms around him.
Robby stiffens for only a heartbeat before hugging you just as tightly. He's never been particularly comfortable with emotions, but he's always shown how much he cares in quieter ways—in the hours he gives his patients, the way he looks after his staff, the loyalty he shows the people he loves.
When you step away, he clears his throat and moves for the patio door. Without looking back, he says quietly, a smile in his voice, "See you at work on Monday."
There are orange streaks in the sky when Jack finds you standing by yourself. People aren't gathered in one big group anymore. Instead, they're scattered wherever there's room—chairs pulled together, people leaning against tables, conversations stretching lazily into the evening. Some have left for work, others heading home to get some sleep before their day shifts. It's everything you hoped for.
Santos is halfway through a story that has Princess and Perlah laughing loudly. Mel sits next to Dennis, whispering follow-up questions that he tries to answer. Shen and Parker sit off to the side watching it all with an amused smile.
A little further away, you spot Olivia sitting with one of Jack's SWAT friends. She's laughing at something he says, while Robby pretends hard not to look in their direction. He keeps failing.
"What's so funny?" Jack asks. He holds out a glass of water for you.
You accept it gratefully, and nod your head to the right.
He follows your gaze. "Ah."
"Yeah."
"That's not the first time he's been staring at her."
"Oh?"
He nods. "He thinks he's being subtle."
You look back toward Robby. "He really isn't."
Jack laughs. He turns to face you fully as the song drifting through the speakers changes into something slower.
The last of the sunlight catches in his hazel eyes, making the green seem brighter than usual. He holds out his hand. "Dance with me."
"Here?"
"Why not?"
"There's no dance floor," you say, but step closer to him anyway.
He glances down at the grass beneath his feet. "Looks good enough to me."
You laugh, letting him take your drink and set it aside. He draws you closer until one hand settles naturally at your waist. The other stays wrapped around yours, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. It isn't really dancing. Just the two of you swaying beneath the lights, more interested in being close than keeping time.
"Was it everything you wanted?" you ask.
"Even better," he says.
You look at him. His thumb traces slow circles against your back while the two of you sway.
"I love you." You've lost count of how many times you've said that tonight.
He presses his forehead against yours. "I love you, too, sweetheart."
Neither of you notice when another couple joins you. Then a second, and a third. At some point, Olivia stands, walking over to Robby and offering him her hand. He looks surprised for half a second, hesitant for another, but then smiles and takes it.
Little pockets of slow dancing appear all over the yard.
"I love this," you say. Your hands settle at the back of his neck, your fingers disappearing into the soft grey curls there.
"The dancing?"
"The people." You look around. "All of them."
Jack lifts his head to look around, then he quietly kisses the top of your head and continues swaying with you.
At last, when all the dessert is gone and most of the coolers have been emptied, guests gradually trickle out until only you, Jack, Robby, and Olivia remain.
You're collecting trays into neat piles while Jack stacks chairs nearby. To your left, Olivia stuffs paper plates into a rubbish bag as Robby makes his way around the garden, gathering empty bottles.
She catches your eye, and you raise an eyebrow, nodding subtly towards Robby. She shakes her head, eyes narrowing immediately.
You fight back a smile.
Looking around, there's still so much to be done. Cushions scattered across the lawn, empty glasses on every flat surface and enough washing up to keep you busy until morning. However, instead of tackling it now, you turn to Jack.
"Let's save this for tomorrow."
His eyes hone in on the mischievous twinkle in your eye, and he catches on quickly when he spots Olivia's glare. A slow smile appears on his face. "Yes. That sounds like a plan."
He turns toward Robby. "Couch's yours." He grins. "I hope it doesn't take out your back like it did last time."
Bait set. Now, it was up to Olivia to take it.
You laugh quietly, tugging him toward the door before either of you burns from the heat of their glares. You're almost at the threshold when he pulls you back.
"Wait. I've got one wedding tradition I'd quite like to keep." Without another word, he bends, slips one arm beneath your knees and the other around your back, and lifts you clean off the ground.
You yelp, immediately laughing as your arms wrap around his neck. "Jack!"
"What?"
"I can walk."
His lips turn up at the corners. "Despite everything, so can I."
Jack ducks through the patio doors without so much as a stumble, and continues until he's inside the bedroom. Once inside, he lowers you carefully onto your feet.
He looks at you, his eyes soft. "Hi, wife."
You smile so widely your cheeks ache. "Hi, husband."
He steps closer. You're not sure who moves first, but your lips meet in a gentle kiss. You tug him with you toward the bed, your fingers reaching under his shirt to pull it up. He obeys without hesitation, lifting his arms to help.
"I need to take off my leg, honey." He reminds you when you try to push him down on the bed.
You kiss his cheek. "Let me."
He sits on the edge of the bed. You roll up his trouser leg before carefully unfastening his prosthetic. Pressing a kiss to the skin just above the scar, you set it beside the bedside table. He makes quick work of his pants, tossing them somewhere across the room.
Then he pulls you up. You climb onto his lap, your thighs settling on either side of his.
"God, this dress…" he murmurs as he begins sliding the straps down. He kisses your shoulder softly, trailing down to your collarbone. His fingers brush against heated skin, goosebumps fluttering in their path.
He presses another soft kiss to the skin just above your boob before the fabric slowly falls down, revealing your chest to him. With one hand, he guides the other side to join the pooling fabric at your waist.
You push your chest toward him, and he takes the hint without teasing. His mouth closes around one nipple, tongue swirling before he sucks lightly.
"Feels so…" you moan, holding onto his shoulders.
"Yeah?" he hums, lifting his head to look at you. Your lips find his neck, trailing kisses up and down, before nibbling lightly at his earlobe.
He pulls back. "I'm losing my mind, sweetheart. No more teasing. Are you ready or do I need to—"
You grab his fingers and pull them under your dress. He groans when he feels how soaked you are. "Christ. Where's your underwear?"
You gesture at the ground. "Took it off when you weren't looking." You grind down on his cock, and his hips lift at the sensation. "I'm ready."
"You sure?" He looks into your eyes. "I don't mind."
Tired of his talking, you reach down to free his cock. His head falls back down onto the mattress when you glide it against your folds. Then you sink down.
The dress pools around your thighs, hiding the spot where he disappears into you, but the slick that sounds around the room is unmistakable.
Jack's eyes grow darker. "Jesus. How'd I get so lucky?"
You grin.
"I mean it," he says, his hands tightening their grip on your waist. He punctuates the following words with separate thrusts. "Luckiest. Man. Alive."
A hand reaches up to cup your boob while the other trails down under the dress. His thumb finds your clit easily, putting just the correct amount of pressure on it that gets you gasping.
It doesn't take long to send you over the edge. Jack tries to stay steady through it, but the tightening grip around his cock proves too hard to resist. He comes with a long groan, thrusting himself deep into you.
You collapse against his chest. Both of you take a moment to regain normal breathing, his hands brushing soft patterns across your back.
"I'll go get you a washcloth," he murmurs into your hair.
"Just one more minute." You nestle closer, burrowing into his heat.
"One." He relents, pressing a soft and content kiss into your hair.
The first thing you notice when you wake is the smell of coffee. Its rich scent entangling with the clean scent of the duvet sheets. You don't open your eyes, but stay there, wrapped in warmth as memories of last night wash over you.
Lights. Drinks. Jack. Vows. The ring.
You twirl it around your finger, smiling into your pillow. You got married to Jack.
Again.
But this time it was even better than last time. This time you both meant to. This time he chose you.
Married on purpose sounds a lot better than accidentally.
You hear the quiet scrape of the bedroom door being pushed open. The familiar shuffle of Jack's slightly uneven gait. The thump as something gets set down on the bedside table and the clunk of something placed on the floor.
Then the mattress dips beside you. A warm hand brushes your hair away from your face before a soft kiss meets your forehead.
"Morning, wife."
You finally open your eyes. "Morning, husband."
Jack grins at you. Sleep has left his soft grey curls sticking up in every direction.
You grin back. "You made breakfast."
"I did," he says. He settles fully down beside you. "How are you feeling?"
"A little hungover…" You glance around the room. Sunlight spills through the half-open curtains. Your dress hangs over the chair, Jack's trousers lie abandoned in the corner, and the empty ring box still rests on the dresser. "But very happy."
His hand brushes your shoulder. "Good."
You sit up, taking the cup he holds out for you. "You?"
He looks down at his coffee, then at you. "I couldn't be better."
"Yeah?"
He nods and reaches for your hand. His thumb traces slowly over your wedding band. "I meant what I said last night."
"About making me coffee every day?"
He laughs softly. "That too. But also about being lucky."
"Well. I guess we're both pretty lucky." You hold your cup up. "To us."
He clinks his cup against yours. "To us."
"And to forever." You clink your cup against his again. "Oh, and to—"
He pinches your chin with his free hand. "How about we workshop it before we try again?"
You nudge his shoulder, huffing. He just grins, wrapping his arm around you and pulling you into his chest.
summary — jack has seen you leave a trail of broken hearts and bad dates, and he’s determined to prove to you that you’re looking for love in all the wrong places.
warnings — 12.6k words. age gap (jack’s around 50; reader’s a 4th year resident, so 20s), attending/resident power dynamic; mentor/mentee relationship, idiots in love maybe?? yearning!jack, jealous!jack, jack ‘i’ll pay for it’ abbot strikes Again!!!! hurt + comfort (one instance of jack being an ass, but he smooths it over during the same shift - they can’t stay mad at each other), mild angst, patient death, jack’s leg - reader helps him adjust the prosthetic and takes care of him during a long shift, canon-typical medical scenes and probably lots of inaccuracies (i’m an english major reddit is my best friend) ; on-page patient death, reader performing compressions, reader DATES DATES and may be unprofessional (affectionately she just wants to find love and her entire life revolves around the hospital who can blame her), reader’s written to have hair she brushes and can pin up, she also gets on her toes to kiss him but that can be ignored i just liked the image jack basically bribes her into a date, no smut but they’re So very much thinking about it, rushed-ish ending i think?
notes — wrote this in a slump it took so Unbelievably long and i’m not even sure i like it but i wanted to post something before i give up on writing anything ever again!!!!
It was midnight and a peds nurse was lingering by the ambulance doors, and Jack knew that he wasn’t meant to be there. Lewis was his name, maybe, but Jack couldn’t even be sure of that — and knew he had no reason to be sure of it, because the guy wasn’t meant to be there. Running the ER in the middle of the night, with all of the day’s patients handed off, and the night’s still finding their way through triage, was difficult in itself, and he didn’t have the energy to also babysit Ryan-or-Lewis-or-whoever hovering there like a little boy waiting to be picked up from school.
“Is he meant to be here?” Jack asked, closing the space toward the desk where Lena was pointing something, jutting his thumb in the direction of the guy.
Lena flattened a printout on the desk with two fingers, hardly sparing him a glance.
“Him. Peds. Why is he there?” he tried again.
“Couldn’t tell you,” she said, but the corner of her mouth had flicked up, proving that she was simply choosing not to tell him.
“He’s off his unit,” he said. He knew he sounded just slightly silly stating the obvious.
“Seems so.”
“Send him back, then,” Jack drawled, incredulous, hands finding his hips. “There’s enough shit going on here.”
“You send him back,” she retorted, amused just slightly. “If you’re so concerned.”
Jack looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head as his hands went to rest on his hips. When he looked back down, he found you walking toward the nurse and it suddenly made complete sense.
He let out a sigh. “This has to be a joke.”
His eyes, as they did more often than was appropriate, caught on you, hair coming down loose from where you’d pinned it, the scrubs lopsided at one hip, riding lower than where they’d started at the beginning of the night. You turned to say something to the guy quickly, and the movement caught the slip, your scrub top moving up half an inch, and Jack’s eyes went there before his brain could tell him that was wrong, some groove in him that noticed you before it noticed anything useful. He had a second of pure, unhelpful distraction before his brain reminded him that he was an attending and had things to do.
“I actually think it’s funny,” Lena said, shrugging.
Of course it had something to do with you. He should’ve figured it out the second he saw the guy standing there with his hands in the pouch of his scrubs, rocking heel to toe like the floor was just too exciting to be standing on. Nobody loitered around the ambulance bay at midnight for good reason. People came through those doors bleeding or they didn’t come through them at all, and this guy had shown up with nothing wrong with him, except maybe a case for some lovesickness.
“I’m gonna make this stop,” Jack said, already pushing himself away from the nurse’s station.
Lena’s eyes widened slightly. “Don’t say anything that gets you sat down with HR.”
“She can goddamn try me,” he said, and went. Also because Jack was fairly sure you would never report him to HR.
He crossed the floor and caught the tail-end of your conversation as he closed in.
“ — just tell me when you’re free, that’s all I’m asking,” the guy was saying.
You were already half-turned, already gone as you waved a hand loosely beside you. “I don’t know, I just don’t think we should try again.”
Jack blew out a breath, standing a few feet short of you, your back facing him. Why was he not surprised? He’d been keeping tally without meaning to, and he knew that was embarrassing. There was the radiology fellow who’d started hand-delivering films that very well could’ve gone through the system; the travel nurse who’d washed through in six weeks and left the floor faintly weird in his wake; the anaesthesia resident who now took the long way around the department if he saw you at the end of it, as though he were a dog who’d learned the fence was electric. And now this one, apparently, Peds with his whole hopeful heart hanging out in Jack’s department.
“You’re so sweet for coming down here,” you practically crooned at him, shifting on your heels, eyes flicking down to the form in your hand. “But I really do have a whole long night ahead of me, and I know my answer’s not gonna change, so I won’t make you wait around for it, okay?”
Jack fought the urge to roll his eyes when you said the words with the upward lilt of a woman sending a toddler back to his mother. He wanted to laugh a little when he saw that the guy had taken it standing up like it was a gift.
The hell of it was that Jack understood the man. He understood every last one of them because he stood next to you fifty hours a week, had been doing so for three years, and whatever the department thought of him after his consistent therapy, he was not carved out of stone.
Jack was afraid that if he hadn’t been your attending these last four years and a little younger, wearing his heart on his sleeve, he’d have been eating out of the palm of your hand.
You gave the guy a there-there pat, and it was only then did his eyes land on Jack, who he probably knew was your fucking attending. You turned then, and immediately said, “Oh, Dr. Abbot, I’ve got the guy in six’s labs back, the potassium —”
“Mhm.” Jack’s hands came up and landed on your shoulders before you’d finished the sentence, squaring you off the spot where you stood and turning you bodily back toward the floor like you were a gurney.
“It is four-point-nine, but the EKG’s good, so I was gonna recheck in —”
“Let’s recheck it now,” he said. He kept you moving, his palms broad through the cotton of your scrubs, steering you a few feet till your own feet caught onto the idea.
You grumbled something under your breath, and once he’d stopped you right in front of six, you turned to face him with your brows raised.
“Say something?” he asked, tipping his chin down.
“You seem like you’re mad at me,” you said.
“Huh. I do?” He let go of your shoulders — noticing, distantly, the exact second his hands came off and suddenly felt too empty — and reached past you to pluck six’s chart off the tray, more to have something to do with them than needing it. “You’re right. You should recheck in ten minutes.”
“You’re mad at me,” you said again, crossing your arms over your chest.
He blew out a breath, and suddenly felt just a little silly at getting worked up over a nurse by the doors when there was a large, glowing board behind him full of names that needed his complete, undivided attention.
You were a senior resident, after all, four years deep, one of his sharpest — you’d treated the guy in six, hadn’t you, you’d flagged it and called for the EKG and made the right call on the recheck before he’d even asked, all while dismantling some man’s hopes. Somehow, your mess and competence ran on the same current. You never let the first touch the second. He’d have loved, some nights, to have an excuse to be mad — a missed lab, a blown line, anything he could write up and point at — and you kept declining to hand him one. All of this meant he was left with this vague swampy irritation, and Jack wasn’t the sort of mentor who liked to hound upon that.
“No, sweetheart, I just love it when you get random men hanging around the department,” he settled on saying, feeling his shoulders visibly loosen a fraction.
You winced, eyes darting over to the emptiness in front of the doors now. “Sorry.”
“You’d say it won’t happen again, but we both know better.” He shrugged. Then, he reached out his hand — he wasn’t sure why, except that it just happened naturally — and patted you once on the shoulder, then on the second turned you to face the curtains leading to your patient. “Doctor up.”
And you did, the loose, embarrassed shape of you being replaced in the space of a single breath, being replaced by something Jack had watched grow into you over the years and still hadn’t quite gotten used to.
Trauma called it in nine minutes later, an MVC, unrestrained driver, GCS dropping in the field. Jack was working on a laceration in four when he heard the crackled warning, and by the time he’d looked up out the curtains, you were already moving, gowned and at the head of the bay calling out assignments like you’d been doing this for a decade.
“I need two units O-neg before he rolls in,” you said, voice pitched high enough to carry without yelling, cutting clean through the perpetual noise of the department. “Somebody get me a second eighteen-gauge ready, and I want an ultrasound in here.”
Donnie and Mateo were already moving, and so were the people around you, falling into your orbit like the room had easily reorganized itself around your voice the second it went up. Jack stood by the curtain, gloves from the lac still on, and found he couldn’t make himself move just yet.
The doors banged open. EMS wheeled the stretcher through fast, calling out vitals over each other, and you were already on the patient’s side before the gurney had fully stopped moving, hands moving on his neck, chest, eyes scanning his pupils in a matter of ten seconds. He began walking over, catching your voice as you called out your reads as someone hung the blood and someone else prepped the ultrasound wand. “Page neuro now.”
“On it,” Mateo said, already moving.
You had both hands on the patient, running the primary survey quickly, confirming, checking, discarding possibilities out in short, clipped sentences Jack recognized as the sound of your brain running six steps ahead of your mouth. Sweat had started on your hairline. You called out for OR to be on standby, eyes flickering around the room and landing on Jack. “OR, please,” you said, aimed at him, brows going up.
“On it,” Jack said, because there was no way he was going to let you be wrong about needing something and didn’t make sure you got it.
The next six minutes went by fast and loud, in bursts and then suddenly quiet, the room narrowing down on functionality. You stood at the center of it; you called it and ran it. You got the man upstairs stable enough that Walsh didn’t sound worried for one second, and that was a compliment from her.
Jack watched the whole thing from four feet back, arms crossed, and chipping in when your brain had snagged. He was feeling a heat in his chest helplessly and entirely unprofessional, it was always present when he was able to see, in real-time, how far you’d come from your first day of residency when your hands were a second too slow on the central line and how your voice would pitch up at the end of every read, asking for permission every time instead of stating it like a fact, eyes finding him across the room each time, checking.
There was none of that left in you now, he realized, had done so a long time ago. He thought, watching you now, that this was the closest thing he’d let himself do to falling in years, standing uselessly riveted as he watched a woman he’d taught outgrow the need for him in real time, and finding that instead of the loss he’d expected to feel when the day finally came, all he felt was warm and terrifying and too much like pride.
When the room had started clearing out, he watched your mouth drop open as you let out a heavy breath, eyes going over to him. The second he watched you realize he was still there, your face shifted, the relief turning into something sharper.
“Why didn’t you jump in?” You crossed the floor toward him in four hard strides, gloves already peeled off and balled tight in one fist, snapping the second one free with a motion that looked terrifyingly like it wanted to be aimed at him. “His pressure tanked for thirty seconds and you just watched.”
“You had it.”
“You didn’t know that,” you said, voice going up an octave, adrenaline still thrumming through you, hands coming up the gesture at the blood-streaked floor. “I could’ve missed something. You’re the attending, Jack, you’re supposed to catch if I missed something —”
“I would’ve,” he interrupted, stepping in close enough that you had to tilt your head back to keep glaring at him properly. “The second you needed me, I would’ve stepped in. I wasn’t gonna take it from you before you did.”
“You can’t gamble like that with a patient —” Your chest was rising and falling fast, gloves now crushed in your fist, and he could see the fear catching up now that everything around you had gone quiet enough to let it, something that looked more like fear of yourself than for the patient. “What if I’d frozen —?”
“I knew you wouldn’t.” He reached his hand out, thumb catching a smear of the blood at your jaw you’d accidentally smeared on yourself, wiping it off carefully with the pad of his thumb, and felt you go still under it. “You don’t trust my judgement?”
“You know I do. You just could’ve said something.”
“I could’ve. He dropped his hand from your jaw only to catch your wrist instead. “Didn’t wanna interrupt you being brilliant. Kinda liked watching it happen.”
Your mouth opened, surely to let out some unnecessary retort, and died there when he pressed one slow stroke of his thumb against your wrist, raising a brow.
“Relax,” he said, voice going rough as he leaned in a little, forcing you to meet his eyes properly. “Just take the win. That’s an order.”
“Now you wanna give orders,” you mumbled.
He barked out a short laugh, letting go of your wrist. “Only when you’re being stubborn for no reason.”
It was sometime during the second year of your residency when he’d started catching your drift. It had started with a random Friday shift. He’d seen you at the station, elbows on the counter, telling Lena something conspiratorially. Jack was meant to be reading a chart but couldn’t help how his ears had perked up. Anything to get through the shift, he supposed.
“ — no, but he was perfect on paper,” you were saying, “kept his house clean and everything. He told me he kept his plant alive for six years —”
“So, what happened?” Lena said flatly, like she already knew what you were going to say but wanted to hear anyway.
“He wanted to take me bowling on the second date,” you said through a sigh. “I know how it sounds, but you’ve gotta hear me out —”
“I’m genuinely not going anywhere.”
“ — for the first date, bowling’s fun. But he took me to a nice dinner the first time, he set a standard, and then the second date he goes bowling, which means the effort’s already —” You created a little downward slope with your hand. “And if it’s already sliding on date two, where’s it at on date two hundred? I can already see my marriage with him and it’s bad.”
It seemed you had a criteria, Jack learned then. It was proven even more when he’d heard you talk about your other failed dates, seen them, and learned — without ever wanting to — what they were, to an extent.
He knew you couldn’t stand a man who ordered for you without asking. He knew you’d written off a fellow for the way he talked about his mother, and another one — an accountant, a rare specimen who had no clue what an EKG was — over a text message you’d read aloud to Ellis in a voice of complete horror, though Jack had never caught what it actually said, only your face while you read it. He knew you gave people precisely three dates, that this was a rule you held if the first and second date went well, three apparently being the magic number at which a person could no longer hide the demon they were going to turn out to be (your words).
He knew, too, that you only allowed one kiss after the first date, if even that. It was never up for negotiation, no matter how beautifully the night had gone, for you never wanted to end up “emotionally overdrawn on an account you hadn’t even opened yet.”
He knew you a man lost real points if, over the three dates, if it involved drinks, he ordered the same one. He knew a man gained them, silently and instantly, for being able to sit in a lull without narrating his way out of it, and that you considered this the single rarest trait in modern dating.
He knew you were looking for something you had no name for and would recognize on sight, which struck him as a hell of a way to run a search.
He’d have told you, if you asked, that he tuned most of the station chatter out as a matter of survival, for while he enjoyed the occasional gossip, he couldn’t very well absorb everyone’s business. And that was true about everyone’s business but yours, apparently, because yours came in clear.
Your business he retained against his own better judgement, and he realized — once, during a slow shift — that he could’ve drawn you a better map of your taste than you seemed to carry yourself. He could’ve told you, if you asked, exactly the kind of man who’d finally clear your bar, and exactly why he had yet to show up.
It was almost nice, some nights, watching you try anyway. The ER was a place where everyone was kept tethered to the world by a thread, and everyone who worked in it long enough to develop some version of the same calluses. Jack had grown his years ago, and he wore them invisible, occasionally aching, and had come to terms with it being permanent.
Love, for Jack, had stopped being a real noun before you’d shown up, somewhere between things he used to want and things he’d decided weren’t for him anymore.
You still believed in it. You’d watched this place take everything soft out of grown men twice your seniority and somehow walked through the same fire hopeful, still convinced, against every scrap of evidence, that somewhere there was a person worth all that hoping.
For that reason, he had decided to not interrupt your endeavors, not until now, when he noticed you during hand-off before your night shift with him started, in front of Robby, of all people.
While Jack loved Robby like a brother, he had a documented, department-wide, actuarially reliable seven-week expiration date on every woman he charmed out of this building. He’d heard intra-departmental gossip about him. There was, Jack was fairly sure, a running joke about it that predated your residency by years.
He knew you definitely were not finding love in his best friend. But Jack felt the buzzing in his mind go quiet and mean watching how you with him.
You laughed at something and Jack lost, for one humiliating second, the thread of what he’d walked over to say. It happened sometimes, more than he’d admit to anyone. Ordinary noises out of you hit him somewhere in his chest before the better part of him flagged it as a problem, and he had to physically clear his throat before finding his footing again.
“ — Italian’s always good after pulling a double,” Robby was saying. “But I do love some microwave ramen, too, when I’m missing my med student days.”
“Oh, so your standards have been raised being chief?” you said, and Jack could hear the smile and wariness in it.
“For sure —”
Jack let out a huff, something resembling a laugh, as his feet planted him between the two of you. He was close enough that his shoulder nudged yours and you had to step back to keep your balance. He felt your weight land for a second against him with a satisfaction he had no, absolutely no business feeling for something so small. So childish.
He turned to Robby, spreading his hands wide, mock outrage. “My resident.”
Robby looked mildly amused, unbothered, so Jack added, before he could respond, “Go home before I report you to HR.”
“You’d do that to me?”
“In a heartbeat. Have some shame.” Jack kept his shoulder where it was still angled half in front of you, an old, unexamined instinct keeping the line drawn even though Robby had already backed off.
He tipped his head toward the doors, toward the gold light coming up in them, the day shift draining out around you both. “There’s a whole rich life waitin’ for you out there.”
Robby just smiled and pushed off the counter, giving you a small wave before he left.
Jack turned to you then, brows furrowed. “Seriously?”
You let out a short laugh. “Work hard, play hard?”
“Soundin’ a lot like a frat brother right now. Never have those words been said in an ER,” Jack said.
“I wasn’t actually going to do it,” you said, rushing the words out with something more honest in them. “For the record. I know what — he’s got a reputation.” You picked at the counter. “I was just talking to him. He’s funny.”
Jack had to recalibrate for a second. “You were talkin’ sweet to him.”
“I talk sweet to everyone.” You lifted a shoulder, completely unbothered. “You should try it sometime.”
He rolled his eyes at that. He reached over for your cup of coffee sitting between you — closer to his elbow than yours — and drank a sip, eyes going up to the ceiling at the sheer volume of syrup you’d decided you needed in your bloodstream today. “The hell?” he muttered, turning the cup slightly as if that would help. “Are you trying to embalm yourself?”
“Give it back.”
“In a minute.” He took a second sip, slower this time, and watched you over the rim of the cup. Then, he set it back a few degrees off how you’d had it, just to see your jaw tick.
You pulled the cup back in, thumbed it around until the lid faced you again, and drank from it without breaking your explanation. “I’m offended you think I’ll get wine and dined by the chief attending.” You tilted your head. “Give me some credit here. I won’t be his seven weeks.”
“Huh.” He rubbed the back of his neck, which was warm. “Well, good. Don’t think he’ll clear your bar anyway.”
“See, you get it,” you said, pointing a finger at him. “At least someone around here does.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, tipping his head slightly forward that even he hadn’t realized that he had shifted the distance just slightly. “Better than most.”
Your eyes widened slightly at that, and Jack took that as his cue to step back, clear his throat, as he jerked his chin toward the board.
“Alright, time to work. Stop the play,” he said, trying to get his voice the right level. “Go look at chest pain on three.”
“So bossy,” you said, but you were already turning around to go to three.
Well, that’s what he was, wasn’t he? For some reason, he had to remind himself that.
It was what he had to remind himself as his hands hovered your trembling ones as you tried to pump air into Mrs. Foley’s lungs, knowing she was already gone — had been for a while now, if he was honest — longer than it took you to admit. He knew it, he’d grown the grim ability to recognize when a body stopped being a patient and being someone you were performing compressions on for the family’s sake, for your own need to have done everything.
He’d let it run anyway, because you hadn’t accepted it yet, and he’d wanted to give you that extra minute to arrive at it on your own.
Mateo had come up to Jack’s side, snapping his gloves off, the sound of it overshadowed by your own heaving.
“She has to call it,” he murmured. “You want me to —”
“No.” Jack’s eyes, he felt, could not move away from your distress. “I’ve got her.”
Mateo looked at him for a moment longer than the moment warranted, and then he stepped back and let Jack be. You were still going, your compressions had gone harder, faster, less like genuine medicine and more like you were pleading with Mrs. Foley herself now. Sweat had gone to the hair at your temple. Your jaw was set in a clench Jack recognized all too well, and for a moment, Jack wished that he didn’t have to be so acutely tuned into watching what the job did to others, the same way it did to him.
He stepped in behind your shoulder, close, and brought his hand down over yours where they were locked on the old woman’s chest.
“Look at the clock,” he said quietly into your ear.
“One more round —”
“You’ve done plenty.” He pressed, gently, until your hands stilled under his, and felt your entire body resist it. “You know she was gone before we could’ve even done anything —”
“She’s been my patient for years —”
Jack knew then that while you may have been an excellent doctor, his senior resident that had bloomed under his mentorship but still could’ve gone without him and done just the same, it wasn’t a good feeling to wonder if the job would dim you the way it had him.
“I know.” He kept his hands over yours with enough pressure so as to not let you drive them down again. “That’s why it’s yours to call. But you’ve gotta call it, Doctor.”
Your breath hitched as you turned your neck to face him, and there was a pool brimming on your lashline that you kept at bay, nodding. Your hands under his stopped straining upward, and he felt the exact second you accepted it, for it moved through your shoulders and down your spine and left you a little smaller standing there, the fight trickling into the moment after, which Jack always thought was worse.
“Time of death,” you said, forcing your voice back into the procedural tone, “oh-three-forty-one.” You peeled your gloves off finger-by-finger.
His hand found the small of your back after taking the minute, leading you to the little family consult room with the boxed tissues and fake ficus with a couch that had absorbed more bad news since longer than you or he had worked there. He shut the door with the flat of his hand and let the floor’s noise cut to a hum through the drywall.
You stood in the middle of the room with your arms crossed, holding yourself, and stayed silent.
Jack propped himself against the table, arms folded, as he breathed out a small sigh through his nose. He knew you weren’t a talker after the bad ones. Some residents came out of a loss with their mouths running, narrating it into something survivable, and some went quiet and small and had to be waited out, and you were the second kind. So he waited.
You broke it eventually, like he always knew you would have. “I’ve got a butterscotch she gave me seven months ago in my locker still,” you murmured, craning your neck so you were looking at the ceiling. You wiped under your eyes with the heel of your hand roughly.
“Think I’ve got one, too,” he murmured, wincing as he tried to shift his weight.
It had been building up for the past few hours, a hot ring of wrong down below the knee where the socket had gone slick and furnace-warm because it was past hour fourteen, when he’d sweated the fit and never changed the liner because there’d been no window that wasn’t already accounted for. He shifted his weight off it, trying again, and reached down to thumb the release, breaking the seal.
He let out a short, punched out sigh as he pulled himself down onto the chair behind him, one hand balancing himself on the table. “Sorry,” he gruffed out, jaw clenching.
Your eyes flickered down to the prosthetic limb he was balancing against the pole of the table and you were already moving before he could finish apologizing. You never asked if he needed a hand. You’d learned sometime during your second year that asking him gave him a chance to say no, and you’d quit handing him that chance sometime during your second year, so now you just came. You went down on one knee at the pole of the table.
“Don’t say sorry,” you mumbled, eyes not meeting him.
His jaw stayed tight and he didn’t fight it, fight you. That was a formality and you both knew it, a thing he did with his shoulders and not his hands, but he watched the top of your head and thought — like he always did, each time, and never said out loud — there was no one else on god’s green earth he’d let do this in the way you did. Not the prosthetist, who did it clinically. Not the VA, who did it tired. You did it each time like it was nothing and everything at once, as though this something not worth remarking on.
He very badly wanted to thank you, despite how small he always felt when you did this. He wanted to tell you that you were, without question, better at this than anyone who was paid to do it.
Your fingers found the socket and went for the liner because you knew the fit went bad and the sweat before it went bad anywhere a person could see, knew he’d have to run it slick and furnace-hot than spend the fourteen minutes off the floor. You rolled it back with the flat of your thumb, easing the trapped heat out of it, and he felt the pressure of the ring of raw below his knee and had to clench his jaw to not let the relief show on his face. You spared him anyway by keeping your eyes down where they’d been.
“You’ll strip your skin doing this,” you said conversationally, the roughness still present in your voice from the code. “You know that. You keep running it past twelve and one of these nights it’s cellulitis and I’m admitting you.”
“If only I could be so lucky.”
He ducked his head slightly, a part of him wanting to catch the reaction, and he saw how one corner of your lip was barely turned up.
You thumbed a line of red where the socket’s edge had bitten in, checking it, and your touch went careful around there. “This is new. The edge is catching higher than it was.”
“Went to a new liner last month,” he said, voice low. “Not broke in yet.”
“Then you break it on your days off. Not on a fourteen hour.” You finally looked up at him, shaking your head with this flat, fond expression he’d come to realize was your favorite way to look at him. “You’d write me up for less.”
“I’d write you up for a lot less,” he agreed, thinking back on the time you’d fought him tooth-and-nail over staying through a migraine, refusing, point-blank, to hand off a soft rule-out chest pain at eleven when the migraine had started very visibly began creeping up on you.
He’d caught you before you’d said a word about it because you’d begun squinting at the numbers and pressed the heel of your hand against one eye for a moment too long between patients, thinking nobody was watching. He was, he realized, always watching you in some way.
“Go home,” he’d said quietly, catching you by the elbow outside the curtain. “That’s not a request.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve got a migraine.”
“I’ve got a job.” Your jaw had clenched, stubbornly, and Jack had thought that even if he’d put all his strength into it, he wouldn’t have been able to unclench it for you. “I’m not handing off a chest pain because my head hurts. This guy has waited long enough for a bed. I’m not the priority here.”
He’d wanted to tell you that you were, actually, that you were exactly the priority, and watching you white-knuckle forms with your pupils blown different sizes from pain scared him more than any board full of critical pains ever had. But he’d just pulled down the light two notches, told the nurses to shadow eleven’s discharge, and put a bottle of water and two Tylenol on your desk without a word. And thank god, you’d taken the Tylenol and finished the shift standing up because sitting made the room tilt worse, and only taken on non-critical cases. You’d refused until the end that you should’ve gone home three hours earlier.
Now, you huffed something that was nearly a laugh, your first real once since the code, and went back to setting. And Jack sat there with his arms crossed in the dark with your hands on the worst-guarded part of him and the door shut against the whole floor, and thought about how he believed nobody deserved you. People were vile and sucked and cut in line and let doors swing shut behind them, and you handed out three dates to men who wrote sonnets in your voicemail and couldn’t clear a bar you’d never once lowered for anyone. He’d thought, more nights than he liked to admit, that these people had no idea what they were auditioning for.
His eyes snagged on you because there was nothing else in this small room worth looking at. There was still salt dried in your lashline from the code. You were a wreck and you were fixing his leg anyway, still half-shaking from a woman you couldn’t save, and it hadn’t occurred to you to stop and put yourself back together first. It never did. Jack had seen the care run out of you before you ever decided to spend it.
“I’m sorry about Mrs. Foley,” he said.
You shook your head, face still angled down, thumb pausing mid-motion. “I’ll be okay,” you murmured, lifting up one shoulder. “I just hate that she couldn’t get here sooner.”
“You did nothing wrong,” he said plainly. “Family said she’s been feeling off for two days now.”
“I know.” Your voice cracked, betraying the flatness you were trying to present. “Doesn’t make it easier.”
You lifted your head for a moment, then, looking at him with a sad smile he knew you were painting on to get him to stop talking.
He nodded stiffly, tipping his chin down. “Alright. Finish my leg and we’ll run this floor together.”
Up in radiology a few nights later, Jack had gone himself to sort out a reading that had been sitting long and he’d cornered a tech and got what he needed and was already halfway out the door, jacket sleeves still rolled from the last set of compressions, when he saw the guy standing off by the light boxes.
Younger. A resident, he supposed, in scrubs a size too crisp for someone who’d actually been on the shift long enough to earn wrinkles in them. He’d been watching Jack the whole time — Jack could feel it, the itch of being observed — shifting his weight heel to toe against the linoleum floor.
“Somethin’ on my face?” Jack said flatly because he really did have to get back to the floor.
“You’re — sorry, you’re Dr. Abbot, right?”
“Last I checked.”
The guy’s hand came out of his jacket’s pocket, and there was a piece of folded paper in it. Jack looked at it like it was a spider, hoping — no, praying — it had something to do with work.
“Could you give this to her?” the guy asked, and Jack’s hope died, as he stepped closer. “The senior resident on your shift. She’ll — she’ll know who it’s from.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jack murmured, brows pulling in together. “You ever heard of texting, kid?”
“I did,” he said, and Jack could practically feel the heat radiating off of him. “She stopped answering, so I figured, maybe on paper, she’d actually —”
“Take the hint,” Jack grumbled, snatching the paper out of his hand. Then, as he turned to the door, he said, “You know I work in the ER?” When the guy only nodded quickly, he added, “You know she works in the ER?”
“I — yeah. Obviously.”
“Then you know she doesn’t need this.” He held up the paper between him and the guy. “She’s got enough on her plate without some guy too chicken to call her handing me a note like I’m her mailman.”
The guy opened his mouth, nose scrunching at Jack’s words, but nothing came out.
“Yeah.” Jack was already walking, note tucked in his pocket, done with the conversation. “Try calling next time. Or don’t.”
The guy looked at least a little sheepish, a little ashamed, and Jack thought good, he should feel ashamed. He wasn’t sure what the protocol in dating was now — he’d been just a little rusty and out of the stretch for a stretch of years he preferred not to count in single digits — but he was fairly certain that whatever the rules had curdled up to, this could not possibly be inside them.
He rode the elevator down with the note in his pockets, and he could feel the small stiff square of another man’s hope pressing over the outside of his thigh.
He found you at your desk, hands running restlessly through your hair as you spoke into the microphone, charting. The words were coming out of you bluntly, mechanic and after saying the same variation a thousand times over. There was a pen behind your ear you’d forgotten about and the residue of a lab value gone blue across the back of your hand where you’d scrawled it hours ago and never washed off.
He stood there for a second before you noticed him, and thought — not for the first time and with the same low irritation he always felt about it — that he had no earthly business being the man this got routed to.
Jack leaned down so his head hovered beside yours, scanning your work on the screen, close enough that his shoulder nearly brushed yours, head tilted to read your screen at an angle that had nothing to do with actually needing to see it.
“The man wants an espresso martini?” he asked, furrowing his brows as he read over your notes, right by your ear.
You jumped just slightly and swivelled on your stool to face him, then back at the screen. “Shit — Jack. Announce yourself.” You scanned the words on your notes, shaking your head and already backspacing. “No, that was me talking to myself. Stupid mic picked it up.”
“Long as it’s just the one,” he drawled, staying there in your space a little longer, watching the side of your face instead of the screen now. “Those things sneak up on you.”
“Speaking from experience?” You turned on your stool to face him fully, chin tilting up to meet his eyes, something playful and a little challenging in it.
“I’ve got a couple decades on you. Everything’s snuck up on me.”
You held his gaze a little longer, then looked away first, tongue coming out over your lips for a second. He took a small satisfaction in not being the one who blinked first.
He blew out a breath through his nose, remembering, with reluctance now, what he’d actually come here to do. “Speaking of sneaking up.” He pulled out the note from his pocket. “I got something to deliver to you —”
You furrowed your brows when he handed it to you. “Secret admirer?” you asked jokingly.
He barked out a short laugh. “Nothin’ secret about it. You ignoring some radiology fellow?”
You grimaced, opening the note and scanning over the words quickly. He could’ve left, but stayed instead and watched you read it. The frown only pulled deeper, and he saw your eye twitch once as you scanned the words.
Against his better judgement, he murmured, “That bad?”
“Uh — no, it’s okay.” You shrugged stiffly.
“Huh,” he breathed out, studying you outright now. “Wonder what you’re doin’ to these guys to get them so wound up.”
You chuckled, mostly to yourself. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
His chest tightened at that. It was unfair how you could make anything to him sound like something he’d been waiting to hear. He swallowed. “Suppose I would.”
“That an offer, Dr. Abbot?”
“Might be,” he said, shrugging one shoulder.
You laughed — surprised, the tension in your shoulders breaking slightly — and shook your head, folding the note back up. “You’re ridiculous. Well, thank you for getting it to me. I’m sorry he bothered you with this —” You swivelled, placing the note on your desk before picking up your phone. “That’s really weird.”
“That’s one word for it,” Jack said, and left it there, because you’d already turned and had your phone in one hand and the microphone in the other. The small furrow was back between your brows, and he’d learned there was a point past which pushing you got him a brighter, smaller version of whatever you were covering.
He drifted toward the far end of the station where Mateo was crouched at the crash cart running his palm along the drawers, checking seals, restocking and checking the fact of it on slower nights like this.
“She okay?” Mateo asked, snapping the drawer, seemingly having caught the interaction.
“Oh, you know.” Jack leaned a shoulder into the wall, arms crossing. “The belle of our ball. Can’t clock in without collecting a proposal.”
Mateo huffed. “She loves love.”
“That she does.” Jack watched you across the station, the phone lit against your ear now. “Don’t know why she keeps doing that to herself, though.”
“She’s an optimist.” Mateo clicked a seal into place, then moved down the cart. “Thinks someone’s gonna turn out different.”
Jack hummed, then, because the question had been sitting low and unlovely for a couple hours, he asked, “You two give it a run ever?”
Mateo turned his neck to look up at Jack. “Me and —” He jutted his thumb behind him to vaguely gesture at you. “Her?”
“Mhm.” Jack kept his eyes on you. “You’re close.”
“Nah.” Mateo went back to the cart, shaking his head as he chuckled softly. “I don’t think I’d pass a single one of her tests. Besides, I got my eye on someone.”
“Apparently I don’t make the list either, I guess,” Jack murmured.
Mateo laughed through his nose, eyeing Jack with something new now. “You want to?”
Jack caught it, reaching his palm and smacking it against Mateo’s curls with no force. “No. Now, do your job.”
“I am —” He laughed through the words, eyes scanning over Jack’s stiffened posture now. “It’s good you don’t, then. Couldn’t handle her anyway.”
“Sure, I could,” Jack said immediately.
Mateo’s head turned again, lips curving upwards at Jack’s words, and he felt momentarily blindsided by his own mouth, entirely too honest for something that had started as a joke.
“Sure, you could,” Mateo teased, drawing out the words.
“Shut it.” Jack grabbed a box of gloves off the cart and set it down two shelves lower than it needed to go, purely to do something with his hands that didn’t involve reaching for Mateo’s collar. “Wasn’t a real question.”
Couldn’t handle you? As if he didn’t know, without having to think about it, that you took the stairs two at a time instead of the elevator when you were annoyed and needed somewhere to put your extra energy, or that you’d started drinking your coffee black on nights a patient reminded you of someone, syrup and cream abandoned, like sweetness felt wrong to have that shift. As if he hadn’t noticed, months ago, that you hummed the same four off-key notes from a jingle neither you nor Jack could place when a chart was boring you to death, or that you double-checked every single IV line now, ever since one bad mistake in your first year. He could very well handle you, he simply hadn’t been given the chance to do so.
Most of the time, Jack was fine with watching your love life play out in 3D. More often than not, he knew they’d never work out. You were just too good for anyone who came sniffing, and there was a grim comfort in that, in knowing the fellows and the nurses would wash through and out and leave you exactly where he found you, three feet down the counter from him, close enough to keep.
Tonight the comfort wasn’t coming. Mateo’s accidental interrogation had rubbed Jack wrongly, somewhere he had yet to fully locate yet, and was sitting in his chest like a splinter he kept forgetting was there until he turned the corner over the night, saw you, and noticed it was there. He should’ve let it stay as nothing, but his brain had apparently decided three hours later was the correct time to relitigate the whole exchange, turning it over at odd intervals between patients like a tongue worrying a chipped tooth.
It was the bad sort of slow in the ER, the sort that let his brain fill up with things he’d have no time for on a real night. Ellis had wandered over to your desk with two energy drinks and placed her arms loosely beside your computer.
Jack was distantly aware he had misplaced labs to hand back to you because they’d gotten lost in the system, and he told himself that was the whole reason his body had started moving in your direction.
“I got a rundown from Marge,” Ellis said, dropping into an empty stool beside you. “Apparently he wrote it out of the OR.”
“You’re joking,” you muttered. “I don’t understand it.”
Jack stood there with the labs in his hand, close enough to hear it.
“I’m still wondering if I should respond,” you were saying, half into your hands. “Is this romantic? This one’s never happened before.”
Ellis laughed slightly with you, and the two of you had built one of those small pockets that slow nights sometimes allowed, thirty seconds of being people instead of clinicians.
Jack set the labs down at the edge of your keyboard harder than he meant to, the papers slapping flat against the desk, and both of you looked up at him like he’d grown two heads. Fuck — had he? It sure felt like he was operating off of whatever chemical cocktail his brain had whipped up for nights like this, some ugly little compound of jealousy and exhaustion. He was fairly sure if you pulled his labs right now they’d look like a man in the middle of a bad reaction to something not yet figured out in the scientific world.
“Labs on eight got lost.” His palm stayed on the sheet for a few seconds too long, some instinct telling him to keep his hand on something solid before the rest of him did something stupid. “You’ll want to recheck the trop.”
His eyes cut, against every ounce of better judgement he had left, to the note still folded in your hand, the same one he’d carried down like it was radioactive, the same note that had clearly done something for you that four years of Jack standing next to you clearly hadn’t. An unreasonable, low feeling creeped up behind his ribs at the sight of it, hot and out of proportion to a piece of folded-fucking-paper.
Ellis’s smile went uncertain as he felt her gaze snag on him.
You blinked up at him, and whatever had been sitting easy in your face a second ago curdled itself away, the corners of your mouth retreating. He knew this same retreat, had watched you recalibrate your muscles, swiftly, built to be unreadable against anyone who hadn’t spent four years learning your face.
His stomach dropped and heat climbed up the back of his neck, jaw tightening on its own. He hated that his body had learned to answer you the way it answered a motor alarm. He hated more that some raw, cornered part in him — still smarting about Mateo’s offhand comment and sore from that folded note — felt it wasn’t soothed.
You blinked up at him, and the laugh faded off your face, and you said, easily, warm, “Yeah — course. I’ll get right on that.”
He shrugged up one shoulder, lips pressing into a thin line. He turned, already walking away. “Whenever there’s a gap on your social calendar, I guess.”
He heard the small silence that opened behind him, and he could practically imagine you and Ellis looking at each other. Then, he heard you push back from the desk, the stool wheels catching, and your footsteps coming after him like he’d known they would, because you were the last person to let something like that go.
“Hey.” You fell into step beside him, voice pitched low, still giving him more benefit than the doubt had earned in the last ten seconds. “What was that about?”
“Nothing.” He tilted his neck up slightly to do a quick scan of the board, some stubborn muscle in his neck refusing to let him meet your eyes. “Got a department to run.”
“And you’ve been running it great. You just became weird right now.” He could feel you working it over beside him, shifting on your feet as you toed the line between resident and the hard-won territory neither of you had ever named. “Jack.”
“You want to laugh about your shitty dates, that’s your business,” he said instead of letting it go, sounding too far from the man who’d had his hands hovering over yours an hour ago, watching you put in a chest tube, telling you that you’d done well. “Do it a little quieter. This is an ER, not a lunch table.”
His words stopped you for half a step. Jack kept walking, an ugly, cowardly momentum carrying him three more steps before you caught back up.
He heard you recalibrate your voice in real time when you said, “I was charting on a slow shift,” carefully. “You’ve made worse jokes when it’s even more busy. What’s this about?”
“It’s about you treating this place like it’s your dating pool and not your place of work.” The words came out much uglier than he meant, and he didn’t have it in him to call them back. “It’s not professional. It reflects on the department. Reflects on me. Somebody’s gotta say it, and apparently that’s me, since you clearly enjoy it too much to stop.”
You stopped walking altogether this time. He turned to face your stillness whole, then, and found your eyes narrowed at him, looking like you’d been hit from a direction you hadn’t been completely guarding against.
He let out a breath, fingers going up to his forehead to wipe at sweat that wasn’t there. “I’m just saying what —”
“I’m sorry,” you said, voice going level and courteous, as you nodded quickly. “You’re right. You’re my attending, it reflects on you. I’ll keep my personal life out of work.”
“That’s not —” he tried, but you were already turning away, shoulders squared and chin level, professional armor snapping into place just like he’d told you to. It should have made him feel better to watch you take it so cleanly, to not make a big deal out of it. All it made him feel was like something had been surgically removed from him.
“Stop —” he tried again, to your back now, and the sentence died somewhere between his teeth and the air. That was okay. There was no end to the sentence that didn’t sound worse than the beginning anyway.
He blew out a sharp breath through his nose, standing in the middle of the floor with his hand still half-raised toward you, fingers curling back into his palm when he realized you weren’t there to reach. Jack felt, distantly, uselessly, like the only thing standing still in the entire building.
“Great going,” he heard Lena say, trailing past him, a tray tucked against her hip, not even breaking stride. “You got rid of the one entertainment we’ve got around here.”
His shoulders stiffened, and he caught up with her in three steps, jaw working around words that wanted to spill out defensively and came out simply tired. “It’s not entertainment if she keeps getting hurt,” he grumbled. “She’s not a show. Stop treating her like one.”
“Didn’t look like she was the one getting hurt tonight,” she said, rounding a corner and leaving him standing there.
Jack let out a low groan, running a palm down the lower half of his face, and dropped his hand only when he’d scrubbed enough friction into his jaw to feel it sting a little, which was at least a sensation he’d chosen, at least tonight. He stood there a second longer, staring at nothing in particular. His hands found his hips on reflex.
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, and dragged both hands back through his hair, gripping once at the roots before letting go.
He rolled his neck, felt it pop unsatisfyingly, and pushed off the wall he hadn’t even realized he was leaning against. His leg fucking ached, the burn starting behind his knee. He ignored it like he always did and started walking anyway, jaw still held tight, hands shoved deep into his pockets like he could physically hold himself together with the seams of his own black scrubs.
It was by the lockers after hand-off that Jack saw you next. Both of you had conveniently managed to work over-time; he because there was nothing to get home to, and you — he’d heard through the grapevine — because one of your patient’s little sister was coming in toward close, and you simply wanted to talk with her instead of handing the situation off to one of the day residents.
Usually, nobody had asked you to stay when you did. Most times, there was no version of staying that showed up in your favor; he and Shen were gone, so there was no attending grading you on it; no hours that counted. It was just for a kid who was going to get bad news from a face she’d seen before, so you cost yourself hours of sleep you most definitely needed to be the soft spot for a stranger’s little sister, and hadn’t mentioned it to a soul, and he knew you would’ve been embarrassed if he brought it up.
He found you using the little mirror inside your locker to apply some kind of pink-tubed gloss with one hand while the other ran its fingers through your hair. Jack pursed his lips, eyeing you from the doorway, because he was pretty sure you’d done something different to it in the last ten minutes.
“Look nice,” he tried, biting the bullet and walking toward his own locker. “Goin’ somewhere?”
You caught his eyes in the mirror instead of turning around. “Just breakfast,” you said, and there was none of the earlier lilt in it, the warmth that you’d always aimed at him gone functional. You capped the gloss with more force than it needed and dropped it into your bag.
Jack stood there a second too long with his hand over his own locker without opening it. He’d expected — and he knew he was more optimistic than usual for doing so — your easy back-and-forth, his slip-up from earlier forgotten. He wasn’t sure what to do with the quiet or you not looking at him properly, hairbrush working through your hair in short strokes.
He’d saved around thirty lives tonight, and that was what he was good at. He was not good, and had never claimed to be good, at the aftermath of hurting a person he’d have put his own body between a stretcher and wall for, without meaning to, over something that had never been about the radiology fellow at all.
He opted out of opening his locker and chose instead to lean his bicep against the locker, eyeing you in front of him. “Mad at me?” he murmured.
You let out a short breath, shaking your head, and he tracked all your micro-expressions through the mirror. “On the clock?”
“Well, we’ve both been off it for a while now,” he said, watching the shape of your mouth in the mirror, waiting for it to give something away. It didn’t. “But no. Asking as your —” He stopped himself, because ‘friend’ seemed not to be the honest word though it was the first one that popped up. “Off the clock. Whatever I am to you right now.”
You set the hairbrush down on the little shelf with more care than the moment needed. “It’s okay, Jack,” you said, shaking your head.
“Don’t think it is. Try again.”
You watched him for a second in the mirror, then you turned.
“It’s just embarrassing,” you said, and the words came out smaller than anything he’d heard out of you in years. You crossed your arms over your chest. “I respect you and I hate that you’d think for one second I don’t take this place seriously.” Your voice cracked on the last word, just barely, and you pressed your lips together. “So, yeah. It’s embarrassing to have my attending confirming I’m exactly what people think I am.”
He was shaking his head before you could even finish the sentence. “Nobody thinks —”
“You do,” you said, voice rising slightly. “So, off the clock, I’m embarrassed, and tonight, I’m going to be your resident. Because I agree with you. It’s been unprofessional of me to keep dating within the hospital —” You threw your arms up halfway by your side, and you let out a short laugh that came out dry and wrong. “And I hate that you’ve probably been thinking it for four years.”
“I haven’t,” he said too fast. God, he’d come here to make tonight better for you, not to make you re-evaluate all your years working with him. “Sure, I thought it was none of my business how you spend your good nights off. Didn’t stop me from thinking they didn’t deserve ‘em.”
You rolled your eyes. “You’re just saying that now ‘cause you feel bad.”
“Wish it were that simple,” he said, and chose to leave it unelaborated because it wasn’t that simple and he had no intention of explaining exactly why. “Half the time, you know it’s not gonna work out. You’re breaking my heart by making me watch you break yours.”
You blinked, and he watched the fight loosen out of you by inches. “It’s just a free breakfast, Jack. Nothing to get your heart broken over.”
Jack let out a huff through his nose, mouth opening to say what, he didn’t know. “Is that all? ‘Cause I can get you free breakfast for the rest of your life.”
You laughed, disbelieving, through your nose, some of the night’s weight finally cracking off of you. “You’ve got a weird way of apologizing.”
“Just to my favorite resident.” He pointed his index finger at you, lazy, and pushed himself off the lockers. His shoulder blades left a faint dust-print on the metal where he’d been leaning. He thumbed in the combination without looking at the dial — muscle memory, years of the same locker — and the door swung open with a rusted squeak. He pulled out his bag. “So?”
“So what?”
“You ditch the fellow.” He slung the bag up over his shoulder, close enough now that he caught the tail-end of the perfume you’d lightly spritzed over yourself. “I buy.”
You looked at him for a second too long, lips pushing to one side, as though you were gauging whether this was a bit or not, another line he’d tossed and wanted to let die on its own. He stood there, jaw set and features relaxing to show you he did mean it, more than he wanted to admit, if he was being honest with himself.
“You’re serious.”
“Do I look like I’m not?” He nodded once at your locker, your bag sitting on the shelf. “Grab your stuff. We’re going.”
“Fine,” you said finally, reaching over and zipping your backpack all the way before throwing it over one shoulder. “Can you drive? I’ve been taking the subway.”
“Why?” he asked drily. “You’ve got a car.”
Jack realized, as he watched you slide in across from him and folding both hands around the coffee before it was all the way poured, that he’d never once been on a date where the woman had no idea it was one.
It wasn’t lost on him what that made him, a man old enough to know better, letting a thing be one thing on his side of the table and another thing entirely on yours, saying nothing to square the difference. But he’d meant what he’d said, and he was going to feed you.
You ordered a short stack, eggs, hash brown, decaf on loop. She wrote it down, definitely having heard worse from better.
“Thanks for the treat, Jack,” you said when Dina left, bringing the rim of your cup to your lips. “Don’t think I could’ve done another breakfast to let him down gently.”
“We have to make some changes to your lifestyle,” Jack replied, voice rough, as he eyed you.
“Oh, yeah?” you murmured. “We?”
“Well, I did have to deliver a note to you today. In all my life working here, that’s never happened.”
You laughed around the rim of your cup. “In my defense, I don’t think anyone’s wrote me a note out of an OR either. That’s a first for both of us.”
“Glad we share the experience.”
Dina came by with a pot and topped you off without being asked, and placed the food in front of you. Jack watched you reach for the salt before your fork had even touched the eggs, shaking it twice over the plate.
“You’re gonna give yourself a stroke by forty.”
“You’re gonna give me a stroke right now if you comment on my food.” But you set the shaker down after the third shake, which he noticed and had to bite back a smile.
Dina dropped his plate in front of him — bacon, eggs, no pancakes — and you were reaching for it with a piece of your fork before she’d even finished setting his fork down. He gave you a faux-frown, picking up his fork and, without looking, spreading a piece of your hashbrown off the opposite plate in trade. He wasn’t sure when the two of you had started stealing bites and sips off of each other’s stuff, only that it’d started somewhere and calcified into something neither of you mentioned.
“Rude,” you said, mouth already full.
“Learned it from you,” he muttered, nudging his plate an inch closer to your side of the table, which you took full advantage of.
Dina’s radio crackled through something twangy and close-to-familiar behind the counter, competing with the clatter of a skillet somewhere in the back, the whole place smelling like batter and grease soaked into decades of countertop, syrup that had dried a hundred small amber rings nobody had ever fully scrubbed off.
“I’ve never been here before.” You absentmindedly cut the hashbrown in half as your eyes raked over the place. “This a regular spot for you?”
“Since before you joined,” he said easily, but his brows furrowed as he realized he’d been coming here alone for years. He was in the same booth when he could get it, ordered the same order, and it struck to him only now, watching you eat your hashbrowns, how much smaller and less lonely a booth felt with you taking up the other half of it. “Used to be the only quiet I got on some weeks.”
You hummed. “And now?”
“Guess the quiet’s pretty negotiable.” He shrugged. “I can go without it.”
You smiled down at your plate, something easy working at the corner of your mouth. A thread of syrup had gathered at the seam of your lips — you hadn’t noticed, too busy considering his answer — and before he’d cleared the impulse with the rest of himself, his thumb was already moving, catching it at the corner quickly, no different than when he swiped under your lashline for salt after a bad night.
You stayed still, having gotten used to his hands somewhere during your residency.
“You’re a mess,” he said, wiping his thumb off on the paper napkin folded under his elbow.
“You’ve got coffee on your scrub top,” you said, eyes flicking down to his chest. His brows furrowed and he looked down, and you were right. “Pot, kettle.”
He’d been about to say something else, he could’ve sworn it, but had lost every word of it watching you smile so unguarded, free enough to let him look at you. He had to reach for his coffee just to have something to do with his hands.
When the check came, folded in its little plastic tray, you both reached for it at once. Your hand landed flat over his knuckles. Neither of you moved it for a second, for his hand stayed exactly where it was, broad and unmoving under yours, and something unspoken passed through the two inches of fornica between your faces as he raised a brow at you. He slid the tray out from under you slowly.
“Said I’m buying,” he said, shaking his head slightly.
The drive back had been quieter than the one there had been. It was nearing ten in the morning, and he knew both of you had stayed up longer than intended, especially for two people who had to clock back in in a shorter amount of time than he deemed plausible to reset completely.
He’d cracked the window down an inch, and the air coming through carried the smell of wet pavement and the sound of a garbage truck grinding its gears three streets over. Your neighborhood, he was learning, woke up slow; there was a paperboy on a bike, a guy in scrubs different from yours locking up his own car after a shift that wasn’t at the PTMC, and Jack drove through it with two fingers loose over the wheel. Neither of you had bothered with the radio.
You’d gone somewhere billowy around your third cup of decaf, all the sharp edges of the night replaced with something looser and sleepier, and you gave him directions in a voice gone thick from exhaustion as you were likely starting to feel it behind your eyes.
He pulled his car along the curb and let it idle, one shoe braced against the floorboard, watching the numbers of your building.
“Gonna sleep?” he asked.
“Gonna try.” You were already working the bag strap over your shoulder, hair falling loose out of the knot you’d put it up in at some point at the diner, strands of it catching the early light. “I’ve got no idea how you do this then take SWAT calls.”
“You’d be able to do it, too, if I put you on the field.”
You mumbled something, letting your head drop against the window for a second, before picking itself back up. “Stop threatening me, Jack.”
He watched you fight your eyelids, his mouth pulling up at the corners at the sight. “C’mon. Get inside before I gotta carry you up.”
You snorted, half-hearted. “You can’t. You’d throw your hip out.”
“Try me.” He was already rounding the hood before you’d gathered your bearings, boots loud on the quiet street, and you let out another laugh and let him get there first, too tired to argue about who gets to open what.
He walked you up the cracked path, palm settling at the small of your back, and you leaned back into it, half your weight given over without you noticing it.
At the door, you fumbled with your keys out from under a granola wrapper and a capless pen, missed the lock twice, and gave up trying on the third. You turned to face him instead with your back against the frame and your bag slowly sliding off one shoulder.
“Thank you,” you said, words coming out loose and filtered by the exhaustion even as you tried to meet his eyes head-on. “For the — everything. The explanation. And the breakfast.”
Jack felt his lips curve up, fingers flexing at his sides. “Anytime.”
“And for driving me there — thank you. And for the drive back.”
“Uh-huh. You gonna go inside?” he said, voice going quieter as he looked down at the ground, at how the toes of your shoes were almost touching. “Or keep thanking me until you fall asleep standing up?”
You cocked your head to the side, your lips moving upwards into a fuller smile. His own mouth curved as he shifted on his feet slightly, closing the barely-there inch between his shoes and yours.
“Jack?”
He hummed, and you went up slightly onto your toes before he’d finished deciding what to do with you. Or maybe he’d moved in first, or maybe there was no real order to it at all. His mouth found yours somewhere in that uncertainty, slowly despite it, because he’d already worked out every version of this moment and this one had simply appeared in front of him.
His hand came up to cradle the side of your jaw, thumb settling into the soft hollow just beneath your ears. Your skin was warm despite the cold snap in the air, much softer than he’d let himself imagine, and he felt the exact second your breath caught against his mouth, a small stutter that made his fingers curve around your jaw, index resting against your cheekbone.
He kept it slow, it was the only thing he had any real control over right now, the pace of it instead of the fact of it. He used what little he had left, dragging his mouth against yours, like he could somehow make up for four years of nothing by refusing to rush the first thirty seconds of something. His other hand found your waist, and his palm felt how your back curved into him, the hitch of your ribs on an inhale, and he pressed you back the last inch against the doorframe more to ground himself.
Your fist found the front of his canvas jacket, dragging him in the last stubborn space he’d been too careful to close himself, and a sound came out of his chest that embarrassed him a little. He felt you smile against his mouth, and his entire body felt warm at having been caught enjoying this entirely as much as he was.
He tilted his head so his forehead pressed against yours and pulled his mouth away. His lips jutted out slightly, feeling suddenly empty and unwilling to put the full distance back between the two of you.
Your eyes were still shut, and you were breathing unevenly. “Thank you,” you murmured.
He huffed a short laugh, and in it, realized how breathless he, too, was.
You tipped your chin back up, already chasing him.
Jack felt the want knot up inside him, greedy and unreasonably leaning back in to meet you halfway before the rest of him had caught up and made him stop. He made a small sound in his throat and pinched his eyes shut, letting you get right up to the edge of it, breath already tangling with his, wanting so badly to just let it happen, before his finger came up between you, pressed light against your bottom lip to stop you a hair short. It was more for his own sake than the words he remembered you telling someone years ago ringing in his head.
“Ah-ah.” His voice came out rough with want, entirely at odds with his actions. “Your rule. Only one kiss after the first date. I’m trying —” he exhaled hard, almost dramatically, “— trying real hard here to make it to the second.”
“Huh?” Your eyes peeled open. “This was a date?”
“Best one you’ve had I’m guessing, with the way you’re breaking your rules.” His finger stayed right where it was, and he watched your eyes struggle to focus, still glassy from the kiss. He could feel the warm huff of breath breaking unsteady against his fingertip, could feel your mouth soft and parted underneath it, waiting on him.
You pressed a peck against his finger instead, your mouth barely dragging against his skin as a shy smile formed behind it that he felt more than saw. “Maybe.”
“Well, good.” He smiled, despite himself, and pushed himself off your forehead, opting instead to press his lips there. “Get some sleep,” he murmured against your hairline, lips lingering a little longer there. “Might be able to get a full seven hours.”
“Will you?”
“Doubt it.” He pulled back enough to look at you properly, thumb tracing a line along your cheekbone — his touch feather-light, tracking the exact curve of it, memorizing the route — before he made himself drop his hand entirely, fingers curling loosely at his sides because suddenly he had no idea what to do with them without you under them. “Kinda got a lot on my mind now.”
“Yeah?” You bit back a smile, still not quite steady on your feet. “Anything you wanna share with the class?”
“Not a chance.” He bent a fraction and hooked two fingers under the strap of your bag where it’d slid down to your elbow, dragging it slowly back up to your shoulders, knuckles grazing your arms the whole way. “You’ll find out. Eventually.”
He forced himself to step off the mat — one step back, then the second, putting real distance between you now — forcing ease into his expression that he definitely wasn’t feeling. He stopped a few feet away from you anyway, unable to fully commit to walking away, watching you stunned and still in your doorway, mouth a little kiss-soft. He felt so completely helpless and pleased at the sight. “Text me when you’re up and I’ll get to planning date two.”
You raised a hand into a wave, fingers curling in the air.
“Bye, Jack,” you said, and his name came out of your mouth softer than you probably meant it to, smooth and cushy the way it never sounded on shift.
He lifted his chin up at you once and made himself turn, finally, finding the path back to his car. He made it to the curb before he looked back again, and you were still standing there, one hand braced on the door, watching him go with an expression he was sure he was going to think of the entire drive home.
Description: Alexa, play ‘manchild’ by Sabrina. Or, 3 times Jack notices the incompetency of your new boyfriend and gets annoyed, and 1 time he does something about it.
Tags/warnings: big age gap (r is in 20's and abbot is 50), "ive got tattoos older than you" gets said, yes he has tats bcos i said so, size diff, mentions of concussion, medical inaccuracies (idk shit), (1) allusion to reader having a choking kink (💀), r has a used to have a massive crush on him, made ellis a lesbian bcos ofc, abbot life's goal is to make fun of r's bf, flirting (so much), bit of yearner!jack & dom!jack vibes, gets dialogue heavy at the end, angsty fights & confessions, suggestive themes, mentions of sex, sexual innuendos, i use loads of em dashes (dont even compare me to chatgpt bcos im better), pet names: kid, kiddo, sweetheart
Note: tysm for the love on my first ff, it means the world to me. Writing something longer made me lose all objectivity, and I genuinely cannot tell if it's good or great or whatever. Please give me feedback (PERSONALLY). Again, I tried to keep r neutral but you might see mentions of r having hair.
Enjoy. This is for the ones with a competency kink. And for the ones who def wanted him to call you “kid.” and the ones who love silver foxes (get checked) (ur girl incl)
1
“I told him not to take me here,” you mutter to Jack, who's checking for tenderness in your neck, his thick fingers pressing against the side, while you try not to think of his hands on your neck in a very different context.
“Let him. Something the boy can do right, hm?”
After checking for initial symptoms — making you walk in a straight line, and balancing yourself on a single foot, you're subjugated to the very hands-on physical examination. You're suddenly wondering how other patients remain composed when Dr. Abbot touches them like this.
Well, usually, attending physicians don't do a history check or a physical exam, but this one does. For you. Probably because you're his staff.
Focus.
You clock into the reality, realizing the dig he made at your “boy.”
“Yeah, she didn't wanna come, I kinda dragged her here. I was like, ‘babe, it may just be a light concussion but you're a nurse, not a doctor’ so, like, thanks, doc. We needed the big guns,” proudly speaks Noah standing against the wall, checking time on his phone for the 5th time since you've been in this room.
Jack's jaw tightens and he shoots him a look so dirty, Noah actually takes a step back.
“Watch it, kid, if it wasn't for nurses, American healthcare would be even fuckin’ worse.”
Abbot looks back at you, and raises an eyebrow as if to say “really? him?”
You should speak up in your boyfriend's defense, something — anything — to wipe that perceptive look on Jack's face, the smugness he isn't trying hard enough to hide. You might as well be in your birthday suit right now, for how bare you feel. How bare you always feel in his presence.
God knows how much you'd actually like to be — no, you have a boyfriend. A perfectly handsome, competent, and a caring one.
Handsome. Not rugged.
Competent. Doubtful.
Caring. Well, caring enough.
“Doctor Abbot…” you begin, voice stripped raw, breath coming uneasy, when his index brushes right over your thrumming pulse.
“Focus on the examination. Tsk, thought we taught you better here. Well, I at least did. Don't you agree, nurse?”
The air leaves your mouth in a little puff, leaving your throat dry, your lips soon following. You need a glass of —
“Need some water? You've been here a while,” Jack asks, tone becoming gravelly and intimate, eyebrows drawing closer seeing how pale you look.
He immediately turns to Noah — hands leaving your neck — without waiting for a response from you. His voice takes on its normal cadence. “Hey, son, grab her a bottle, would you? Vending machine is at the end of the corridor. Thanks.”
His ‘Thanks’ comes out in a slow drawl that makes you squirm in your seat.
Your attending has not even fully turned back to you yet, when your partner speaks up, “Uh, bottle of what?”
“A Pinot Noir, perhaps. Which one do you prefer?” His eyes find yours again, brows raising in deep amusement. Is he getting a kick out of humiliating your boyfriend — and by extension, you?
“Uh…” noah looks utterly confused. You feel almost bad for him. Almost.
“Water, son. Get your girl a bottle.” Noah makes a move to leave, complying immediately to the doctor. Has he ever even listened to you so quickly? God, men are such dicksuckers for each-other.
“A chapstick while you're at it, maybe,” Jack mutters, trying to keep the humour out of his voice. Noah stops in his tracks again, clearly deaf to the sarcasm.
Jack huffs. “Just go.”
You honestly don't understand why he dislikes Noah so much. You've only been dating him for 3 weeks.
Well.
Noah did try to make a “romantic” gesture by coming to pick you up from your shift. Except, he arrived an hour early as a “surprise” and cribbed because you couldn't leave early. And he did just undervalue your job as a nurse. And…of course, an hour ago, he accidentally hit you your head with a football while he was showing attempting a trick.
As Noah leaves, Jack lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Don't worry, I'll get you a chapstick,” he says, staring shamelessly at your trembling bottom-lip before making a slow way up again.
“Penlight. Incoming.”
You've barely had time to react when a sudden light shone in your eyes. Your face instinctively tries to move back, only to be stopped by a feather-light touch on your jaw. Jack's finger retracts as soon as it comes, leaving you starved for more. More than just the pad of his index.
You hold still for him, letting him sway the torch alternatively between your eyes. When the light is kept back with a soft clink, there are no more distractions as he stands up straight again.
The creases in his scrubs only increase when he folds his arms over his chest.
“So.” You mutter, your gaze trying to find something interesting on the floor.
“Nick seems like a good guy.”
“Noah.”
“Right. We should thank Nick for bringing you here right on time. Wouldn't wanna lose one of our best nurses.”
You scoff at his words. Your feet are moving in a slow back and forth rhythm, your eyes fixated on them.
“Let's not say things we don't mean for good staff satisfaction scores.”
“If you're trying to insult me by implying I care about that shit, good job. I'm slightly more offended than the time you implied I am too old for karaoke." He's slightly rocking himself back and forth on the balls of his feet.
“Didn't imply, actually. I think I was pretty direct.”
A huff of laughter leaves his lips. You don't want huffs or sarcastic laughs. You want his full belly-laugh. His happy laugh that you've only seen Robby drag out of him.
“I don't care about staff satisfaction scores,” he lightly shakes his head for a moment.
“Yes, you just sai —”
“Only care about yours.”
That makes you look up at him again with widened eyes and parted lips. Little shit, off-handedly throwing around words that gives you butterflies.
Dead butterflies, of course, just like your affections on him. Former crush. Yes.
You quickly regain your senses to retort.
“Satisfaction with your services? If so, thank you for checking me for a concussion.” The formality in your words completely betray the flush creeping up your cheeks.
“Of course, what else?” You hate the way he says your last name. The way it rolls off his tongue. The way it reeks of intent, and not casualty.
The sharp noise of metal rings dragging across a rod brings you out of your trance. Nic — Noah emerges from behind the privacy curtain, a bottle of water clutched in his right hand, and a simmering cup of black coffee in left. “Got you choices, babe.”
You smile thankfully at him, perhaps more grateful for the distraction. You extend your hand, your pointer gesturing at the water. You don't feel the same electricity when Noah's fingers brush against yours in the hand-off.
Jack takes a step back. He nods at you. “Rest. Hydrate. You know it.”
"Mhm, no big brain activity, limited screen time, don't avoid if symptoms worsen."
"Impressive. How does a civvie like you know the drill?" he asks, eyes widening in mock-surprise.
"Oh, I'm very smart. Could've easily been a nurse at your hospital," you can't help but smile.
"Shame. I'm sure you would've been terrific."
He nods at your boyfriend next, “Nick.”
“Uh, it's actually Noa —” but Jack's right hand has already caught the edge of the curtain, swiftly pulling it out of his way, and disappearing shortly after.
“She prefers lattes, by the way.”
2
Bzzzzzzz
“Doctor Ellis, I didn't know you allowed your staff to bring phones in a trauma bay. I would've brought mine to play some music while we inserted a chest tube inside this man.”
Ellis only grunts, too focused on work at hand.
Your cheeks heat at Doctor Garcia's comment, feeling the loud buzz against your thigh for the nth time today.
“I'm sorry — ” you had only just begun when Dr. Abbot's voice cut in, deadpan and dry.
“Yolanda, you listen to music?”
“Doesn't everyone?”
“Yeah, well, normal people do. Why?”
Garcia's sharp glare to the attending does nothing to his demeanor. His hands — controlled, precise, and so fucking practiced — don't stop for even a fraction of a second.
“Not everyone can have eccentric hobbies like nude yoga, Dr. Rabbit.”
Nude yoga? Nude? You force your mind to not conjure up an image of that. Especially not with your attending — who you have used to have a schoolgirl crush on — as the main character. Or, you'll be the one on the operation table instead of observing, breaking out in hives.
“I'm sorry, Dr. Garcia,” you complete.
“Apologise to the man on the table; It's not my life on line. No matter how much I wish whenever I work with you boy scouts.” You always cringe at the bluntness in her tone, but it's worse when directly aimed at you.
“Easy, Garcia,” Jack commanded, tone instantly gaining its authority, pausing a moment to shoot her a look. Yolanda doesn't deter, and two of your most-respected, highly-competent seniors seem to engage in a silent eye-conversation. It ends with a twitch of Garcia's lips as she glances at you, and your attending muttering, “shut it.”
Huh, Strange.
***
The biohazard bin shuts with a snap, and you rub your clammy hands, trying to get the feel of rubber gloves off them. Trauma bays are always stress-inducing, no matter —
Bzzzzzzzzz.
You're about to kill someone tonight. It's gonna be your boyfriend. And you're gonna enjoy it. And you're gonna go online, talk about it, and watch a number of supportive women tell you, “I support your rights, but also your wrongs. You go, bitch.”
The constant vibration against your thigh, the baby crying in pedes, and looking like a fool in a trauma bay…you heave a sigh. Has the ED always been so bright? It's like the lights are directly in your eyes.
You hate loud. So much.
You un-pocket your phone, letting it unlock before you start typing furiously, your mouth instinctively murmuring everything you're typing. Your feet carry you forward, muscle memory taking you to a quiet corner, where you can peacefully argue. And bang your head against the wall, if you're lucky. But you're not sure if there's a staff discount at The Pitt. And frankly, you're already struggling with rent and groceries.
Look at you being fiscally responsible.
“Fuck, sorry,” leaves your mouth as soon as you accidentally collide with someone. A single calloused palm settles on your hip, steadying you.
Your lips part to say something, but no words come out. It seems the entirety of blood in your body has rushed towards your hip to greet Dr. Abbot's hand, before it retracts.
“Been apologising a lot today. Forgot your training or have you rejoined pre-school?” His body moves to your front, effectively blocking the view of rapid-paced staff, and people in wheelchairs and gurneys.
“Just…one rookie mistake after another.” Your body sags sideways, taking support of the wall. As if on instinct, his posture mirrors yours, his entire side leaning against the wall as well. You deposit your phone back in your pocket.
“For what it's worth, you started out not too long ago. You are, technically, still a rookie,” he speaks.
In this slow corner, the lights seem dimmer and noise quieter. Your shoulders drop just a bit. You're not sure if it's the location or him. Your bet is on location.
You wonder how you must look to the others, a junior nurse and the person with the most seniority on this floor, tucked away in a hushed hallway. What would they think of you? Certainly not co-workers.
Your lips curl in a tired, soft smile. “Trying to make me feel better again, sir?”
“Trying to tell you trauma surgeons have a permanent stick up their ass. Shen and I have bets on whether she lives in an ice castle or a secluded cave.”
Your smile grows bigger, and his eyes crinkle. “It's not just her. In fact, I admire women with a mean mouth.”
“Only women?”
“Men already are. I can't think of any situations where they'd need to be more mean.”
“I can think of a few,” his voice dips even lower, rocks coated in honey. Your eyes find the fluttering pulse on his throat, and travel up his face, to find his gaze fixated on your lips. He looks up again. Slowly. Not in a rush.
In this low-lit corner and his head tilted down to adjust to your height, his curls — salt and pepper and presumably soft — brushed his forehead, creating shadows across his face.
You clear your throat, trying to erase some of the tension. “It's Noah. You met him the other day, if you haven't forgotten."
“Oh, I tried.”
You click your jaw, “He's a nice guy, sir.”
“Uh-huh. Is he blowing up your phone? What's wrong?” His brows furrow in concern, and you find his worry comforting. You're about to open your mouth to explain —
“Did he forget his Roblox password?”
You slightly shake your head, looking down at his shoes. “You…Dr. Abbot,” you trail off, looking up at him again to see the corner of his mouth twitching, eyes wide as if he's seriously expecting an answer.
“How do you even know what that is? And no, that's not it. He…sprained his ankle, hewasdoingaparkourjump,” you mumble the last part as quickly as you can, cheeks heating and eyes wandering.
Jack pauses, expression caught somewhere between humour and exasperation, “Wow, didn't know your boy was still in middle school. Tell me, were you trying to find a boyfriend or a son?”
You throw your head back, a light groan escaping your mouth. While you rub your eyes, you feel your attending move. After a second, he has a bottle of water in his hand.
You give him a look of gratitude and hold your fingers out. But before passing it to you, he twists off the cap with ease. For a moment, you let yourself enjoy the sight of his biceps straining against his scrub top.
You empty almost half the bottle, throat working the liquid down, flushed under the heavy gaze of the man standing in front of you who is currently shamelessly oggling your neck. He's quick to take the bottle off your hands once you're done.
You mutter a quiet “Thanks.” He holds out his free hand forward. You shoot him a confused look, your fingers come up, hovering centimeters away from his palm.
Does he want you to hold…?
“Your phone, nurse.”
Your eyes blink, realisation creeping with a smudge of cringe, “Oh, that makes more sense. Yeah.” But the embarrassment is quick to vanish when you think about what he said.
“What? No. I feel naked without my phone on me.”
His eyes drop to your chest the moment the word “naked” leaves your mouth. You're not sure you've stopped blushing in the last 2 minutes.
“You're not a teenager.”
“Well, I love my phone like one,” you defensively say, standing up straighter. Your right hand moves towards your pocket to protect your mobile.
Abbot rumbles your last name like a warning, his husky voice settling low in your belly, and your traitorous hand is fishing the phone out without a conscious thought.
Before you can even hand it to him, he slightly bends, prying it out of your fingers.
“Now, I feel like a teenager,” you pout.
He uses her corner of your phone to tap against your nose, “Then don't make me go all authoritative on you again, kid.”
With that, he pockets your phone and walks away. You watch him twist the cap off the bottle again and drink directly from the mouth of it. The mouth you just had your own lips wrapped around.
Kid.
You need a chair.
3
“Okay, instead of using this job as an excuse for a sad dating life, how about you guys just admit…y'all got no game,” Mateo knocks back the last sip of his drink, making this very, very bold claim.
“First of all, nobody was talking about dating life. We were talking about sex. Forget dates, when was the last time any of you got laid?” Ellis asks, using her glass to gesture vaguely around the table, a few droplets falling on the wood.
Your shift was hell. Well, everyone's was. Really, every shift is hell, so this one was no different. The only thing was that today, everyone decided to grab a drink. Not in the nearest park, no. Instead, they're all here, the nearest bar that's open at a time when a person should be doing a morning walk, not shots.
You're tucked between Mateo on your left and Jack on your right, in a worn-out brown leather booth, with Shen and Ellis across the table.
“I don't feel comfortable talking about the personal details of my married life with my colleagues,” replied Shen, sadly nodding his head.
Jack's voice, raspy from his whiskey, cuts in, “Oh, shut it, Shen.”
“I'd say 6 weeks since we slept together,” Shen gave up quickly. A series of sympathetic groans and nods went around the table.
Mateo juts his chin towards Ellis, raising his brows. “Hooked up with someone last week. Left before she woke up,” replied the woman.
“Didn't know you were a player, doc,” laughs your fellow nurse, before his head turns to you. “And you? Come on, we're the youngest and hottest, we gotta rub it in their faces. Besides, you have, uh, what's his name...”
You laugh nervously, tracing the rim of your glass with your index. While everyone’s lazy and heavy-lidded all around, you feel Abbot's fervent gaze burning a hole into the side of your head.
“Noah. And hate to disappoint, but it's been some while,” you admit. Not being able to hold back any longer, you finally turn your head to the right. Not taking his eyes off you, your attending takes a long sip of his whiskey.
“How much is a while?”
This is inappropriate. Your attending physician shouldn't be asking you this, you're sure of it. But nobody but you looks alarmed.
“I would say…none of your business, doc,” you softly murmur, the liquid courage making your tongue sharper.
“And what about you Dr. Abbot?” Mateo jumps in again.
It's your turn to look at Jack with the same intense gaze. He doesn't take his eyes off you, “been a while for me too,” he mutters so low, like he's only referring to you.
You lose. You lose the staring contest and let your eyes fall back to your glass. Thank god, you have some of your drink still left.
“Why, is it…old man stuff?” Mateo asks, and your eyes widen at his question. You bite the inside of your cheek to hold back your laugh. Ellis's rich chuckle fills the quiet bar. You finally bring your cup to your lips.
“I'm an attending, Mateo. We're always at the very top of our performance. Here to serve well. In or out of trauma bays.”
Your drink goes down the wrong pipe, and you break out into a violent cough. Why would he say it like that? You're pretty sure you look like a tomato.
You feel a strong hand on your back, beginning to rub small circles through the thin fabric of your shirt. “Easy,” Jack whispers into your right ear.
Is nobody watching this?
You look around to see Shen, Ellis, and Mateo have deeply engrossed themselves in a completely different conversation. You wonder for a second if it's intentional.
His heavy hand stops rubbing, instead patting the small of your back softly and rhythmically. Your coughs start dying down, and you wipe the underside of your watery eyes with your knuckle.
“Have trouble swallowing, kiddo?” His voice is right next to your ear, every breath rustling a tiny bit of your hair.
Oh. Oh. OH.
“Think I need some air, sir,” you mutter, voice dried. You feel floaty, and it has nothing to do with alcohol.
Jack rises from his seat with a low grunt, “Think we're gonna step outside for a moment,” he announces.
You quickly follow suit and walk out after him before you can see anyone's expressions. You're pretty sure you hear Shen's giggle.
***
You welcome the morning chill that greets your face as soon as you step out, double doors falling shut behind you. You close your eyes, tilting your head upwards, and take a deep breath, easing the night's tension out of your body.
“Hot date yesterday?” You're quickly brought back to reality, turning sideways. Abbot has his hands in pocket and hair ruffled from the wind.
“Oh, uh, yes. How'd you guess?”
“You clocked in yesterday wearing something…different.” His eyes drop to your chest, before lingering on your lips, and then meeting your eyes again.
Your cheeks burn. You didn't realise he saw you in your fancy clothes. It was bad enough that you were running late, and worse that you didn't get to change before clocking in with your date outfit still on.
“Yeah. Noah took me to dinner. I just signed a new lease. I'm moving out of my current dumphole to another dumphole, but it's nearer to work. So.”
“Congratulations, glad to have you close.”
“Thanks, sir.”
A comfortable silence falls over for a minute before he speaks again, “was the place nice and quiet?”
“Hm?”
“Where he took you. Nick.”
“Ah. No. It's kinda trendy right now, so, super loud…” you trail off with a sigh. Jack keeps looking at you, as if wanting you to say more, as if finally expecting you to spill the truth out: Noah doesn't know you.
“Hm. Didn't peg you for a gold person, either.”
“What?”
He gestures with his chin towards your neck, where a sliver of chain is peeking out from under your shirt. A new one, gold colored, gifted by your boyfriend yesterday.
“I'm an anything person, really.”
Jack doesn't say anything, only waits. And this time, it works.
“Well, silver, if I had to pick. I like silver,” you speak, your voice bordering on a whisper.
Jack finally stops looking at you, and with that, you finally breathe. He casts his gaze towards the sky.
“I know.”
He says your name.
Your first name that he rarely says. Your heart stutters. Every bit of fresh air you inhaled seems to leave your lungs all at once. Instead, a family of butterflies — so fucking alive — have swarmed in there, rendering you speechless.
Please say my name again.
“I know, kid.”
“I'm not a kid, Jack.” For a second, you watch his eyes get darker. He takes a step closer to you. Then another.
You crane your neck to look up at him. Suddenly, he turns his back to you. One of his hands peeks from his side, and tugs at the lower back of his shirt, pushing it down by an inch or two.
You stand confused, until you notice faint black ink — now visible — just below his neck. You suck in a sharp breath.
By the time Jack turns towards you again, you're barely holding yourself up. He leans forward, his nose only inches away from yours.
“I've got tattoos older than you,” he breathes, “kiddo.”
Your knees turn to jelly. A sharp heat travels straight into your belly, increasing the buzz between your legs. Your lips part, teeth sinking into your plush lower lip.
You can only numbly turn your body towards the door as he holds it open for you. There's not a hint of teasing or smugness in his expression. There is something else, though.
Desperation.
You walk in through the gate, mind already trying to think of a reason to break up with Noah. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it finds plenty.
+1
“Oh, honey, just take this right now. The doctor has told your mom the rest. You're gonna be just fine!” You give your brightest smile to the 6 year-old girl, looking all sad and tiny on the gurney.
You stand up straight again, your back protesting. For someone still “young”, you definitely have an old-person back.
The mom gives you a thankful smile that still doesn't hide her tiredness, “Thank you so much.”
“She's gonna be alright, mom.” You flash one last smile and turn to pull the privacy curtain. When you step out, you see Lena, your charge nurse, and Jack in a conversation at the charge nurse station.
Lena calls out to you, “All done in there, hun?” You nod and give a thumbs-up. You expect your attending to say something, a joke, or even glance at you, but he doesn't.
Your heart sinks. After the morning at the bar, you went home and planned how to break-up with your boyfriend. On the other hand, Jack apparently went home and came up with, “10 ways on how I will ignore my co-worker who I occasionally flirt with on purpose.”
For the past week, there have been no lingering looks, no cornering you to check in, and no making fun of you.
No point in dwelling. You start going on about your usual business, entering through another curtain, all while the back of your mind still calculates how to leave Noah.
You had prepared your speech and your reasons. But then, Noah lost his job the same day you were planning to have the talk. And 2 days later, he was leaving to visit his parents in California. Shouldn't you just wait until after the trip? It will be so much easier.
Yes, you're definitely delaying it because it makes sense, and not because you're scared that Noah will absolutely take it the wrong way. He's been miserable lately as is, and while you were trying to be sympathetic, you couldn't find it in yourself.
Noah had always been unobservant and insensitive to your needs, not doing anything till he's told. All while, he expected it all from you — emotional support, moral support, and now, financial support. You saw nothing wrong with being “needy” but didn't you deserve the same treatment from him?
As you leave another exam room, still conflicted, you see Lena waving you over, the telephone receiver pressed against her ear. You quickly walk over.
Lena brings down the handset, palming the mouthpiece so the other person can't hear. “Sweets, it's your boyfriend, he's all panicking over something. Do you wanna take this, or should I make an excuse?”
The color from your face drains. This is humiliating, Noah calling at your work because he can't take care of himself. You quickly un-pocket your phone, tapping the screen awake.
9 missed calls from Noah.
“Uh, I'll take it. Thank you, Lena. Sorry too.” She gives you a sympathetic smile and hands you the handset.
“Noah, you can't be calling me at work.” You whisper into the mouthpiece.
“Babe, did you think I wanted to? I called your phone like 3 times, but you didn't pick it up. It feels like you're ignoring me.”
“It's because I am ignoring you. I am at a fucking hospital, working the emergency department,” your voice is straining with the effort to keep it low.
“Oh, I knew you'd throw your job in my face because I'm unemployed. You're a nurse, not a doctor, babe. See, I remember things.”
You take a deep breath.
“What do you want?”
“I locked myself out of my house. The locksmith will come by in the morning. Can you swing by and drop your keys? You know, I lost my license recently, and my ankle is still not good enough to take the subway.”
“No.”
“Jesus, I'm stranded, just be a good girlfriend for once.”
That sends you over the edge. You put the telephone down with more than necessary force, cringing when a few people turn to look at you.
“Fuck,” you mutter under your breath, tears of frustration welling up in your eyes.
“You okay, kid?” Lena asks sweetly, coming to stand closer to you. You're only able to nod at her. If you open your mouth, your voice will break. When your charge nurse finally steps away, you clear your throat, and blink back your tears.
When you look up with clear eyes, there's Dr. Abbot standing about 20 feet away from you, in a conversation with a nurse that he's not listening to. Because he's looking directly at you.
You quickly move your head, “Lena, mind if I take 5?”
“Take 10, hun.” You flash her a grateful smile and start walking towards the supply closet.
You twist the doorknob and walk into what must be a 6×6 feet room, and close the door behind you. Your phone is still in your hand, clutched tightly enough to be used as a weapon. You open Noah's chat.
This isn't working out. When the locksmith figures out your door, pack my things in a box and leave them outside my door. Have fun folding your own bedsheets. I'm changing my Netflix password!
Your thumb hovers over the send button. Is the message too unkind? Too cruel for you? You drop the phone in your pocket, with the text still sitting there.
You force yourself to take deep breaths, pressing the heel of your hands against your eyes, turning around to face the organized racks.
“Fuck, fuck, fuc —”
The door slams open, and then shuts behind you, making you jump around, your hands falling to your chest.
“Jesus, Jack.”
“Did you forget your manners?” His voice comes out stern, low enough to drop the temperature of the room.
Your hands fall to your side. You're not in the mood for this. You don't want him in here, no matter how quickly your body is gaining color in his presence.
“What do you want, sir?” your question comes out breathless.
“You know, we pay you to work, not to hide in supply closets when you have fights with your childish boyfriend.”
“I asked Lena first, and I should be out in 5.”
“A patient can need you in 1,” he deadpans.
“Good thing there's Mateo and a bunch of fucking nurses already out there! I'm not the only one, sir,” you frantically wave your hands around, voice rising in pitch.
“Yeah, you're the only one yelling at your attending,” he leans back against the door, looking like he's enjoying a goddamn show. His calm pisses you off even more.
In your frazzled state, the true words spill out before you can filter them.
“Yes, my attending who has spent the last couple of days icing me out, keeping his distance, like I broke into his house and stole his leg.”
He's eyeing your motioning hands cutting through the air. You must look like the crazy one, while he stands there all frickin’ composed, his lips twitching.
“That's dark. And I'm your attending, nurse, as you mentioned. I'm not your boyfriend,” he shakes his head slowly like he's talking to a dog.
“I know that. Do you?”
“Oh, I know I'm not Nick,” he snickers.
“FOR THE LAST —” your voice booms throughout the small room before you stop yourself. You pinch your nose, chest heaving up and down.
Deep breaths. In and out. You're not the only two people in the hospital, no matter how much it feels like that.
Nurse, there's people that are dying.
“For the last time, his name is Noah,” you calmly say, voice shaking with the effort of controlling your pitch.
“Right, sorry. I just forgot because he forgot to fill his name out on your discharge papers when he brought you in. It's okay, children make mistakes like that all the time. Even when the forms are very easy to navigate, and the font size is very large,” Jack mocks, laughing sardonically.
“Why do you care so much?”
“Don't flatter yourself, sweetheart. I care about all my staff.”
Sweetheart.
“You're killing me.”
“Trauma bay 1 is empty,” he deadpans, shrugging his shoulders.
A humorless laugh escapes you. Oh, he thinks he's so funny.
“Staff. Is that what I am? Then why do you look at me differently than you look at others? Why do you catch me in the hallways? Why are you always seeking me out? Why have you not walked out of this —”
You flinch at the sudden motion, hand moving towards your temple where something just knocked against it. You look down, where a box maybe twice the size of your hand, lies on the ground.
The rack behind you is still vibrating from when your right arm collided with it 2 seconds ago. You shouldn't have been waving your arms around so much.
“Ow,” you mutter, the heel of your impacted hand rubbing your temple, and eyes downcasted at the box, looking at it like it personally wronged you. Which it did.
Jack quickly moves towards you, his left hand shooting up to take hold of your fingers that are kneading your head — same fingers that smashed against the rack — and brings your conjoined hands down.
“Careful. Are you hurt?” With only inches between you, he bends his head down to examine where you took the hit. His free palm brushes your hair back gently, and you shiver at the touch of his warm skin.
Trapped between your torsos, your hands are still joined, his thumb stroking against your knuckles to soothe any pain you felt on the impact.
“I asked you something, kid.”
You've lost your voice. You look from your connected fingers to his eyes.
And, oh.
His eyes have softened, looking at you with concern. This man sees lacerations, head traumas, hematomas, and fractures every single day. You've never seen him look this worried, and all for a pathetic clash that didn't even leave a bruise behind.
He switches positions with you, and suddenly, his back faces the shaky rack, his form protectively towering over yours. All of your body protests when he moves back, his hands dropping to his own sides.
“You can continue yelling at me now.”
In and out. Deep breath.
“Why have you not walked out of this room yet? And why have you kept me at an arm's distance?” you say but your voice is anything but loud, it's small and quiet, breaking at the end.
“As I said —”
“Stop, stop, stop. Stop, Dr. Abbot, and don't lie to me.” You instinctively take a step forward, closing all the distance again.
A pause.
“I really thought you were gonna break up with him. That morning, I thought you finally regained your senses, and were gonna cut off the dead weight,” he admits, running a hand through his hair.
“Jac —”
“Shut up and let me speak. I thought you were gonna end it with him, and you would come to the next shift looking happy and bright again. Just like you used to before you let that boy date you. You.”
His eyes are boring into yours, and he looks breathless and affected, so opposite to how he was just a minute ago.
“Me? What about me?”
He laughs humourlessly, “let's not fish for compliments. You know what you are. And if you don't, it makes me wonder what kind of limpdicks you have been with.”
You suck in a sharp breath, at a loss of words. Your cheeks burn, and your heart does a backflip.
He thinks that?
Jack turns around, so his back is facing you. Both his hands brush his hair back, and you can see the expansion and contraction of his back as he takes deep breaths.
“What if I had broken up? Nothing would've changed. It's not like you would've done anything. You would've continued to eye-fuck me across gurneys, and flash a smile once a day,” you speak up, voice rising in pitch again.
He turns back sharply, walking even closer to you, his chest colliding with yours.
“Oh, you know it's more complicated than that,” he retorts, eyes narrowing.
“What? You're my senior, you're older —”
He says your name. Low. Authoritative. You feel a traitorous sensation between your thighs.
“I'm not just older, I am old. Period. And I know just how old I am, because I feel it everyday when I strap my leg, and wake up with a new pain every day."
You don't know how to respond. Your gaze falls to his lips, and before you know what you're doing, you're withdrawing your phone from your pocket.
You take a tiny step back to make space, and tap your screen awake. It directly opens to Noah's chat, your message still sitting there in the type box.
You turn your screen towards Jack. His eyes move back and forth, reading your draft. When his eyes meet you again, they're intense, frantic, and what do you know…excited.
“Why haven't you sent it?”
“Because he's already going through a lot. He doesn't have a job, or a car, or…okay, I get it.”
Jack's fingers come up to grab your chin, holding it up. He looks like he's just had a shot of espresso and topped it off with another 3.
“Do it. Do it right now, in front of me, or you'll chicken out. He lost his job, his car, the next thing he loses is you. The one that's worth the most.”
With his breathless voice, taking the edge of desperation as every second ticks, you know you've lost. You bite your bottom lip.
His thumb moves from your chin, to your lower lip, freeing it from your teeth, “don't worry yourself over him.”
Deep breath. In and out.
You slowly look down at your screen, your thumb hovering over the little arrow.
Send.
You put the mobile back in your pocket and look up at Jack with hope, like a kid waiting for approval. Jack flashes you the biggest smile you've ever seen on him.
You did that. You.
“You did so good, sweetheart,” his thumb strokes your cheekbone, and you can't help but lean into his palm. You're high watching him smile, a similar one takes form on your lips.
He's so beautiful. He's the most beautiful man you've ever seen. He should be on TV, winning Emmy's for his grin.
But then you falter, “My…my minutes are up.”
“You can take another 5,” his face leans closer, and the tip of your nose kisses his.
“Patient might need me in 1,” you helplessly whisper, your breaths mingling.
“Well, consider me a patient, then. Your patient.”
You gulp. Your knees are growing weaker by the second and you can't stop staring at his soft lips. You let out a little pathetic whimper before lifting your chin, brushing your lips against his softly.
Fuck.
Your heart tries to escape your ribcage, palm operating with a brain of its own and landing right over his heart. His fluttering, excited, nervous heartbeat greets you, and your lips curve upwards.
Just as you try to move your lips against his —
“Not like this,” he murmurs against your mouth.
You let out an entirely pathetic whine, forehead crashing against his neck with a soft thunk. Your affectionate graze on his sternum turns into a punch — also, pathetic — and it makes him chuckle.
“How, then?” your mutter into his neck.
His arm comes around your waist, holding you up for him so you can let your weight go. His arm tightens as soon as he feels you melt.
“When I'll get you all the silver jewelry in the world,” he breathily replies in your ear.
“That's a lot.”
“What can I say? I like paying for things.”
His free fingers travel to the back of your neck, deftly working the hook of your golden chain with a single hand. You catch as the necklace falls down your chest, reluctantly taking your face out from his neck.
Note to self: Ask him what perfume he uses later.
“One hand, wow.”
“A lot of things I can unhook with one hand.”
He captures your wrist that you've held against his chest — index hatefully scratching, trying to harm him for not kissing you — and brings it to his lips.
He doesn't break eye-contact when he kisses the inside of your wrist. Then the middle of your palms, and finally the tips of your fingers.
You're grateful for his arm around your middle, otherwise you'd be on the floor, shrieking and screaming.
“Don't want to see that on you again,” he points with his chin towards your fist with the necklace inside it.
“Yes, doctor.”
He nods, heat swimming in his gaze. He finally extracts his arm from around your midriff, using it to pull out your phone from your pants and swiftly slipping it in his.
“No more worrying, hm? In return…” He empties his other pocket, taking out a set of keys. He brings your palm down from his face and puts them in it.
“Sit in my car at the end of the shift. You know which one. Turn the heating on, and wait for me,” he raises his eyebrows, awaiting confirmation.
“Yes, okay,” you gulp, closing your other fist as well. One holds your past, another, your future. Or, so you hope.
“Yes, what?” he asks, already side-stepping you and moving towards the door.
“Yes, doctor”
“Good girl,” he shoots you a wink, the door falling shut behind him.
Look at that, your 10 minutes are up.
I enjoyed writing this sm, and i hope you lovely people do too. again, feel free to glaze me in asks, comments, and dms. likes and reblogs appreciated much <3 i also need to know if yall blushed reading this, if yes, WHEN
Aerion Targaryen x fem!knight!reader (I made up a random last name for the reader so there would be something after Ser- it's Wyght, not a real Westerosi house. No physical descriptors except she’s taller than Aerion.)
Overview: You forged your own path through Westeros with honor and steel. And when you reached the Stormlands, it was Lyonel Baratheon who saw the fighter within you— who granted you your knighthood. And it was that damnable Baratheon who got you in the lists to fight the Dragon Prince at Ashford.
Aerion doesn’t like being bested, but it’s certainly more interesting when it’s a woman beating him bloody in the mud.
Mdni: p in v, slight fem!dom themes, relatively aggressive between them
wc: 14k
a/n: No, I don’t forgive Aerion for what he did to Egg, but I’m going through a Finn Bennett thing and needed to get this out. I also just needed to write a fic where Aerion gets his ass handed to him by a woman taller than he is
Also, Baelor doesn’t die because that man is too fucking fine.
Lyonel had pulled strings to get you here. For what, you do not know. Perhaps he wants a show. He wants to see the lowborn knight he plucked and groomed show a Targaryen what true brutality tastes like. Or, perhaps, there is no reasoning behind anything the Laughing Storm does.
He is chaos incarnate. And a part of that chaos is you.
The woman he knighted. The she-beast he helped cultivate so you could show men the many faces of a woman’s ferocity. Now, here you were, a simple tourney in Ashford. One attended by the royal family.
One where your hip perches your lance, and you find yourself staring down the demonic visage of Prince Aerion Targaryen’s helm.
“The prince does not fight fair,” Lyonel had told you while you’d been preparing yourself for the joust. The one meant for high-borns, not some lowly scum like you. “You must prepare yourself for any dirty tricks he might throw at you. Ignore his title, ignore his blood. He is nothing more than another opponent to you.”
Nothing more than the man who thinks himself a dragon trapped within mortal flesh. Nothing more than a prince who could end your life with a flick of his hand if he so wished it. You let out a rough sigh, slamming the visor of your helm down. Your breath rattles through your armor, coaxes down your arms to that violent tremble in your hands.
You want to pass it off as nothing more than pre-fight adrenaline. But you know yourself better than that. You’ve never been so nervous like this. But you’ve also never unseated any nobility except Lyonel himself.
Why had he done this? Why had he moved your name up the lists, put you smack in the middle of nobility and royalty? A Fossoway should be jousting the Dragon Prince today, not you. That damnable Baratheon has left you with no other choice but to go forward.
To forfeit now would be to prove every man who ever doubted you right.
Your mare grows unsettled beneath you, hooves digging into the mud as she huffs impatiently. You push forward, stopping at the end of the fence. He sits across from you, lance perched on his hip, same as you. But you can feel that stare, like dragonfire; it melts through your armor, pierces through your body and soul.
Whatever ill words you might have to spare about spoiled nobility, you would not dare say there is a Targaryen who does not fight like a dragon reborn. Well, except perhaps for that drunken one, Daeron.
Your breath echoes through your helm, burns at your eyes as the horn sounds. Lyonel’s warning rings through your ears as your mare charges forth. Your gaze drops to the Prince’s lance, and you gasp, just barely jerking your steed out of the way before the tip of his weapon pierces through her neck.
Your lance barely brushes against his shield as his passes along your leg. Fury rages hot under your skin, burns at you until you think it might heat the metal of your armor. You tug on the reins of your horse, quickly steering her back around.
He does not wait for the horn to blow once more; he’s already charging forth, lance aimed straight for your chest. You squeeze your legs around your steed, urging her forward. The crowd’s roaring is drowned out by the pounding in your chest– raging like the drums of war in your ears.
Your lance slams into his chest, splinters against his armor, and snaps in half. His own lands firmly against your side, ripping the air from your lungs. Your mare continues riding forth, but your legs fly up from her sides. Your body is in the air a moment before you’re slammed harshly into the mud.
That was it. Two turns and he has already unseated you.
Your fingers twitch at your sides, body prone as you try to earn your breath back. Through the din of your own surging blood, you hear it. A sharp voice, screaming over the roar of the crowd. It sounds like that little squire you had met only a day past.
“Get up, Ser! Get up!”
Your eyes roll in your head as you jerk up, glaring through the thin slit of your visor. The prince is in the mud, his steed gone. You’d both unseated each other. Your feet slip against the mud as you rush to stand, reaching for the sword at your side.
He comes to realize the same as you, just as you’re unsheathing your weapon.
With both unseated, there is no choice but to brawl. In the mud, beneath this thick fog, with nothing but a screaming crowd all around you, shoving at the fence posts. You have no house name for them to shout, and your sigil is nothing more than a falcon you’d painted on your shield.
But it is not the dragon they scream for, the man who would have killed your horse rather than offer a fair fight.
He has gotten to his feet just as you launch yourself over the fencing, bearing down on him with whatever fury is left pumping through your veins. He barely has time to draw his sword– just managing to throw it up in time to deflect your blow. Sparks fly up from the clash of metal as he shoves you back.
Your greaves slip along the mud as you shake your head, trying to clear the mud from your eyes that had slipped beneath your helm. With little other choice, you reach up, ripping it from your head. You can finally see more than just a foot in front of you.
But the leather tie keeping your hair at bay has been lost somewhere during the joust. It spills freely in front of your face. The Prince does the same, ripping off his own helm. His eyes narrow, lips parting as the briefest display of shock shows on his face.
You can hear the crowd react, their shouting dimming as they realize it is not a man who they had been cheering on. Now, here is the question: Do they cheer for a fellow small folk commoner? Or cheer their Dragon Prince on so he might show you what a real knight looks like?
You don’t allow him to process who– what he is fighting. You’re already charging forth, sword raised high. He ducks beneath your swing, quick as a viper as he whips around, sword scraping against the back of your armor. You grunt, jerking forward as you turn back around.
He’s fast, lithe, and serpentine in his motions. Each of your blows is deflected or dodged, with one quickly returned to you. You barely have a moment to leap out of his reach, your armor weighing you down as the mud sucks you deeper into the earth.
The clashing of your swords sings– echoing throughout the field as the people watch with rapt breaths and subdued cheers. They do not know who they wish to see win now. Too many in the crowd would feel themselves grow weaker if they watched you– a woman– defeat their prince.
For once, though, you do not feel hesitation from your opponent. There is no poor attempt at chivalry that weakens their resolve and allows for an easier defeat for you. He is bearing down on you with lips pulled back, sharp teeth shown like a wild animal.
Each blow is devastating. It dents your best armor. Metal that pales in comparison to his own because you can afford no better. His sword cuts close to your neck, and you have only a moment to dodge out of the way, planting your foot on his chest and shoving him back.
His sword lifts, just enough to slice against the back of your hand. You let out a sharp hiss, weapon dropping to the mud as blood pools from the wound. That should be enough to have you disqualified. But his own sword has fallen from his hand, sliding into the mud.
Your eyes widen, and you don’t allow him to retrieve it. You throw aside all dignity, all knightliness, and pounce on him. Your knees bracket his hips as you bring your hand down across his face. His hands skate down his body, and you don’t see the dagger he’s unsheathed until he’s stabbing it into the side of your armor.
You nearly screech, breath ripped from your lungs as you feel the warmth of your blood pour from the wound. He bucks his hips up, flipping you over and ripping the dagger from your side. He bears down on you, arms raised high– and you are desperate. You punch forward, metal-cloaked hand slamming into his throat.
He gasps, eyes bulging as he sucks in a rasping breath. You reach up, hands wrapping around his neck as you roll him onto his back. Your legs pin his arms down as you draw your fist back, slamming your gauntlet into the side of his face.
“Yield,” you growl out, watching his skin split around the metal of your armor.
His eyes are wild, Targaryen fire burning through the irises as he gives you a bloody grin. “No,” he hisses, back, reaching for that damnable dagger again. It is only adrenaline that keeps you going, you’re certain. It is the only reason you remain standing as your blood sinks into the mud below, forever a part of the Ashford grounds.
You bring your fist down once more, hand still tight around his throat. There is a manic edge to the curl of his lips. Something desperate, something unsure because no one has ever dared to brawl with a prince in the mud. Not like this. But there’s something else. This wicked glint in his eyes that makes your stomach turn.
As you split the skin of his cheek, teeth bared savagely, he almost seems to enjoy it.
His flesh has grown bloodied and mottled; you draw your arm back once more, and then the horns are sounding. “Enough!”
The crowd silences, and your head whips up. Mud has sunk into the strands of your hair, weighing them down as they hang matted around your eyes. You’re sure you look every bit the wild animal as you straddle the prince, covered in mud and your and his blood.
Maekar stands from his chair, glaring down at the match. “Enough!” he calls again. Your arm drops to your side as you slowly release the prince. He jumps to his feet immediately, blade of his dagger shining at his side.
You almost think he’s going to charge you again when Prince Baelor speaks. “Ser Wyght has been deemed the victor of this match,” he declares. Hesitant to let you both continue. Perhaps it’s for the best. You don’t need a Targaryen’s life on your hands.
Aerion’s face falls, a quiet fury brewing beneath his expression as he turns toward his family. Betrayal lines every angry tremor of his shoulders and shuddering breath. Someone runs past him, grabs your hand and holds it in the air, displaying the victor for the smallfolk to see. A horn blows behind you, and the Dragon Prince storms off the field.
It is only when he is gone from your sight that you feel yourself slump. The pain suddenly registers within your weakened body. You let out a low groan, ripping your hand from the grasp of the other man as you clutch the weeping wound at your side. You might have won, but Aerion certainly put up a better fight than any other man you’ve faced.
He’d almost had you, with that dirty trick of his. He seemed unprepared for the raw, desperate urge of a woman fighting tooth and nail to survive. A Dragon he might be, but he does not know what it means to survive rather than live.
“The knight who defeated a Targaryen!” Lyonel boasts loud and proud as you enter his pavilion that night. You grimace at the cheering that greets you, limping past his nobility and toward him. They offer you hearty slaps on the back, jolting the stitches the maester had fixed you with that afternoon.
You suck in a sharp breath, bearing it with a grin, unwilling to show them how your head is thrumming with pain. It is evenfall now, long past the fight, but you still cannot catch your breath. Your sternum is bruised, the right side of your face mottled from Aerion’s blows. You are bandaged and bloody, but at least you have been cleaned of the mud from your fight.
Lyonel greets you with a wide grin, passing you a large mug of ale. You take it gratefully, drinking down as much as you can in one gulp. It does little to ease the pain, but your mind fuzzes at the edges, making it easier for you to enjoy yourself.
“I have something for you,” he goads. He waggles his brows, and you bite back a laugh. He goes behind his table and pulls something from beneath his cloak. You watch in confusion as he returns to you, bearing a shield.
Not a wooden one like you currently have. A true shield. On it, that shoddy symbol you’d created for yourself. Except the falcon is not painted on by an amateur’s hands; a master at their craft embellished the wings and added that furious glint to its eyes.
“Lyonel–” you breathe out, shaking your head as you take it from him. “It’s too much.”
“Nonsense,” he claps you on the shoulder, and you let out a pained groan as it jostles your body. “You beat a Targaryen for me today. You’ve earned this.” You open your mouth, but he holds his hands up. “I’ll hear nothing more from you.”
You nod, still holding it to your chest as he prances off to dance. You shake your head as you watch him, then glance toward the nobles surrounding him.
You are underdressed compared to them. In nothing more than a simple shirt and trousers because you own nothing better. Lyonel has offered to sponsor you multiple times, to help you establish a real name for yourself.
But you had not fought so hard to become someone he deemed worthy of knighting just for him to begin handing you your prizes. No, you would win your fancy clothes, same as any other knight without a house attached to their name.
But you could certainly accept this shield.
That giant he has grown fond of is present for the revelry once more. His squire is just behind him as they walk up to you. “That–” Dunk shakes his head, struggling for the right word.
Egg bounces at his side, lips split with an eager grin. “That was amazing!” he shouts over the din of the crowd. Your brows raise with a bemused smile as you stare down at him. His little fists pump furiously through the air as he relives your fight with the Prince.
“I’ve never seen someone best Aer– the prince like that before. It was incredible,” he gushes.
Dunk flushes crimson and nods. “Incredible,” he settles on– the word he’d been trying to find, you suppose.
“Thank you, though, I think that bastard rocked one of my teeth loose,” you complain, tongue poking at the loose molar in the back of your mouth. Dunk’s going to respond when the pavilion grows silent.
All of your gazes turn toward the entrance. Your head tilts with interest as you peer around the crowd of bodies. Your heart stutters, breath seizing as you realize who has just walked in.
Aerion Targaryen strolls through Lyonel’s pavilion as if he owns it. You suppose in his own way, he does. What part of Westeros does a Targaryen not have claim to? Even if it is a tent run by the man who hates Targaryen’s most.
Lyonel’s easy-going grin fades as Aerion makes his target known. His eyes lock onto yours, and you stiffen, shoulders rolling back as you stand to your full height. Just enough to look down your nose at him.
Dunk moves to shift in front of you, but you shoot him a sharp look. You’re injured and beaten down from this morning; you appreciate his intent, but this is not a man you can afford to look weak in front of.
“A Targaryen in my tent,” Lyonel muses, body positioned before your own. You can see the tenseness in the line of his shoulder, the shock at Aerion’s audacity to breach this unspoken barrier. “How quaint,” he scoffs.
Your eyes cut to Lyonel before you move in front of him. “Your grace,” you greet, praying that you can stop Lyonel from doing something ridiculously foolish. Like striking a Targaryen prince, as it looks like he wants to.
“You are the knight who bested me?” Aerion questions, eyes dragging up and down your form. Chills break out along your skin as he surveys you. Like a viper, determining if a mouse is too big to unhinge his jaw for.
“Aye,” you answer. His gaze drops to the shield you’re still holding, the falcon crest you created.
“I was not aware any female knights were participating in the tourney. Or any tourney,” he adds, words barbed and smirk sharp.
Your eyes narrow as you let out a scoff. “Not so many nobles are as open-minded as Lyonel. He is the one who knighted me… if you’re doubting my legitimacy,” you hiss, not missing his barely veiled jab.
Aerion lets out a long sigh, nodding his head as if that answers all his questions. “Ah, so it is the Baratheon who trained you?” He asks, speaking as if Lyonel is not standing just beside you.
“No,” you answer before anyone can try to speak for you. You can feel the barely contained rage wafting off Lyonel. “Life trained me, hardened me, in the way it does for anyone who is not born with a great house attached to their name,” you narrow your eyes with a cruel smile. “Not all of us are so fortunate to be trained by Kingsguards and seasoned warriors.”
“And not all of us need to be,” Lyonel adds, hand landing on your shoulder as he takes a step closer to Aerion.
The insult does not go unnoticed by the prince. The barely hidden stab at his spoiled upbringing and the knighthood that could so easily be handed to him. It’s the reason you beat him today. He may be a skilled fighter, but he lacks the grit hedge knights and smallfolks rely on to survive living under the thumb of men like him.
“What are you–” Aerion steps forward, and you brush by him.
“Thank you, Lyonel, for the shield. I’m afraid it’s time for me to retire.” You interrupt, drawing Aerion’s attention back to you. Lyonel’s jaw grits as he stares you down. Tonight was meant to celebrate your achievement. Your victory over the royalty. But he knows as well as you that if Aerion stays in the tent much longer, blood will spill.
Finally, Lyonel nods, dismissing you. Your eyes flit past him, to Dunk and Egg. But the young squire has disappeared. Offering a brief nod to Dunk, you step through the pavilion. You don’t have to turn to know you’re being followed. The band resuming behind you is revealing enough.
“I was not done with you,” a cruel voice taunts. You cast your eyes to the sky, pray to the Mother for strength, and turn back to the prince. “I wanted to meet the knight who bested me,” he tells you. And the fact that he says knight, not woman, sparks something dangerous inside you.
“Alright, my prince, we have met. We have fought. What more could you want?”
He lets out a sharp huff of something close to laughter. His eyes drop to the shield. “I thought House Arryn had claimed the falcon.”
You tilt your head with a sigh. “Only a noble would think that a House can simply claim an animal all for themselves. There are plenty of Hedge Knights bold enough to display the animals of higher houses.”
He shifts, coming to stand beside you as you linger before Lyonel’s tent. Your eyes drop to the dagger on his belt; Valyrian steel. You’re lucky that thing didn’t kill you earlier. “A falcon defeating a dragon is simply… wrong.”
His eyes cut to yours, and they linger on your own, heavy with something that makes you uncomfortable. “Impressive, though. Even I have to admit.”
“It’s not as though I walked away unscathed,” you remind him, a pointed stare directed to his dagger.
That only makes his smile go lax, less of a show and more amusement. Perhaps at your audacity in the face of draconic royalty. “You loosened one of my teeth,” he tells you. “I ought to take all of yours.”
“You knocked one of mine free,” you snap, eyes narrowed as you glare down at him. “I think we’re even. I beat you, your grace, without having to rely on dirty tricks,” you hiss. “You almost killed my mare today.”
“Did I?” he hums, shrugging. “Had we–”
“Don’t,” you’re quick to interrupt. “Whatever you plan to say. Whether it be ‘if the weather were fairer,’ ‘if the grounds had not been muddy–’ Don’t say it. You are one of the few men that I have ever fought who has not held back. Who has not looked at me and seen nothing more than a girl playing pretend. You fought me today, as brutally and bloody as you would any man. I beg, your grace, that you do not taint such a good fight with promises of what might have been. I beat you, that is all.”
Aerion draws back, brows raising as he tilts his head. “Are you aware of who you’re speaking to so brazenly?”
“Incredibly,” you tell him, voice flat.
Something flickers in his gaze, a flash of interest, a twitch of his lips as he scoffs. “You beat me, woman; I accept that. I was only going to ask who your sponsor is.”
“I have no sponsor,” you tell him. His eyes flit to the shield, and you roll your own. “‘Tis a gift from Lyonel, for besting a dragon. Had I been a man, it would have been just as impressive. You’re an incredibly skilled fighter; I cannot deny that. Even if you do not fight honorably.”
“I am not so sure I would count beating a man bloody with your bare hands honorable, either,” he goads. “Have you ever considered joining the royal guard?”
Your brows furrow as you shake your head. “That's for sons of nobility, not lowly knights like myself. Certainly not for women.”
He rolls his eyes, casting his gaze to the sky much the same way you did earlier. “I’m saying I want you on my guard, woman. If I cannot beat you, I would much rather have you fighting for me.”
You can see it in his eyes, the expectancy of acceptance. He is a prince, offering a hedge Knight with no sponsor – and no name of her own – a place on his royal guard. It is an opportunity from storybooks, not reality. But here he stands before you.
You bested him, and in you he sees a skilled fighter. Someone worthy of his attention because you beat him, even when he fought unfairly. Of course, a dragon would lay claim to the shiny new thing that has captured his attention.
“No.” You tell him, leaving no room for anything else.
He blinks rapidly, face screwing up as he recalibrates his brain around such an answer. “Excuse me?” He glares up at you.
“No,” you tell him. “I quite like my life. I like traveling with no expectations of where I might go or who I have to serve. I’m not interested in a white cloak or a vow of celibacy.”
“I never said anything about celibacy–”
“It does not matter, my prince. My answer is no.”
His gaze narrows, tongue licks across his teeth as he sucks in a sharp breath. “After the tourney, I invite you to travel with my family. I believe I might change your mind.”
He begins to walk away, and you glare at him. “I said–”
“That was not a request,” he shuts you down coldly, retreating to the warm halls of Ashford. Your breath dances through the cool night air as your head falls between your shoulders.
What the hell have you gotten yourself into?
You’re training with the Fossoway boy when you see him again. He doesn’t pace the tiltyard where you spar. No, that’s too lowly for him, too close to the common blood. But he watches from the Targaryen pavilion overlooking the field. Hands braced on the railings as you knock Raymun to the mud over and over and over…
Honestly, it doesn’t feel like a real fight when the boy is barely a squire, let alone a knight. His cousin had tried to take you on earlier; you’d only had to knock him on his arse once before he gave up. At the very least, you can admire Raymun’s tenacity.
You hold up your hands, needing a break before another round. Raymun stays lying in the mud, simply nodding as you step over him. You walk to the edge of the field, toward some benches, and pick up a rag, wiping the sweat from your brow with it.
You’re taking a swig from your waterskin when he approaches. You don’t hear him coming, his steps disconcertingly silent.
“Hardly a fight,” he notes, head tilting as he watches Raymun’s cousin walk over to him. He kicks at Raymun, shouting about letting a woman beat him.
“Noble boys are never much fun to fight,” you tell him, smile sharp as he turns back to you with narrowed eyes. “With exceptions,” you amend.
He straightens at that, the sharp edge of his lips softening just slightly. “I could offer you a real fight.”
“I’m still recovering from our last one,” you tell him, motioning toward the bandages at your waist.
He sucks his teeth with a small shake of his head. “Not with me. The Kingsguard that traveled to the tourney with us, they’re grand fighters. Certainly more challenging than an apple boy.”
“Certainly,” you muse, gaze narrowing as you consider him. “Why do you want me to?”
“I want to see what you’re capable of,” he tells you simply. He turns on his heel and begins to walk off. You let out an agitated sigh, realizing he’s not giving you any choice but to follow him. You’re stubborn, but you’re not stupid enough to blatantly disregard a royal command.
Even if that command is yanking on your leash like you’re some new mutt he’s found.
“I’m quite tired, your grace,” you try. He shakes his head, stepping through the gates of the tiltyard. Beyond where you’d been training is a larger field. The ground is more even, less of a rugged, muddy terrain. Men in loose shirts and trousers spar lightly with one another in the center.
They straighten as the gate closes behind them, swords dropping to their sides as Aerion approaches. Your brows furrow at that, like some sort of practiced performance. Had he planned for this?
How odd.
He glances over his shoulder at you before nodding you forward. “My lady,” one of the guards greets.
“She’s not a lady,” Aerion corrects before you can, gaze sharp on the knight.
The man’s chin dips in apology. “Pardon– Ser,” he corrects. Your eyes flick uncertainly toward Aerion as you lift your sword.
“I suppose we’re meant to spar,” you tell him. He glances over at his prince, who is watching you both with rapt attention. He seems just as confused by his behavior as you. He turns back to you, offers an easy smile, and you bare your teeth at him. “Take it easy on me, and I’ll take your head. Kingsguard or not,” you snap.
He draws back in shock before letting out a low laugh. “I see why he likes you.” He raises his sword, and you offer a sharp smile, lifting your own to clash with his.
The rest of your day is consumed by the Prince’s whims. He sets you on his guards, watches you spar. Watches you sweat and bleed as you’re worn down by his never-ending supply of opponents. You’re blessed not to have to fight on the morrow.
You don’t know if he’s trying to wear you out, run you down, or what his intentions are. His eyes never strayed from you, intent on tracking each of your moves. Absorbing your method and style as you danced around his guards and struck them down.
They were certainly more entertaining challengers than your previous foes. These were trained and hardened men. With bodies hewn from years of wielding a sword for their King and princes alike.
You found yourself knocked to the mud more times than you could count. It was far more entertaining when they released their ideologies about you being a woman and started cutting you down like a man.
When the setting sun begins to cast its glow across the dew of the field, and you, as well as the other Knights, are scattered across the mud, panting– Aerion finally releases you. He comes to stand before you, hands tucked behind his back, head tilted. It’s the first time since you’ve met he’s been afforded the opportunity to look down at you.
“You may return to your apple boys and stags,” he dismisses.
“Truly?” you demand, a fresh welt on your cheek leaking blood. “That’s all?”
He hums and begins to walk off. “That’s all.” He disappears back into Ashford’s halls, and you scoff incredulously. The man thinks himself a dragon wrought in human flesh; you will never understand him.
But this was quite an odd way to spend your day.
One of the royal guards offers you a small smile as he passes by, clapping your shoulder. “You’re quite the skilled fighter,” he compliments. Though that shock in his voice makes the jagged edges of his words grate across your skin.
“A Kingsguard shouldn’t let a hedge knight sweep him off his feet. You do both of us a discredit when you hold back,” you bite out, getting to your feet and ignoring the hand he offers you. “If we are ever to meet on a field such as this again, I recommend you do not pull your punches.”
His expression hardens, the kindness in his eyes disappearing as you turn on your heel, dismissing him. You trudge back to your tent, without the energy to find Lyonel tonight.
And while you sleep, the prince visits a puppet show. He watches as the puppeteer slays her faux dragon, and he decides it’s a grave crime. While you sleep, the prince breaks her fingers, and a hedge knight defends her honor.
When you wake on the morrow, the news has already spread throughout the camp. Ser Duncan will be on trial in a day’s time.
“Lady Wyght,” someone calls outside your tent. You frown, looking up from where you’d been sharpening your sword. Placing it down, you tuck your dagger in your belt and approach the tent flaps.
“Not a lady,” you call out, stepping into the early morning sun. Three Targaryen household guards stand before you, decked in the dragon’s colors. “What do you want?”
“Prince Aerion Targaryen demands your presence at once.” Demands, not requests; he could not even grant you the manners of pretending you have a choice.
Your eyes narrow on them, the lax way they stand, their eyes drifting past you– bored of carrying out the Prince’s orders. You could easily knock them down, take their swords and send them scurrying back with their tails tucked. But you don’t need to find yourself in the middle of a royal scandal as sweet, foolish Dunk has.
“Alright,” you agree. The one in front nods curtly before turning on his heel, marching off to Ashford Hall. You glance back at your tent, almost wishing you’d brought your sword, and follow behind him.
Anger bubbles in your gut as they lead you through the tents and camp. Past the tiltyard and into the hall. It broils and settles under your skin like something buzzing and alive. It’s astonishing, the audacity of the prince, to demand anything of you after what he’d done.
Their boots echo through the stone halls as they march you up the stairs, one at your back and front so you can’t go running off. It’s not like you would. You’re itching to see Aerion, to give him a piece of your mind.
“–and Daeron will–”
“I will not have Daeron fight for me,” Aerion hisses out. You believe it’s his father’s voice in the room with him as you approach. They’re bickering about something, possibly the upcoming trial. “I have someone to fight for me.”
“Oh, and who would that be?”
The guards open the doors for you, and you step into the room. Prince Maekar Targaryen turns from his son and faces you. His eyes narrow, gaze flitting up and down your form as he shakes his head. “Who the fuck are you?”
You bristle at his tone and are forced to remind yourself of what he could do if you pissed him off. “My knight,” Aerion boasts, smug as he shoots his father a knowing look. You dislike the way he drags out the my. You are not his anything. “She will fight in Daeron’s place.”
“This is the one who unseated you?” Maekar demands, glancing over at you warily.
“Aye,” you answer him. “Though, I’d love to know why I was brought here.”
“As would I,” Maekar grits out, glaring at his son. You shift uncomfortably as they both posture before each other. You have been exposed to far too much royalty of late. With your luck, the bloody heir would walk through the doors next.
You grimace, glancing over your shoulder, checking they’re still locked. That truly is the last thing you need.
Aerion lets out a long-suffering sigh, as if you should both already know his intent. Though, you doubt he ever understands his own motivations. “The trial is to be a trial of seven. Seven knights for each side,” he explains to you. “You are going to fight for me,” he tells you sharply.
“No.”
Maekar stiffens at the outright rejection, eyes widening slightly as he watches his son carefully. Aerion goes still, blinking as his expression slowly settles into something unreadable. “You deny a command from your prince?”
“Is it a demand?” you ask simply.
“No,” Maekar butts in. “No one can force you. You must fight of your own volition.”
Aerion whips around to his father, muscle of his jaw flexing as he takes in a sharp breath. You don’t like this, being here stuck in a fight between two dragons with sharp teeth and sharper words. This is not your place; it never has been.
“Tanselle was my friend,” you tell them both. They stare at you blankly, and something sharp curdles in your gut. “The puppeteer whose finger you broke,” you hiss at Aerion. “And you hurt her for no other reason than your bruised ego.”
Aerion rounds the table, stalking slowly toward you. You see Maekar stiffen behind him, almost looking as if he might reach out, try to stop his son. You shake your head minutely.
“She ought not to have made the dragon lose,” Aerion chides, voice laden with a slow drawl that makes you burn. “Dragons do not–”
“Where are your dragons, my prince?” You bite out, glaring down at him, leaning until your nose is nearly brushing against his own. “They are all gone.”
Aerion sucks in a sharp breath, rearing back as something dangerous flashes in his eyes. “I could have your tongue for that,” he threatens.
“For the truth?” you taunt. Maekar shifts uncomfortably behind you both, looking bored and done with this conversation. “The dragons are dead, and you broke her hand for no other reason except spiteful cruelty. There is no honor in you, no decency. And I do not fight for men I do not respect.”
His hand lifts as his lips pull back with a snarl. “How dare you–”
“Enough!” Maekar’s voice booms through the room. He glares over at his son before his eyes cut to you. “Leave, now. And mind how you speak to your betters.”
You suck your teeth and step back from Aerion. “Apologies, your grace,” you offer bitterly. You turn toward the door, and Aerion bites out your name.
“I’m not finished with you,” he warns, and you ignore him, striding through Ashford Hall until you’re back under the sunlight. Away from stone walls and the suffocating presence of dragons.
Righteous fury thrums in your blood as you march through camp, heading toward the Fossoway’s tent. As expected, Dunk is inside, pacing the perimeter with his head in his hands. Raymun watches him helplessly; his little squire hovers just behind him.
His head lifts when he finally notices you, eyes widening. “Ser, what are you–”
“I would fight for you, Ser Duncan, if you would have my sword.” Dunk’s eyes widen as a smile breaks out onto Egg’s face. Hedge Knight or no, whether or not you lack a strong house behind your name, you will not fight for a cause you do not believe in.
And you believe in Dunk.
“Are women even allowed to fight?” Ser Beesbury demands, face screwing up as he glances over at you.
You roll your eyes, perched atop your mare as she waits impatiently at the gates. The trial will commence any moment now. Dunk has collected seven knights now that you have joined him; it is only a matter of time.
“I don’t know,” Lyonel ponders. “Are you allowed to fight, Beesbury?” He offers a sharp grin as Beesbury bristles. Lyonel directs his steed toward you, stopping at your side. “Who are you more excited to fight? Personally, I can’t wait to spill some dragon blood.”
You give him an amused look. He raises his brows, tilting his head. “I know there’s someone.”
“A Kingsguard I’d sparred,” you finally admit. “I want to show him what a woman looks like when she’s not holding back.”
Lyonel chuckles to himself. “If it’s anything like your fight with the prince, I’m not sure he’ll survive it.”
The gates begin to open, and Dunk stiffens on his horse in front of you. He goes still before he’s lurching over the side of his stallion, vomit spewing from his mouth in one violently anxious wave. You grimace, and one of the other knights laughs as Raymun shortly joins him.
“Fucking green boys,” he taunts.
You shake your head, riding up beside him. You pat his back awkwardly, unused to sharing gentle words of comfort. You are not the maiden from tales of knights and dragons that gives her favor and spurs the men on with easy smiles. But you are here, at his side, and you will pledge your life and sword to him if he so demands it.
Dunk looks up and glances over at you. You nod once, a severity in your eyes that conveys your loyalty better than words ever could. He glances behind himself, at the men ready to lay their lives down for the chance to spill royal blood.
After a moment, he spurs his steed on. You follow closely behind him, pulling up your hair and shoving on your helm. Lyonel joins you at your side as you take in the tiltyard. Seven fences for each of you.
Just like you’d hoped, a Kingsguard waits at the end of yours.
Fog settles heavy around you; it swirls around the horse’s hooves. The pavilion of nobility, the field of common folk; they remain quiet. Your breath rattles through your helm, vision narrowed until all you can see is the man in front of you.
Lyonel’s steed shuffles impatiently beside you; his grand, horned helm towers above him. Against the darkened sky, he paints the picture of noble death. Your heart beats hard against your chest plate, blood humming as you turn back to your opponent.
The horns bellow, and you lift your lance, charging forward.
He had died, the Kingsguard, with your sword buried in his neck, helm abandoned in the mud. He’d had nothing but a woman’s eyes to stare into as he choked on his own blood. It had been his fault. He had softened his blows, thought himself to be fighting honorably.
There is no honor in underestimating your opponent. Nor in allowing them to win.
You did not offer him the same version of “honor.” But he was allowed a warrior’s death.
You lie in Lyonel’s tent as you have for the past few days. Your torso is bandaged tight from where you’d taken a mace to the gut. There is stitching across your forehead from the stray swipe of a dagger.
Lyonel is on a crutch, his head bandaged and eye welting purple. But he is content. He fought Maekar, lived to tell the tale, and spilled dragon blood all in the same day. And the Prince could do nothing to punish him for his eagerness about violence against royalty. Everything you’d both done, everything that once would have been a sin, had been brought on and allowed by Aerion.
Your body aches in ways it hasn’t in years, but you will take the pain if that means Dunk is free. The last you’d checked on him, he’d been under his elk tree. Thanking you and Lyonel both for your aid.
Prince Baelor had declared him innocent once he’d grabbed Aerion by the scruff of his neck– forced him to yield.
“I’d like to drink and not stop for the next week,” Lyonel muses beside you.
“I’d drink if it weren’t for the hole in my gut,” you regard, not bitterly, but your voice is tired. He snorts at that and picks up his mead, taking another deep swig.
You hear the clank of armor, of a sheath jostled against chainmail, and frown, sitting up. A low hiss escapes you as it tugs at the stitches along your stomach. “Ser Wyght!” A voice calls from outside Lyonel’s tent.
“Whaddya want?” He demands, voice slurred from the alcohol he’s already indulged himself in.
“Prince Maekar Targaryen demands Ser Wyght’s presence at once.”
You roll your eyes as Lyonel scoffs. “Do they have to say the cunt’s whole name?” He wonders aloud. You slap lightly at his shoulder as you get to your feet, tightening the laces of your shirt. “Try not to get your tongue taken,” he warns, amusement lacing his tone.
You ignore him as you step out of the tent. It’s the same guards who had fetched you for Aerion. They look just as irritated as you that they’d had to fetch you once more. “On with you,” you mutter, waving them forward.
It’s the nearly same path as the last time, but they take you down a different set of halls. Up winding stairs and into an office you’re sure belongs to the master of Ashford Hall. Maekar stands behind the desk, his back to you.
He waves his hands and the guards leave you immediately. “Take a seat,” he mutters. You would object if you were not in so much pain. With a low groan, you settle yourself into the stiff chair before his desk.
He turns, slow, eyes not meeting yours as he focuses on something in the distance. “Aerion is still bedridden. He has yet to wake up; the maester keeps him laden with milk of the poppy.”
You suck your teeth, raising your brows. “He’ll live, though?” Maekar nods, and you smirk. “Small blessings.”
“The last time I saw you, I told you to mind your betters. I see you haven’t learned much.” You bristle, straightening in your chair. It tugs at your wounds, but you ignore the ache as you meet his stare head-on.
“The Kingsguard you killed was a good man and a better warrior–”
“Not good enough,” you bite out, caring little that it’s a Prince of the realm you’re interrupting. “He underestimated me; that was his folly.”
Maekar pauses, eyes narrowing as his jaw tightens. You expect admonishment, but he slowly nods, taking a seat before you. “Agreed. I have to admit, I was surprised when I saw you fight Aerion. I was surprised still when I saw you take on Ser Wylde.”
Had that been his name?
“I know of what my son wished from you before this ridiculous trial. He wanted you to join his own personal guard.”
You shift uncomfortably in your chair, a stone settling in your gut as you nod. “I also know you refused. A stupid fucking decision,” he bites out, glaring at you. “You are barely even a hedge knight. You are barely a knight at all.”
“I’m more a knight than your son. And you can take my tongue for speaking out of turn. But at least I know what honor is,” you snap back at him, nails digging into the arms of your chair.
Maekar’s hands tense up on the desk, nose twitching as he fights back venom. “I will not deny that, but I will warn you to be incredibly careful what you say next. You do not have to join his guard, but I will respect his wishes. I want you to travel with myself and my family to Summerhall.”
You open your mouth to object, and he holds up his hand. “Consider it payment for your displacement of one of our guards. A month’s time, that’s all I ask. So that my son can sate this sudden itch he’s found himself with. And I don’t have to listen to him whinge on about the woman-knight he lost.”
“He does not have me,” you tell him. “How could he have lost me?”
Maekar lets out a sharp breath. “This is a command from your Prince. Do not argue.” He looks to some papers on his desk, effectively dismissing you. “We will collect you in two days when we leave.”
He calls for the guards, and they come in, helping you out of your chair and escorting you from Ashford. You make your way back to Lyonel in a daze, reality not having settled quite right.
Dunk is in the tent with him; their grins drop as you walk inside. “What is it?” Lyonel asks. “You did not seriously have your tongue taken, did you?”
“Nearly,” you scoff, slowly making your way to him. You take the mead from his hand and swallow it down quickly, until the mug runs dry. Dunk watches you with wide eyes. “I am to ride with the Targaryens to Summerhall,” you tell them, blank stare settling on the floor.
The tent is silent for a moment before Lyonel lets out a low, “What?”
You nod, “Prince Maekar has demanded my presence. On behalf of Aerion.” You look up and meet Lyonel’s furious stare. “I’m going to kill that little bastard,” you swear, and something like pride flits across his face.
The rage subsides, for there is nothing to fuss or fight about. A dragon has made a demand; you must comply. His arm slings around your shoulders, dragging you into his side. You’re careful to avoid the sharp points of his stag crown.
“Oh do be sure to give those royal cunts some hell for me.”
You meet Dunk’s eyes as he offers you a sorry look. “Perhaps it will be a good opportunity,” he offers.
You and Lyonel both snort at that. “A month is all that’s been demanded. I’ll make myself intolerable.”
“Don’t have to work hard at that,” you slap Lyonel’s shoulder, and he grins. The mead flows between the three of you as you try to ignore the tightening in your chest. The way the fabric of the pavilion seems to drape ever closer.
It’s only a month.
Aerion is barely cognisant in the wagon as you ride beside him. He’s still hazy from milk of the poppy. Maekar had made it clear your only role right now is to simply stop him from tumbling off the side.
You keep your hand reluctantly balled in the prince’s sleeves, hands on the reins of the horses. Your mare is somewhere in this long train of royalty. You don’t know where. They’d taken her, laid their supplies on her and then dismissed you to your new role.
Dragons take so easily.
Aerion mutters to himself, and you roll your eyes as his body lolls to the side. You jerk him back, and his head pops up for a moment, eyes heavy as he seems to realize you’re beside him. “You,” he mutters, voice sharp. “My knight.”
“Don’t call me that,” you admonish, grimacing as his head drops to your shoulder, eyes falling shut once more.
Maekar rides up the line, head on a swivel as he searches for something. “Where is Aegon?” He demands, glaring back at the servants. “Where is my son?”
You ride past him, biting back a smile as your lips twitch. You think of Dunk, of his stubborn squire. At least one of you has escaped these people. “What are you so happy about?” Aerion slurs, glaring up at you.
You shake your head and push his face from yours. “Nothing. Sleep, my prince. The road is long and weary.”
“You do not command me,” he slurs out, but then his head is falling once more, and he’s asleep. You should enjoy this while it lasts. The peace and quiet of him being too high to be of any concern to you.
It is a week into the ride to Summerhall. You’ve been told by some of the servants that it should only be a few days more until you arrive. Your back is to a tree, the sound of passing water behind you.
Aerion lets out a low grunt, and you glance over your shoulder. He’s relacing his trousers as you fully turn. “This is humiliating,” you tell him, no bite to your voice.
“You are my guard,” he turns with a sharp smirk, staring up at you. “Guard me.”
“While you piss?”
“The road is a dangerous place; you said it yourself,” he taunts, brushing past you. You scoff and follow behind him.
“You realize I am not truly your guard. Your father has only demanded my presence for a month, no longer.”
Aerion’s jaw clenches at that, expression hardening as he looks at you. “The month does not start until we arrive at Summerhall. Until then, you do as you are bid by your prince.”
You open your mouth, and his eyes widen with interest, goading you on. Your mouth snaps shut with a click. “Yes, my prince,” you acquiesce. He nods at that, returning to the wagon. The entire train of people that he’d forced to stop because he had to make water.
Much of the ride has gone like this. He makes small, frivolous demands, testing the patience of you and his family. They have not snapped, yet; you refuse to be the first to break. Aerion climbs back onto the wagon while you go to mount your horse.
“No,” he stops you with only a word. “Ride beside me.”
Your teeth clench painfully tight as you turn to face him. He tilts his head, waiting as he leans into the spot beside him. You shake your head, passing off your mare to a nearby servant before climbing onto the wagon beside him.
Baelor and his son travel ahead in carriages. You think this is Aerion’s punishment, for the trial. Riding in a wagon like smallfolk. But he does not mind as you hold the reins, as he leans back on the bench with the smug satisfaction of a cat whose just caught itself a bird.
If this is what the next month will look like, it will be a miracle if you survive it without being charged with treason.
Summerhall is grand in a way you could never put into words. With domed roofs, white walls, and a sprawling estate, it is possibly the most beautiful place you’ve ever been. You have explored much of Westeros and seen miraculous things.
But this is beautiful in a noble way. The architecture, the gardens, the way the castle seems to capture and reflect the sunlight… it is a beauty created by nobles you thought not possible.
It is incredibly difficult to mask your reaction as you ride in with Aerion. He observes you from his spot beside you, eyes narrowing with interest, lips curling as your mouth parts in awe. “If you think this is impressive, you’ll go into shock once you see the Red Keep.”
Your mouth snaps shut as you glance over at him, the haze of Summerhall dissipating. “I have seen the Red Keep from below. In the muck of Fleabottom.” Something burns in your chest as you look away from him. “It is not so beautiful from there.”
Besides, you will not be with him long enough to travel to the Red Keep.
Aerion lets out an irritated huff that you ignore as the servants guide your wagon toward the stables. He jumps off the bench and holds his hand out toward you, expectant. You glance down at it before ignoring him and stepping down.
His face tightens at that, but he doesn’t point it out. Rather, he takes your arm in his hand and leads you through the sprawling estate. “I will show you to your rooms.”
You glance over your shoulder, brows furrowing in confusion as you watch the Kingsguard walk in the opposite direction. “This is not the way to the barracks,” you point out.
He snorts, “Gods no. You won’t be sleeping there. You’re to be my guard; I want you close by.” He cuts his eyes up to you with something smarmy in his smile. “Should I need you for anything,” he taunts.
You bristle, but decide it’s easier not to argue.
He takes you through the winding halls. Long carpets muffle your footsteps as you make your way up the stairs. Stained glass windows cast the colored shadows of prismatic flowers across the floor the higher up you go.
It’s quieter in his section of the castle. It takes a moment for you to realize that no one else has claimed a room anywhere near him. He is isolated, whether through choice or his own family’s wariness; you’re unsure.
He stops you in front of an arched door. “My room,” he tells you. He turns you and marches you three steps forward. “And yours,” he tells you.
You shoot him a disbelieving look as you glance between his room and your own. “We’re across from each other.”
He tilts his head, huffing out a laugh. “You understand the purpose of a guard, don’t you?”
Your eyes twitch, and you are a hair away from striking a royal across the cheek. Instead, you force yourself to turn, to throw open the doors of your new room for the next month. You stagger to a stop as he lingers behind you, smug as he takes in your expression.
“Better than a hedge, isn’t it?” he taunts.
It is certainly grander than any place you’ve slept. The bed is four-postered and larger than any you’ve ever seen. There is a hearth where the fire has already been stoked, a chaise across from it with a flagon of wine on the table.
There are shelves full of books and a desk pushed into the corner. It is larger than any inn you’ve been in and far better decorated than any tree you might have slept under. But this…
This is a room meant for a lady.
“I should be in the barracks,” you tell him, tone hardening as you force the wonder from your voice.
His brows draw in, eyes narrowing as he shakes his head. “I already told you–”
“I know what you told me. It doesn’t change the fact that I am a knight, a soldier. I should be in the barracks, same as the others–”
“You forget yourself,” he interrupts. His voice is low, calm as he stalks closer to you. Your shoulders stiffen, expression hardening as you look down at him. “I am your prince. It does not matter how you feel,” he tells you, tone soft as he reaches up, brushing some of your hair from your shoulder.
You shudder at the touch, biting your tongue. “Besides,” he continues. “I do not trust those men with you. A woman in the barracks, knight or not, I won’t have it. Not with you. You will stay here, as I said,” he tells you, voice sharpening at the end. There is no room for argument.
Sucking your teeth, you nod. “As you wish, my prince.”
“Very good,” he hums, releasing the strand of hair he’d been curling around his finger. “What do you think of your room, then?”
“I appreciate it, my prince,” you respond stiffly. His eyes narrow with dissatisfaction at that. “Thank you, Aerion,” you try again, forcing something kind into your tone. He presses closer, and you find yourself drawn down to him, breath stuttering as your noses brush.
He pulls back abruptly, and you let out a sharp huff. “The Kingsguard train at dawn, I want you there.”
“Yes, my prince,” you respond.
He nods. “I’ll fetch you for dinner,” he tells you, promptly turning on his heel and closing the doors behind him.
You shrug off your cloak, tension ebbing from your shoulders as you toss it onto the desk. You peer around the room and find a tub already filled with water. Stripping out of your clothes, you decide to wash the week's worth of travel off.
You miss the small creak of your door as the prince steps back in, having forgotten another order for you. The words fall from his lips as he watches you, eyes rapt on your body. The scars along your skin from fights lost and won. The sword-hewn muscles in your arms as you sink into the tub.
You tilt your head back, hair draping along the edge as you let out a low, satisfied noise. His eyes rove across your body. His knight– before he steps back into the hall.
As your prince demanded, you showed up at dawn to spar with the Kingsguard. It’s not quite as brutal as it had been at Ashford. There is order here, a schedule to things that Aerion cannot wholly control.
It is Ser Crakehall that you spar with this morning, an older man, with fine features. He does not hold back as your swords clash against one another. Nor does he soften his blows as he barks orders at you on how to correct your form.
You appreciate it more than you care to admit.
Aerion watches from above the training yard, arms crossed along the bannister with interest as he stares down at you. There are other ladies beside him, tittering at the knights sparring. They got over the shock of your presence quick enough.
You duck under Ser Crakehall’s blade and find yourself glancing up. Aerion’s sharp eyes are already on you, a tilt to his lips as he watches you. A blade swipes against your arm, and you hiss, ripping your eyes away from the prince.
“Focus,” Crakehall snaps, shooting you a pointed look.
“Come on then, old man,” you taunt, jumping back a step as he lunges at you. Blood weeps from the cut on your arm. Sweat makes your shirt cling to your back as you duck around his swing, sweeping your leg behind his foot and sending him to the floor.
Crakehall lets out a low groan, the air rushing out of him as he lies before you. You offer a winded laugh, grinning down at him. “Two to three now, I’ve nearly got you beat,” you goad.
“Nearly,” he shakes his head. “But not quite.” You offer your hand, and he slaps his palm in your own, letting you help him to his feet. “I must admit, I’m quite enjoying the challenge,” he tells you, a shine in his eyes that makes your grin widen.
“As am I. I rarely meet men so willing to beat a woman’s arse,” you laugh. He smiles at that and lets out a low huff of amusement.
You had thought, after the Kingsguard you’d killed, this would be hard. That he would be vying for your head, for vengeance for his fellow knight. Apparently, the one you’d killed had been fresh. Not quite beloved by his men.
Crakehall and the others seemed to harbor no ill will toward you for it, but you were still hesitant.
“Another round?” Crakehall asks, retrieving his blade from the ground.
You’re about to agree when Aerion calls your name from above. “Wyght,” he orders. “Be done for today,” he commands.
You suck your teeth and cast your eyes to the heavens for patience. “Another time, then,” you tell Crakehall. He offers a low laugh and glances over at the prince. Aerion has disappeared down the stairs, most likely coming to collect you.
“I have not seen him like this in some time,” he admits.
You watch Aerion appear at the corner of the courtyard and tilt your head. “Yes, well, some men despise a woman who can put them on their arse. Others…” you both watch Aerion stalk forward. “Others enjoy it a little too much.”
Crakehall chuckles as you walk away from him, already heading toward your prince.
Sweat drips down your neck as you reach him; it pools down your clavicle and dips beneath your shirt. Aerion tracks the droplets, eyes rapt on the sheen of your skin as you come to stand beside him.
“You let him get the better of you,” he admonishes.
“Ser Crakehall is a better knight than I; I can admit that.”
His eyes narrow as he shakes his head. “No,” he purses his lips and begins to walk ahead of you. “We will fix that,” he promises. You roll your eyes in exasperation, following behind him.
You had lost sight of Aerion after dinner. You do not sup with his family; you are not royalty or bound to them by marriage. You eat with the other soldiers, in the barracks, despite Aerion’s irritation. It is enjoyable, amicable as you jest with them.
They are far more welcoming than you once thought they would be. Perhaps it only takes knocking a few of them on their arse to earn that respect.
But, after you eat, it is time to return to your prince’s side. You stand guard in the dining room at his request, despite how much it irritates his father and unsettles his uncle. He insists that he needs you. That threats lurk around every corner. A Targaryen can never be too careful.
Maekar always rolls his eyes at that. But he’s gotten to the point where it's easier to let Aerion just win these little things rather than spend the night arguing.
After dinner, tonight, however, he’d escaped your eye. You don’t know how much you care to track him. But you’d put in the barest effort. Checking in the courtyard, the gardens, the library, and then finally knocking on his door.
Once you’d decided sleep was more important than wherever he was sulking, you turned to your own room. Pushing open the doors, you let out a tired groan as an ache settles in your muscles. Training with Crakehall and the other men has been more of a challenge than you’ve dealt with in months.
That consistent, honing schedule is far more than you’d been prepared for. But you’d be lying if you said you did not love the ache of muscles reforming into something stronger.
The fire is already crackling in your hearth. And you are not surprised when you see a familiar white-blond head of hair draped along your chaise. His head is on the armrest, arm draped along the back as a goblet of wine dangles from his hand.
“My prince,” you greet, taking off your cloak and tossing it over your desk. Aerion does not move from his spot on the chaise or attempt to greet you. A frown tilts your lips as you make your way slowly to him.
He stares into the fire, the flames casting a golden light across his sharp features. The angles of his jaw and expression truly do remind you of a dragon. The goblet wobbles precariously in his hand as he lies there.
You kneel before him, tilting your head as you take in that guarded look in his eyes. “Aerion,” you whisper, reaching out to him. Your fingers brush some hair from his forehead, the callouses of your hand rough against his soft skin.
His eyes close as he tilts his head, leaning into your touch. “Is something the matter, my prince?”
“Are you happy?” He suddenly asks, eyes opening and boring into yours. You jerk back slightly at the intensity of his gaze. “Are you happy here?” He demands again. He sits up, and you don’t dare take your hand off him, knowing it’s the only thing keeping him from pouncing.
“I– I suppose,” you settle on weakly.
His eyes narrow, chest heaving as he inches ever closer. “Are you happy when you spar with Crakehall?” he snaps, the goblet falling from his hand. Crimson spills across the furs in front of the hearth. You rip your eyes from the stain, finding him once more.
Is this… “Are you jealous, my prince?” you whisper. “You are the one who told me to spar with him,” you remind him. “I only do what you ask.”
He lets out a sharp huff, shaking his head. You reach up, cupping his face in both your hands. “I am happy with you,” you tell him, surprised that it doesn’t taste like a lie as it rolls off your tongue.
Perhaps it isn’t a lie. Perhaps this once gilded cage has become something new to you. Something to hone you into a new beast, a better knight. And, loathe as you are to admit it, it is Aerion’s fault that you are here. That you have been afforded these opportunities you never would have had before.
His eyes flash with something you don’t understand, darting between your own, looking for some form of untruth. You don’t look away, allowing him to peer as deep into you as he wishes. He creeps closer, slipping from the chaise and kneeling on the floor in front of you. Your hands do not leave his face, even as you both lean closer.
He is alluring, attractive in a way that is serpentine and feels very much like crawling into an ever-tightening trap. But what lowly hedge knight could ever boast that they had captured a prince’s attention so wholly as you have?
None.
Not in this way, at least.
“You’re happy with me?” He whispers, gaze dropping to your lips. You nod, and it feels truer the more you admit it. There is no warning when a snake strikes, when it sinks its fangs down and venom courses through your veins.
There is no warning as Aerion lunges forward. His hands ball up the hem of your shirt, pulling you forward until you’re in his lap and his lips are on yours. It is not gentle or sweet like the princes in fairytales.
His touch is consuming, fire trapped in flesh as his sharp teeth drag across your lips. His arms band around you, keeping you close as a serpent tightens around its prey. Your lips part against his demanding mouth, his scouring touch.
He rolls you onto the floor, hips pressing into your pelvis as his arms bracket your head. You let out a low sound you have not heard from yourself before as pressure begins to mount in your core.
His rough hands slip from your shirt; they dip under the hem, warm fingers dragging their way up to your chest. He explores your body as if he has a right to. As if you have always belonged to him and just finally admitted it.
Your eyes twitch, fury spasming in your fingers as you grab his hips. He lets out a low noise of surprise as you roll him, pinning him down on the furs. You part from him with a gasp, lips swollen and split from the violence of his devotion.
Your hands find his wrists and hold them above his head. He tilts, eyeing you warily as you glare down at him. Your chest heaves as you work to get air back into your lungs. “It’s not so easy, princeling,” you taunt, smiling cruelly down at him.
“You cannot even best me in a fight, and you think you can just lay claim to my body?”
He lets out an angered noise, the closest thing to a growl a human can make. Amusement thrums in your skin as you watch him struggle beneath your weight, beneath the strength of your hands as you keep him where you want him.
“You may hold my leash outside these walls,” you taunt, leaning down, your breath brushing against his jaw. He shudders as your teeth nip lightly at the sensitive skin there. “But the same cannot be said in here, do you understand?”
You lift back up and stare down at him expectantly. His face says he wants to fight you, to show you that he is stronger. But there is pressure growing between your legs, something pushing up between his own that betrays his own want. You smirk, slowly grinding your hips down against him.
He sucks in a sharp breath, head tilted back and neck exposed as you continue your teasing ministrations. “Words,” you chide, leaning down to sink your teeth into the junction of his neck. He lets out a low groan, grimacing, but his hips buck against your own.
“Fine,” he hisses out.
You doubt he will give up so easily next time, but he is desperate now. Laid down and wanting beneath you. You pluck at the laces of your shirt and nod down at him. He follows your lead, tearing off his tunic as you do the same. His hands reach out greedily toward your chest.
You click your tongue, and he pauses, jaw clenching as his hands drop back to his side. Slowly, you stand, undoing the ties of your trousers and letting them fall to your ankles. You nod expectantly at him, and he stands, following suit.
Feeling just the slightest bit indulgent, you take his hand in your own, let it skate up the scars of your stomach, let him cup your breast as you take his face in yours once more. The kiss you guide him into is less aggressive but no less demanding. Just as impassioned, still fueled by something you cannot tell if it's hate or attraction.
You push his shoulders back as his nails dig into the skin of your waist. Let him drop back to the floor as you straddle his hips once more. You reach between the pair of you, guiding him against your entrance that has been slick since you found him in your room.
You have been waiting for this. Watching as his gaze teeters on that edge of obsession and possession. Waited to find another way to put him back in his place. He holds the power at Summerhall, outside these walls– but here… Here it is yours. He is yours.
You let out a low hum, nails digging into the skin of his shoulders as you sink fully down on him. Aerion gapes up at you, hands flexing on your sides. It takes a moment before you realize he’s waiting for permission.
Eyes narrowing, you slowly nod. His reaction is immediate, hips bucking up into yours and ripping a sharp gasp from you. It feels like another battle, another fight to be tugged at and won between the pair of you.
His arms snake around your body, hips thrusting up into your own as you bear down on him, letting your body sink onto him with an aggression no other man has wrought from you. Teeth and nails, the kiss is bloody, your coupling far from romantic as you take him on the floor before your fire.
You want to taste his blood on your tongue, see defeat settle in his eyes as he submits to you. You jerk back from the grasp, shoving him fully to the floor as you pin him once more. Your thighs tighten around his, ignoring his protests as you take your pleasure from him.
Your hips slam against his own, and you’re sure that you will both be bruised tomorrow. But his pain is your pleasure, and he soaks up the attention like a disregarded stray. Something mounts in your core, a tidal wave, a flurry of your rage and hatred toward him that bursts through your stomach as your hips stutter over his.
You slow, hips slowly rotating against his as you settle in the aftermath of your completion. He’s still staring up at you, waiting for permission. You slip off of him, and he hisses in displeasure. You don’t give him long to complain as you wrap your hand around him, grip tight, your rough callouses making his hips buck eagerly.
It does not take long before he’s finishing in your hand, spend splattering across his stomach. You sink back with a satisfied grin, tilting your head as you take in the way he struggles to catch his breath.
“Still with me, my prince?”
He growls something at you that you don’t quite catch. You grab your tunic from the floor, slipping it on as you drape yourself across the chaise. His head lifts, following you. He does not bother redressing as he joins you, smothering you with his weight as you both struggle to fit on the small chaise.
Neither of you complains.
You have just entered the courtyard for your daily spar with Crakehall when you feel it. That stare burning into your back, heady with malicious intent. You glance over your shoulder, leaning on your sword as Aerion approaches.
Your lips tilt with something smug as you regard him. “Joining us today, your grace?”
He stops before you, jaw clenched as he holds back something in his expression, eyes glinting up at you. “Spar with me today,” not an offer but a demand.
You glance over at Crakehall before tilting your head, considering your prince. “Not too tired, are you?” Lips curling with suggestion. Crakehall smothers a laugh as he glances away from the pair of you.
Aerion’s eyes are alight with challenge as he studies you. “You’re not worried I’ll best you, are you?”
You lean further onto your sword and shake your head. “I am not so prideful that I cannot admit you are a great fighter, my prince. You could easily best me. Just as I have you.”
He preens at that, shoulders rolling back and something sharp cutting across his lips as he huffs. “Then spar with me, today.” You’re confused, but you nod nonetheless, lifting your sword and motioning him forward.
He begins to unsheathe his own sword, pausing as he tilts his head, eyes narrowed with predatory intent. “How about a wager?” he offers.
Suspicion crawls up your spine, seizes your neck as you stiffen. “What sort of wager?”
Aerion’s smirk turns deadly, eyes growing cold as he unsheathes his sword. “Your month with us will be over soon. Should you win, I will let you go.” Was he not going to before? “But if I win, you stay. Join my guard and pledge your sword to me.”
Crakehall has drifted back to the perimeter of your spar, his brows perk with interest as he glances between the pair of you. You look to him for aid, but he simply shakes his head. The whims of the prince– the ones he lets you know about– are always hiding something worse. Something more malicious.
Why does he so desperately desire you to be his guard?
You know that Aerion could beat you. His father and uncle had interrupted your last fight, stopped you before you killed each other. This is different. This is a simple spar. The playing field is even, no mud to sink into and blind you. There is a small audience of Kingsguard who have suddenly grown interested in their prince’s strange behavior.
Agreeing to this is damning. It could go either way.
But there’s something about his stare. That taunt in his eyes that is just daring you to turn him down. To admit that he’s bested you. “I agree,” you mutter, grip tightening around your sword. His smile turns sharp, eyes going cold as he nods.
There is no horn to announce the start of your match. He simply lunges, and you lean in to deflect him with your sword. But he pivots at the last moment, slams the flat side of his blade into the spot Crakehall had kicked you yesterday.
The bruise is still tender, still aching. He would have seen it last night. You let out a low groan, whirling around on him and blocking the next swing he aims at you. That bastard had planned this. Had catalogued the weak points of your body and paid attention.
You attempt to kick his leg out from under him, but he jumps away from you like he’d been expecting the move. Your brows furrow as you circle each other. There is something eager on his face. Eager and hungry, as his sharp tongue licks at his teeth. You suck in a shaky breath as he lunges forward, just barely blocking him.
He’s playing a different game than you are.
You strike first, and Aerion easily dodges the swipe, but you pivot on your heel, throwing your arm back and catching the back of his head as he tries to dart past you. He lets out a low hiss, flinching forward as he whips back around. His sword catches the edge of your shirt and tears through the material at your arm. You glance down and see blood begin to leak down your skin.
Contact could count as the end of this. But he doesn’t say anything, just watches you expectantly, brows raised as he rocks back on his heels. You bare your teeth, throwing wild blows at him, no intent or real thought behind them. Just something to disorient him, to make him forget about whatever he thinks he knows about your fighting style.
You think of something you’d once heard from an older knight. He no longer played in tourneys because when he fought a man, he didn’t want him to know what he was capable of.
As Aerion bears down on you, sharp teeth pressed in a manic grin, you realize he was right. All this time– demanding you train with the Kingsguard, insisting he watch– even that first night back in Ashford when he’d made you spar from dawn till dusk.
The whole time, he’d been watching. Learning the way your body moves across a battlefield. The specific steps of your dance as you spar with someone. Learning what you do when you're desperate, tired, or feeling entirely too cocky.
And he knows, now. Just how to beat you.
He does what you so often do to others. With his sword bearing down on yours, blades uncomfortably close to your faces, breath mingling– he wraps his foot around your own, yanks just hard enough for you to lose your balance.
You drop to the ground, hard. The air rushes out of you in one wheezing gasp that makes you forget the pain as you scramble for breath. Your sword falls from your hand, and you quickly turn to reach for it.
A hand snaps out, tangling through your hair and jerking you back by the scalp. You let out a low yelp as Aerion presses his sword to your throat. “Yield,” he growls out, eyes burning as he glares down at you.
“Never,” you gasp out, water lining your eyes as his nails dig into the tender skin of your scalp. Something warm begins to dribble down your throat. It drips down your clavicle and pools in your shirt. Your eyes meet Crakehall’s from where he watches you both, and you see true fear in his gaze. For you.
The edge of Aerion’s sword bites further into your throat as you gasp out, “I yield.”
He releases you at once, and you fall forward, hands scrambling up to your throat. They come back crimson, coated in your own blood as you lurch to your feet. “A spar,” you spit out, turning on him with a burning rage. “You nearly took my head.”
He leans on his sword now, shrugging cavalierly. “I won,” he corrects. “Now, I believe I’m owed something.”
You scoff; he cannot be serious. You need to take care of your wound, to clean out the gash and see if it needs stitching. But he’s nodding to the ground before him, and you realize that you have no choice.
Dropping your hands to your sides, you slowly make your way toward him. Everything in you screams at you to stop. But he won, and you’d agreed to these terms. Slowly, you drop to one knee, kneeling before your prince.
His eyes are alight with victory as he lifts his sword, resting it on your shoulder. “Swear your allegiance to me,” he demands. “Swear your loyalty.” His voice lacks its usual bite. There’s something eager and anticipatory lurking just beneath. The prize he’s been vying for far longer than you were aware of is finally in his hands.
“I swear myself to House Targaryen,” you grit out, knowing that if Lyonel could see you now he’d take your head himself. “To Prince Aerion Targaryen, I swear myself to you. My sword is yours to command.” He tilts his head, sword tapping your shoulder impatiently. “My prince,” you bite out, looking up at him.
Even if you do not want to, you mean every word of your oath. He will never rid himself of you, not even if he commands it. Because you are nothing if you are not bound by honor.
His smirk goes lax at the edges, softens into something covetous. “My knight,” he purrs.
a/n: 🚬🤏😮💨good soup. If you couldn’t tell, this was a gender swap of typical Knight and lady tropes. If you couldn’t tell x2– I love humbling Targaryen men
Overview: You used to be one of Smurf's girls. Always at her beck and call- until Deran helped you escape.
But when she decides Pope needs to blow off some steam, she's got just enough dirt on you to have you right back in the palm of her hand. (wc: 31k)
. mdni: 18+ implied sexual assault (not explicit, not done by Pope) one smut scene containing p in v, fem!receiving oral, rest is plot
. basically all of the smut is courtesy of my amazing beta reader @thebugsfollow— this whole story is also her idea so let’s all say thank you
Third act pregnancy- childbirth isn’t part of the story
a/n: I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen is literally Pope Cody’s song, and no one will ever change my mind
Smurf has a few key uses for her girls. Honey pots to seal a deal with a prospective business partner. Easy ways to gain dirt on those she’s trying to hurt. Strangely, though, her most important use for you all had been with Pope.
Personally, you’d always been kept for the clients. You were never one of those girls with her heels tossed over her son’s shoulders. She uses you all as a way to provide releases for the men in her life. You’re tools, barely even toys. Something good to be abused and tossed aside.
It was Deran who had gotten you out from under her thumb. He’d helped you get clean, scraped together what little of your life was left, and convinced his mother you’d lost your touch.
It didn’t take much to convince her. She’d been getting bored with you, anyway. You suppose you should just be happy that Deran got to you first, that you didn’t die with a needle in your arm like so many other girls before you who had “lost their touch.”
You never questioned why her rotation of women was so quick, why their employment was so short-lived. But you all knew. Smurf didn’t make mistakes; she didn’t leave behind messes, and she had no room in her life for other women. Especially not when it came to her sons.
Her fragile hold over Deran is already tumultuous, though. She knows it's not you that poses a threat to that tether. It’s the fact that her emotionally fucking her sons’ heads when they were kids didn’t stick with him. His pendulum swings the other way.
It always brings a little smile to your face in those rare moments you catch him and Adrian together. Just one instance where Smurf hadn’t gotten what she wanted. You’re sure that's why she never bothers coming by the bar. She doesn’t like the reminder of her failure.
And you certainly appreciate having one aspect of your life free from that woman.
Letting out a low sigh, you bend down and grab a rag to wipe down the bar. The little bell above the door chimes as someone walks in. “We’re closing,” you call out. Bootsteps still come closer, and you frown, glancing over your shoulder. “I said– oh.”
Pope pauses for a moment, surveying you. “Deran’s in the back,” you tell him, offering a strained smile.
“Thanks,” he mutters, rounding the bar and making his way through the kitchen to the back office. You continue with your closing duties, gnawing your lip as you think.
You’re not scared of Pope, not really. You know what he’s capable of, but it’s Smurf that calls the shots. It’s always her that you have to look out for. The old lady’s a lot smarter than people want to give her credit for.
You never knew why she didn’t let you have Pope. You’re certain you would have enjoyed it. There’s something about that intense look in his eyes– emotions so shadowed over, his gaze is almost empty.
But Smurf never offered you up, always kept you hidden away. She knows how easy it is for you to get attached; maybe that’s why. You always struggled separating the act and the paycheck.
In the back of the bar, you can hear Deran and Pope’s voices growing louder. Your head shoots up as the kitchen door swings open, banging off the wall. Pope storms through, jaw clenched as he stalks past you, muttering something to himself.
You tilt your head as you consider him. The broad line of his shoulders, the strength of his body you can make out even under his loose shirt. He lets out a short huff, storming out of the bar. Yeah, you could definitely see yourself getting attached to that one in all the wrong ways.
Deran comes out of the kitchen, and you jump, ripping your eyes away from the door. “Don’t let any more of my family come through,” he barks out.
“You guys fight?”
He shoots you a sharp look that has you biting back a smile. “What the fuck do you think?”
“You know I don’t like your family, anyway,” you defend, scrubbing at a stubborn stain on the counter. Deran goes quiet, and you roll your eyes, glancing back over at him. He’s giving you a knowing look that has you huffing.
“I don’t like most of your family,” you amend. Throwing his hands up, he shakes his head, storming back to his office. You glance back at the door, almost wishing Pope would walk through again. He’s certainly more intriguing than the other Codys.
Parties at Smurf’s place only have two directions they can go. High and low. High, of course, is when she brings out the good stuff, and everyone’s floating two feet above their bodies. Head lost somewhere in the clouds of smoke. Low is when some asshole, usually one of her sons, gets too drunk and starts a fight.
It seems to be going high, this time, a good sign for you, considering you want nothing more than to relax tonight. Deran had been kind enough to get you a job at his bar. A handout, honestly, considering how much he already helps you out with. Turns out, the opening week of a new bar is hell on your back.
You’re lounging back on one of Smurf’s pool chairs, lazily smoking a blunt Deran had handed you, as some girls flock around him. You’re certain they’re aware he doesn’t swing that way, but he's the tamer boy of the Codys. They probably just hope he might cut them a deal on whatever little baggies Smurf has him handing out.
You don’t blame the girls. You’d rather take something from Deran than his brother Craig. You wouldn’t trust Craig as far as you can throw him. Especially not with that sleazy grin he always shoots you.
A shadow falls over you, and the low tittering of the women goes quiet. You frown, lifting your sunglasses and glancing over at them. But the throng of women have scattered. Glancing up, you let out a little laugh, finding the reason standing over you.
Pope has emerged from the house, arms crossed as he hovers at your side. You doubt he even realizes you’re beside him, or the effect he’s had on the partygoers. Honestly, you appreciate his presence for the quiet it provides. He’s got a good dampener effect on the rowdy parties that go on around here.
“Having fun?” you try, not expecting much back from him. He glances down at you, brows raising. He probably just realized you’re there.
“No,” he tells you bluntly, eyes narrowing on the blunt in your hand. You tap the tip of it, shaking some ash off by his feet. He lets out a little sigh that almost makes you feel bad for teasing him.
“Really? You seem like the life of the party.” You shift higher up on the chair, back bowing slightly as you try to get comfortable. His gaze lingers on the top of your bikini before he looks away. His shoulders stiffen, arms tightening as he glares out at the rest of the party.
“You’re too easy,” you mutter, flicking your glasses down and closing your eyes.
The skin of his hand is rough, but his touch is barely there as he snatches the blunt from between your fingers. Your eyes shoot open as he gives you a sharp look. “Don’t fall asleep with this in your hand. You’ll burn the chair,” Pope quietly chides.
You snort as he storms off, tossing the blunt into the trash as he goes. You wonder if he knows how often your stare lingers on him. How easy it is for you to seek him out in every room you walk into. You doubt it. And you really doubt he’d ever want used goods, as Craig so often calls you.
You sink back into the chair, trying to get comfortable again.
The universe seems to be flipping you one giant middle finger today.
“Comfortable?” a rasping voice asks.
You suck in a deep breath, mentally prepping yourself. “Yep,” you grit out, flicking your sunglasses up and offering a smile to Smurf. You’re certain it comes off more as a grimace than anything else.
She offers something sickly sweet in return. It’s meant to come off as motherly or nurturing in some way. It does nothing more than set your nerves on edge. You don’t know why she tries any of her tricks with you. You know her intimately and have already seen past her many masks to the bitch below.
She hums, laughing slightly to herself as she perches on the chair beside you. “Talking to Pope?”
“No,” you answer quickly. God forbid she think you’re trying to steal one of her precious boys out from under her.
“Really?” She hums, sucking her teeth as she surveys the rest of the party. “Looked like you were the only girl who could stand being near him.”
You consider your response, wondering what constitutes her thinking you’re a threat. “He’s not so bad,” you finally settle on.
Smurf says nothing for a while, and you begin to worry you’ve messed up. She knows that you're Deran’s friend. And, in no way, are you a threat to her already fragile claim over him. But Pope’s different than the others; she’s much more unpredictable when it comes to keeping her guard dog close.
“Pope’s been having a hard time lately,” she finally tells you. “His mind isn’t where I need it to be.”
Is it ever? You just nod, not voicing your skepticism aloud.
“You know how it works with him. Usually, the girls I send in help soothe those fragile nerves.” Smurf lets out a low chuckle and shakes her head.
You tense up, muscles locking as you suck in a fragile breath. Yeah, you know how it works with him. You know all about the girls she sends to him. But there’s no reason for her to be bringing any of this up to you. Not now.
“Pope…” she lets out a low breath, shrugging. “Pope’s different, you know that.” Everyone knows that. “It doesn’t work for him when he knows the girls are being paid.”
You hum, lips pursed tight as you struggle to think of a way out of this. “Interesting,” you whisper.
Smurf lets out a little laugh, shooting you a sharp smirk. “Interesting,” she mocks, her tone cruel in its intentions. “You know what I want, don’t you, kid?”
You suck your teeth, arms winding tight around your stomach. You feel too exposed now. Body on display just like she wants. “I don’t do that anymore,” you bite out, forcing some sort of strength into your voice.
“Please,” Smurf barks out a laugh, sitting back up and leaning in toward you. You can’t find the strength to meet her eye. But her stare is branding into your skin. “I know women like you. You’ll do anything if the price is right. Besides… don’t forget what I know about you.”
For a moment, the world goes quiet. There’s no party, no throng of people getting high and drunk in front of you. It’s just you, small as you’ve ever been, and Smurf. With that god damn smirk on her face, always one step ahead of everyone else.
“You said you were done with me,” you whisper, tears clawing at the edge of your voice.
Smurf shakes her head. “No, I said I was done for now. And now, I need you again. I’ll even be nice and pay you, sweetheart. Four hundred a session, not hourly.”
Your eyes fall shut, nails digging into your arms as you realize you have no choice. You can keep fighting her, but all that’ll do is take away your pay. You’ll be forced to do what she wants, and you won’t even make anything off it. “What am I doing?”
“Just… entertainment.” She reaches forward, touch cold as she slides the falling strap of your top up. “And Pope doesn’t know about our little arrangement.”
It’s Smurf. You don’t have a choice. Not with the dirt she’s got on you. At the very least, it’s Pope, not someone like Craig or Baz she’s asking you to sell yourself out for.
“Okay,” you whisper, eyes watering as you stare down at your lap.
Smurf gets up and pats your head. “Good girl,” she mutters, laughing as she walks away. One day… She’ll be dead. Buried somewhere six feet deep, and you’ll be there.
Dancing on her fucking grave.
You let yourself in with the key Smurf had given you. Just like she used to, she sent you a time to show up. Normally, that was accompanied by a name and place. But you already knew who she wanted you to take care of. And since they’d sold his house, there was only one place for him to be.
Heading into the kitchen, you drop your purse on one of the chairs. There’s a low murmur in the living room, something playing softly on the TV. Sucking in a sharp breath, you fix your shirt and adjust your hair.
It’s not typical of you to be nervous before one of these appointments. But you haven’t done this in a long time. And you already know none of your old tricks are going to work here. Pope isn’t anything like the clients Smurf used to toss you to.
They had been looking for something carnal. Something quick that they could wrench pleasure from and then toss aside. Pope’s already a hundred times different from them just for not wanting his girls to be paid to be with him.
There’s another factor you’re worried about. At least, when Smurf pays the girls, Pope knows they’re coming. He knows what’s coming and how he’s expected to perform. He’s not been briefed for you, and you’re barely ready for him. You’re not sure you want to know what it would feel like to be rejected by him if this goes wrong.
Rolling back your shoulders, you force yourself to move. Rounding the corner into the living room, you stop short. “Oh.” The plan was to feign surprise, pretend you had been looking for someone else. But you don’t really have to feign anything right now. Not with Pope sitting on the couch in nothing but his boxers, watching… a bird documentary?
Clearing your throat, you blink a few times, trying to recover from the sight of him being half-naked. He seems just as taken aback, clearly expecting to have the house to himself today. His brows furrow as he watches you, hand twitching on his lap.
“Sorry. Is Deran here?”
“No,” his voice cracks slightly as he shifts against the cushions. You feel a little bad. You don’t think you’re making him nervous, but he certainly isn’t confident. “He’s at the bar,” he explains, jaw clenching.
“Oh,” you wave your hand and step into the living room. “My mistake,” you dismiss airily, shrugging. “Mind if I wait for him here? He shouldn’t be long.” Pope doesn’t say much or invite you closer. But you move forward anyway, not like you have much choice here. He drags a pillow over his lap as you take a seat beside him.
You’re decent enough to give him a few inches of space between you both, though you doubt that helps much.
You can’t confidently say that Pope is nervous. But he certainly seems affected right now. Your eyes narrow on the way his leg bounces slightly, the wrinkles at the hem of his boxers. Smurf left, the house is empty, and he’s been on edge lately. Maybe he’d been expecting one of Smurf’s girls.
He was right, in a way. But he didn’t get to know that.
Your skirt hitches as you tuck your legs under yourself. You shuffle for a moment, trying to get comfortable and “accidentally” slipping too close to Pope. He jerks away from your touch, not hastily, but carefully. You catch a sidelong look from him before he redirects his attention to the TV.
It’s easy to tell, just from the tautness of his shoulders, that he’s not hearing a damn word Attenborough is saying.
You settle back against the cushions and let out a little sigh, thighs flexing as you slip just a bit closer to him. It’s harder with Pope. You can’t get this started the way you would with old clients. They had been expecting you, and in turn, they’d been expecting a quick release.
Smurf made it clear that Pope isn’t allowed to know a damn thing about this arrangement. You’re terrified of what she would do if you messed this up in the first session.
You’ll have to ease him into this.
Sadly, that means suffering through an hour of a documentary that has you biting your tongue to keep from passing out from boredom. You spend the time creeping ever closer to Pope. Letting your thigh accidentally brush against his and pulling back quickly. Watching the sharp intake of breath in his chest from the contact.
Having your fingers graze the back of his hand as you stretch. You watch these little reactions flash across his face, making you wish you had a better understanding of his body language. You keep up this little game until he stops flinching from your touch and starts leaning into it instead.
You move closer, thigh brushing his leg, arm nearly pressed to his. He doesn’t move, just sinks a little deeper into the sofa. Your arm stretches along the cushions as you let out a low sigh.
“Pope?” you mutter, voice low as you lean in closer toward him.
“What are you doing?” He tilts his head toward you, eyes narrowed, a little quirk to his lips as his gaze drops to your mouth.
You’re slightly taken aback and resist the urge to pull away. “What do you mean?” you whisper, trying not to break the tentative bubble around you. He doesn’t answer, just watches you, eyes running along your form as you stretch closer. “I mean, I thought I was being kind of obvious.”
When he doesn’t say anything, you let out a breathy laugh. “I like you, Pope. But you know… I just can’t tell with you.”
He grabs the remote, turning off the documentary before tilting his body toward you. The pillow shifts slightly off his lap and you inch closer. “Can’t tell what?”
“Well…” the arm draped behind him shifts, and you let your fingers brush against the nape of his neck, teasing into his hair. “I’m usually much better at reading people. But I just don’t know with you. Do you like me, Pope?”
His voice is rough as he speaks, and you don’t miss the way his gaze drops to your lips. “Why do you care?”
You let out a little laugh, “I just said–”
His hand comes up, taking your wrist in his grasp. It’s not rough, but you can’t slip away. Your eyes widen slightly as you back up. “Did Smurf put you up to this?” His expression hardens; whatever reaction you might have been eliciting out of him is gone.
“What?” Your lips part as you shake your head. You let your eyes go wide with surprise, faux hurt, leaving them open until a little bit of water builds at the edges of your lashes. “No, I just–” You cut yourself off, putting on a proper show as you try to move away from him. “I’m sorry, this was so stupid,” your voice cracks around the words.
Maybe you’re laying it on a little thick. But Pope is sharp, sharper than you’re comfortable with. He couldn’t have caught onto you that quick… could he?
Maybe you’ve lost your touch.
“I’ll just leave.” You get on your knees, trying to pull away. His hand tightens imperceptibly around your wrist, and you lift your eyes, meeting his gaze once more. “Pope?” you whisper, leaning just a little closer to him.
He lifts off the cushions slightly, and you almost smile. You’ve still got it.
Tilting your head, you let your lips brush against his. Just barely, at first, hesitant like you really are nervous. And maybe, you are, just a bit. He pulls back for a moment, eyes darting along your face, gauging your honesty.
After a moment, he tilts his head, nose brushing yours as he presses his lips to yours. There’s more force behind the kiss than you’d like. His body is stiff beneath you as you slide your leg over his lap, straddling him. There’s too much teeth in the kiss; it’s aggressive in a way that reminds you of your old clients.
But there’s something else that’s off. It’s like he’s simply not used to this. To something that hasn’t been paid for and wasn’t premeditated. His hands hover over you, uncertain.
You let your palms drag along his broad shoulders, cupping his neck as you pull back. He stares up at you, lips parted and expression vulnerable in a way that makes guilt itch in your throat.
He’s used to fucking and being done with it. He doesn’t understand intimacy like a man his age should. That’s no fault of his own, not really.
“Slow,” you whisper down at him, waiting until he nods to kiss him again. His hands drop to your hips, squeezing once before settling there. You do your best to guide him into something soft, slow in a way that lets him follow your lead. He’s a quick learner, pulling you closer to him as he finds his own footing.
You get more comfortable, settling in his lap as you kiss him. Something begins to press up between your thighs, his boxers growing tight as you let your fingers tangle in his curls. His hips buck, and you let out a little gasp at the bold move. His tongue darts across the seam of your lips, and you tilt your head, letting him deepen the kiss.
His arms shift, wrapping tighter around your back as he tugs you closer. Your knee slips along the cushions, bumping into the remote. You both jump apart as a loud infomercial suddenly comes alive on the TV. “Shit,” you mutter, laughing as your forehead falls against his.
He lets out a rough sigh as your thumb lightly traces his bottom lip. Pulling back, he leans further into your touch, following you. He’s staring up at you, waiting for… something.
“Maybe we should take this to the bedroom,” you suggest quietly. The magic words, apparently, as he gets up from the couch. His arms are thick, secure around you as he carries you over to his bedroom.
You lean down, pressing soft kisses to his jaw, trailing down his neck as he walks. You’re easing him into the idea of you. But you’re also trying to placate yourself. It’s a poor attempt to calm the racing beast in your chest.
Your heart has been pounding against your ribs for the past few minutes. You know, in his own way, he’s not really a client. Certainly not like any you’ve ever done business with before. But your last experience…
Well, it had been your last for a reason.
It’s hard to forget the kind of pain you’ve gone through, shoved into similar situations like this before. Always at the hand of the same woman. But it doesn’t have to be like that again. Not with Pope.
He kicks the door shut behind him, turning and pressing you up against it. Your nails bite into his shoulders as he presses his nose to the crook of your jaw. He rests there a moment before slowly making his way back to your lips, just waiting. His shallow breaths fan across your face as you move forward, just enough to finally connect with him.
Rough hands flex around your thighs before he turns you around, walking you both back to the bed. Your legs slip from around his waist as he lays you down. Your hand trails up into his curls, tugging as his touch skates down your body. Pulling at the zipper of your skirt. You break apart, just long enough for you to peel your shirt off.
His fingers drag up along your bare skin. Goosebumps break out at the soft touch as he pulls back enough to get a good look at you. You would laugh if it weren’t for that look in his eye, slightly panicked and overwhelmed.
You’d made the choice to forgo a bra, knowing what you were getting up to today. His attention is unmoving on your breasts, and you let out a little huff. “I don’t bite,” you tease, taking his hands in yours and guiding them up to your chest. “Usually.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, barely even moves. His gaze drags back up to yours, and you give him a little nod. Slowly, he cups your breasts, cold hands making you shiver. It’s been a lot longer than you’d ever tell anyone since you’ve been intimate.
But… you’re liking this with Pope. For once, you’re not at the mercy of someone else. If anything, it feels like you’re holding the power here. His pleasure is only given if you will it. It’s certainly a feeling you could get used to.
Your hands drag up his arms, resisting the urge to squeeze those thick biceps, and you draw him back down into another kiss. He’s already learning, softer with his approach, less aggressive. His palms skate down your body until he’s squeezing your waist. You try to pull him closer, legs closing around his hips, and his hands fall to the sheets.
They flex at your sides as his body tenses. Pulling back, he won’t meet your eye, and you frown at the way his jaw clenches. There’s something sharp in his gaze that has your breath stuttering. You’ve seen the look before. In exes who knew what you used to be.
That niggling question of whether you were clean? If you were still seeing your ‘clients’? You can’t blame him for thinking it, especially knowing his inclination toward cleanliness. But the hurt never lessens. That slight edge of rejection never gets any smoother.
“We don’t have to do anything,” you whisper, slowly releasing him. He says nothing, and you sit up on your elbows. “Pope,” you tell him, voice firm. “We don’t have to do this.”
“You want to,” he mutters, finally meeting your eye. Your lips purse as you fight back the ache in your chest. You know that look too. The sudden fear that if you don’t give this person what they want… they’ll leave too.
You reach up, cupping his cheek, and he falls into the touch easily. “Come on,” you urge, moving up the bed and pulling the sheets back.
He hesitates, hovering over you and still wondering if he should just do what you want. You pat the spot beside you, and he finally crawls under the sheets. You settle into the pillows, opening your arms to him.
Pope watches you for a moment, eyes narrowed, before slowly sinking into your touch. Your hand settles in his curls as his head falls against your chest. It doesn’t take him much longer to melt completely against you, not as you play with his hair, nearly falling asleep yourself.
It’s comforting, in an odd way. Being pressed into the sheets by someone’s weight– but, for the first time in a while, they’re not expecting anything else from you. It’s a man you actually want. Not one that’s paid to own you for a few hours.
You lean back, drawing him closer as the sun sets through the window.
Pope is long gone by the time the sun rises again. Letting out a low sigh, you get out of bed, pretending you don’t miss the warmth he’d provided. Your skin is more chilled than you care to admit as you get dressed.
It’s not as if you’d expected him to stay. Smurf always has him out running errands for her or doing the odd jobs no one else will. For someone who wants her attack dog close, she sure hates having him in the house with her.
As you slip out of his room, the rest of the house is quiet, save for some clinking coming from the kitchen. Walking in, you grab your purse off the counter. There’s an extra weight that hadn’t been there the night before.
Smurf stands by the kitchen island, stirring her coffee with that smirk you’d love to carve off her face. “Fun night?”
Sucking your teeth, you straighten your skirt and nod. “It was nice,” you grit out.
She shakes her head and nods at your purse. Looking inside, you see a thick wad of cash rolled up and tossed carelessly inside. “Good girl,” she mutters, brushing past you. She gives your ass a little pat as she heads toward the pool.
You bite back something venomous, nails digging into the soft skin of your palms as you take in a fortifying breath. It’s not worth it.
You storm toward the front door. The anger inside you begins to dull as you start heading back home. You feel dirty. It’s the first time you’ve left a job of hers without someone else's fluids drying between your thighs. Or new bruises on your body.
Still, you feel cheaper than you have in a long time.
You want to convince yourself that you needed to do this to survive. You can’t survive off the shitty tips you make at Deran’s bar. And she could ruin your life with the knowledge she holds over you.
That doesn’t stop you from feeling like scum.
You’ve gotten better at noticing him before he makes himself known. It’s his stare, you think. It’s so heavy, so intent, it’s almost impossible to miss the weight of it on your back. His gaze is still something predatory to you– not that you don’t enjoy it. But you know better than to think of it as something empty, or compare it to the blind hunger of a shark, like you used to.
Lifting your head, you offer Pope a small smile as he stalks into the bar. There’s not really another word you can think of for that unique stride of his.
He brushes brusquely past the customers who are leaving. It doesn’t take long for people to simply make room for him. It's incredibly impressive– and attractive– how he can take control of a room without ever saying anything. Maybe people are just scared of his general energy, but it works.
He sits at the corner of the bar closest to you. “What can I get ya?” You toss your towel over your shoulder as you make your way toward him.
Pope fishes out his wallet, tossing too much cash on the counter. “Just a beer,” he tells you, turning to survey the rest of the people here.
He’s leaning against the bar, but his posture still remains stiff. His eyes never stop watching everyone around him, looking out for possible threats. It’s hard to tell if that’s a result of his time in prison or just a skill inherent to the Codys.
His mannerisms make you think of a man who should hate eye contact. But talking to him is intense enough to make you short of breath, sometimes. He never takes his eyes off of you, as if he’s one slip up away from being stabbed in the back. You wonder who the last person he trusted was. His sister, probably.
The longer you meet his eye, the more you see, the worse it gets. Those little flecks of emotion hidden among the hazel, it’s too much for a man who's meant to keep his cards close to his chest. You look away first, reaching for his cash and counting out his change.
“Keep it,” he dismisses when you try to hand it back to him.
Your eyes narrow, but you can’t afford to argue. Pocketing the cash, you nod, going to retrieve his beer. “Deran isn’t here,” you let him know, placing the bottle in front of him.
He wipes at the condensation before fetching a napkin, slipping it under the bottle. “Did you want to leave a message for him?” you ask.
Pope looks up from the beer and shakes his head. “No,” he tells you. “I didn’t come here to see Deran.”
A smile pulls at your lips despite yourself. “No?” you hum, pretending to wipe down the bar so he can’t catch that look in your eyes. The one that will give away too much, too soon. “Just came here for the shitty beer?”
“Exactly,” he mutters, taking a deep swig. Your eyes narrow as he plays along, a slight laugh huffing out of you. His idea of humor is so dry that it almost circles right back to not even being a joke anymore.
Shaking your head, you move down the bar to top off some drinks. He lingers in that corner, nursing the beer. He owns that section of the bar, even as business picks up and more people shuffle in. They don’t take the stools on either side of him.
There are these burdens, like shadows, ever present around him. It’s not something everyone can see, but they can feel the energy that radiates off him. That sort of ‘stay away’ warning that you’ve never been particularly good at following.
It’s rare for you to get through a shift without at least one shitty pick-up line or a drunken slap on your ass. But, with Pope’s stare burning over your shoulder, you have a pretty good night.
It’s interesting how quick he was to give in to your whims. How fast he now seeks out your company. You wonder: without Smurf’s prodding, would you have been able to lure him in like you had last night? Would he have given in to you the same way?
All this time you could have had him. But you’ve never been particularly good at taking what you want.
Pope remains in his seat the rest of the night. It takes a herculean effort not to simply close the bar early, knowing what's waiting for you after your shift. His stare is heavy with intent. Still, you control yourself, letting the anticipation drag out for him too.
“We’re closing,” you tell him, going around the bar and collecting the last of the beer bottles. Pope straighens up and slides from his stool.
“I’ll wait,” he tells you simply. You linger by the kitchen door before shaking your head with a scoff. You carry the recycling to the back, and when you come back, he’s wiping down tables with the cleaning solution from behind the bar. You don’t object, getting your closing tasks done in half the time with him.
“You know,” you start, as you count out the cash in the register. “If you wanted to spend time with me, you could have just asked.” He goes still where he’s standing. You offer him a wry grin. “I like being around you.”
He’s quiet for a moment before letting out a low huff. “Most people don’t.”
Your hands freeze as you shoot him a severe look. “Most people are idiots,” you tell him sharply. The corners of his lips twitch, and you sigh. Walking the envelope of cash to the back, you leave it in the safe under Deran’s desk. Out front, Pope waits for you by the door.
Grabbing your purse from the bar, you catch up with him. He holds the door open for you as you step outside. “So,” you hum. “Your place or mine?”
Pope tenses up beside you as you lock up. “What?” he asks as you turn to face him. His eyes dart down to your lips and you grin. He’s not as subtle as he thinks.
“Are we going to your place or mine?” you ask again, leaning against the door with your arms crossed.
You almost expect him to back out or change his mind. He knows who you are, what you were. You haven’t forgotten that moment of hesitation from the other night. You’d be honestly surprised if he wanted anything to do with you.
“Yours,” he tells you, voice so sure it takes you aback.
“Alright,” you mutter, slipping past him with a surprised smile.
Pope drives you to Deran’s place. You live in the apartment above his and Adrian’s home. A fact that you now realize you’ve never shared with Pope. But it’s not like you’ve ever had a reason to invite him over before.
You lead him up the stairs, his hand in yours as you let him inside. He toes off his boots as you toss your purse on the entryway table. “Want a tour?” you ask, raising your brows. He nods, and you squeeze your hand around his, guiding him through the tiny apartment.
It’s a decent enough place for somewhere that doesn’t charge rent. You’ve got your own little kitchenette and a depressingly small shower. It’s honestly not all that interesting. Lacking all of the personal touches that make a place home. You’ve learned to live small.
You lead Pope past everything and take him straight to your bedroom. “Not much of a tour,” he tells you, rough voice teasing.
You narrow your eyes at him. “Are you really complaining?” You step closer, pressing your chest to his as you wind your arms around his neck. He shakes his head and you push up, lips just brushing against his. “Are you sure you don’t want a better tour?”
He cuts off your teasing with a kiss. For a moment, it’s too harsh. But then he’s remembering what you’d shown him. He backs off, grip loosening around your waist, his touch softening. You take his hands in yours, dragging them down your body and directing him to the button of your pants. He makes quick work of it, helping you out of them.
You’re pushed up against the doorway, his rough palms squeezing your hips while you work on the buckles of his belt. The second you’ve got it undone, he’s kicking off his jeans, pulling away from you to rip off his jacket. Your hands drag down his torso, greedy as your fingers find the hem of his shirt. Lifting it, you eagerly palm the soft muscles of his stomach.
Pope shudders beneath your touch, and you grin, leaning up to press a quick kiss to his lips. He searches for more, but you dart out of his reach, whipping off your shirt and flitting toward your bed. You beckon him forward with a small crook of your finger, and he follows obediently.
You turn down your sheets, crawling onto your bed and waiting for him to do the same. He climbs over you, lips pressing against yours before drifting along your jaw, moving down your neck. He kneels before you, touch greedy as he palms your thighs.
It feels like he’s teasing you as he moves lower between your legs. His eyes never leave yours. Your breath hitches at the intensity of his gaze. His fingers play with the band of your underwear before he slowly moves back up your body.
You let out a soft breath, almost relieved he hadn’t traveled farther. You’re not sure how much of him you can handle at once. It’s been so long since you’ve let yourself be open with someone like this. And even now, you’re hiding things from him.
You can only take so much at once.
“Can we do what we did last night?” he whispers, tone hesitant. As if you would say no to that.
You just nod, reaching up and letting your hand scratch through his curls. You sink back into the pillows, and he follows you. He seems more sure of himself as he sinks into your chest, arms winding around your torso as you both get settled.
This seems to be becoming a tradition of sorts. You hold him until his breath settles and he falls asleep. Rolling over, you curl tighter around him, letting out a low, sated breath.
The bed is cold when you wake up. There’s a dip where his body used to be, but he’s gone. Rolling over, you scrub a hand down your face, suddenly aware of how naked you are. Uncomfortable at the AC nipping at your bare skin, you tug the sheets up.
Glancing over at your nightstand, you see a notification lighting up your phone. A part of you hopes it's Pope. But your heart sinks when you realize it’s a notification from Smurf. A wire transfer of $400 and a little ‘good girl’ memo, just so you don’t forget whose in charge.
With a low huff, you sink back into your pillows, stomach twisting. How could Smurf possibly know what happened last night? Did Pope tell her? Had Smurf sent Pope to you?
You hadn’t gone home with him last night with a paycheck on your mind. You’d just wanted to be around him.
Glancing back at your phone, you realize you finally have enough money to go grocery shopping for the first time in a while.
No going back now.
You have a tendency to follow Deran along wherever he leads you. Usually, you’re bored and looking for something interesting to occupy your time with. Most of the time, though, you have this feeling of obligation to him. For helping you more than he ever had to or even should have.
Ultimately, that habit puts you right back at Smurf’s place. No matter how hard he tries–how hard any of them try–they always find their way back to her. There’s something magnetic about her that pulls the boys right into her orbit, even if they know they should have left years ago.
Deran lounges by the pool while you get some water out of the fridge. You survey the area outside. The party is smaller this time. Likely thrown so Smurf could do business with someone, though you never have much clue what she gets up to.
The sliding glass door opens, and you straighten up. The devil herself walks through, that familiar smirk on her face. “What’re you doing in here, baby?”
“Just getting something to drink,” you answer, moving out of her way as she gets some food she’d made out of the fridge. “I wanted to talk to you, actually.”
“Oh,” she hums, brows lifting as she motions you on.
You lick your lips, swallowing roughly. It’s hard to string the right words together. To find that magical combination that will keep you looking like prey in her eyes, rather than another competitor. “You don’t–” Huffing, you start over, forcing yourself to meet her eyes.
“You don’t have to keep paying me.”
She shakes her head, feigning cluelessness and your nails bite into the plastic of your water bottle. “For Pope. I don’t mind keeping him entertained for you, but I don’t want you to keep paying me.”
“Now,” she chuckles, leaning against the counter. “Why would I stop? It’s not like you’re dating him, sweetheart. You’re just doing me a favor.”
Because it's wrong. Because every goddamn person in his life is using him in some way. And you can’t let yourself be someone like that to him.
“Right, well, I don’t need to be paid for it.”
Smurf smiles, tilting her head as she swaggers up to you. She drapes her arm around your waist, leading you outside. “C’mon, I want you to meet someone.” You want to dig your heels into the floor and stop her, but you don’t have a choice.
She leads you over to a balding man in an ill-fitting Speedo. There are already three girls surrounding him, each in skimpy bikinis with eager smiles. But that doesn’t stop him from turning his lecherous gaze onto you when Smurf brings you over.
“Honey, this is Robert. We’re working out some business right now. But I thought I’d introduce him to the girls.” She sets her chin on your shoulder, lips brushing your ear. “Do I need to introduce you to him, too?”
You jerk out of her grip, stomach turning as you take in the other man. “I’ll take the money,” you hiss out, meeting her eye with a sharp glare.
“That’s what I thought,” she grins. “Go on, enjoy the party,” she urges you along, and you run off to find Deran. You can hear that man objecting behind you. His arms are already full of beautiful women, but he’s still a greedy pig.
Your throat tightens with nausea as you throw yourself down on the pool chair beside Deran. Why would you have ever thought that would work?
If Smurf stopped paying you, that would be like admitting defeat. She’d be accepting that Pope actually has someone stable in his life. Someone who wants to be with him and around him. It would be admitting that she made a mistake. She had given you permission to enter his life and had given him access to the affection and care she weaponizes against him.
It’d be like his leash was switching hands. And she couldn’t have you cutting him free; of course she couldn’t.
You can’t believe you were stupid enough to think she’d conceded so easily.
“Everything okay?” You jump, the sound of Deran’s voice catching you off guard.
You force a smile onto your face, shoving down your discomfort. “Yeah, of course.” You motion toward Robert and redirect the conversation. “So, what’s she got planned this time?”
“Fuck if I know,” Deran scoffs. He takes a hit from the blunt in his hand. “She doesn’t tell me shit until she wants something,” he mutters, smoke billowing out of his mouth.
You hum, but you’re barely paying attention now. Something else has begun to occupy your thoughts. Well, someone else. Glancing over your shoulder, you see him.
Pope is lingering. That feels like an ill-fitting word for him. Lurking, brooding, stalking, those all fit him much better. Lingering seems so meek for him. Still, you can’t deny, that’s exactly what he’s doing.
He’s standing just at the perimeter of your space. Not approaching, just quiet in the corner of your vision. As if you might wave him away if he gets too close or takes up too much space.
It’s a silly worry, but you can see it clearly on his face as his gaze keeps darting back to you. He crosses his arms, pretending to be watching the rowdy partygoers. A smile pulls at your lips; you can’t judge him. You used to struggle keeping your eyes off of him, it’s easier now that you don’t have to pretend.
Deran lets out a rough sigh, and you force your attention back to him. “What?” you chuckle at the aggrieved look on his face.
He nods toward his brother. “What do you think? He’s weird but never this fucking weird.”
“Watch it,” you scold, shooting him a playful glare as you toss a sidelong glance at Pope. He’s only a few feet away; you’re sure he can hear his brother being a dick. It’s funny, though, how he acts like he hasn’t been waiting to talk to you since the moment you showed up.
“Have you guys fucked yet?”
You jump, head whipping back toward your friend. “Jesus, Deran, you make me sound like some sort of whore.” He shoots you a look that makes you laugh. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“Oh, are you a lady now?”
“Thin ice,” you warn, shaking your head at him. He holds up his hands, but that shit-eating grin doesn’t leave his face.
It’s dark by the time Deran passes out on the pool chair. The party has grown louder, and more people have shown up after sunset. You groan as you stand, shooting Deran an amused look as you leave him. He lets out a particularly loud snore as you brush past.
You glance around the pool for your shadow. He hasn’t gone far. Just retreated into a quieter corner, eyes never leaving you as you approach. “It’s getting pretty rowdy out here,” you whisper conspiratorially as you move to stand beside him.
He nods, eyeing the party before his gaze inevitably drifts back to you. “Are you not cold in that thing?” He nods toward your bikini, and you scoff.
You place your hands on his bicep and prop your chin on his shoulder. “Maybe. Do you wanna help warm me up?”
He swallows thickly, jaw clenching as he watches you. For a moment, you think you’ve finally got him. Then he looks away, rolling out his shoulders so you’re forced to let go. The rejection stings as you back up. “Don’t you have business to attend?”
Your brows furrow as you frown. “What?”
Pope just nods over toward the man Smurf had threatened you with earlier. You let out a disbelieving sigh, a stiff smile on your face as you shake your head. “Seriously?” you demand. Pope says nothing. “I’m not fucking him if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Before he can say anything else, you continue. “And I don’t do your mother’s business anymore. But you can go ahead and say what you’re thinking, Pope. I’m just another whore, right?”
Shaking your head, you move away from him and back toward the house. Somewhere inside, you know that this is irrational. Smurf is paying you. Not just that, but Pope is now your business. He wouldn’t be, if you had one fucking iota of control over your own life.
But you’re certainly not leading him on with this idea that you’re exclusive just to be fucking someone else behind his back. It hurts that he would think that lowly of you. That after the time you’ve spent together, you’re still nothing more than a prostitute looking for a quick buck.
You hear footsteps rushing up behind you before someone’s taking your wrist in their hand. Whipping around, you see Pope. He says nothing, just starts pulling you through the party. People part for him; they always do.
“What are you doing?” you hiss, not making much of an effort to break free.
He leads you to his bedroom, letting the door close behind him. You can see it, as the sounds of the party fade, his shoulders lose that stressed hunch. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, staring down at the ground, unable to meet your eye. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Crossing your arms, you shrug. “Whatever. I can’t exactly blame you for not wanting to be with me.”
His head lifts, and he frowns. “That’s not what I meant. I just–” he cuts himself off with a sharp breath. His shoulders roll back as he takes a step closer to you. “I want to be with you. But I don’t share.”
It took him a second to find the right word before settling on share. You doubt there’s a word succinct enough to say he doesn’t like his women sleeping with other men for cash. “I can’t stand it when you’re around other men. I just–” his eyes are wide with this slightly panicked look, as if he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing. Of pissing you off and having you run, again.
You surge forward, dragging him down into a kiss. You like this more than you should. That little bit of insecurity in his voice. The slight possessiveness as his hands squeeze around your waist. It’s nice to be wanted rather than scorned for situations far out of your control.
Your back is pushed gently against his door, and his hands cup your cheeks. Your hands drop to his wrists, flexing around them as he pushes you higher up the door. His thigh slots between your legs as you throw your arms around his shoulders, desperate for some leverage. His leg flexes, and your hips grind down, a soft gasp escaping you as his grip flexes around your waist.
This is different. More rushed than what you’ve done with him before. There’s intent behind this kiss, especially behind the way his palms drift. He cups your ass, lifting you until your legs are wrapping around his hips. He shuffles you higher up his body, dragging you away from the door.
Your hands find their way into his hair, grip tightening around his curls, trying to anchor yourself in whatever way you can manage. He lets out a low groan that makes nerves spark beneath your skin. “Pope, what’s gotten into you?”
You let out a low sigh as he bends, placing you carefully on the bed. He surveys you for a moment, jaw flexing as he debates answering. He doesn’t say anything, just tugs his shirt off, arms and stomach flexing as he does. You reach for the string of your bikini top, tugging it loose.
You let it sit on your chest, beckoning him closer and guiding one of his hands to the thin fabric. His lips drag down your neck, calloused palm eagerly ripping away your top. He tosses it somewhere behind him, and you sink back onto the bed, letting him take the lead.
He hasn’t seemed confident in initiating much with you; you don’t want to discourage him now.
His rough palms travel down your body, lingering at the band of your bottoms. When his wide eyes meet yours, you give him a little nod. He pulls, slowly, until the flimsy fabric dangles from one ankle, then he settles back over you.
His fingers skate across your stomach, touch barely there, but just enough to leave goosebumps in his wake. His lips marks a slow, intentional path down your body. He lingers at your chest, careful as he slowly mouths at your breast.
His eyes dart between yours, like he’s waiting for you to scold him, push him away. You thread your fingers through his hair, nodding. You’re afraid of saying anything, of spooking him out of the moment.
He sucks once and you tug at his hair, letting out a low whimper as his free hand tweaks your other nipple. “Pope,” you gasp out, spine arching into his touch.
It’s so faint, so hesitant, you can’t stand how much of a tease he is. His eyes close as his hand wanders, searching. He wants to know how much you want him. Wants to feel it.
Slowly, he parts from you; you have to stop yourself from reaching for him. His mouth descends until he’s lingering between your thighs. You spread your legs wider, making room for his broad shoulders.
Just like everything else he’s done tonight, he’s tentative at first. A shallow dip of his tongue has you holding back a groan of frustration. You’re not trying to rush him; you want this to be good for him. To feel real.
But it’s hard. You’ve wanted him for so long, and he’s right there, kneeling between your thighs, and there’s nothing you can do but be at his mercy.
You tighten your grip around his hair, inching your hips ever closer to his mouth. His large arms wrap around your legs, keeping your back pressed flush to the bed. The corded muscles of his shoulders flex as he finally leans forward. You’re struck by the sight of his thick body pinning you down, the sudden urge to sink your teeth into him overwhelming.
Instead, you tilt your head back, resisting the need. Your heart thumps fast, anticipation pushing you closer toward the steep edge of desperation.
Something is flickering inside you, smoldering. A small flame sparked alive by the heat of his breath, catching like wildfire when you finally feel his mouth on you. He doesn’t hold back, ravenous as his hands flex around your thighs.
A rumbling groan tears from deep within his chest, low and desperate with every swipe of his tongue. The vibrations leave you keening; your hips twitch, but his heavy arms keep you in place. He pulls away, ignoring your wanton mewl. His hand pinches at your thigh and you look up. The second your hazy eyes meet his, he’s dipping back down.
You could swear there’s a smile on his lips as his tongue thrusts into you, mouth greedy as he devours you.
You wonder what he’s like with the women Smurf hires.
You shouldn’t be thinking about her, not right now.
But… does he take what he wants? Shove into them and take them until he finds release? Or is he tender with them, too? Reaching hopelessly for some sort of connection, one they’ll give him right up until the cash is in hand.
You don’t want to be that; you want this. Want him. Want that desperate edge in his eye as he eats you like all he’s ever felt is hunger. Your hand tightens in his hair, a broken moan crawls up your throat as something inside you burns. The heat pools low, spreading to your every limb. Your muscles jump and contract as you squirm beneath his iron grip.
The jerk of your hips, the sounds that splinter then shatter the moment they touch your lips, the closeness you demand with your fingers threaded through his curls— it all seems to spur him on. He buries his face deeper, tongue relentless as he burrows inside you, and the only thought your mind can conjure is Pope Cody.
“F-Fuck— Oh, God,” you let out a sharp gasp. Losing all manner of control, you begin to writhe, grinding down on him until the fire burns so hot, it becomes cold. Pleasure crests over your body in waves, leaving you shivering. Your legs twitch, thighs practically closing around his head as his fingers dig into you, ten crescent moons carved into your skin. He doesn’t stop until you tug weakly at his hair.
He’s panting slightly as he finally lets you go. When he pulls back, loosening his grip, your slick shimmers on his chin, though he doesn’t seem to care. His eyes are dark and dazed, but no less intense, as he watches you struggle to catch your breath.
Following your gentle pull, he crawls up your body, letting his lips mark a trail as he goes. His rough hands knead and soothe your spasming muscles.
You drag him into a lazy kiss, palms smoothing down his back as you wrap your legs around his waist. His length sits heavy in his boxers, you can feel it pressing against your hip, the wetness that grows as he flinches away from the pressure.
Carefully, you push at his shoulders until he’s sitting on the bed. You follow once he’s settled, sliding into his lap.“You don’t have to,” he murmurs, hands hovering over your hips. Like he’s waiting for permission to touch you, despite the scent of you still on his breath or the messy sheen that’s drying on his chin.
“I want to,” you promise, cupping his cheek and luring him into another soft kiss. Slowly, but surely, his palms find solace on your hips, and he nods into the affection. You rise on shaky legs and help him work his boxers down.
He notices the slight quiver in your hands and guides them to rest on his shoulders as he lines himself up. You let out a shuddering sigh, lowering yourself onto him. Your breath catches as he fills you completely. He groans when you take a moment to adjust and it’s dizzying. All you want is to hear more. You want to know every pretty sound he can make, so you push him back, your hands sliding down to his chest as you lift your hips.
It’s tentative and barely anything, you’re still slightly weak from before, but you can feel the anticipation tightening his grip into something almost painful. His fingers flex, like he’s trying to remind himself of control.
“There we go,” you whisper, more to yourself as you find a steady rhythm. You peer down at him, noticing the clench of his jaw, the white knuckles of his hand. He won’t look at you. His gaze is far-out and set on the languid roll of your hips.
You let your nose trail along his flushed cheek as you wander lower, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his jaw. Your lips brush his ear, teeth just barely grazing. “You can touch me, Pope,” you promise. You settle back on his thighs, taking his heavy hands and dragging them to your breasts. “I’m all yours,” you whisper, enjoying the way his jaw loosens, wide eyes finding your own. “Only yours,” you swear.
That severe look softens as you slowly begin to circle your hips again, setting a steady pace. You let go of his hands, falling forward onto his chest as you brace yourself. Pleasure begins mounting again, the feeling of him inside you overwhelming as you pulse around him.
Your body trembles as you begin to lose your rhythm, walls still fluttering from the feeling of his tongue. You’re too sensitive for this. It’s been so long since you’ve genuinely been with someone without performing that you’ve almost forgotten the right moves.
Hesitantly, his hips buck, and you choke on your breath, sliding until your lips are pressed against his once more. Your hands drag up his chest, stroking his cheek as he winds his arms around your back. You set the pace, decide the rhythm, but his hips move in time, taking only as much control as you allow him.
“There you go, just like that,” you pant, breathless as your stomach tightens. The encouragement seems to spur him on, his thrusts speeding up slightly.
You pull back, biting your lip as you stare down at him. “God, that f-feels good.” His eyes light up, glimmering in a way you haven’t seen before. There’s a low, rumbling sound you quickly realize is coming from him, but it soon fractures into something softer, needier. “You’re doing so good,” you whisper, observing him intently.
Your jaw drops open when you hear his voice, weak and wanton, stretching thin around a single word, over and over: “Yeah, y-yeah, yeah.” You gasp as he ruts up into you, reaching deeper than before. His movements are rushed, his brows furrowed; you can practically see his control fraying like old twine.
He hits that spot inside you that has your vision going blurry and your nails biting into his chest as you cling to him. Your moans grow pitchy, drowning out his soft noises. Your attempt at keeping pace falls apart as you curl into him, your eyes shut so tight you begin to see spots whizzing around in the darkness.
Despite the way you tighten and convulse around him, he keeps moving. Your spine arches, frozen and bowed in his unyielding grip. A drop of sweat rolls down his temple as his hips buck wildly. He’s speaking, you notice, muttering so quietly, your hazy mind can’t latch onto a single word. The only thing you can hear is the tide of raw desperation that rushes through and hollows out his tone. Then, his muscles pull taut; he holds you as close as he physically can, whining brokenly when he can’t drag you any closer.
Chest-to-chest, you feel the heat of his breath rush over your face as his hips jerk, losing all coordination. Warmth. All you feel is his warmth as his head burrows into the crook of your neck and his length flexes helplessly inside you.
With his heart thumping rapidly against yours, your fingers carding through his damp curls, you realize you broke your own rule. You hadn’t even thought about using a condom, let alone asking him to pull out. You wanted him. All of him. And now you have it. So you let him soften inside you as he carefully moves you under the sheets.
You relish the ache in your body, succumb to the exhaustion in your bones. You’re pulled from a dreamless sleep when you feel the wet warmth of a washcloth between your thighs.
After a few moments, the bed dips beside you. Your hand wanders blindly, brow furrowing as you pat at the empty space. You don’t say a word as you grab his wrist, dragging him into your arms, closing the gap between you. He huffs softly—maybe a laugh, maybe a begrudging complaint, you’re not sure. It’s merely a rasp of breath, but it hitches, like it’s caught on something in his throat the second your fingers start to soothe the angry red marks on his freckled skin. Like a vow of surrender, he presses a kiss beneath your jaw, and you sigh. “Thank you,” he mutters, speaking the words into your skin, and you can only hum, pulling him closer.
Your laughter wakes him up, echoing from the kitchen and just barely reaching his room. It’s a light sound, without the baggage that he’s grown so familiar with. Frowning, he scrubs his hand down his face and sits up.
Sun spills in through the windows, marking the spot you’d been lying in the night before. His hand runs across the sheets. It’s cold enough that he knows you’ve been gone for a while. It’s an uncomfortable feeling that settles in his chest at the realization.
It’s probably a sensation you’ve grown familiar with, considering how often he leaves you alone in bed. He hates that every time you’ve woken up and seen the indentation where his body was, he’s left you with this. But staying would be admitting to an attachment that’s dangerous for both of you.
He throws the sheets back, getting up and dressing quickly. He’s interested in whatever's got you laughing so hard this early in the morning. When he steps out of his room, he shouldn’t be surprised to find his brother sitting with you.
You and Deran are seated at the kitchen island, cereal shared between you as you laugh at something Deran’s said. His brother has that bored look on his face, unaware of how rare the sight of you smiling like that is.
Pope’s never elicited a reaction like that from you. The thought makes something sharp and ugly curl in his gut. He grimaces, shaking his head. It’s not like he’s ever said anything worth laughing at.
Humor’s never been his talent. Most people don’t recognize his attempts; they just stare at him with that look in their eyes. Like they’ve been waiting for him to leave since he walked up.
You’ve never looked at him like that.
Pope storms up to the kitchen, and your laughter slowly fades. Something in his chest tightens at that. Your eyes widen at the look on his face, and he sucks in a sharp breath. He snatches up the milk and shakes it at Deran. “Why don’t you learn how to put things back?” he snaps, glaring at his brother.
Deran shoots him an offended look. The moment’s broken by your laughter. It’s the light kind of sound that usually only his brother earns. Your eyes narrow, and you give Pope a funny look.
“Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” you tease. Pope lets out a huff, shaking his head as he puts the milk away.
“Yeah, with you on the right side,” Deran mutters. Pope glances over his shoulder, whatever he was going to say gone as he realizes you’re dressed in nothing but his shirt.
You kick Deran under the counter and scoff. “Fuck off,” laughter still lingers in your voice. Pope can appreciate the sight of you like this. Happy, uninhibited. Usually, when you’re over at the house, you always look like you’re one good scare away from running out the door. The work of Smurf, he’s sure.
He wants to think he contributed to your mood in some way. But he’s never been good at improving moods, just learned not to make them worse. He likes the thought of one day being the reason you have a smile on your face, but he knows it’ll probably never happen. There’s a reason he’s got a poor track record with dating.
You jump up from your seat, dropping your bowl in the sink. When Pope moves to put it in the dishwasher, you intercept. You throw your arms around his shoulders with a small smile. “Morning, you grump,” you tease, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
His hands hover over your waist, nearly returning the hug, but you’re already moving away. It’s so simple with you, isn’t it? Holding and knowing how to be held. It’s not such a foreign idea to you as it is to Pope.
He wants to be comfortable with it, with you. But it’s hard to get rid of that feeling, like he’s ready to strip off his skin anytime you touch him so softly. Rougher is easier; it’s familiar. This just doesn’t make sense to him. That you’re around him willingly, that Smurf isn’t just paying you off to keep his head on straight.
Pope’s still not sure how much he trusts this whole arrangement with you. He knows what you said, about not working, about only being with him. But he’d seen how Smurf had taken you aside last night, that terrified look in your eyes when you’d run off.
A part of him is worried about what he’ll find if he digs much deeper than the surface.
Deran lets out a disgusted sigh at the affection and moves outside. He leaves his bowl at the counter for someone else to clean. Pope glares at his brother’s back as you jump onto the kitchen counter beside him. You steal his attention easily.
Pope could certainly get used to this feeling of someone being so eager to be the center of his attention.
“What do you want to do today?” you ask, a lazy smile on your face. He knows he's greedy when he wishes he could keep that smile just for himself. To have you in a way no one else does, not even Deran.
A part of him resents his brother for getting to you first. For being your friend first and making that unofficial claim on your time and presence.
“You wanted to go to the boardwalk,” he reminds you, even though the idea sets his teeth on edge. He’d hate to be out in the sun surrounded by rowdy tourists and louder locals. But he knows you’ve been wanting to go, and you’ve been doing too many things he’s wanted to do.
Besides, he wants to hear you laugh again. Or get a real, genuine smile out of you. Not that teasing look that's ever-present on your face.
“Seriously?” you scoff, tilting your head. “Don’t you hate that kind of thing?”
Yes. Pope just shrugs, focusing on cleaning up the mess Deran left behind, hoping you don’t notice the stiff posture of his shoulders or tight look on his face. “How about,” you slip off the counter and sidle up behind him, hand resting lightly on his back.
“We catch a movie? It’s too hot to be outside, anyway.”
The weather’s perfect for a day out on the boardwalk. But he knows you’re lying for his sake. He should make the sacrifice to make you happy. But it’s surprising how easily you’ll switch your plans to accommodate him. It’s hard to say no to that.
“Yeah, alright,” he agrees. You smile, turning off the sink and taking his hand in yours. You offer Deran an absentminded wave as you lead Pope outside. He relishes the eye roll his brother sends you.
Maybe you’d had plans with Deran today. It didn’t really matter, though, because you’d chosen Pope. He’s almost tempted to gloat, but you’re still dragging him along behind you.
Pope helps you up into his truck. Your phone lights up, and you glance down at it, the smile on your face fading. It looks like a notification that someone’s sent you money, but you’re closing the door before he can get a good look at it.
He gets inside and watches you carefully. You bite at the skin around your thumb, leg bouncing as you type something out on your phone. His mind shouldn’t immediately go to the thought that it's a client paying you.
You’d told him last night there wasn’t anyone else. And he knows Deran does his best to keep you away from all that, now.
His knuckles go white around the steering wheel as he backs out of the driveway.
Pope has no claim to you; he knows that. Even after all the time you’ve spent together, you still aren’t technically anything. But that doesn’t chase away the barbed feeling of possessiveness in his chest. He told you he doesn’t share, and he meant that.
He can’t stand the idea of someone else being with you the way he had been last night. It makes something hot burn up in his stomach. The corners of his vision go dark as he glances over at you.
“Everything alright?” you ask, frowning at him.
He just nods, sucking in a sharp breath as he turns back to the road. You haven’t given him a reason not to trust you.
The bell above the door rings out, and you already know who it is without looking. Pope takes his usual seat at the bar, and you grab him a beer. Just like he has the past few weeks, he’ll wait out the last hour of your shift with you and drive you home. You’ll turn on a movie, and Deran will still complain he can hear what you’re getting up to with his brother tomorrow morning.
You smile at the thought, leaning against the bar as Pope watches you. “No plans tonight?”
He shrugs, taking a swig of his beer. “Smurf wanted me home for dinner.” He purses his lips, glaring down at the bar. “I don’t want to deal with that tonight,” he mutters, meeting your eye again.
“I feel so special,” you tease, forcing the smile to stay on your face.
But your heart is racing, adrenaline spiking in your blood. You do actually feel special that he would choose you over Smurf. But it’s worrying. You’ve never been a threat to her before, not really.
All bets are off when it comes to Pope. She’s so terrified of what he could do if he stopped idealizing her in his head. If you begin posing a threat to her position with him, she won’t hesitate to take you out.
Trying to distract yourself, you go back to topping off drinks and wiping down spills. You head into the kitchen to fetch a customer’s food. By the time you come back, there’s someone else waiting by the bar.
It’s a tall man in a pressed suit with the posture of someone who holds themself in high esteem. Cop, you figure. Spend enough time with the Codys or working the jobs you used to, and you get good at sniffing them out. This one’s probably a detective based on that expensive watch he’s wearing.
He’s eyeing Pope warily, probably well aware of his place in the Cody family. You’re sure they’re a hot topic at the station. “What can I get you?” you ask, walking back behind the bar.
A fool’s hope that he’s here for a shitty beer. He’s not even sitting down. Probably afraid to get a stain on his pants from Deran’s secondhand stools. The detective offers a smarmy grin and says your name. You hum, nodding.
“I was wondering if you’ve seen this man?” He digs around in the inside of his blazer and pulls out a picture, sliding it across the bar. You bite your lip, innately aware of the stare burning into the side of your head. It takes all your self-control not to look over at Pope.
Your stomach drops so violently that you worry you might throw up as you stare down at the picture. You recognize that face. Green eyes framed by wrinkles from a life filled with laughter. Blonde hair that had been going gray the last time you’d seen him. Tears line your eyes as you stare down at the image.
You suck in a sharp breath, blinking a few times before looking back up at the detective. “Can’t say I have,” you tell him, plastering on a smile. “Should I be looking out for him? Did he do something?” You play the “concerned citizen” role well, but not well enough.
He’d caught you off guard, sent you stumbling from that reminder of the past.
The detective sucks his teeth, smile tightening at the edges as he shakes his head. “That won’t be necessary. His name is Joseph Barker. He was murdered three years ago. The case has been closed, but some new evidence recently came to light that has us reopening it.”
“Oh,” you hum, eyes wide with naivety. “I’m sorry, sir, I’ve never seen him before.”
The detective pulls out his wallet, takes out a business card, and places it down. “I want you to keep that,” he tells you, nodding to the picture. “And call me if anything… jogs your memory.” His eyes cut toward Pope before he swiftly leaves the bar.
You let out a low breath and lean against the counter, head falling between your shoulders. “What was that?” Pope asks, breaking through the quiet.
You lick your lips, picking up the card and picture. “Nothing,” you mutter, throwing them both in the trash. You turn around to Pope with a tight smile on your face. Shrugging haplessly, you just tell him, “I have no idea who that is. Ever heard of him?”
Pope stares at you for a long while. Long enough to make your skin crawl with the paranoia that he sees right through your long list of lies. Finally, he shakes his head. “No. I haven’t.”
“Weird,” you mutter, voice cracking around the word. You have to turn away from him. Scrubbing a hand down your face, you suck in a deep breath, willing yourself to get it together. His stare feels like a judgment weighing heavily on you for the rest of your shift.
Pope’s mind is usually filled with a dozen different thoughts. What Smurf wants from him, worrying about his brother’s fucking something up, reminders of past failures. Lately, the new addition to that has been you. He normally likes his thoughts of you. They break through the rest of the noise and give him a chance to breathe.
But his mind is jumbled up around how you’ve been acting. You’re barely ever looking away from your phone. Teeth always tearing through the skin of your nail beds until they bleed, uncaring as you frantically message someone on the other side of the screen.
You’re jumpy and less touchy with him than you typically are. He has a hard enough time initiating with you, but you’ve been making it even worse by flinching at anything and everything.
He was worried before; it’s only gotten worse since that detective stopped by the bar. You’ve withdrawn into yourself completely. You’re always quiet, with this look in your eyes that tells him you’re somewhere else completely.
His worry is a poor excuse for what he’s doing right now. But there’s no one around to judge him but himself, and he’s never had particularly strong morals when it comes to protecting those he cares about.
Pope’s been following you all day. Trailing behind you in his truck, watching you run your errands and flit about town. You’ve never noticed him, not once. Which is worrying enough. He’s not been particularly subtle. Almost hoping that you’ll catch him so he can just confront you.
He’s parked across the street from the gas station you’re at. Arm propped on his window as he watches you run inside. A sleek black car pulls up and parks beside yours. Pope frowns, shifting in his seat to get a better look as the detective from before gets out of the car.
Detective Benson— he found out the name after he’d fished the man’s business card from the trash. He did a bit of digging into him. He typically handles the more Wall Street cases. Helps businessmen cover up their illicit affairs and bad investments. It makes sense that he’s got this Joseph guy's case. But Pope can’t figure out the connection back to you.
He sits up as you come out of the gas station, reading your receipt and unaware of your surroundings. Benson walks up to you, cutting you off before you can get in your car. Pope can’t hear anything that’s being said, but he can see the shock on your face. How quickly it morphs into fear as you look around for an escape.
You were lying to him.
He knew that at the bar. You’d looked like you were on the verge of tears after the detective left. And he’s not blind. Pope knows you’d recognized the picture Benson had given you. But you weren’t willing to open up to him.
You look flustered as Benson starts talking to you, holding up your hands and shaking your head. You try to escape back to your car, but he stops you, stepping in front of you and grabbing your shoulders.
Pope shifts in his seat. He doesn’t appreciate just how comfortable this cop is getting with you. His hand is on the door handle, almost tempted to head out and help you. But you already look calmer, head hanging down as you nod. Benson backs off, pulling out his card again and handing it to you.
You take it without objecting, lifting your head to watch as the detective drives off. Pope can see you thinking, your foot tapping as you stare down at the card. He’s willing you to turn around and throw it away. To just forget about the cop.
Instead, you pinch your nose, shaking your head as you put the card in your purse and climb back into your car.
Pope’s seen enough. He sucks in a sharp breath, white-knuckling the steering wheel as he pulls out and away. The information he needs, he isn’t going to get from you.
He drives back to Smurf’s place. And he knows that he should have just come to her to begin with. But he’s cagey about you. She knows he’s spending his nights somewhere else now. Somewhere away from her.
He hasn’t told her about you. Going to her, asking about this Joseph guy, he knows it’s going to point right back to you. But you’re not talking to him, and he doesn’t know what else to do.
Pope lets out a rough sigh, scrubbing his hand down his face as he parks. He’s trying to think of anywhere else he could go. Anyone else he could talk to so he can figure out what your connection to a dead man is. But he knows what you used to do for his mother, who you were. She knows. He’s sure of it.
He slams his truck door closed, storming up the front steps. He can hear her in the kitchen, making dinner. He’d forgotten she’d called a family dinner tonight. The last goddamn place he wants to be is surrounded by his family while he’s dealing with this shit with you.
“Hey, baby,” she calls, glancing over her shoulder with a sharp smile. “Where you been?”
Pope leans against the counter, jaw flexing as he shakes his head. “Nowhere,” he mutters. She narrows her eyes but doesn’t question him further. “Do you know a Joseph Barker?”
Smurf frowns, tilting her head as she thinks. “Yeah,” she smiles at him and nods. “Yeah, I do.” She says your name, and the way her smile sharpens has his chest tightening. “He was her favorite. Something happened between them. Haven’t heard from him in years.”
Smurf shrugs with a helpless smile, but he knows she hasn’t been helpless a goddamn day in her life. “Not my business to tell, baby. Now, help me set the table.”
He takes the plates she hands him instinctively, going to arrange the table just like she asked. Her words ring through his head. Your favorite. He hadn’t realized escorts had favorite clients, but he guesses it makes sense.
Doesn’t matter that the man’s been dead three years; something ugly and sharp still burns hot through his chest. He slams the plates down harder than necessary, thinking about you having a favorite anything.
You’ve done everything she asked.
And you did your job too damn well. That’s why she’s punishing you. It has to be. She wanted you to entertain Pope, keep him occupied, and stop him from spiraling. You did just what she asked.
You entertained him, cared for him, provided him with the sort of affection she saves up until he’s desperate for any form of contact. Until he’s practically broken. You’ve done your best to stop him from breaking, and that’s exactly why she’s doing this now.
Smurf is bringing ghosts back, sending the cops on your trail so you remember just why you’re so afraid of her. It’s what she has on you that has kept you so compliant for years.
You were only meant to entertain Pope. Not become something to him that has him skipping family dinners and ignoring Smurf’s calls. You’ve created this gap between her and him that has her trying to scare you into submission now. You’re so certain she’s the reason “new evidence came to light” on Joseph’s case.
But you have no idea what you’re supposed to do. There’s nowhere you can run, not now. You’ve never been particularly good at covering your trail. She’s the one who’d taken care of everything. Sworn that it was over and done with.
You pace your living room, biting at your lip and trying not to break down. What the fuck are you going to do now?
Someone knocks on your front door, and you nearly scream. Clutching your racing chest, you turn toward it, debating not answering. Maybe it’s that detective again. Coming by with more questions.
He’d got you at the gas station today. Tricked you into admitting that you knew Joseph. He got in your head with all that soft bullshit about wanting to help you—– you just had to be honest with him. You’re fragile, and you’re fucking stupid, slipping up like that.
“It’s me,” Pope calls from the other side. You can’t tell if it's relief or panic that has your stomach swooping.
“One sec,” you call, voice cracking. Grimacing, you rush up to the door, opening it up for him. “Hey, thought you had a family dinner tonight?” Your smile is tight at the edges, crumbling under the weight of your panic.
You know your eyes are wide, expression bordering on desperate. You just don’t know if you’re desperate for him to stay or leave. In some strange way, he terrifies you. He sees so easily through all your lies and defenses. He knows something is wrong with you, but he hasn’t probed. And that’s what's scary.
Because if he hasn’t felt like digging deeper, then what does he already know?
“Left early,” he tells you, stepping inside. Your forehead falls to the door, and you suck in a trembling breath as you try to get your shit together.
With a quiet exhale, you turn around. His back is to you as he takes in the mess of your living room. A result of your earlier breakdown this morning. “Did you need something—”
“Whose Joseph Barker?” His voice is rough, eyes sharp as he turns to face you. Your nails bite into your palms as your mouth opens. But nothing comes out. You flounder, back pressed to the door as you shake your head helplessly.
Pope huffs, crossing his arms as he glares at you. He’s not easing up in the slightest. “I talked to Smurf. I know he used to be one of your clients. You lied to me.”
“I—” your voice cracks, and you feel your chest heave as you drag in a breath. “I had to,” you mutter, pinching your eyes shut as you fight back tears. “Please, Pope, I don’t want to do this right now.”
“Too bad,” he snaps, voice making you jump.
Why is he here?
Did she send him?
“You lied to me. I want to know why.” He stalks closer, and you dart away from the door, trying to put as much space between you as you can. Your eyes flit over his body, the way he pauses as he watches you run. His hands— loose at his sides.
You would be able to tell, wouldn’t you? If he was going to hurt you. You want to think you would know. But it’s Pope… As much as you think you mean something to him, you will never be Smurf.
“I couldn’t tell you the truth, Pope, okay? I still can’t.” You want him to leave. But you’re too afraid to say that. Your hand shakes at your side as you watch the way he blocks your door. He’s probably not even doing it on purpose, but it feels like the goddamn walls are closing in on you.
He looks away from you, lips pursing as he sucks in a sharp breath. “Smurf told me he was one of your clients. That something happened—”
“God,” you scoff, cutting him off. “Are you really gonna trust a goddamn thing that woman says?”
His eyes flit back to you, and he shakes his head. “How am I supposed to know what to believe?” There is something so painfully broken open on his face. The sort of pain that’s only caused when someone you care about lies to you. And you’d done that. Repeatedly, you’ve lied to him about everything in your relationship.
Your head drops as you rub your hand down your face. You can’t look into those hurt eyes of his for another second, or he’s going to break you open completely. “Okay,” you whisper, voice breaking around the word.
He takes a step closer, but you can’t handle the proximity. Not while it feels like your ribs are seizing around your lungs. You shake your head, backing up and pacing away from him. “I knew him, okay? He was my client, you’re right.”
Pope watches as you pace, brows drawn in. Something guarded falls over his face. “She said he was your favorite.”
You pause, eyes lifting back to his. He can’t seriously be jealous of a dead man. “Yeah,” you scoff. “He was my favorite. That doesn’t mean a whole lot in my line of work. He didn’t hurt me, alright?” Not at first, anyway. “And I appreciated that.” Something flickers in his eyes, anger on your behalf that you’re not interested in.
You look away from him, throat tightening as you try to find the right words to explain what happened. How it all went wrong. He takes a step closer, and your eyes dart warily to him. “Tell me,” his voice is softer now, a pleading edge to it.
Sighing, you take a seat on your couch. He hovers beside you, waiting until you motion him over. He leaves some space between you, eyes intent on your face. “He was the first client Smurf ever assigned me to.”
Licking your lips, you shake your head. “And the reason I needed Deran to get me out. It was… good, at first. I was still new, still fresh to the game. It was harder for me to remember that being with him was a paycheck. He made me laugh, and he never made me feel bad about who— about what I was.”
You finally look up; Pope hasn’t taken his eyes off you. His arm is draped over the couch behind you, his hand placed in his lap. But he’s tilted toward you, resisting the urge to touch you like you know he wants to. To try to ground you the way you do for him.
“I killed him, Pope. What do you want me to say?”
You wait for it. The flicker in his eyes, the shock, maybe a little fear—though, you doubt he’s afraid of you. Something that registers just how despicable a creature you are. He tilts his head, “Is that it?”
You let out a sharp scoff, staring at him in disbelief. “Is that it?” You jump off the couch, whirling around on him. He remains seated, staring up at you with pensive eyes that make you so angry for some reason. “Pope, I thought I loved him, and then I fucking killed him. What do you mean, is that it?”
“Why?” He prods.
“Why?” You let out take in a deep breath and forcing yourself to calm down. “Does that even matter?”
“Yeah,” he shoots you a sharp look, finally getting to his feet. “It matters. Tell me why.”
You can’t quite meet his eyes, staring down at your hands. It’s jarring, thinking about that night. You’ve done your very best to forget as much of it as you can. He finally reaches out, taking your hands in his own and stopping you from picking at any more of your skin. A little bit of blood blooms around the edges of your nail, and you grimace.
“He wanted to play a game. I said I didn’t like it, but he insisted. And… He wouldn’t stop when I told him to. I got scared, really scared for the first time since I’d been with him. I forgot that he was paying for my time, that I really didn’t deserve a say. I grabbed whatever I could reach, a fucking pillow of all things, and I hit him.”
You clench your eyes shut as you think of it. “It caught him off guard, and he fell over. Knocked his head on the edge of the nightstand. I just watched as he spasmed on the floor, as blood started pooling under him. I didn’t know what to do, so I…”
You suck in a sharp breath, your confession a whisper. “I ran.”
What you don’t tell him is how you called Smurf, told her what happened. She’d told you to leave the key to the room under the motel’s mat. That she’d take care of it. You never knew what she did with the body. But you’d been so panicked, you didn’t question why she wanted to deal with it herself. Why didn’t she just tell you to deal with it?
You still don’t know what it is she has over you. An admission of where you were that night? Pictures of you and him together? Or maybe, just your DNA on the body. Whatever it is, it’s had you on a tight leash, tethered to her for the past three years. And if Pope knows about that, you’re afraid of how deep he’ll dig into your relationship with him. Of what he’ll find out if he goes looking.
“Do you think someone can be forgiven?” You ask, looking up at him. “For hurting someone they love?”
To your surprise, his eyes water slightly as he stares down at your hands. “Pope?” you question, dipping down to try and catch his eye. He blinks a few times and sniffles, looking away from you. “What happened?” you ask softly.
He shakes his head. “Nothing,” he tells you.
Your eyes narrow as you glare at him. “You think I don’t know that look? What happened?”
He sucks in a shaky breath and purses his lips, finally meeting your eye. “I don’t think I can be forgiven,” his voice cracks around the words, and you tug him closer, dragging him down into a hug.
He presses his cheek to your shoulder, arms tight around you as his shoulders shudder. “I killed Cath,” he mutters, voice muffled against your skin. Your eyes fly wide, and you struggle not to tense up beneath his touch.
“Smurf had told me she was talking to the cops, and I— I killed her. I hurt her,” his voice is breaking down, and you can feel your heart pounding against your chest. You hold him tighter against you, a shield so he can’t pull back and see the terror in your eyes.
You’ve always been afraid of what he’s capable of under Smurf’s command. But in some—ridiculously stupid—way, you’d thought there were exceptions to how far he would go for her. You should have known better.
Pope never stood a chance against that woman. She’s had her nails dug in since he was a baby, promoting the idea that there was no room in his life for any other woman but her. You thought love, real love, would stop that, but you were wrong.
He cries as you hold him, and you grimace. Would he do the same to you if she told him to?
This was a reach for normalcy, you’re sure.
Things between you and Pope have been off ever since you told him about Joseph and he told you about Cath. The pair of you are practically perfect for each other: always hurting the people you love.
Things with him feel more intense now. Like you’ve shared these secrets, and there’s no going back. You’re both stuck with each other. You wouldn’t mind it if you just didn’t know about Cath. More specifically, if you didn’t know that he had been in love with Cath when he killed her.
You don’t judge him for it, not in the way you should. You’ve seen how Smurf gets into her sons’ heads; you see how she used to hurt Deran with her expectations of him.
But he knew how to break away from her, at least marginally. Pope never got that chance. At each and every opportunity for a positive influence in his life, she cut it off. Even if that meant being the reason her own daughter was dead.
To try and settle yourselves from the tension and the perception shattering reveals… he’s taken you out to dinner. It’s a nice restaurant; you’ll give him that. Nicer than where you typically go. The menu isn’t cheap laminated plastic, and your elbows don’t stick to the table.
You’re surrounded by happy couples. They’ve either got rings on their fingers, or that content look in their eye that they’ve found the right person to spend their life with. The place is perfect on paper.
But you aren’t.
You’re unsettled, scared, and incapable of sitting with your back to the door because you’re so afraid of who could come up behind you. Smurf has gotten into your head with all the investigation bullshit she’s been throwing at you. As much as you want to enjoy this with Pope, you can’t.
You’re too busy thinking about whether or not she’s fuming that he’s not at home right now. Is tonight the night she turns you in? Or tells him to hurt you?
Sucking in a sharp breath, you force yourself to focus on the menu. You can feel Pope’s stare burning into you, but you can’t find the energy to meet his eye.
“Do you like it?” He suddenly asks, probably about the restaurant.
You force a stiff smile on your face and nod. “It’s nice,” you mutter, unable to come up with anything better. His expression tightens, and he narrows his eyes at you. “Really, Pope,” you let out a stiff laugh. “You did good.”
That’s not enough to make him feel better, but he accepts it, at least. The waitress comes up, and you don’t even know what you order, just blindly saying whatever Pope did. The table is quiet as you eat. You’re one of the only couples in the place not whispering to each other or getting lost in each other’s eyes.
He doesn’t prod, which you appreciate. After dinner, you take his hand and lead him down from the restaurant to the beach outside. You sit down on the sand, enjoying the way the moon’s light reflects off the waves.
He settles beside you, arm pressed to yours, and watches the water wash across the sand. “Can I ask you something?” You rest your chin on your knees, turning toward him.
“What?” He doesn’t take his eyes off the water.
You think of something Deran had once told you, about Pope being a nickname. “What’s your name?”
Pope lets out a little laugh, turning toward you. “You don’t know?”
You click your tongue with a disappointed sigh. “I thought it was Pope for a while, honestly.”
He leans in close, tone almost teasing. “Why’re you asking now?”
“Because I want to know you, not…” Not the man Smurf made you into. “Humor me?”
The slight smile he’d had slips from his face as he turns back toward the waves. “Andrew,” he admits, his voice soft with what sounds like vulnerability. Something guarded falls over his face, and you look away.
“Andrew,” you whisper, testing it out. He turns toward you, and you can tell he likes how it sounds on your tongue. “So… Where the hell did Pope come from?”
That earns a laugh from him. You grin, turning to catch his eye as he looks over at you. His smile fades slightly as his lips twitch, shoulders hunching up. “When I was younger, I started going to church. I didn’t really know what to do with myself, and I figured if anyone could help, it would be God.”
He sniffles and looks away from you, gaze distant as he stares out at the ocean. “I got close to one of the priests at the church. Smurf and Baz found out. They made me use that connection to rob the place.” His voice cracks slightly as he continues, but his expression remains guarded. He doesn’t want you to think it still affects him.
“He tried to stop us, and I beat him with a fucking bible,” he scoffs and shakes his head. “They’d always called me Pope. For being… different. It just stuck after that.”
Bile burns in your throat as you watch him, but he won’t look at you, not now. After everything he’s told you, does he really think that’s what's going to scare you off? It just makes you hate Smurf more.
You wish you could have known him when he was younger. That you could have helped him in any way. But he never really stood a chance.
“I like Andrew better,” you whisper, leaning your head on his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, just presses his head to yours, taking in a deep breath as his body goes lax under you.
You can’t keep this up much longer.
Pope wakes up to a message from you, asking to talk. His chest tightens as he takes in a short breath. He hasn’t had a lot of normal relationships, but even he knows that’s never a good sign.
Pocketing his phone, he pinches his eyes shut, shaking off the feeling and heading into the kitchen. Smurf stands by the oven, flipping pancakes. “Breakfast is almost ready, baby,” his lip curls at the pet name.
He’s not particularly interested in spending the morning with her. It’s been harder to stomach being around her after he learned about what you’d done to Joseph. There are these questions bursting at the seams of his lips.
The type of questions that would only lead to trouble for you and him.
Smurf turns from the stove and offers him a saccharine smile. She says your name, catching him off guard. He turns toward her with narrowed eyes, and that smile grows cruel. “Have you seen her around lately, baby?”
He clears his throat, shaking his head as he reaches out to straighten the plates she’d put out. “Why?”
Smurf lets out a little laugh and shrugs, plating some fruit and pancakes, passing it off to him like he’s a child incapable of getting himself his own food. There’s such a confusing divide between how she treats him and what she expects from him. Infantilizing him while demanding perfection.
“I, uh, I got a business associate I’d like her to meet.” She offers a conspiratorial wink that makes his stomach sour. “He’d have some fun with her,” she mutters. She glances up through her lashes at him, just waiting for him to take the bait.
Pope’s hands tighten around the edge of the counter as he glares down at his plate. “Is she still working for you?” he asks, voice strained.
Smurf tilts her head with an obviously forced look of confusion. “Didn’t she tell you? I’m sorry, baby, I thought you knew.”
Pope knows better, at this point, than to blindly believe her. Smurf does this with anyone he starts to get too close to. He’d like to believe he’s been subtle about you, good at keeping you behind closed doors. But she knows. She always knows.
And she always finds a way to make him start to doubt. To make him start questioning what he thought was real. He doesn’t want that to happen with you. Not like it did with Cath. Not like…
Not like Julia.
“I’m not hungry,” he tells her, voice strained with barely restrained anger as he storms out of the house. Her smirk bores into his back as he goes.
You weren’t still working with her; you’d told him that. And after finding out what happened with Joseph, he doubts that you would ever willingly go back to that life. You don’t need to, either. You have him now; if you were struggling, he’d take care of it. Take care of you.
He gets into his truck, knee bouncing as he stares out the windshield. After debating for a moment, he pulls out his phone. He swipes to the location app he’d installed, the same one he’d added to your phone when you’d been in the bathroom the other night.
Your icon pops up… driving right toward some scummy motel off the highway.
His chest seizes as he stares down at the address. Smurf’s words echo through his head. He knows she’s lying, that she’s just trying to get under his skin. But that doesn’t stop the images that start barraging his thoughts.
Thinking of… someone else getting to touch you, to be with you.
You choosing someone else…
Something white-hot and furious floods him, has him peeling out of the driveway before he can really think about what he’s about to do.
He follows the app’s directions toward you, not stopping until he’s parked at the far entrance of the motel. It doesn’t take him long to spot you. You’re still in your car, biting your nail as you stare down at your phone.
Your eyes are frenzied in a way he’s never seen before on you. Everything about you seems off-kilter. This is a new low for you, he hasn’t ever seen you get to this point before. Not even when you were telling him about Joseph. You must be scared, then. You must know that this is wrong.
And, still, he watches as you get out of the car, sucking in a deep breath before turning toward the stairs. Pope sits there. He should be getting out of the truck, dragging you back to your car, and demanding to know what you think you’re doing.
But he doesn’t, because he’s willing you to turn back around. To change your mind and drive off. You don’t.
He’s practically cucking himself as he watches you knock on one of the doors. A man opens it, close in age to you, and relatively good-looking. Not the type that should be in a scuzzy place like this.
Pope opens up his glove compartment, pulls out the gun inside, and tucks it in the waistband of his jeans. He has no thoughts as he throws open the truck door, no plan for what he’s going to say to you to explain his presence. He’s not going to tell you he’s been tracking you. Clearly, you’re hiding things from him, too.
Just as he gets out, the motel door closes. You move inside and stand in front of the open window. He waits a moment, but you take a seat at the table. The man sits across from you. Neither of you makes a move toward the bed. Instead, you seem to be talking amicably with him.
Maybe this is another one of your “favorites.”
The thought leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
The man you’re with slips something across the table to you. You grimace, glancing around. You seem to just be noticing the open curtains. Jumping up, you’re quick to pull them closed. Pope can just barely make out your silhouette behind them.
He glances down at his watch with a sigh. You get two minutes, and then he’s coming in. Pope leans against his truck, eyes trained on the scummy door. The waiting is agonizing. Two minutes shouldn’t feel this long to him.
You might not be meeting a client right now, but it’s clear that you’re still hiding something from him. He thought that after he’d told you about Cath, that would be it. You would realize you don’t have to hide anything from him anymore. He’d given you information that could end him if you wanted to.
Checking his watch, he starts toward the stairs just as the door opens. “Shit,” he hisses, ducking back behind his truck. You walk out of the room with a little wave to the other man. You don’t look disheveled; your clothes don’t look like they’ve been put back in a rush. He lets out a sigh, but relief doesn’t lessen the pressure of his chest as he takes in the large yellow envelope in your hand.
Your head lifts, brows furrowing as you look around the parking lot. Pope ducks and moves behind his truck. He waits before popping his head back out. You’re already getting back into your car.
He keeps his gaze intent on you as he pulls out his phone, dialing your number. He sees through your window as you jump, glancing down at your phone with a grimace. After too long hesitating, you answer.
“Hey,” you offer awkwardly. He almost wants to smile at the way you shake your head at yourself.
“Where are you?” He asks, getting into his truck as you start your car.
He hears the way you swallow, fingers bouncing against your steering wheel as you sigh. “Grocery store, why?”
Why is it so easy for you to lie to him?
His jaw tenses as he works to control the tone of his voice. “You said you wanted to talk,” he grits out.
“Uh, yeah. Not on the phone, it’s kind of a lot.” Your head falls back onto your seat as you let out a heavy breath. “Are you free tonight?”
“Yeah,” he mutters. “I’ll see you later.” He hangs up before you can respond, tossing his phone into the other seat. You frown down at your phone for a second before pulling out of the parking lot. He starts his truck, intent on following you when someone messages him.
His fingers drum against the steering wheel, staring after you, before he finally picks his phone back up. Smurf’s name is the last thing he wants to see.
Come home.
Now.
Of course, she doesn’t tell him why. She calls, he comes. That’s just how it works. That’s just how it always works.
Pope throws his phone back and turns in the opposite direction you went. Right back to Smurf, ever the obedient son.
“I was in the middle of something,” he calls out as he storms into the house. He’s expecting Smurf as he heads into the kitchen. But J standing beside her is disconcerting. Especially that look he’s got on his normally stoic face.
J meets Pope’s eyes, and he swears there’s an apology in them. The oddity of it tames some of the anger broiling inside him.
“You’re going to want to hear this,” Smurf tells him, lacking that normal saccharine tone she lays on too thick.
Pope freezes, eyes darting between the pair before slowly nodding. Smurf lets out a low sigh, though he truly doubts this is hurting her as much as she’s pretending. Slowly, she slides a piece of paper over to him. He’s annoyed by the drama of it all and glares over at J before flipping it.
His nails dig into the counter as he looks down at a picture of you. You’re standing in front of the police station, hand on Detective Benson’s arm as he stares down at you. It certainly looks damning.
“Are you following her?” He grits out, eyes flitting up to meet Smurf’s.
Her expression hardens as she scoffs. She glances over to J, but he looks less than enthused about involving himself. “You’ve had bad taste in women before, but this is a new low, baby.” Pope shakes his head, passing the picture back to her.
“You know why they’re looking into her. That doesn’t mean anything.” It feels petulant to argue about this with her. He always feels so childish butting up against her because she is so good at making everything he says small.
“Michael, one of my old associates and one of her former clients, was arrested today. Someone sent in an anonymous tip about his more illicit business practices. His warehouse got raided. And I’m supposed to think it’s a coincidence your girlfriend just happens to be talking to cops, right now?”
“It wasn’t—”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on her,” J interrupts. “She’s been around the cops, man. A lot for someone who seems so scared of them.”
Pope leans against the counter, letting out a low groan as his shoulders hunch over. He shakes his head. “No. It’s not like that.” But he doesn’t even know if that’s true. He doesn’t know if he can trust you not to hurt him. Not to hurt his family.
You’re desperate, and you’re feeling cornered. People have done worse for lower stakes than avoiding a murder charge.
“Why wouldn’t you come to me?” He asks Smurf, eyes cutting over harshly to J. A warning to keep his mouth shut if he doesn’t want it shut for him.
Smurf takes a step closer, and Pope backs up, watching her warily. She tilts her head with a sympathetic sigh. “Has she not told you, baby?”
He sucks his teeth, shaking his head. “Told me what?”
Smurf makes a disparaging noise that sets his teeth on edge. “I’ve been paying her to keep you company.” His chest tightens, and he jerks back, wishing J weren’t here right now. It’s bad enough Smurf is saying this to him; he doesn’t need a goddamn audience.
He wants to object; he knows that's not true, and she just keeps going. “She’s not your girlfriend, baby. She’s just another whore who will do anything for the right price. And now, she’s someone we need to take care of. I’m worried about you, Pope. You knew she was talking to the cops, and you didn’t come to me?”
Pope has nothing to defend himself with. He doesn’t even want to. He just stands there, lungs tightening with pain as he tries to catch his breath. She was paying you to be with him.
Was anything with you real?
“Are you still with us?” Smurf asks, tone biting.
“What?” Pope croaks out, ignoring the way his eyes have begun to burn.
“You knew that someone close to you— close to me was going to the cops. And you didn’t say anything. Are you going to let this girl, a nobody, hurt your family? You’re going to let her get away with this?”
Smurf and J both stare at him with these expressions of betrayal. It’s muted in J. The kid holds everything so close to his chest; it’s the exact opposite of how Julia had been. And Smurf… she’ll say anything, do anything to make him hurt. Because for once, he’d been paying someone else more attention. Giving you more priority.
But you’d just been another one of her girls. Playing the long game to keep him docile.
“I’ll take care of it,” he whispers.
Smurf glances over at J before leaning in close to Pope. “Just like Cath, baby,” she mutters, and something inside him snaps.
He lets himself in with the copy he’d made of your key. It’s better if he doesn’t give you a chance to prepare. There’s a shuffling in your room, the sound of frantic footsteps as you rush from one side of the room to the next.
Pope slowly makes his way through the apartment as he takes in the wreck you’ve made of it. Drawers opened and emptied. Random pieces of paper scattered throughout, sheets and blankets tossed around the living room. It looks like someone came through and raided everything.
He walks into your room and watches you rip out all the clothes from your closet. You turn away from it and catch sight of him standing in front of your door. “Jesus!” You shout, jumping back, clothes falling to the floor.
Letting out a laugh, your eyes widen and dart toward your bed. He follows your gaze, sees a suitcase open on the floor. That yellow envelope you’d gotten from the motel right on top. He looks back at you as you rush over and kick it to the side.
“I thought you’d call first,” you deflect, giving him a flustered smile. It’s strained, shadowed by the panic in your eyes. When he doesn’t say anything, the smile falls. “Did I leave the door unlocked?”
Pope takes another step into the room, and you eye him warily, but you don’t back away as he expects. You move closer, face creased with concern. He doesn’t know if you’re worried for him or about him. He thought he knew you, thought he could read you.
You loved proving him wrong, apparently.
His hands flex at his sides, the gun in his waistband a heavy weight on his back. He doesn’t know why he brought it. Probably because Smurf was watching him, expecting it. Pope knows he could never look in your eyes and pull the trigger, even with how much you’ve lied to him. He’s too weak.
Too pathetic.
“Have you been talking to the cops?”
Your brows furrow, and you nod. Easy admittance makes him doubt you. Everything you’ve done up to this point makes him doubt you. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to get that detective off my ass.”
“Have you taken on other clients?” He demands, not letting you have a chance to tie your story together.
“No,” you take a step forward, but the look on his face has you stopping short. “Andrew, why are you asking me that? You know you’re the only person I’m seeing.”
“Your only client,” he corrects, watching as your face falls, panic blanketing your features. “Smurf told me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” He demands, stalking toward you. To your credit, you don’t back down.
Your eyes crinkle like you want to cry, but you don’t run away. “You’re lying to me. Again!” He snaps, voice rough as he sucks in a shaky breath.
You bite your lip, swallowing thickly as you shake your head. “Please, I am begging you to listen to me. I love you, Andrew,” he jerks away from you as you reach for him. But you don’t stop, rushing forward and taking his face in your hands. He could fight you, but he lets you redirect his gaze back to yours.
“I didn’t have a choice,” your voice cracks as you grimace. “Smurf, she would have made me take on more clients if I didn’t take the money. She—” you bite your lip, and your voice softens into something painful. “She knows about Joseph, okay? She took care of the body. She’s the one sending the cops after me.”
His hands come up to cover yours, and you smile, but then he’s pulling away from you. Eyes narrowing as pain seizes his chest. “You lied about that, too?”
“No, I— Fuck,” you groan, dragging your hands down your face.
“How am I supposed to trust anything you say? I’ve followed you,” Pope admits. There’s no shame in him as you look at him in surprise. “I saw you at the motel today. Who were you meeting with if that wasn’t a client?”
“I can explain that,” you rush out, breathless as you turn toward your suitcase. You grab the yellow envelope, your hands fumbling as you pour the contents out on your bed. There’s a stack of cash, some cards, and two passports that scatter across your comforter. You pick up two of the cards and turn back to him.
“Smurf isn’t just idly threatening me with this Joseph thing, alright? So I’ve been meeting up with old friends and contacts. Trying to put together enough to get out of here.” He looks at you with hurt in his eyes.
You were running…
He shouldn’t be surprised.
“But,” you hold the cards out to him. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Glancing down, he sees they’re new IDs; one of them has his picture on it. “I thought we could go together,” you rush out, a manic smile on your face as you nod.
“You weren’t going to leave me?”
You suck in a sharp breath and shake your head. “No, I swear. I know I haven’t given you a good reason to trust me, but I wouldn’t do that to you. Andrew, please, just look at me.”
He grits his teeth, finally meeting your eyes. A few tears run down your cheeks as you wait for him to say something. But he doesn’t know what he could say to you. He remembers when Smurf sent him after Cath.
She’d told him that she’d been talking to the cops. That she was putting the family in danger. And he had done what she’d wanted. He’d killed Cath, the woman he was in love with. He can’t—
It makes him sick to think of pushing you down on the bed, to put a pillow over your face as he’d done to her. His hands twitch at his sides as you reach up, cupping his cheek. “I love you, Andrew. And you don’t have to believe me, okay? But I wouldn’t leave you, not without telling you first.”
There have been a lot of women in his life who have said they’d loved him. He used to believe Smurf when she said it, until it started to feel empty. Until it became something that hurt him. He’d believed Julia, and then he’d left her. Cath had never meant it.
But you do.
“I can’t,” he mutters, pushing away from you and shaking his head, dragging his hands through his hair. “No, I can’t.”
“Andrew, please.” He wishes you wouldn’t call him that. It’s too soft, too good for what he deserves. “What’s wrong?” Pope looks back over at you, that glint in your eye. You can’t be scared, can you? He wouldn’t hurt you.
You reach out to him, and he falls into you easily, cheek pressed to your shoulder as he tries to get his breath under control. “I need to tell you something,” you whisper.
“Don’t,” he mutters, turning, pressing his head into the nape of your neck. His arms squeeze tight around you, trying to keep himself grounded in your touch. Your arms drape low around his back, and he feels your fingers graze the handle of the gun in his waistband.
He can feel the way your body tenses under him, breath stalling in your throat. The gun isn’t for you. Why did he bring it?
“I’m pregnant.”
It’s his turn to go still. You hold your breath as he slowly pulls away, eyes watery as he glares at you. “Are you lying?” he chokes out, unable to take any more deceit from you.
You shake your head, pulling away and running off to your bathroom. He’s left right where he’s standing, stunned and in disbelief. You can’t be. Can you?
It’s not as though either of you has ever been particularly picky about using protection. And he hadn’t ever bothered asking if you were taking anything. His stomach twists itself into knots as you walk back toward him. You hold something out, and suddenly he’s staring down at a positive pregnancy test.
“Oh,” Pope lets out a rough breath, doubling over as he tries to get his head under control. There’s too much racing through it. Too many different commands urging for his attention. He drops to his knees, unable to meet your eye.
“Andrew,” you whisper, taking a step closer and running your hand over his hair. His head falls onto your stomach, hands finding their way to your hips as he shakes his head.
He can feel you trembling beneath his touch, breath shaking as you cup the back of his head. “Please,” you beg, “don’t do what Smurf wants you to.”
His head shoots up, but you’re not looking at him. Your face is pointed toward the ceiling like you’re trying not to cry. Getting to his feet, he cups your cheeks, forcing you to look at him.
He knows what Smurf wants, what’s expected of him. You’re a threat. A threat to her. To the family, just for knowing what they do. He has failed so many people he loves, but he’s never failed her.
Pope can’t do to you what he did to Cath…
To Julia.
His head drops, forehead pressing to yours. You let your weight rest on him, taking in shaking breaths while his eyes drop to the new IDs on the bed. “I won’t,” he swears.
You’re on a hotel bed, expression bored as you watch Andrew. He’s sitting at the table, knee bouncing slightly as he reads through a magazine he picked up at the grocery store. It’s clearly marketed toward women with its swooping, pink font. But the pregnant woman on the front, the 50 tips for an easier pregnancy! has completely stolen his attention.
There’s a bottle of prenatal vitamins by his elbow, and the dingy hotel fridge has been stocked with food for the past few weeks. He’s settling into this lifestyle a lot faster than you are. You miss your apartment above Deran’s place. You miss your shower and your bed.
But Andrew had told you it was too risky to stay there. So he’d taken your suitcase and brought you to a decent hotel with “luxury” accommodations. You’re financing the stay for now. Just while he works on compiling savings in an account not attached to Smurf’s name.
Your phone was trashed. A burner shoved in your hand instead. You hadn’t even gotten a chance to say anything to Deran. Andrew thought it was too much of a risk.
“Are you feeling sick?” he suddenly asks, looking up from the magazine, brows pinched.
“Huh?” you mutter, turning away from the crappy soap you’d put on TV.
He gets up from the table and moves to sit beside you on the bed. He’s closer than he typically would be, eyes roving your face like it’ll give him the answers he’s looking for. “Do you feel sick at all?”
You glance down at the page of the magazine he’s on, catch the words “morning sickness blues,” and grin. “I’m fine.” You promise, taking his hand in yours. He squeezes your palm, moving closer. “I don’t think I’m far enough along yet to be worrying about that.”
You actually don’t know how far along you are, period. Amongst the worry of running from the cops, escaping Andrew’s mother, and the general hell your life has turned into…
You haven’t made the time for a gyno appointment. You’re sure that if Andrew weren’t so worried about Smurf discovering you, he would have already dragged you to one.
Letting go of his hand, you get up to go to the bathroom. You can feel his eyes on you the entire five feet it takes you to get there. You’re quick to push the door closed, back pressed against it as you suck in a deep breath.
He’s doing his best, you know that. Every day, he tells you that this is all temporary. He just needs time. Time to make a plan for you both. Time to get the proper amount of funds for your escape.
Time, time, time
There doesn’t seem to be enough of it lately. Each day grows shorter, the walls shrink around you, and it’s harder to catch your breath. He’s settling well, his toothbrush beside yours on the sink, spare clothes folded in the dresser.
He’s adapted to this like he could live in this hotel forever with you. Always keeps your shoes by the door, complains when you move them, and he trips on them. Keeps food stocked in the room and bought sheets that are actually comfortable to sleep in. As if this is just the home you’re going to share with him now.
But you’re cracking around the edges. Every day that you don’t have a deadline for when you get to leave pushes you one step closer to the edge. He says it’s temporary, but it’s getting harder to believe him.
Scrubbing your hands down your face, you move toward the sink, splashing cold water over your cheeks. He’s been fussier since he learned you're pregnant. He always looks like he thinks you’re going to keel over. As if being pregnant makes you this new, breakable thing. It’s slightly aggravating, but you understand where he’s coming from.
Stepping out of the bathroom, you find he’s right where you left him. Posture stiff as he continues flipping through that ridiculous magazine. You walk over, snatching it quickly from his lap and dropping it on the nightstand. “You know all of this is bullshit, right?” you tease.
He only narrows his eyes at you, arms crossed as he huffs. “You should try reading some of it.”
You crawl into bed beside him, scoffing. “Are you calling me a bad pregnant lady?”
“No,” he mutters, immediately making room for you beside him. Even how he holds you at night is different, now. You’re not just you to him anymore. Suddenly, you’re carrying his child, too, even if you’re not showing.
You settle with your back to his chest, his arms wrapping securely around your front. He sleeps on the side closest to the door. Always still slightly awake, just in case.
Your hand drifts down, taking a hold of his and letting out a soft sigh. He shifts, pressing himself closer. “How much longer do you think we’ll be here?” you whisper, afraid to break the peaceful quiet.
“Until I can get some things together.”
He’d said that last week, but you don’t have the energy to deal with that right now. Instead, you roll over, wrapping your arms around him as you let out a tired sigh. His arms tighten around you, cheek pressed to your head as you let the droning sounds of the TV put you to sleep.
“What’s that?”
Andrew looks up from the groceries he’d been unloading. He shakes his head, and you point to the box on the table. “Cereal,” he tells you bluntly.
“Yeah, some weird whole grain shit,” you sigh as you pick up the box. It proudly promotes whole grains, fiber in every bite, and absolutely no added sugar. Eating the box would taste better.
Andrew stalks over with a sigh, taking the box from your hands. “It’s healthy. You need to eat more fiber.”
You shoot him an affronted glare. “You’re a doctor, now?”
He straightens up from the groceries with an aggrieved sigh. “Diet is important.” The stern look he shoots you goes unappreciated.
“I resent that,” you pick up the cereal and shake it at him, “and I resent this.” He shakes his head, undeterred by your complaints, as he continues to display all the healthy options he picked up today. You’re really starting to miss sugar.
You wonder what he would think if he knew you went down to the hotel lobby and loaded up on soda and junk while he was out.
Moving toward the dresser, you’re digging around for a pair of socks when you notice something plastic rattling around. “What…” Moving aside some of Andrew’s pants, you see a pacifier and baby bottle hidden beneath his clothes.
Unable to stop yourself from smiling, you pull them both out and turn toward him. “A little early for this, isn’t it?”
He straightens up, glancing over at you. His jaw tenses as he lets out a rough sigh. “They were on sale.” He tells you bluntly, striding over and taking them from you. You can’t help but snort as he carefully places them back in the drawer.
“Anything else you’re hiding in there?”
He pauses, and you don’t really expect him to answer. But then he opens the top drawer and moves aside some shirts. Beneath are three parenting books. Each with stupider names than the last. “Wow,” you whistle. “You’re making me look bad.”
He’s quiet for a moment before frowning. “I don’t want to mess this up.”
Your chest tightens as you look him over, that slightly unsure tilt to his lips. “You won’t,” you tell him, squeezing his arm and offering a soft smile. He just nods; you’re not sure he actually believes you. Clearing your throat, you try to break up the tense moment. “Besides, you’re definitely taking this a lot more seriously than I am.”
The look he gives you is tired. You’re just pointing out what he’s already been nagging you about. “You’re pregnant.” As if you need reminding.
With nothing to do in this tiny room, you walk over to the bed, throwing yourself on it and grabbing the remote. The magazine from the other night is still on the nightstand. You glance over at it, thinking about the baby bottle and whatever else he’s bought in the dresser.
“You know, that said not to start buying anything until after the first trimester,” you tell him, nodding toward the magazine. “When the risk of a miscar—”
“I know what it said,” he interrupts, glancing over at you. “It was just… It was on sale,” he mutters, not meeting your eye. His shoulders hunch as he reorganizes the pantry area he’d created.
Guilt sours in your stomach, and you shift uncomfortably on the bed. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to…” the words won’t come. He looks too uncomfortable for you to keep prodding at what you’re sure is one of his biggest worries right now. That anything might happen to you or the baby.
Your hand rests over your stomach, lips curling as you glance down at your complete absence of a bump. “It doesn’t feel real,” you muse. “I guess that’s why I’m not taking it more seriously.”
Andrew pauses what he’s doing, glancing over his shoulder at you. “I just keep thinking about when we’re going to get out of here.” He looks down at that, and you sigh. “Soon,” you mutter, before he can feed you the same empty promise he has been.
“Look,” he gets to his feet, but his phone starts ringing on the table. You can see his name from where you’re sitting. Deran lights up the screen, and your stomach sinks with guilt. You wonder if he’s worried about you or if he just thinks you’re another unfortunate soul who slipped through the cracks. Andrew glances between you and his phone before picking it up and walking out of the room. You can hear him answer just as the door closes.
Grabbing the TV remote, you spend a few minutes channel surfing before settling on an old sitcom. By the time you’re done, he’s coming back. He lets out a short sigh, jaw flexing as he tosses his phone on the table.
“What was that?” you ask, motioning him over. He follows obediently, settling beside you on the bed. His back is stiffer than normal, shoulders tense as he stares blankly ahead at the TV. “Andrew?” you murmur, reaching up to run your hand through his hair.
Andrew sinks easily into the touch, finally looking over at you. “Deran says he and Craig have a job. One Smurf’s not involved in.” Your heart rate picks up, and you try not to let your excitement show too much. “Could be enough,” he mutters, looking down at his hands. He doesn’t seem convinced.
“That’s good,” you remind him, keeping your voice soft. He just nods, not seeming like he’s truly present with you. With a sigh, you tug on his shoulder slightly. He moves easily, sinking further onto the bed as he lowers his head on your lap. His hand comes up to wrap around your thigh, more grounding than possessive in his intent.
You let your hand smooth over his curls as you sink back into the pillows. “This is good,” you remind him, ignoring the worry that tightens your gut when he says nothing in return. He just settles closer to you, and you have to let yourself be content with what you have.
Waking up alone has become foreign to you. Andrew doesn’t like leaving without you waking up first. Which, you’re sure bugs him on the days you’re particularly slow getting out of bed. Today, the spot beside you is cold; the shape of his body is still indented on the sheets.
It takes you a moment to remember the job he’d told you about with his brothers. He didn’t have time to wait for you today. You throw back the sheets and let out a low groan, rubbing your back as pain shoots up your spine.
God, you miss your bed.
These hotel slabs were just making you stiffer every day. Glancing over at the table, you see he’s quite pointedly left out the fibrous cereal for you. Scoffing, you slip on your shoes and run down to the lobby.
They have a little store full of grab-and-go snacks. With your warden out today, you grab all the junk you can carry and take it back up to the room. There’s really nothing you can do to pass the time besides turn on the TV and stuff your face with as much processed sugar as you can handle.
You just have to make sure to hide the wrappers before he gets back.
You make sure to keep an eye on the clock all day. There’s never a guarantee how long a job will take. That’s dependent on the materials they need, the plans they lay out, and whether or not the job requires patience rather than rushing in for a quick cash grab.
Andrew hadn’t deigned to share any of the details with you, so you're left in the dark.
You toss away the wrapper to a honey bun—that may have been expired—and feel your eyes begin to burn from staring at the same screen for so long. There's a sharp pain in your stomach, and you let out a groan, doubling over as you press down on the ache.
Spitefully consuming a bunch of processed junk might have been really stupid.
Grimacing, you get up and head to the bathroom. There’s another sharp pinch, and you let out a low gasp, grimacing as a cold pain shoots through your body. “Jesus,” you hiss out.
Approaching the toilet, you pull your pants down and pause. It’s hard to tell; your underwear is a dark blue. But…
Yeah, just there is a little bit of blood.
Your stomach swoops as you jerk your pants back up and rush toward the bed. You rip the magazine off the nightstand and flip through until you find the pregnancy section.
It takes a few minutes of scanning, your foot tapping restlessly as you do, before you find what you’re looking for. “Spotting is completely normal in your first trimester!”
Letting out a low breath of relief, you almost laugh at yourself. You wish you could, but then you see that little asterisk next to the sentence, and your eyes drop to the bottom of the page.
*You should always consult your doctor if spotting is accompanied by any sharp pain or abdominal discomfort.
The magazine slips from your hands as you grab your phone off the bed. A million thoughts race through your head before everything just comes to a stop. All you can think about is that stupid superstition of not buying anything until the second trimester. Because what if…
What if you lose it?
A cold panic spikes through your blood; it chills you down to your toes. And it’s not even for you; it’s hardly for this baby. Because this still doesn’t feel real to you. It’s not something you’ve gotten to know or love. But suddenly it's something you could lose.
And it’s Andrew you’re thinking about. His face as you tell him you lost the baby.
Shaking the thoughts away, you dial his number on the burner he gave you and wait. It rings for a minute before you hang up and try again. Your foot taps impatiently against the floor; another sharp pain digs its nails into your stomach and rips.
Letting out a groan, you clutch your gut, kneeling on the floor while you dial him again. Halfway through, you finally remember that he’s not going to answer. Not while he’s on a job.
That’s probably why he’d been acting so off last night. He can’t afford any distractions during a job. Meaning no phone and no you. You bet he was thinking of a situation just like this one. Where you need him, and he can’t get to you.
“Fuck,” you hiss. You throw your phone on the bed and turn toward the hotel’s landline. You jam your fingers into the numberpad, calling the front desk. It doesn’t take long to connect, but you can barely get the words out through the pain you’re struggling to breathe through.
You ask them to order you a cab and force yourself off the bed. It’s a herculean effort to get downstairs and in the lobby. From there, it’s kind of a blur. It’s not until you’re in the waiting room at the hospital that you realize you left your phone in the hotel.
“Shit,” you hiss, head falling back against the wall.
“How are we feeling today?”
You look up from your hands and glare over at the doctor who walks in. It’s rude, the look on your face. But how the fuck does he think you’re feeling?
“Not great,” you snap, eyes narrowing. He offers a polite smile and sits down on his little chair. He picks up a clipboard one of the nurses had left behind and scans over it, muttering to himself.
“Um,” you clear your throat, trying to catch his attention. “Am I… okay?”
It’s hard to get yourself to say the word miscarriage out loud, as if you’re going to manifest it into being somehow. Pursing your lips, you wait for him to respond. He holds one finger up with an impatient huff, and you scoff.
With a sigh, he places the clipboard down and offers you a placating smile. “Good news is, everything’s a-okay with the baby!”
“Thank god,” you mutter, curling into yourself as you let out a shaky breath. There’s another sharp pinch of pain in your stomach, but you ignore it for now. You’re not sure you would have been able to look Andrew in the eye and tell him–
You don’t have to worry about that now.
Rubbing your eyes, you shake your head and look over at the doctor. “What’s wrong with me, then?”
He rubs his chin and considers you. “Pregnancy is always stressful, but would you say there’s anything that’s been making things harder for you?” You don’t even get to answer before he barrels on. “Is the father in the picture?”
“Yes,” you tell him, more defensive than you should be. Maybe because Andrew seems to care more about this kid than you do. When you can get out of that damn hotel room, that’s when you’ll let yourself believe this is real.
“And, yeah, I would say I’m more stressed than normal.” Having your former pimp and the cops after you really isn’t great for your blood pressure.
He purses his lips, “Spotting is normal in the first trimester. And I think you might be suffering a bit of indigestion, hence the stomach pain. But I want to be careful. I’m going to have you stay here overnight so we can monitor you.”
Panic spikes through you. As much as you hate the hotel room, being out in the open after spending so many nights sequestered inside is worrying. There’s no reason for Smurf to ever show up here, but paranoia isn’t logical.
“Is that absolutely necessary?”
“For the safety of you and your child, yes,” he tells you, that jovial tone leaving him as he gives you a stern stare.
Letting out a rough sigh, you nod. “Alright. But is there a phone I could use? I need to call someone.”
He nods, getting up and holding the door for you. “There’s a payphone in the hall. I’ll have a nurse come and get you when a room opens up.”
You rush past him, heading toward the payphone. Rifling through your pockets, you manage to find enough change and push it into the slot. Picking up the phone, you bite your lip, trying to remember the number to Andrew’s burner.
With a grimace, you type it in and pray you’re right. It rings for a while before you’re connected to his voicemail. “Hey, it’s me, um… I’m at the hospital, the baby–” the phone beeps before the line goes dead.
“What the hell?” you mutter, trying to see if you have any more change. Fuck. You didn’t even get to tell him everything was fine. You let out a loud groan, leaning forward and letting your head thunk against the wall.
He’s going to have a goddamn heart attack.
Pope stands around a table with J and his brothers. There’s stacks and stacks of cash in front of them. More than J had even predicted. “Alright,” J has a smile on his face, relieved his plan actually worked out. It’s still odd to see the kid look anything but solemn.
This newfound desire of his to start leading jobs, making plans, puts him on edge. There’s something off about it all. He’s been too busy with you to give that problem the attention it deserves. Something to be worried about later.
“We’re taking a cut now,” J tells them, picking up a stack of cash and throwing it at Pope, then Deran and Craig. “I’m going to take the rest and…” he trails off, eyes cutting toward Craig. The one who could really screw this up for them all if he gets in the right mood. “I’ll take care of it,” he mutters.
Pope counts through the cash quickly. A couple thousand, probably. It doesn’t feel like enough. Not if he wants to be able to find you both a place to stay, finance both of you completely starting new. And then he’ll need extra for the baby’s stuff in a few months.
“I need more than this,” Pope tells J.
Deran’s brows furrow as he shoots his brother a strange look. He says nothing, though. Instead, he nods, “I do too. I need to redo the kitchen at the bar.” He holds up the cash and shakes his head. “This isn’t going to cover it.”
J’s eyes narrow into slits, but he can’t object as his brothers start eagerly taking more money. When Pope’s satisfied with the amount, he nods at the kid. “Alright,” J snaps, stopping Craig from pocketing any more. “That’s enough.” he shoots Deran an aggrieved look. “Will that be enough?”
Deran cuts his eyes toward Pope before looking back at the kid. “Yeah, should be,” he tells him. J lets out a heavy sigh and starts bagging up the rest of the money. Pope takes his own cut and moves away from the table, pulling out his phone. He powers it back on as Deran moves toward him.
“Hey,” Deran greets, eyeing him warily. Pope barely lifts his eyes to greet him. It’s only when Deran says your name that he catches Pope’s attention. He keeps his face carefully neutral. “I was wondering if you’ve seen her around? She just left the apartment a wreck a few weeks ago, and I haven’t seen her since.”
Pope’s about to answer that he cut you off once Smurf told him what you were doing for her. But his phone’s back on and the notifications he missed are popping up. His heart drops as he sees the missed calls from you.
He walks away from Deran immediately, already heading toward his truck. Deran calls his name, but he isn’t listening. He tries dialing your number, but it just rings through until going to voicemail. Pick up, he thinks, gut twisting as he gets in his truck.
He scrolls through the missed calls and sees an unknown number. Frowning, he clicks on the voicemail. “Hey, it’s me.”
His head falls against the steering wheel as he sucks in a deep breath. You sound fine, thank god.
But then, you just have to keep talking. “Um… I’m at the hospital, the baby–”
Pope’s head whips up as the voicemail ends. His fingers are frantic as he replays the message. But there’s nothing more. Whatever you used to call him just cut out. His hands tighten around the steering wheel until he can hear the leather creak.
He throws his phone in the seat and peels out of the driveway. It’s a blur as he drives to the hospital. There are so many thoughts swirling through his head, drowning out anything else, that he can barely breathe.
He hadn’t wanted to go on the job today. He knew that he needed to. That this is more than enough for the two of you to get out of town and get somewhere safe. But he shouldn’t have left you alone. He knew that, and he still did it.
He’s just incapable, isn’t he?
Incapable of becoming attached to anyone, of caring for anyone, without hurting them.
He’d done everything right. He’d kept you safe and hidden. He found those prenatals at the store that the books all said were good for the baby. Smurf, for once, doesn’t know one of his secrets. And he still managed to fuck it up.
Pope has to force himself to slow down as he pulls into the hospital parking lot. He doesn’t want to hear you finish your sentence when he sees you. Doesn’t want to know that superstition in the magazine is followed for a reason.
At the very least, he can hold onto the fact that you sounded okay. You were still good. But he wouldn’t blame you if he was the last face you wanted to see right now.
Striding into the hospital, he beelines straight for the front desk. The nurse behind the counter offers him a soft smile. “Can I help you?”
He gives her your name, “She called me from here earlier.” His nails bite into speckled linoleum as she types your name into the computer. “Is she okay?” he demands, unable to stop himself.
Her eyes barely lift from her screen. “Give me a moment, sir.”
“I just need to know if she’s okay,” he repeats, trying to keep his voice steady. He’s been impatient before. When CPS first took Lena, he couldn’t cope. Had lost his shit at the office and had to rely on Smurf just to see her again.
He can’t do that again. He can’t keep messing this up with you.
The nurse offers a strained smile. “I understand, sir, but I don’t have that information right now. What’s your relationship to the patient?”
His mouth opens before he goes quiet. “Um,” he glares down at the floor. What are you? “She’s carrying my baby,” he settles on, nothing else fitting right next to the idea of you.
The nurse nods, typing something before letting out a sigh. “Alright, looks like she should be okay for visitors. Just log in here, and you should be good to go back. It’ll be the third door on the left.”
Pope just scribbles on the paper she passes him, taking the visitor’s pass and racing off through the door to his left. He’s counting under his breath until he’s in front of the third door. It’s closed, and the blinds have been shut against any prying eyes.
He sucks in a shaky breath, bracing himself for whatever he’s going to find on the other side. He’s never been lucky before. Baz always told him no one would ever want a baby with him. He had a point. Pope’s not… right. He’s not good for anyone, especially not for himself. Why would his luck suddenly change with you?
He has no other choice but to push the door open.
Reruns of some old show are playing on the TV on the wall. And you—
You’re sitting on the bed with your legs folded, eagerly eating a pudding cup as you watch the show. Your head lifts as the door opens, a smile flitting across your face as you see him. It drops at whatever expression he’s wearing right now.
“Hey,” you greet softly. “Stop lurking,” you tease, but it’s weak as your brows crease with worry.
He takes one step inside, letting the door fall closed behind him. He can’t find the right words or the right questions. The magic words that will get you to tell him if everything’s okay. “Are you…” He trails off, coming to your side, hands flexing out toward you. He stops himself, checking over you, trying to find anything that’s visibly wrong.
The possibilities of what could have happened to land you here are overwhelming in their intensity. Too many at once to possibly try and verbalize it.
“I’m fine,” you tell him, reaching out and lacing your fingers through his. You tug his arm until he’s sitting on the bed beside you. You put the pudding on your nightstand and take his other hand, pressing it to your stomach. “Everything is fine.”
The relief is so staggering he feels ill. You let out a quiet laugh as his eyes fall shut; he feels like he can breathe for the first time since he left this morning. “C’mere,” you mutter, tugging him forward until his cheek is pressed to your shoulder and he’s squeezing his arms around you.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and he shakes his head, fingers flexing in the thin fabric of your hospital gown. “That stupid payphone cut me off. I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
“I wasn’t–”
“Whoops! Don’t mean to interrupt.” Pope jerks back as the door to your room opens. You let out an annoyed huff, keeping your hand in his as he turns to see a doctor walking in. “The father, I presume?”
“What happened?” He demands, something about the doctor’s tone rubbing him the wrong way.
“Well, I think a lot of the pain was caused by indigestion.” Pope frowns, glancing over at you, but you won’t meet his eye. “However, in your blood work I noticed a high level of cortisol and your blood pressure isn’t where I’d like it to be.”
Pope just stares at the man, waiting for him to continue. The doctor lets out an aggrieved sigh, but it's you he gives a sharp look. “You’re too stressed. Especially this early in the pregnancy.” Your hand tightens around Pope as you shift uncomfortably in the bed. “Some lifestyle changes will need to be made.” His eyes dart to Pope before he shakes his head. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
The door closes behind him, and you take in a heavy breath. Pope can’t think of anything to say, eyes cast down at the blanket. It’s his fault that you’re so stressed, that you’re even here. He knows that. He promised to get you out of that hotel room weeks ago. But he’s been stalling, selfish as he enjoys this time with you just to himself. No outside interference, no one to take away your attention.
He got you here.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. It’s not enough, but he doesn’t know what else he can say.
He waits for it, for you to take his hand, to tell him it's okay. You’ve done it so many times before. You’re so indulgent, so forgiving; he doesn’t deserve to expect it. But, God, he wants you to just tell him it's not his fault.
“I can’t live like this anymore,” you tell him, and he can’t find it in himself to turn around and face the truth. Not right now. “Andrew,” you call, “look at me.”
His hands dig into the blanket as he looks up at you. There’s nothing soft on your face, now. You seem severe; the circles beneath your eyes are darker than ever. You’re worn down in a way he hasn’t seen before.
“I can fix this,” he promises, and if you didn’t believe him, he wouldn’t blame you. He’s so good at fixing problems for his family. At being the one they call to clean up their messes. But he’s always been horrible at fixing his own.
Your eyes flit down, and you nod. Silence permeates the air between you. He hates it, but he doesn’t know how to fill it.
The door to your room opens, and you know who it is before he walks in. Andrew hasn’t really left your side tonight. Despite your many assurances that you really are okay and you’ll be able to leave tomorrow.
Luck was on your side, though. He stepped out to use the bathroom, and you had enough time to call someone. He’ll probably be back before Deran has a chance to leave, but it’ll be too late by then. And the both of you need Deran’s help.
“Good to know you’re alive,” Deran tells you, voice flat as his eyes narrow on you.
You grimace, “I’m sorry, Deran, really.”
His eyes fall shut as he pinches at his nose. He stands at the end of your bed, refusing to come closer. Shrugging, he shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “It was Smurf, wasn’t it?”
Your eyes fall to your lap, and you nod. “Why didn’t you just come to me in the first place?” he asks, taking a step closer.
“It wasn’t that simple,” you mutter, looking up at him. His brows are pinched in concern. Deran’s done a lot for you since you’ve known him. He’s certainly been more selfless than his family ever expected him to be.
You know you’ve been shitty, hiding everything from him. But it already feels like you’re wrecking Andrew’s life. You didn’t feel like you could drag Deran down with you both. Not when he had worked so hard to help you clean your life up. But you don’t have any other choice now.
“Alright,” he shakes his head with a scoff. “Then make it simple. You move out, I don’t hear from you for weeks, and suddenly you call me up to tell me you’re in the hospital. You gotta give me something, here.”
You let out a bitter laugh, “How’s this?” He shakes his head, waiting. You force the words out, “I’m pregnant.”
Deran’s face falls; he takes a staggered step toward you as the door opens behind him. His head whips around as Andrew walks through. Andrew’s expression goes tight when he sees someone else standing next to you.
“There’s the dad,” you offer weakly, trying for a joke and failing miserably.
Andrew closes the door behind him, eyes narrowed on his brother. “Why is he here?” He demands, looking at you. You can tell he’s holding his temper back. But it’s been on a short leash, already. You don’t want to risk making things worse.
“He can help–”
“You knew where she was?” Deran demands, taking an angry step forward. Andrew doesn’t back down, expression twitching as he straightens up. “I asked you, man.”
Cody anger is volatile. It’s quick to spark and worse to quell. You can see it, swelling between them. Deran doesn’t take much to get going, he reaches out, shoving Andrew back. You grimace as Andrew grapples with him, trying to get him to stop before you’re all kicked out of the hospital.
“Deran!” You snap, eyes darting toward the windows and praying no one looks inside.
“You lied to me,” he shouts at Andrew, face growing red.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Andrew barks back.
Desperately glancing around the room for anything to stop them, your eyes land on the empty pudding cup. You snatch it up and throw it at the back of Deran’s head. He flinches at the impact, head whipping around to face you.
“Enough! Jesus fuck, Deran, I’m in the hospital because I’m too stressed. This isn’t why I wanted you here!”
Andrew still has a hold on him. Deran glances between the pair of you, expression turning embarrassed. He shoves his brother’s arms off of him and reaches up, trying to smooth back the hair that's fallen in his eyes.
“Then what the fuck do you want from me?”
At the same time, Andrew asks, “Why is he here?”
They both shoot each other severe looks that have you grimacing. It would have worked out a hell of a lot better if Andrew had just stayed in the bathroom. You scrub your hands down your face and let out a rough exhale, shoulders hunching.
“We’re staying in a hotel right now. But I can’t keep living like that,” Andrew says your name, but you stop him with a look. “Look where I’m at right now, Andrew. Can you honestly say that the way we’re living is healthy for me?”
You purse your lips. You know this is dirty; you’re using one of his deepest fears against him. And it’s awful; you’re a horrible person. But you’re human, and you physically cannot take another day living like a fugitive on the run. “Is it healthy for the baby?”
His hands go lax at his sides, eyes widening imperceptibly as he stares at you. Whatever argument he had ready is killed by your cutting words. You suck your teeth, shoving down the guilt burning in your throat.
“So that’s what you want?” Deran asks, staring over at you with this strange look in his eyes. “Another place to stay?”
“I know that I shouldn’t ask you for anything–”
“No,” he cuts you off, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t.” You bite your lip, sucking in a sharp breath. He rolls his eyes, glaring up at the ceiling. “But…” he lets out a sardonic laugh as he turns toward you. “I actually have a place.”
“Smurf,” he continues, “gave us properties.” he motions between himself and Andrew. Your brows turn in as you turn to him. Because he’d never told you about any sort of property.
He can’t meet your eye, hand balling into a fist as he glares at the floor. “I couldn’t use any of them for you. She would have looked,” he doesn’t seem very defensive. And you’re sure he believes that excuse. But you’re stupid if you think he wasn’t also attracted to the idea of being so close to you, of having you all to himself.
“Yeah, well she won’t go looking through any of mine,” Deran tells him. He turns back to you, “There’s a house by the beach you can stay in.” You want to get up and thank him, to hug him for the first time in weeks. But his expression is reserved as he moves toward the door. “I gotta go. Call me tomorrow, and we’ll figure it out.”
The door slams behind him, blinds rattling from the force. He’s still angry, then. You suppose you can’t blame him. Not with the way you just disappeared. Sighing, you lean forward, head falling into your hands.
Andrew comes up beside you. “I would have taken care of it.”
“Would you?” you scoff, glancing over at him. You don’t mean it maliciously, but it’s been weeks. And he’s apparently had ‘property’ this whole time. Andrew was working off his own schedule, and that just wasn’t good enough for you.
The house is a slightly run-down bungalow by the beach. But it’s good. Anything is in comparison to that hotel room. It’s woefully empty of any furniture or anything to actually make a house a home. You can work on that, though.
Slowly, over the course of a few monthss—long enough for your stomach to start to swell—you begin collecting everything for the place. The couch that Deran was going to get rid of makes its way to you. Your dining table is something you found at an estate sale, oddly enough.
Bits and pieces make their way to you. Some old, some new. But it’s a start. A start to something that belongs solely to you and Andrew. Smurf had sold his house when he was arrested. It left him with nowhere to go but back to her.
The bungalow is a few hours outside of Oceanside. Which makes it a commute for Andrew anytime she calls him back home to deal with family business. You know she must be growing suspicious by now. Especially because Deran stops by a lot.
Where could both of her sons be disappearing to?
You don’t know what Andrew is telling her to keep her off his back, or if he’s even trying. You try not to think about it a lot. The pregnancy has begun to feel real to you. Your stomach is swelling with life; you’re outside of her control. Worries about her serve only to make you more stressed than you need to be.
So, you linger in ignorant bliss. Andrew lets you, though you can see his worries about the future eating away at him. There’s only so much you can do for a man who refuses to cut the last tether to the most agonizing aspect of his life.
His mother.
“The appointment is at two, right?”
Andrew nods; he’s busy putting together the bedframe you just bought while you go through the notes from your last visit with the gynecologist. He’d missed it, Smurf calling him home for some job. A bad time to miss it, too, considering the doctor said she was worried you were showing early signs of gestational hypertension.
It’s not anything life-threatening, but you know he’d been bothered that he wasn’t there when you heard the news. He’s insisting on attending this one. You don’t mind the company, that’s for sure. When the doctor asks what prenatals you’re taking and what your diet looks like, a lot of that knowledge lies with Andrew. He’ll have a better time processing and planning around the information than you will.
His phone rings, breaking up the quiet of the moment. You glance up from your computer with interest. His entire demeanor changes as he looks at the name. It doesn’t take much guessing to know who it is.
The way his shoulders hunch up, his lips pursing as he lets out a heavy sigh. “Smurf?” you ask.
He just nods; he gets up, moving out toward the porch as he answers. You glance toward the window, trying to decide whether or not you want to listen in. You sigh before deciding against it. He’ll tell you about it if he needs to.
You continue looking through the notes from your last visit, making sure you didn’t forget to tell Andrew anything. The door slams closed as he comes back in, making you jump. Your brows furrow as you look over at him. He’s glaring down at the floor, phone tucked back in his pocket.
You hesitate on saying anything. “That was fast,” you land on.
“She wants my help on a job,” he tells you. Letting out a rough sigh, his shoulders sink as he looks up. “Today.”
“Ah,” you click your tongue. She seems to have a psychic link to him. Always knowing the worst time to steal him away from you. Looking back at the computer, you bite back whatever venom you want to spew. Instead, you try to keep your voice calm as you ask, “Are you going?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and you don’t want to look over. You don’t want him to see the hurt on your face that you even have to ask that question. Guilt shouldn’t be what makes him stay. He should just want to.
A soft touch lands on your shoulder and you sigh, sinking back into him. “I’m going with you,” he tells you, firm on the decision.
“Thank you,” you mutter, reaching up to squeeze his hand as he goes back to putting the bed together. “Did she say what the job was?”
Andrew considers for a moment before shaking his head. “She said she’d be coming along on this one. Said it was important.”
Something gnawing stirs up in your stomach. You frown as you consider him. God, you can’t believe you’re about to ask this. “Are you sure you shouldn’t go?”
He pauses from where he was picking up his tools. You get a sidelong look as his voice quiets. “Do you not want me coming?”
Of course that’s how he took it; you feel like an idiot. “No, I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that. I just…” You have a bad feeling about Smurf. But you have no evidence and no reason to voice aloud your doubt. “Of course I want you there, Andrew.”
He looks over you, eyes narrowing as he stares into your eyes, checking for any dishonesty. Slowly, he nods and resumes his task. You try to do the same, but your focus is anywhere but on your notes.
You’d had Andrew’s hand in a death grip your entire appointment. You couldn’t tell him why or even explain to the doctor this sudden panic that’s come over you. She’s worried about it, telling you it’s important you lessen the stress in your life as much as possible to avoid any complications.
If only it were that easy. But you hardly understood your worries before you were pregnant. It only got that much harder after.
Luckily, everything looked fine with the baby. She couldn’t get a good look at it through the ultrasound, and she forgot her “readers” at home. So, instead, you have to wait a while longer while she runs a blood test to determine the gender of the baby.
You don’t really care either way. But you think Andrew would make a good dad to a little girl.
“You don’t want to do the whole gender reveal thing, do you?” You ask on the drive home.
Andrew glances over at you and shrugs, hand flexing around the steering wheel. “I don’t know. Might not be so bad.”
Your eyes narrow. “Really? You want one of those stupid confetti things staining our backyard pink or blue?”
He lets out a scoff, smiling slightly as he looks over at you. “How ‘bout a cake?” he offers, and you think he might just be messing with you.
“Considering the strict diet you’ve got me on, I’ll take a cake.” He huffs a little at the dig but doesn’t seem to mind too much when you grin over at him. You stretch, hand resting on the center console. He reaches down, taking it in his own as he pulls onto your street.
You frown, sitting up when you see another car in your driveway. “Who’s that?” you wonder aloud.
Andrew’s hand tightens around your own as he slows down. He comes to a stop in front of the house, letting out a low breath of relief when you both see it’s just Deran. But he doesn’t look good. He’s pacing on the porch, hands shoved in his pockets, and his face is strangely red.
“Wait here,” Andrew mutters, getting out of the truck and stalking up the driveway. You let out an irritated huff, watching as he approaches his brother. Deran’s head whips up as he gets closer, and he stops his pacing completely.
That unsettled feeling from before returns tenfold as you shift uncomfortably in your seat. You can’t hear what's being said, but you can see the way Deran’s face shifts from that usually untouchable look to something scarily vulnerable. Andrew runs up the steps to the porch, and Deran stops him, grabbing his shoulder and taking in a deep breath.
You tilt yourself closer to the window, as if you might be able to hear something. Deran finally says whatever news it is he had to be in person to deliver. Your brows furrow as you watch it all play out on Andrew’s face.
He tilts his head before shaking it, saying something. You can’t make out what he says, but you can hear his voice rise, see him shove Deran back as he continues to shake his head. His hands come up to his head, cupping it.
You can’t take watching this anymore. Getting out of the truck, you make your way up the driveway just as Andrew sinks onto the porch steps. His head falls between his knees, shoulders beginning to shake. You run up to him, falling beside him. Deran stands behind you both, gaze vacant as he watches his brother.
“What’s going on?” you snap at Deran, hands cupping Andrew’s cheeks. You try to get him to look at you, but he collapses into you instead. You let out a sharp gasp as his head falls in your lap, hands gripping desperately at your dress. You can feel him shaking, the sharp breaths he’s struggling to get in.
“Deran!” You snap, hands desperately running over Andrew, trying anything to get him to calm down.
Deran finally looks at you, but he doesn’t see you. “Smurf is dead.”
The fridge is open again.
It’s happened over the past week. You’ll walk through the house, and there will be these little things that are wrong. The fridge is open because he forgot he was going to make dinner. The light to the hallway has been on all day because he never remembered to turn it off. There are dirty plates put away in the cabinets because he’d zoned out, unloaded a dirty dishwasher without even blinking.
You walk over and close the fridge, letting your head fall against the cool metal with a shaky exhale. This is getting bad. You knew he wouldn’t be well immediately following his mother’s death. Who would?
But this is different than being lost in grief. He’s losing chunks of the day, leaving the house and not knowing where he’s going. You caught him standing in front of the nursery with a drill in his hand. He stood there for about ten minutes before you asked what he was doing.
He didn’t remember.
Moving away from the kitchen, you check your watch. He’s been gone for two hours already. You hadn’t wanted to let him leave the house on his own. He was meant to take you grocery shopping with him. But you had to run to the bathroom, and he just left.
You move into your bedroom, intent on putting away some clothes. You’re trying to tidy the place up a bit before he gets back, so he doesn’t have to worry about it.
Picking up a pile of clothes, you trudge into the closet. It’s stuffed full right now and barely organized. With an annoyed huff, you drop the clothes on the ground and reach for some shirts on an overstuffed bar. You tug at them a bit, grunting until the hangers finally come off.
Something tumbles from the shelf above; it pops you perfectly in the toe before tumbling off into the shadows of the closet. “Ow,” you grumble, forgetting the clothes as you get on your knees. Your hands swipe across the closet floor, blindly groping until you feel your fingers brush against what fell.
Pulling it out, you pause. This is…
This is one of the baby bottles he bought. “What the hell?” you mutter, looking up at the shelf it fell from. Getting to your feet, you rush off and drag the stepstool into the closet. Climbing up, you get a good look at the shelf.
The parenting books, pacifiers, everything he bought too early has been shoved up here. Pulling it all out, you lay it out on the bed. Why the hell would he hide all this?
Sure, you noticed there was less baby stuff around the house. But you thought that was because he was putting it all away in the nursery. You haven’t been there in a while. The scattered parts of the crib he never built are too much of a tripping hazard.
You never would have thought he was hiding it all away.
Rubbing your head, you let out a low groan. You rack your brain, but you can’t find a reason he would do this. And with the state he’s in, you doubt Andrew even understands what he’s doing.
The front door opens, and you run out of the bedroom. Andrew stands in the doorway, his head lifts, eyes still carrying that sad look they’ve had the past few days. “Andrew,” you whisper.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, head lifting as he surveys you with narrowed eyes. But you’re not the problem here.
You purse your lips, struggling to maintain a kind smile. “Where are the groceries?”
His brows furrow as he shakes his head. “What?”
You let out a rough sigh, pinching your nose as you shake your head. “Never mind,” you tell him. Instead, you walk over to him, taking his hand in yours. He lets you lead him to the couch and sit him down.
“What are you doing?” He asks, looking slightly dazed as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Nothing, just, maybe rest for a little while, alright?” You want to help him; you do. But he’s mourning. And you can’t relate to that pain. Smurf made your life hell. The only good she ever did anyone was giving birth to Deran and Andrew. You wanted to fucking leap for joy when you heard she was dead.
But Andrew’s steadily devolving into a state that you don’t know how to get him out of. You doubt he’ll be himself for a long time. But this is different. This is wrong. Pulling out your phone, you call the only person you can think of.
Pope is sitting on one of the rocking chairs on the porch. You’d deposited him there, the burden that’s only serving to make your life more difficult. He wonders if you’re watching him through the window to make sure he’s not going to wander off. He feels like he’s falling apart.
And maybe he is. Pope’s not sure anyone would call hearing their dead mother’s voice stable. But he does hear her. And he sees her everywhere too. A phantom that he just can’t let go of.
He hears a car pull up the driveway and frowns, lifting his head. They park and throw the door open. Deran stands there a minute, just watching Pope, before slowly making his way up the porch steps.
Deran lets out a low groan as he sits in the chair beside Pope. His chest heaves as he exhales and rubs his hands down his face. Pope watches him warily, wondering why he bothered coming.
Deran looks over at him and laughs. It’s not genuine. It’s bitter and filled with the same sort of reluctant grief plaguing Pope. “You look like shit, man,” he tells him.
Pope scoffs, but he can’t disagree. He’s hardly keeping his head on straight right now. “What do you want?” he asks, wishing for some quiet for once. Away from all the noise in his head.
“What do you think?” Deran huffs. He motions inside. “She called me,” he says your name, and Pope grimaces. You must really think he’s just a mess.
Deran goes quiet for a moment, picking at a thread on his jeans. “How have you been doing?” He asks, his tone losing its abrasive quality this time around.
“How do you think?” Pope scoffs, looking over at him. And something inside him breaks, seeing his little brother who is holding it together so much better than he is. “I keep seeing her man,” his voice cracks around the confession, and he looks away. “I’m— I’m fucking hearing her in the back of my head. Reminding me—”
Pope shakes his head, dragging his hand down his face as he tries to take in a steady breath. “Reminding me of how much I fucked up. I wasn’t there,” he admits. “I wasn’t there, and she’s dead.”
Deran stays quiet, just watching Pope. There’s nothing he could say that would absolve him of this guilt. He doesn’t deserve it. Not when this is all he’s done his entire life. He was put on a leash for a reason. Because every time he ever tried to break out of that control, the only thing he’s ever done is hurt someone.
Something about the quiet softens something in him. “I hid all the baby stuff,” he admits.
Deran lets out a confused noise and looks up. “What?” he asks, shaking his head. “Why?
Pope shrugs, looking down at the chair and digging his nail into a scratch. He picks at it, watching the wood splinter. “I can’t mess this up,” he admits, voice rough as he blinks away the burning in his eyes. “I hear Smurf. I hear Baz. And they’re both just telling me how much I fucked up. And I can hear Baz telling me that no one would ever want a kid with me. Because he was right,” he lets out a bitter sound, taking in a shaky breath.
“She doesn’t want a kid with me. She just got stuck with me.”
Deran takes in a sharp breath and shakes his head. He laughs, but it's hollow. “Baz was wrong about a lot of things,” he says. He reaches over and takes his shoulder. Pope grimaces, but he doesn’t move away, looking over at Deran.
“But Baz was always wrong about you, man.” He squeezes Pope’s shoulder before letting go. “Smurf fucked us all up. But,” Deran whistles and shakes his head. “She really did a number on you. Still, if any of us could actually give a kid a chance of survivin’ all the shit we went through…”
Deran offers a strained smile, “It’d be you.”
Pope can’t honestly say he believes him. Believe this is anything other than an attempt to bring him back from the edge. But he wants to. He wants to so badly think that he’s capable of doing something good.
Neither of them says anything else, sitting in the quiet with one another.
A while later, Deran gets up. He doesn’t say much, just that he has to head home. Pope nods, watching as Deran walks down the porch. The door opens behind him, the swell of your stomach clear in his peripheral. You call out a goodbye to his brother, walking toward him. He reaches up, hands brushing against your stomach as his head falls against you. You reach up, nails dragging through his curls.
You’re real. You’re here. Not a voice in his head reminding him that everything falls apart under his touch.
You kneel, pressing your forehead to his. Your lips brush against the corner of his mouth before you pull away. He holds onto your hand until you’re walking back into the house, and his hand falls back by his side. Deran pulls out of the driveway; he stops at the end for a moment before driving off.
Pope gets to his feet; he follows the only noise in the house until he’s standing in front of the nursery. You’re kneeling in front of the disassembled crib. Without looking up, you silently hold out the instruction booklet. He walks forward, taking it from you and kneeling at your side.
Your eyes dart to him for a moment. “It’s a girl,” you tell him.
His stomach swoops as he looks over at you. You offer a small smile. “The doctor called this morning. I thought you would want to know.”
You reach over and take his hand in your own, lacing your fingers together. He leans over, pressing his forehead to the side of your head. You turn, lips brushing against his as you pull him into your embrace. He sinks easily, the world going quiet around him as you hold him. His hand falls from your side to the swell of your stomach.
pairing: entity!bobby franklin/bb x f!reader
wc: 9.1k 💀
summary: BB has waited an eternity for someone to choose him. You finally let him in. All of him.
contents/warnings: 18+, explicit smut (entity sex, oral (f receiving), crazy amount of overstimulation, marathon sex, body worship!!!), non-human anatomy && shifting during sex, tummy bulges!!! (you're his cocksleeve i'm afraid <3), eldritch features (elongated tongue, additional appendages, iridescent skin), mutual praise && desperation, emotional themes of loneliness && touch starvation (yeah,,, in your monsterfucking smut ikik), references to emotional neglect in a prior relationship/guilt over moving on, past references to real bobby/reader.
notes: this took years off my damn life because I kept reworking parts but I did enjoy writing it overall. pic used is for aesthetic purposes only && is not representative of the reader character. I just like looking at Finn with his mouth gaping open mid moan :) also this is NOT canon compliant for the main series. y'all just want to fuck bb && I respect that (also this was put off twice & I reckon I owe you one after Part 6). essentially this can be read as "entity x/bobby/plot never happened & you chose to stay with bb forever" au.
✶ better bobby series.
“I found something for you.”
BB is crouching beside the nest when you open your eyes, his cool fingers turning something small and bright in his palm. A button. Red plastic, chipped at one edge, the kind that falls off a coat and rolls under a shelf and gets forgotten. He holds it out to you with the nervous care of a child presenting a drawing.
“It was in one of the lower hallways,” he explains, watching for your reaction. “Near a door I haven't opened yet. It's the same red as the mug you told me about. The one your mom had. I thought—” He turns it in his fingers. The yellow light catches the glossy surface. “I thought you might want something red. There's not a lot of red here.”
You take the button. It's warm from his hand, or rather warm from the contact with his hand, because BB himself runs cool, always cool, his body temperature a few degrees below what feels human until your skin draws the heat out of him. The red plastic sits in your palm. Cheap. Cracked.
It's the most thoughtful gift anyone's given you in over a year.
“Thank you, BB.”
He smiles. That shy, lopsided thing that doesn't belong on Bobby's face because Bobby never smiled like that; Bobby's smiles were teasing and self-aware and loaded, and this one is open and unguarded and a little bit terrified that you won't like it.
“You do? You like it?”
You lift your eyes toward him, and smile. “I love it.”
The yellow warms toward gold around you. Just slightly. Just enough to notice.
You hold out for months.
That's the part that's going to eat you alive later, the part you'll turn over and over in your head. The part where you knew.
You knew what kissing him did to you from the first time, that clumsy mortifying moment in the blankets when he'd come in his shorts and watched himself discover his new body. The look on BB’s face had carved itself into you like a brand.
You knew because kissing BB isn't kissing. Kissing BB is a substance. It enters your bloodstream through the point of contact, and within thirty seconds, you can feel it spreading. Warm and heavy and stupid, a fog that settles behind your eyes and at the base of your spine.
The longer his mouth is on yours, the worse it gets. Or better. You can't tell anymore which of those words applies. The two collapse into the same sensation when BB is touching you because his version of pleasure isn't built on the human axis where good and too-much are different categories.
His skin is cool when he isn't touching you. That's one of the things that took getting used to. The temperature of him. His hands when they find your wrist in the dark, his chest when you lean against him in the nest. Cool like marble or water from a deep well.
There's warmth underneath the surface, banked and dormant, waiting, but it only comes alive when he touches you. The warmth bleeds through contact, drawn out by your body heat, rising to meet you and then surpassing you. And once the warmth is going, it does things. It sinks. It reads. It feeds information back to him through his palms, fingertips, and mouth, a living scan of your nervous system in real time through his skin.
So you hold out. You let BB kiss you sometimes. Short, careful, your hand on his chest when it threatens to become more. His immediate compliance every single time, pulling back to press his forehead to yours. Just breathing even though he doesn’t need oxygen the way you do, hands shaking on your waist, always mortifyingly patient.
For months after the first kiss. Just that.
“Do you dream?” BB asks one evening, his fingers working over your hair.
You're lying with your head in his lap. The yellow hum is low tonight, and the ghost-flowers on the wallpaper have settled into stillness for once.
“Sometimes,” you tell him honestly.
“What about?”
You almost say Bobby. You catch it in your teeth. “Home, mostly. The apartment. My side of the bed.”
BB's fingers pause over your hair for half a second. Then they resume, slower.
“Do you miss it?”
You think about that. Really think about it, while his cool fingers stroke over your hair and the hum fills the silence with its tuneless drone. Do you miss it? Do you miss the apartment where Bobby's camera equipment colonised every surface? Do you miss the kitchen where he stopped looking at you? Do you miss your side of the bed, which was your side because Bobby took the other side and the middle and left you the edge.
“I miss what it used to be,” you say quietly. “Before it went bad.”
BB's hand settles on your temple. Warm now, from the contact with your skin. His thumb traces the curve of your eyebrow.
“Tell me about before,” he says softly.
Before was good. That's the thing, the thing that makes the after so unbearable. Before was so good.
Bobby in the early months was a revelation. Bobby with his camera aimed at you across a crowded room, lowering it to grin at you with his whole crooked face, saying the light's doing something crazy on you, babe and meaning it with every fibre of his skinny sun-browned body.
Bobby who kissed you in parking lots and edited footage with his head in your lap and rolled joints on the kitchen counter while telling you about his day in that low lazy drawl that made your stomach flip even when he was talking about lens caps.
Bobby who touched you like you mattered. Hands on the small of your back in a crowd, arm around your shoulder or waist, always. Fingers laced through yours during movies. His mouth on the back of your neck while you were doing dishes, warm and idle, a press of lips that said I'm here and I like being here. Bobby in bed in the early days, Bobby with his chain tangled between your bodies, looking at you with those pale eyes and saying come here, baby, let me feel you with a softness that undid you every single time.
The good was so good it spoiled you for everything that came after.
The good taught you what Bobby was capable of, what he contained, and that knowledge made the withdrawal so much worse. Because you knew. You knew he could be tender. You'd seen the inside of him, the soft unguarded core he showed you, and then he'd locked the door.
You'd tried to get back in. That's the part that hurts the most now.
You'd asked him what was wrong. You'd asked him if he was okay, if he wanted to talk, if he needed space, if you'd done something. You'd tried every key you could think of, and the door stayed shut. And the worst part, the very worst part, was that you could hear him on the other side. You could hear him breathing. He was right there, your Bobby, the real one, the one who filmed you sleeping because the light was good, and he wouldn't open the door for a reason you didn’t know.
That hurt more than the silence. More than the grunting. More than the nights he turned his back. Because the silence you could have explained away. You could have told yourself he'd changed, that the tenderness was a phase, that you'd imagined the depth of it. But you hadn't imagined it. You'd been inside. You'd touched the walls. And knowing what was in there and being locked out of it was a cruelty so singular it felt designed.
You tell BB some of this. Not all. You tell him about the parking lot kisses and the kitchen touches and the way Bobby used to look at you through the viewfinder. The way he hugged you with his whole body every time he saw you, nuzzling into your shoulder with a muffled sigh. You tell him about the door closing. BB listens with his head tilted, his fingers still in your hair, his pale eyes fixed on your face with that total, unwavering attention.
“He had all of that,” BB says quietly when you finish. “And he put it behind a locked door and won’t even tell you why.”
“Yeah.”
“And you kept knocking.”
You force a breath over the lump in your throat. “Yeah.”
BB is quiet for a long time after that. His thumb traces your temple. The yellow walls warm around you, trying to bleed toward gold again.
“I don't have a door,” he says softly, quietly. “I don't know how to build one. Everything I have is right here. You can see all of it.”
You close your eyes, and the purr starts low in his chest.
You don't say anything. But you reach up and press his hand against your cheek, keeping him there, close. BB's breath catches, and he holds perfectly still, and the yellow turns gold.
You hold out for months, and the guilt sits inside you like a stone.
Guilt for wanting it. Guilt for not wanting it enough. Guilt for thinking about real Bobby while BB's mouth is on you, and guilt for not thinking about real Bobby enough. Guilt for the fact that some traitor part of you has stopped flinching at BB's touch and started anticipating it, leaning into it.
You go to bed with your back to him and wake up curled into his chest, because your body made a decision before your conscious mind could.
And you didn't leave.
That's the thing you can't explain to yourself, the thing that damns you.
You didn't leave because after what happened with Bobby, after months of being invisible in your own space, being wanted felt so good. Being needed felt so good. BB looked at you every single day like the sun rose and set in the shape of your body, and that kind of attention was a drug more potent than anything his kiss could do to your bloodstream.
You were terrified of how much you liked it. You were more terrified of losing it.
The nest also changed. You don't remember when. You'd been asleep, and BB had been out, doing whatever BB does when he leaves the territory, and you'd woken to find your apartment.
Not exactly. A yellow-tinged approximation of it, laid overtop the warm patch of carpet. The blankets rearranged into a bed with your bedspread from Santa Clara, the one with the faded blue flowers. The pillows you'd left in the apartment when the wall took you. The little side table with the lamp from the yard sale in Sunnyvale. Even the pattern of the wallpaper had shifted, not away from yellow but around it, a suggestion of the flowered paper you'd hung in the bedroom, ghosted through the buttercup background.
BB had been sitting cross-legged beside the nest when you woke, watching your face for the reaction, hands twisted together in his lap. He'd looked at you with such raw nervous hope that you'd started crying before you understood what he'd built.
“I heard you,” he'd said, voice unsure, small. “You said you missed home. So I—” He gestured at the room, his hands shaking. “I don't know if I got the pattern right. I only saw vague glimpses in your mind. I could change it, if it's wrong.”
You'd crawled into his lap. Buried your face in his neck. His cool skin had warmed slowly under your cheek.
That was weeks ago. Months ago. Time is soft here. It's before you started noticing the flowers on the wallpaper moving when you weren't looking directly at them. Before you noticed the lamp doesn't have a cord. Before you noticed that when BB is happy, the yellow warms toward gold, and when he's worried it cools toward green, and the whole territory has become an extension of his mood.
None of it scares you the way it should. That's the part that actually scares you.
“Baby?”
BB is sitting on the edge of the bed. He's holding a blanket he found somewhere, a thick, dark green wool one, and he's folding it with careful absorption. His long fingers crease the edges. He’s already gazing at you when you glance his way. His eyes are Bobby's blue today, human-shaped, the entity safely tucked away behind the mask.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?” he asks carefully.
You nod. “Of course.”
He visibly hesitates, his head lowered. “Do you want to go home?”
Your chest tightens. “BB—”
“You don't have to answer.” He folds the blanket smaller. His voice is steady, and his hands are also steady, but neither of those things is true underneath. “I just… I've been thinking about it. About whether you're staying because you want to or because you don't know how to leave. And I want, baby, I want you to know that if you—” He swallows. “If you need to go... I won't…”
He stops, staring at the blanket in his hands.
“I won't stop you,” he finishes, practically choking the words out.
You gaze at him. At the green blanket folded in his lap. At his hands, which are familiar and gripping the wool hard enough to dimple the fabric. At his face, which is Bobby's face and isn't, which is the face of a thing that heard you crying through a wall and built itself a body to hold you and is now offering to let you go because it loves you more than it loves having you.
“I don't know,” you say honestly. “I don't know, BB.”
He nods, keeps folding. You sit together in the quiet, and the yellow is the palest green you've ever seen it, almost grey, and BB's hands are shaking slightly around the blanket, and he's pretending they're not.
That night you lie awake in the nest that looks like your old apartment with BB's arm across your waist, and you think about going home. Really think about it. You think about the apartment in Santa Clara and the kitchen and your mug on the drying rack and your shoes by the mat. You think about Bobby. You think about whether Bobby is sitting in that apartment right now, or if he moved on without you there to nag him.
You think about going back to him, walking through the wall and climbing the stairs. Finding him. And you try to feel what that would be like, the reunion, the homecoming, and what you feel is—
Grief. You feel grief.
Because going home means going back to Bobby, and going back to Bobby means going back to a man who locked the door. Who might open it now, might fling it wide, might weep and hold you and swear he'll be different. But you've spent months on the other side of that door. Months knocking. Months making yourself smaller and smaller to fit through the crack underneath. And even if Bobby opens the door now, you know what it's like when it's closed. You know the sound of his back turning. You know the weight of his indifference. You carry it in your bones.
The relationship was over months before you left. You know that now. The wall in Clark's basement didn't end your relationship with Bobby. Bobby ended it. Quietly, one day at a time, one turned back at a time, and you'd stood in the wreckage pretending it was still standing because the alternative was admitting you'd been alone for months in a room with someone who used to love you.
You're only here because you're finally letting the ghost of going home go.
Because letting BB in means choosing the yellow. Choosing the hum. Choosing a place with no sky and no weather. No yard sales on El Camino with golden retrievers named Mango. Letting BB in means letting the real world go, and admitting that the girl who fell through the wall in Clark's basement is not the girl sitting in this nest.
That girl was going home. That girl was holding on.
This girl has let go of everything except the creature beside her, and she doesn't want to pick any of it back up.
It means letting Bobby's ghost go, too.
The real one, the Bobby who exists in Santa Clara, the one who grunts at your goodbyes, that Bobby has been a ghost to you for longer than BB has been real. And the Bobby you've been holding onto, the candle in the draft, the one who filmed you sleeping and called you my girl, that Bobby is a memory.
A beautiful, aching, preserved memory of a man who doesn't exist anymore.
Loving a memory is not the same as loving a person. A memory can't change. A memory can't hurt you, can't grow, can't learn. A memory just sits in your chest, glows, and keeps you warm, and slowly, slowly starves you because you're using it to feed a hunger it was never designed to fill.
BB is not a memory. BB is real. He’s flawed in his own inhuman ways, learning in real time, and holding you right now, his cool arm across your waist, his purr a low vibration you can feel through the mattress. BB is the one who brought you a red button because your mom had a red mug years ago. BB is the one who offered to let you leave even though it would destroy him.
You love him. Not as a replacement. Not because he wears the right face. You love the thing behind the face. The thing that has no door, that never had it.
You turn over. Press your face into BB's chest. His arms tighten around you at once, his skin warming under your cheek.
“I'm staying,” you tell him in a tender whisper.
BB goes still.
“You—”
“I'm staying, BB,” you tell him again, pressing closer, tucking yourself close. “I'm choosing this. I'm choosing you.”
The purr cracks. Breaks apart. Reassembles into something so deep and so full it vibrates in your skull. BB's arms crush you against him and his face buries in your hair, and he's shaking, shaking, his cool body warming everywhere you touch him, and the yellow floods gold.
The whole room, the whole level, gold as sunlight, gold as the thing inside his chest that has waited longer than time itself for someone to say those exact words.
You kiss him the next day.
He's beside you in the nest, cross-legged, telling you about a level he found that loops back on itself, and you're half-listening, more focused on the shape of his mouth than the words coming out of it. You lean over and press your lips to the hinge of his jaw. Just there. A small, warm press between his ear and his chin.
BB falters mid-sentence. A stutter, a swallow, his eyes flicking to you and away.
“—and the walls change texture right where it loops, which is, um. Interesting because—”
You kiss the corner of his mouth. Lightly. Barely there. And your hand finds the back of his nape.
BB stops talking.
His neck is cool under your palm. Smooth, the tendons shifting as he swallows. Your fingers curl into the short hair at his nape. The change is immediate: his skin warming under your touch, temperature rising from mild to warm in three heartbeats.
“Baby,” he says carefully, his voice dropping half an octave. “What are you—”
You kiss him again. On the mouth. Full. Your lips part against his, and you make it different. You don't hold back. You don't keep your hand on his chest as a brake. You kiss him with your whole body leaning into it, and your hand on his nape tightens, pulling him closer.
BB makes a sound against your lips. Small. Startled. His hands come up to your waist on instinct, and you can feel them warm against your skin in real time, heat blooming where you're connected. He's bracing himself for the pull-back. He's already preparing to be patient about it.
You press forward instead. Your weight shifts, your knee coming up onto the blankets, your body tipping into his. BB's hands tighten on your waist. You can feel the exact moment he realises you're not stopping, his fingers digging in, his breath hitching, his mouth opening wider for you. And you push him.
Gentle but firm, both hands on his chest now, and BB goes where you push him.
His back hits the wall. The ghost-flowered wallpaper presses against his shoulder blades, and you're in his lap, knees on either side of his hips, chest against his chest. You kiss him fully. Mouth open. Tongue sliding against his. Your fingers in his hair and your hips pressing down against him and every last ounce of restraint you've been maintaining for months dissolving into the heat flooding through you.
The heat. The fog. It hits you the second you stop fighting it. Months of buildup pouring through. Your head swims. Your skin goes electric. BB's warmth blazes against you, drawn out by your body, his cool skin going hot wherever you touch him.
BB moans. Deep, ragged, pulled from somewhere below his chest, vibrating through his ribs into yours. Hungry and wanting. The sound of a creature starved, weak with wanting you so much.
His hands move. They stop being still on your waist, and they move. Both of them, everywhere at once, kneading. His fingers grip the fat of your hips. His palms slide up your ribs. His hands cup your breasts through your shirt, fingers pressing and kneading with a desperate, tactile hunger. He needs to touch all of you at once, and two hands aren't enough.
His tongue slides along your lower lip, longer than it should be, and you open your mouth wider and let him in. BB groans desperately, his hips rolling up against you.
The sound is wet. BB’s tongue slides against yours in a coil that tightens and releases in eager pulses, saliva building between your joint mouths. The kiss is messy and open, drool collecting at the corner of your lips because you can't swallow around the thickness of his tongue filling your mouth.
You roll your hips against him again, harder. BB makes a broken sound, and his head drops back against the wall, his throat baring. You kiss it. The spot his pulse should be, his Adam's apple, the hollow at the base. His skin is warm now, fully warm, almost hot.
You pull back, your face inches from his. Your hands settle on his chest, feeling his heartbeat slamming against your palms. BB’s eyes are half-black. His mouth is swollen and wet, gaping open. His hands grip your hips hard enough to leave marks, his whole body trembling.
“I want you,” you gasp against his lips.
BB goes still. Every muscle in his body locks, his hands freezing on your hips. His breathing stops. His eyes search your face with an intensity that has nothing to do with Bobby and everything to do with the ancient thing behind the mask.
“You—” His voice trembles, going thin. “You want—”
You press your forehead against his. “I want you, BB.”
“Do… do you mean—”
“I mean all of it,” you rasp, your hand slipping into his hair. “I mean you."
BB’s face cracks open. His expression unravels completely, and what's underneath is raw and enormous and terrified and so, so joyful. His eyes go fully black, the entity surging to the surface, and he looks at you like you've just handed him the universe.
“You want me,” he whispers desperately, testing the words, faint with disbelief.
You cup his face with both hands. Your palms on his jaw, your thumbs on his cheekbones. His skin is burning under your hands.
“I want you,” you repeat, and you kiss him. Deeper. Slower. His tongue coils around yours, gentle, trembling, the grip shaky because BB is shaking, his whole body is.
He pulls back a centimetre, forehead nudging against yours. Eyes black and wet as they drink you in.
“I waited so long,” he whispers, his voice pained. “I waited so long for you. You don't know how long I was alone. And there was nothing. Just the hum, and the yellow. And then there was you. I heard your voice and I—”
His breath hitches, a wounded sound vibrating at the back of his throat.
“I'd rarely heard anything except the hum and the things in the dark, but then you were on the other side of the wall, and you were talking. Your voice… it was the first beautiful thing I ever heard. I built this—” He touches his own face. Bobby's face. His hand trembling. “I built all of this for you. Because I heard you crying and needed hands because you were sad. And I… I wanted to hold you, and I didn't have anything to hold you with.”
Tears burn your eyes. BB's thumbs trace your cheekbones lightly, wiping the tears as they threaten to escape.
“You were born for me,” he breathes, fierce and tender all at once. “I know that now. I was in the walls for—I don't have a number. But then you came along, and I knew. I was waiting for you this whole time. You were always going to be mine. I just had to learn how to deserve you.”
“I love you,” you choke out. “BB. I love you.”
He makes a broken, needy sound, pressing kisses to your face, your cheek, your jaw, your eyelids, the corner of your mouth. “I love you. Let me touch you. Please. Baby, please. I've waited so long.”
“Yes,” you whisper. “Take me to bed.”
He carries you. Two steps, three, his inhuman strength on casual display, and he lays you down on the bedspread with the faded blue flowers.
His hands are shaking. The purr starts in his chest, a deep warm vibration you can feel through the mattress. He kneels between your legs and looks at you, just looks. His mouth swollen and wet. His chest heaving.
“I don't know how to. I've never—”
“I know.” You reach up and cup his face. His cool skin warms immediately under your palm. “I know, baby. I'll show you. I've got you.”
He drops down against you, his weight settling along your body, his face burying in your neck. His mouth opens against your pulse, and you feel his tongue, just the tip, tracing the vein under your skin. His lips close over your pulse point, and he sucks gently, the purr vibrating through his mouth into your neck.
“You're so warm,” he breathes against your skin. “Baby. You're so warm. I've been cold forever. And you're like a fire. I can feel your heartbeat through your skin. You're so alive. You're the most alive thing I've ever touched.”
His hands slide up your sides, pushing your shirt. His palms drag over your ribs, warming as they travel, and you can feel each finger pressing independently, the cool-to-warm transition happening in streaks along your skin. He pushes your shirt up and off, and his breath catches.
“Oh,” he exhales. Awed. “Oh.”
His hands hover an inch above your body, fingers spread, trembling. He looks at you like touching might break him entirely.
“It's okay,” you whisper. “BB. Touch me.”
Both hands settle on your breasts. Cool palms cupping you, and his temperature spikes, warming fast from the centre of his palms. His thumbs drag across your nipples, and you arch into the sensation, shivering.
“There,” he breathes. “Look at you. You're so soft. I've been touching concrete and monsters forever, and you're, you're so—”
He ducks his head and presses his mouth to the swell of your breast. Open-mouthed. Hot. His tongue slides out, the tip tracing the curve of you in a wet drag, and you gasp. BB makes a hungry sound against your skin, half moan, half purr.
“You taste alive,” he murmurs between greedy, slick licks. “I don't have a word, baby. You taste like everything I was missing.”
His mouth finds your nipple. His tongue coils around it, wrapping and squeezing gently, and he sucks. The purr intensifies, vibrating through his lips and his tongue into you. You cry out, sharp and broken, cupping his head to keep him there.
BB's hand kneads your other breast, fingers gripping, the wrong-textured pads of his thumbs dragging across your nipple. Between the attention to both at once, your head swims, your hips lifting off the bed. He murmurs praise into your skin, pulling off with a wet pop to press his open mouth to the underside of your breast, licking the crease there, nosing into the soft skin desperately.
“So beautiful. You have no idea what you look like. I didn't even know what this body was for until I saw you.”
He sucks a mark into the inner curve of your breast, suckling greedily. Then his mouth moves lower. BB’s tongue draws a long, unbroken line from between your breasts to your navel. He presses his mouth flat against your stomach and breathes in, eyes fluttering shut.
“I could stay here forever,” he mumbles against your belly. “Just breathing you in. You smell warm. I didn't know warm had a smell until you.”
BB’s fingers hook into your underwear and pull them down gradually. His breath catches as he bares you. His eyes go wide and fully black, fixed between your thighs. He's looking at you with such naked reverence it steals your breath.
“You're wet,” he says, hushed. His thumbs trace the crease where your thighs meet your hips, slow even as you sense the shaking still quaking his fingertips. “So wet, baby. Is that for me?”
You shiver at the touch, squirming. “Yes. All for you, BB.”
BB’s whole, borrowed body shudders at the confirmation. His tongue slides out, long and sinuous, and he licks his lips with it. The hunger on his face is staggering.
“Let me taste you,” he begs quietly. “Baby, please. I've never… please.”
Heat floods through your veins, molten and thick, at the pleading note in his voice. “Yes. God, yes.”
BB drops down immediately. His mouth presses to the inside of your knee. Cool lips warming as they drag up your inner thigh, pressing open-mouthed kisses into the soft skin there. His tongue traces the path, licking long wet stripes up your thigh. He pauses an inch away. Breathes. His breath is hot and damp, and your hips jerk toward him.
“You smell so good,” he murmurs. “And you're hot. I can feel it on my face.”
His tongue makes contact. Long and wet, dragging flat from the base of you all the way up. You sob, and your hands fly to his hair. BB makes a deep, guttural moan that vibrates through his tongue and into you, the purr kicking up so hard it vibrates the bed frame. His fingers dig into your thighs, and his mouth opens wide, and he licks you again. Slower. Longer. The tongue lingering at the top, the tip curling and pressing between your folds curiously.
“Baby. Baby. You taste… you’re dripping for me and so alive. I can't stop, I can't—”
He buries his face in you. His mouth open and his tongue extended to its full impossible length, lapping and stroking and coiling with the desperate, artless hunger. The sounds are obscene. Wet, squelching, sloppy. Saliva and your own arousal mix and drips down his chin. BB’s moaning into you with a continuous low vibration, his fingers gripping your thighs hard enough to bruise, pulling you closer, pressing his face deeper, taking more.
“More,” you gasp through a breathy moan. “BB, more. Please.”
His tongue extends further. Longer. Longer. You feel it pressing inside you, and your hips buck, and BB growls against your clit then keeps pushing. The muscular length of it curls and coils inside you, filling you, reaching deeper than fingers could reach. Deeper than anything human could, and you feel it pressing against the back of you, the very deepest place, and your whole body seizes.
“BB, that's, oh God, that's—”
His tongue presses against the mouth of your womb. The tip of it, delicate and hot, nudging that innermost barrier, and the sensation is so deep and so foreign that your entire body goes rigid and your hands yank at his hair and you make a gasping, yelping sound. High and ragged, pitching toward half a scream.
BB moans into you. The vibration travels through the full length of his tongue, from your clit where his lips are sealed to the deepest place where the tip is pressing. Stimulation at both ends simultaneously and all through the middle, his tongue moving, coiling and uncoiling, massaging places that have never been touched. His lips close over your clit and suck, hard, and the tongue is so deep you can feel it in your stomach.
You're thrusting into his face. Your hips rolling, grinding against his mouth, and BB makes a pleased sound and holds you tighter to him, delighted. Then his hands clamp on your thighs, and he pins you. Presses your hips flat to the mattress with an inhuman grip you couldn't break if you tried, and the sudden loss of control makes you writhe.
Your sounds don't belong to you anymore. You're gripping his hair with both fists. BB is purring so hard the vibration sits at the back of your throat, and his tongue is touching places that have never been bordered. His chin is soaked, and you can hear the wet, filthy sounds, and you're sobbing, thrashing against his grip.
“You're gonna come for me,” he mumbles against you, his mouth never fully leaving. “I can feel it. So close, baby. Give it to me. I want to taste you when you come.”
You come. Hard.
Your whole body arches against BB’s grip, thighs clamping around his head, hands pulling his hair. BB moans into you and holds you down and licks you through it, his long tongue working inside you as you clench and spasm around him.
He's swallowing, sucking, drawing every last drop into his mouth and gulping it down hungrily. His lips close over your swollen folds and he laps at them, slow and thorough, licking you clean with long flat drags. Each pass over your over-sensitive skin makes you twitch and whimper, and he keeps going. Collecting every trace of wetness, every last drop, his tongue dragging through the mess of you with a patience that borders on worship.
“Every drop,” he's murmuring, practically slurring. “I want every drop. My perfect girl.”
His tongue retracts gradually, inch by inch, and you can feel every inch leaving you. The emptiness when it's gone is aching.
BB presses a kiss to your cunt. Right there. Soft. His swollen lips against your swollen folds, gentle and lingering. He pulls back just enough to breathe against you.
“I'll be inside here soon, baby,” he murmurs, his lips brushing your throbbing core as he speaks. “Right here. Right where my tongue was. I'll be so deep. I'll fill you up.” Another kiss. Softer, absent. Like he has no idea what his words and actions are doing to you. “I'll take good care of you. I promise.”
He crawls up your body. Wet open-mouthed kisses up your stomach, between your breasts, on your throat. He tastes like you. You can taste yourself on his tongue when he kisses your mouth, wet and deep, and the intimacy of it, tasting yourself inside his kiss, makes your whole body clench.
“I need you,” he pants against your lips. “I need to be inside you. Please. I need—”
You peck his lips, breathing against them, “Go on. Need you, too. But I want you to show me. Show me what you really are.”
He goes still. The fear rises behind Bobby's eyes. His whole body goes rigid, and his hands tighten on your hips.
“It’s fine.” His voice quivers. “I can keep the shape. You don't have to—”
You trace his cheek, outlining the ridge of his cheek. “I want to.”
“I don't—” He swallows hard. “I don't want you to see me and—” His jaw pulses from how hard he’s clenching his teeth. “What if you can't look at me after? What if I'm—”
“BB.” You cup his jaw, the constructed bones trembling under your palms. “Whatever you're comfortable with. Whatever you want to show me. I'm not going anywhere.”
He gazes down at you. Black-eyed and trembling, searching your face for the lie, for the flinch, for the moment you take it back. He doesn't find it.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay. Just, just a little. Let me just…”
His jaw sharpens under your hands. Just slightly. The line of it going harder, more angular, the bone shifting beneath his skin. He watches your face the whole time, ready to snap back at the first sign of revulsion.
You stroke your thumb over his newly sharp cheekbone. “Beautiful,” you exhale.
BB makes a low, choked sound. His eyes go wider, blacker. The pupils elongate slightly, going vertical. He's shivering. Genuinely shivering, full-body tremors, and you can feel his skin gaining a faint iridescent sheen under your palms, cool and smooth.
“More?” he asks, barely audible.
You take him in, all of him. “More, baby.”
His shoulders lengthen. His neck gains an inch. The proportions of his face slide further from Bobby, the mouth too wide, the cheekbones too high, and you trace the new angles with your fingertips and press your mouth to his jaw and lick the iridescent skin and BB whines. High and desperate and pleased.
“You're… you're not—” He's stammering, trembling in your hold. “You're not scared?”
“I'm not scared, BB. Keep going.”
He gives you more. His spine gains extra vertebrae you can feel through his skin, his torso gaining a sinuous quality. The ghost of a diamond pattern moves beneath his skin, the suggestion of scales. His fingers lengthen slightly, extra articulation appearing in the joints.
You run your palms down his chest, trace the diamond pattern. You press your mouth to his collarbone, where the iridescent sheen is strongest, and kiss the skin there, open-mouthed, tasting the chilly smoothness of him.
BB drops his face into your neck. Hiding. He's hiding, his too-sharp jaw pressed against your shoulder, his shivering intensifying, and you can feel his features still shifting against your skin. He's giving you more, but he can't watch you see it.
“Hey,” you coax, putting your hand under his chin. Tip his face up. “Hey. Look at me.”
He resists for a second. Then he lets you lift his face.
He looks alien. His eyes are polished obsidian, no whites. His jaw is too defined. His mouth is too wide. The iridescent skin catches the yellow light in shimmering refractions. He looks terrified. He looks beautiful.
“There you are, baby,” you whisper, and lean up and kiss him.
BB produces a broken, grateful sound against your mouth, and the purr comes back so hard the walls vibrate.
He adjusts his position, still kissing you as he settles between your thighs, and you understand, immediately, that he’s not a copy.
The mimicry that he's maintained for months falls away the second BB pushes inside you. He's BB. A creature in a body he built to love you, figuring out what it can do in real time.
The shape of him inside you is not human. It's close enough that the entry works. But once he's seated, the texture is wrong, and the temperature is wrong, cool at first then warming fast, and he fills you in ways men don't. His anatomy is adjusting, learning you, reshaping moment by moment. Ridges where there were none. Swells of pressure in places human anatomy couldn't produce. The length of him moving with a sinuous quality. And it's still changing, adjusting his shape to hit exactly what makes you cry out.
“Oh baby,” he breathes, his voice cracking, ragged. “I can feel everything. I can feel your heartbeat through your—” He shudders, his back arching like it’s too overwhelming. “How do humans survive this?”
“BB, you feel so good, right there, don’t stop, baby—”
You press your hips up against him, taking him deeper, squeezing him with your inner muscles, and BB makes a choked, groaning sound, his whole body going taut above you.
You can feel the fullness of him shifting inside you, the ridges dragging, his cock reshaping in response to the pressure of your squeeze. Where you tighten, he swells. Where you release, he fills. It's a feedback loop made flesh, his anatomy learning yours in real time, and the sensation is so foreign and so full that your eyes water.
“Yeah? Is that good?” His voice breaks. His hips roll again, deeper this time, and the ridges snag and drag on the withdrawal, a slow slick pull that makes an obscene dripping sound. You both gasp at it. You both hear it. The slick, filthy evidence of how wet you are, how aroused, and BB's eyes go glassy, his mouth falling open. “Tell me. Tell me I’m good.”
You adjust your thighs again, opening even wider, hooking your ankles behind his back and pulling him in until he's nestled so deep you can feel the cool-turning-warm base of him flush against you. The fullness is immense, a stretch that borders on too much, and you squeeze him again and BB's arms buckle. His elbows hit the mattress on either side of your head, and his face is inches from yours.
His mouth opens, and the sound he makes is a raw, ruined whine.
“Y-You're perfect, BB. Don't, ah, stop.”
He rolls his hips again. Slow, sinuous, that serpentine wave he can't suppress anymore, and the motion drags his cock against you, every ridge and swell and shifting contour lighting up nerve endings you didn't know you had. The slick sounds between your bodies are continuous now, a gushing symphony between your joint flesh. You can feel your own arousal dripping down onto the sheets below, and you don't care because the fullness is extraordinary, and every roll of his hips makes the ridges snag against your walls and catch and pull, and each pull sends you closer to the edge.
You push your hips up to meet his next stroke. The impact makes you both groan. You do it again. Finding a tempo together, his wave and your thrust, the wet lewd sounds getting louder, and BB is panting against your mouth, his breath hot and damp, his eyes half-closed.
“You're so tight,” he gasps. “Baby, every time you squeeze me I can feel your whole body, I can feel everything tighten, you're gripping me so hard, and it's, it's—”
You squeeze him harder. On purpose. Clench around the shifting shape of him and hold. BB's eyes fly open, and his mouth stretches wide, and a sound comes out of him that’s pure entity, a harmonic moan that vibrates through his cock and into you and through the walls. His hips stutter out of the wave and slam forward, involuntary, and the ridges catch deep inside you and your back bows off the bed.
“There,” you gasp, your eyes burning from burning pleasure ravaging through your body.
“There,” he echoes, awed. “I can feel what that does to you. I didn't know anything could—”
He shudders, and his features shift with it. His jaw sharpens a degree. The iridescence pulses brighter on his cheekbones. He ducks his face into your neck, hiding.
“No,” you say, breathless, your hand tangling into his sandy hair. “Let me see you.”
He resists. His jaw pressed against your shoulder, his breath ragged against your throat.
“BB. Let me see.”
He lets you lift his face, his features having slipped further. Cheekbones too high. Mouth even wider. The iridescence brighter. His eyes are completely black and wet, and he's so scared, you can see it. You look directly into them and say, “Don't hide from me. You're beautiful.”
BB makes a strangled sound, his hips stuttering. The purr cracks and reforms. His features shift more, right in front of you, and you watch them move, watch his face rearrange itself in real time, and the intimacy of it makes you reel. Because it’s more intimate than the sex. He’s literally coming apart in front of you and letting you watch.
“Good,” you moan, stroking his shifting jaw. “That's it, BB.”
The pleasure isn't building in a line; it's accumulating in layers.
His hand under your back, lifting you. His mouth on your throat, usually cool lips searing. His thumb at the hinge of your hip, longer now, bending where thumbs don't bend. The appendages emerging one by one, warm and tapered, gripping your thighs, holding your legs open at an obscene angle. Each one a new layer feeding into the one beneath it.
His hips slam deeper, and your breasts ripple with the force. BB is watching, his too-wide mouth lolling open, and his eyes are glazed, his features shifting faster now, responding to pleasure the way a human face flushes. His jaw sharpens then softens then sharpens again. His pupils dilate and contract in pulses seemingly against his control.
“Look at what I do to you,” he pants, his voice hitting a deeper register that’s decidedly not Bobby. “I can't stop touching you. Your skin is so soft, every part of you is burning for me, and you're—” His voice fails him. He ducks his face into your neck again, his features shifting against your skin, and you feel the rasp of scales that aren't quite scales, there and gone.
You pull him back up again, hold his face. He's whining, high and continuous, his eyes wet.
“Stay with me,” you say.
He moans loudly. His features ripple again, even further from Bobby, and his mouth is trembling, and BB looks destroyed, open, the ancient thing behind the mask laid bare while he fucks you, and the vulnerability of it makes your chest ache.
“You're incredible,” he breathes. “You're so wet for me, all of this is for me. I can f-feel how close you are. I can feel it building. Baby, please. Come for me."
Your orgasm rips through you, and BB snarls at the sensation, his features sharpening, the entity surging to the surface, and he doesn't stop, doesn't slow. His hips keep working ruthlessly. The shape of him inside you keeps shifting with each thrust. The appendages grip your thighs tighter, and your orgasm rolls into another one immediately, pinned down, taking whatever he gives you.
“That's it,” he purrs against your ear, nuzzling. “My girl. I can feel you fluttering around me. I've never felt anything like you.”
His tongue slides out, longer than it should be. Drags up the side of your neck. His teeth catch your earlobe, too sharp, and the tiny sting makes you gasp. His hand kneads your breast, gripping, his ridged thumb dragging across your nipple.
“You're so perfect,” he mumbles against your ear, his hips still working, the wet squelching symphony filling the room. “Every time I push in, I can feel you opening and closing around me, and it's—baby, it's the best thing I've ever felt, it's better than anything, you're better than anything—”
His length adjusts on every stroke, swelling and contracting, ridges rubbing against your sensitive walls. The sheets are getting damp beneath you. BB is moaning with every thrust now, layered over the purr, and the purr is vibrating through his cock and into you.
You can't control the sounds coming out of you. You're moaning and sobbing continuously, mindless, drool on your chin, tears on your face, your nails clawing at his back and leaving furrows in the iridescent skin.
The third hits. Your whole body seizes with it. BB cock swells inside you, expanding impossibly, and the stretch shoves you over again, a fourth on the heels of the third.
“That's it,” he gasps. “You're taking me so well. You're the first. The only one. There's never been anyone except you.”
The truth of those words hits you straight in the heart. He made this body for you. It has never known anyone else, and likely never will.
By the fifth round, you can't produce words anymore. Your mouth is open, and nothing's coming out. BB is murmuring into your skin, his tongue licking the tears off your cheeks, tasting your throat, your sweat, every available inch of skin. Your body is nothing but sensation. He's whispering, awed and dazed: “I've got you, baby. So brave. So warm. You're everything, my everything.”
Around the sixth, your hands go limp. Your whole body goes slack except for the involuntary tremors. You're drooling freely onto the pillow. Your eyes are glazed and half-open. You’re conscious but only just, held in a state of continuous pleasure that has dissolved every boundary between your body and his.
BB feels himself getting close. His breathing changes. His hips lose their fluid wave and become harder, urgent, perfectly ruthless. The purr breaks into a low keening sound, and he pulls back.
He cups your ass. Both hands, those long wrong-jointed fingers gripping the flesh of you. He raises your hips off the mattress, tilts you up toward him. Holds you there, suspended.
And he peers down. At your stomach.
You follow his gaze through the fog. You look down at your own body.
You can see him. The shape of him moving inside you. A subtle bulge beneath the skin of your lower stomach, pressing outward with every thrust, the length of him shifting and adjusting. The bulge presses up and recedes in time with his hips. Your stomach ripples with each motion.
BB is staring, transfixed. His black eyes are nailed to the sight of himself inside you, his mouth parted.
“Look at that,” he purrs, and this time you see and hear the predator underneath, satisfied with what he’s seeing. “Look at that. I can see myself inside you. You're so full of me.”
He presses deeper, and the bulge pushes higher. You moan, a thin broken sound, and BB makes a soft noise back, almost soothing, and his hips work faster, holding you up, watching himself move inside you.
“You're taking all of me,” he remarks appreciatively, head cocked. “Every inch. Look at what you're holding.”
His tongue extends, slipping to wrap around the spot where his cock keeps sliding into you, and you moan when the tip prods almost playfully at your swollen clit.
He thrusts into you twice more, hard and deep, finishing inside you with a pleased sigh.
Warm. Impossibly warm. It pulses in time with the harmonic, filling you, filling and filling, overflowing, spilling out around him. The faint gold glow. Pale and luminescent, pooling on your inner thighs, gushing down onto the sheets. Puddles of it. The bed soaked. His release casts a soft light upward onto both your bodies. BB is still inside you, still shaking through it, his mouth on your neck, licking slow grateful stripes up the column of your throat now.
You’ve never heard the purr going louder.
“You did so good, baby,” he rasps affectionately, peppering small kisses behind your ear. “Look at what you took. All of me.”
You can't answer. You can barely breathe. Your whole body is a limp pile of limbs beneath him. You’re boneless against the pillows, drool on your chin, tears drying on your face, hair plastered to your forehead.
BB pulls back to examine you. His face is a mess, too, half-slipped, jaw too sharp on one side and human on the other. Black eyes and swollen mouth, chin still dripping with you. He's grinning. That dark pleased grin, all predator, the purr rumbling on in his chest cavity.
His hips roll again. Slow, testing. Still hard inside you.
“Again, baby?” Low, dark, almost mocking. “One more for me?”
You don't have one more in you. You’re empty, wrung out, incapable of forming sentences.
You nod anyway.
BB whines, high and pleased, and drops his mouth back to yours and starts moving all over again.
He fucks you until you black out.
You lose consciousness somewhere in the middle because your body cannot sustain the amount of pleasure being poured into it and your brain, mercifully, shuts down. The last thing you're aware of is BB's purr vibrating through both your bodies and the faint gold glow pooling under you and his mouth against your temple whispering I love you, I love you, I waited so long, I love you.
When you come back, you have no idea how long it's been. You're clean. He's cleaned you. The bed is dry. You're wrapped in the blankets, wearing one of his shirts. BB is curled around you, human-shaped again, mostly, his face buried in your hair, his arm heavy across your waist. He’s purring. Low and pleased and constant. His skin is cool again, warm only where you're pressed together.
You stir. He notices immediately.
“Baby,” he calls out, his mouth finding your temple. “You're awake. Are you okay? Did I… was I too—”
“Perfect,” you slur, your throat aches from the sheer amount of moaning and screaming you’ve done. “You were perfect, BB.”
He goes still. Then he shudders, his arm tightening around you. He presses his mouth to your hairline and holds it there for a long time. The purr deepens into something so full it borders on mournful, loving, perfectly content.
“I love you,” he says, his voice small, shy again. “I love you more than anything.”
Your eyes burn, but for a different reason now. “I love you too, BB.”
He shivers at the words, a full-body reaction. Under the blankets, one of the appendages, not retracted all the way, probably never fully retracting again, curls around your thigh. Possessive. Settling. Warming as it holds.
“Again later,” he murmurs against your temple. That cocky dark satisfaction layered underneath the tenderness. “We're going to do that again.”
You should be terrified.
But you’re not. Because you’re finally home.
You fall asleep to the sound of BB’s purring, and his whispered I love you in the yellow light of a nest that looks like your old apartment, in the arms of an ancient lonely being that has finally, finally been chosen.
an: never written monsterfucking aside from that one shorter piece a few weeks back so if this sucks i'm sorry. I tried.
𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞: Cregan Stark's arrival in King's Landing has brought a new type of chaos to the recently war-stricken capital. Lady Daphne Tyrell is determined to use the Northern lord to her advantage, but the task might not be as straightforward as it seems. The dance of the dragons has ended and the hour of the wolf has begun.
𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: slowburn, tension, angst, comfort, smut, court politics, political rivals to lovers
I've been on a liking spree so that I could put this list together of all of the best fics of Shawn's characters I've been reading lately. This list is in no way comprehensive but I've done my very best to put everything I've been loving on it
It is also 100% smut
JACK ABBOT
quarantined by @itslowkeyatthenightshift
you and your attending butt heads—and it’s no secret around the ED that Dr. Jack Abbot is harder on you than the other residents. He pushes you further, critiques you sharper, expects more—and you’re done with it. Just as you’re about to go to Dr. Robby to request a switch to days and finally put some distance between you and him, your patient—and his patient—tests positive for COVID-19. Suddenly, you’re both exposed, and with hospital protocol leaving no room for argument, you have no choice but to quarantine together.
do you want the kitchen tour? by @witchywithwhiskey
when your already bad date takes a turn for the worse, the head chef of the restaurant comes to see what he can do to help. when he offers to give you a tour of the kitchen, you jump at the chance to escape, and your bad night turns into something else entirely.
behind closed doors by @andrewmiinyard
you took over jack and robby's spare room a few months ago and now you and jack are constantly at each other's throats. robby has finally had enough and he's hoping some forced proximity will do the trick. seems like it works a little too well.
temperature control by @mrshatosy
Jack Abbott was supposed to find a safer hobby. He wasn’t prepared to find you.
you have no idea by @geminiwritten
even after swapping from nights to days, you just can’t seem to escape the inconveniently attractive night shift attending. then a ptmc night out, a sparkly dress, and a not-so-innocent game of never have i ever leads to dr. jack abbot making sure you can never utter the words “never have i ever finished during sex” ever again
the art of mutual benefit by @softundermoonlight
“I will pay for your coffee,” you add quickly, stepping forward and leaning into his space. He keeps shaking his head, so, in a moment of pure madness, and lacking better ideas, you just say: “I’ll go down on you.”
gentleman's instinct by @sun-snatcher
Sometimes you're reminded how merciless Abbot can be. You indulge in it.
semper fi by @hirukochan
Jack Abbot finds himself feeling oddly protective over the new night shift attending. He tells himself it's natural. You were the young widow of a Marine, a military spouse who brought the greatest sacrifice for her country - your husband. He watched you push on with gritted teeth, haunted by your own demons and trauma, all for the little girl depending on you. It was only natural. Any serviceman would feel an obligation towards your well-being. Any serviceman would want to know you were safe... happy... So how come, he can't help but feel like he is stealing another man's life?
ANDREW CODY
bambi series by @miasvelvetvoid
One secret changes everything. As the Cody family’s carefully buried truths come to light, you find yourself caught between running from the people you love and fighting for them. In the end, loving Pope Cody doesn’t just change your life, it changes the entire family.
here is my hand that will not harm you by @erwinsvow
against better judgement, you send a letter to a man at folsom with very sad eyes. against even better judgement, you send letters every week for years until he stops replying one day. and against everything you know, when he shows up at your door, you invite him inside.
sweetheart by @pearlessance
Everyone knows that Pope Cody's girlfriend is a real sweetheart. What they don't know is that, behind closed doors, you're a real fuckin' freak, too.
late shift by @in-ky
Being the Cody’s on-call emergency nurse isn’t easy. A dislocated shoulder turns into late night gunshot wounds and before you know it, you’re part of the family. After a rough night, Pope needs some TLC. And who else can help him if not his favorite nurse? You’re the only one who can stitch him up, physically and emotionally.
break me down and I'll call you mine by @flowersforbucky
other than the men he brings home on occasion, you’re the only person who knows that deran cody is gay. when your best friend becomes anxious that people are growing suspicious of his sexuality, you suggest telling people that the two of you are dating. everything is going perfectly…until his brother is released from prison and you start feeling things that you haven’t felt in years.
fate. by @andrewmiinyard
the three times you decided to flirt with pope cody and the one time you decided to take it one step further.
crush by @pittrabbit
the aftermath of overhearing that conversation between pope and baz
worthy by @stellamarielu
you tell andrew you want to start a new life with him— away from the chaos of his family, and he agrees with another future promise on his mind
found out by @love-quinn
as his favourite waitress at the only diner in town that’ll still serve him, you’re pope’s girl. doesn’t matter if you have a boyfriend, everybody in town knows you belong to andrew cody. especially your poor neighbours on the other side of your apartment’s paper thin wall. you’d usually try and be more considerate of the noise, but with your boyfriend in the trunk of his car, pope needs everybody to hear exactly what he was doing on the night of the third. for alibi purposes.
TITUS DANFORTH
the hunt and the vow by @sargeant-bxrnes
you broke up with titus danforth this morning. by nightfall you’re running through his family’s forest with a seven-minute head start and one rule: if he catches you before sunrise, you marry him.
the devil's favorite by @hirukochan
In all the years Titus had been alive, no woman had ever captured his attention like you did. Titus could not explain it, he just knew, from the second he first met you, he needed you like air. And he'd move heaven and hell if necessary to get you. Not his father, not yours, not the Lawyer, Mr Le Bail or his demons he had watching over you could ever stop him.
the lottery by @thatcorporategirlie
You return to the estate after learning Chester has fallen ill, and learn that the beginning of a new game is about to unfold.
mrs. danforth by @rr-after-dark
As Titus Danforth's sugar baby, you don't know much of his secretive, wealthy lifestyle. But when he accidentally gets you pregnant with a potential Danforth heir, it's decided that you'll be joining the family. There's no manual as you're plunged into their world of extravagance and violence.
hazard pay by @spikedfearn
The Danforth estate was built to swallow screams, and tonight you’re the one cleaning up what the hunt leaves behind. When Titus Danforth arrives bleeding, furious, and far too aware of your hands on him, the private medical room becomes its own kind of trap.
please let me know if any of the links aren't working. I want to make sure everyone gets credited for their amazing work :)
description: you and your attending butt heads—and it’s no secret around the ED that Dr. Jack Abbot is harder on you than the other residents. He pushes you further, critiques you sharper, expects more—and you’re done with it. Just as you’re about to go to Dr. Robby to request a switch to days and finally put some distance between you and him, your patient—and his patient—tests positive for COVID-19. Suddenly, you’re both exposed, and with hospital protocol leaving no room for argument, you have no choice but to quarantine together.
tags/warnings: 18+, forced proximity, implied age gap, power imbalance (reader is a senior resident but abbot is still technically her boss), quarantining when no one does that anymore, tension tension tensionnn, fine line between hate and horny, headstrong reader, mutual pining
A/N: i DONT WANT TO HEAR IT THAT THIS IS UNREALISTIC. It’s fun and it’s my fanfic I’ll cry if i want to and u know you’d quarantine in abbot’s house too if given the chance
AS OF 4/9/26 I DONT HAVE A TAGLIST. Pls follow @meep-updates and turn your notifications on <333 the tags aren’t fully working so i want to make sure everyone gets notified
exposure || day 1 || day 2 || day 3 || day 4 || day 5 || day 6 || day 7 || day 8 || day 9 (12am) || day 9 || day 10 || day 11 || day 12 || day 13 || day 14 ||
part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / epilogue
wc: 34,203
summary: The ED of Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center could be a hazardous place. You learn that first hand when a violent encounter leaves you unable to work and needing help with everyday tasks. Thankfully, your attending, Dr. Abbot, takes it upon himself to ensure you get the safety and healing you so desperately need. It certainly doesn’t hurt that tension you’d thought was one sided seems to be pulling both of you closer and closer as your walls break down.
warnings: age gap (reader is a R4 in her late 20s, abbot is 50 because shawn hatosy is 50), power dynamics, AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, tattooed reader but no specifics mentioned, blood, stab wounds, probably overly descriptive of pain, reader is crushing hard on abbot, im very sorry to Parker Ellis and Mateo Diaz, everyone is horny at bad times, abbot freaks out a bit, medical jargon I don't fully understand, a touch of ptsd, abbot is her safe space, insecurity, anxiety, dana being dana, reader wears his jacket, allusions to bff trinity Santos, panic attacks, night terrors, sponge baths, hair washing, strip tease?, abbot calls himself old, NCIS references (sorry I couldn't help myself Gibbs was my dilf awakening), an attempt at funny flirty dialogue, cops (ACAB unless it's jack in that uniform), jacks first name is John argue with the wall, robby is bit of a dick for a minute, mental health issues being fixed with the power of love, kissing, hickies, grinding, jack "magic fingers" abbot, jack "messy eater" abbot, jack "talk you through it" abbot, biting, hickies, fingering, kind of mirror sex, an attempt at flirty banter, kissing, grinding, very explicit smut, unsafe sex, creampie, multiple orgasms, getting together, spanking, pet names (really just baby since pet names usually give me the ick), squirting, penetrative straight sex, choking, pregnancy, therapy, family troubles, (unserious) workplace harassment, and a happily ever after
read it on AO3 here
I may be be brilliant, gorgeous, and sexy but I'm also stupid and completely forgot to link the song that the fic got its name from, so here it is
CW/tags: best friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, angst, post s4, mentions of wounds/blood/etc., fluff, PiV unprotected sex, oral sex (m receiving), somno if you squint (tbh not really but just to be safe gonna add that one), light dirty talk. title is from liar - paramore. MDNI
a/n: request from this post (that was supposed to be a blurb and I am so sorry): 🩹 tending to each other's wounds, 🍯 friends to lovers, 🔥 slow burn, 🛏 only one bed. also combining this with a request I got back after s4 part 2 dropped (to that anon, I am REALLY sorry lmao) for post s4 comfort sex w/ Steve. anyway, hope y’all enjoy <3 (divider from @/strangergraphics)
“Do you get a new freckle every day?”
Steve’s brows crinkle together while he laughs wearily. “Huh?”
You’re cleaning the wound around his neck and can’t help noticing just how many freckles and moles he has across his body. Or, from what you can see, at least. He has his shirt off while you’re tending to his injuries from the Upside Down and Vecna’s destruction across Hawkins.
Over the last several years, Steve’s normally vacant house became a safe haven for disasters like these, also a place where the kids could be together to just hang out on the quiet, normal days. He never said it, but he loved hearing the kids laughing and yelling, sometimes having movie nights, or playing DnD; it was a welcomed sound compared to the painful quiet he had grown used to for the majority of his life.
Tonight, no inside jokes and endearing name calling echoed throughout the house. No fighting over which movie to play first, or what kind of pizza to order, or the shouting and cheering that usually came along with playing their favorite game. If anything, there were somber conversations, softly echoing through the house, with words and emotions no kid should have to be worried about. Sometimes there was crying, or complete silence, where the only thing Steve could hear was the faint, yet now permanent ringing in his ears he had gained over the last several years. Any which way a sound like these carried through the house, it broke his heart.
So, you try distracting him as the two of you clean one another’s wounds for yet another night. You keep things light where possible, but the both of you know it’s only a bandaid over a permanent emotional scar that is torn open time and time again. The physical wounds always heal, but the heartbreak you’ve all grown accustomed to is one that weighs so heavy on everyone’s hearts, and you can’t imagine it vanishing anytime soon.
“Yeah, I swear, it’s like you’re magically turning into a connect the dots picture, or something.” Steve smiles, laughing softly through his nose at your corny attempt to keep his mind off of the trauma.
“You think so? Maybe one of these days you should come up with a drawing out of ‘em.” Steve’s trying his hardest to keep things lighthearted, too, but sometimes it’s just easier to feel the pain instead of forcing any positivity.
“Jesus, this is gnarly.” You murmur, still amazed by the damage Steve took this time around as you’re softly swiping some kind of medicated ointment along the open wound. He hisses from the dull sting, but the substance begins to numb the ache and inflammation, bringing some sort of relief, if any at all. “Do you feel like a greasy slug when you use this stuff? Because I definitely feel like a greasy slug when I use it.”
Neither of you had figured out the best way to dress the wound around his neck, so Steve had been changing clean t-shirts like bandages every few hours. The others, at least, were relatively easy to clean and dress, but they seemed to be deeper; Steve probably needed stitches on some, but he refused to go to the hospital, insisting other people in town had worse injuries, and needed the medical attention more.
“I mean, I feel slimy… but not like a slug— Jesus, how much sleep did you get last night?” At first, you think he’s asking because of your silly remark, but then he’s cupping the side of your face, thumb gently rubbing along your cheekbone, getting a better look at the dark circles draped under your eyes. You push aside the butterflies in your stomach from his touch as you reach for his clean shirt, moving his arms out in front of you to roll the fabric down and over his arms and head. For a moment, you miss his touch, but it’s back on your face after he adjusts his shirt.
“Seriously, are you sleeping at all?” He asks softly, eyes filled with worry. Leave it to Steve to worry about everyone else before himself.
You shrug as you look away, not wanting to make a big fuss. “Last night was just rough up here,” You poke at your temple. “That’s all. I’m sure I’ll be able to sleep easily tonight with how tired I am.”
“Where’d you sleep last night?” He asks, knowing decent spots to sleep were limited now that the all of the kids were reunited again. Everyone, except Max who was at the hospital, and Lucas, who refused to leave her side. Still, there were only so many places to rest for the entire group, even in a roomy house like Steve’s.
“Um… well, some of the kids had the pullout couch, one took a recliner, Robin has the guest room, and Jonathan and Nancy have your parents’ room… so I slept on the floor in the living room.” You shrug, but you know that contributed to the lack of sleep, and extra aches in your back. How you ever easily slept on the floor as a kid during sleepovers, you’ll never understand.
Steve looks bothered by this, letting go of your face as you move to the faucet to wash your hands. “What? Why didn’t you say something? You could’ve had my bed.”
You scoff a laugh out, “Steve, you need a real bed after everything you’ve been through. I can handle the floor like a big kid.”
“Okay, well, tonight you can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the floor, I don’t mind. Or I can sleep downstairs somewhere if you want sp—”
You shake your head wildly. “Don’t- I don’t wanna be alone again.” You maneuver around Steve as he slides off the counter, and you take his spot to let him tend to your wounds next. Finally, you confess, “I fell asleep once, and it was just one giant nightmare. I stayed up after that. Didn’t want to see that shit again.”
Steve washes his hands, lips pursed and brows furrowed as he keeps quiet for a moment, thinking. The two of you always trusted one another, always came to one another whenever you needed, so why the hell were you isolating yourself now?
“Next time, tell me. Wake me up. I don’t care.” Steve’s tone is firm, but he’s not upset with you. Just upset that you’re retreating into yourself when he just wants to help.
He starts peeling off the butterfly bandages around the slit skimming vertically down your eye. It begins just above your eyebrow, running down to your brow bone, pausing across your eye before continuing just under your lash line, finishing off past your cheekbone. Instinctually, your eye begins to squint closed, but the action tugs at your skin, stinging along the edge of your wound.
“Steve, you haven’t had a good night’s sleep since high school. Why would I wake you up when you need the rest?” He starts cleaning the wound, sighing to pause himself, think carefully about what he wants to say next. You keep going. “I actually did come in last night, but you were sound asleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake you up, not when you need the rest.”
“Close your eye for a second.” You do, appearing as if you’re failing an attempt at winking. Steve’s gently patting the cut with some sort of medical disinfectant on a cotton ball, heart aching little by little as you whimper in pain. You try keeping quiet, knowing your wounds are nothing compared to his. “You can cry you know. Or curse. Or yell. Or whatever. Stop trying to hide it.”
“Mine are like… paper cuts compared to yours.” He pats the wound dry with a new piece of cotton, sighing again. “What?”
“You don’t have to hide your pain from me. I’m not sure if you’re worried its a burden to anyone, or whatever, but you never hid from me before. What happened?” Steve begins to apply clean butterfly bandages along the deep slit in your skin. Every now and then, his eyes flicker to your lips, and you have to remind yourself your other face wound is a split in your lip. “Gotta get that next.”
“I can do it.”
“Nope, if you’re gonna nurse all of my wounds, it’s only fair if I do that for you in return.”
“Steve, you don’t have to—”
“No, but I want to. You’re my best friend, and you’ve been patching up my wounds since we were reckless little shits on the playground. You care about me, let me care about you.” His thumb gently presses on the untouched side of your bottom lip, holding it steady so he can begin fixing that one up, too. You’re too aware of how the pad of his thumb feels against your lip, wondering what it’d be like to wrap your lips around it and take him into your mouth.
“See, this is why I gotta hold your lip, you’re so twitchy.” Steve teases, unaware of why your bottom lip trembles every now and then when he’s so close. Is he really that clueless? “After this, you’re sleeping in my bed. I’ll carry you and lock you in my room if it means you’re gonna sleep like a normal person tonight.”
Your skin prickles and hair stands on end at his words. He really has no idea what he does to you with silly comments like these.
“Okay, but like…. What if I have to pee in the middle of the night?”
Steve stops his movements, snorting as his eyes close while a smile graces his features. With a shrug, he simply answers, “Hold it.”
Your jaw drops, feigning offense. “That’s fucked up, Steven.”
“So is sleeping on the floor instead of a bed.”
“You need it more than me!”
“Will you shut up for like, ten seconds? I’m almost done with this.” He’s stifling his own laughter, before murmuring, “Not gonna lie, you’re gonna look so badass when these are healed.”
“Pfffft. Maybe, but no one’s gonna be attracted to this mess.” You’re only joking, but Steve frowns as he applies petroleum jelly to your lips, generous on your cut.
“What? No fucking way. You’re still a babe.”
“Yeah, okay, Steve. No one’s gonna kiss me after this.” You chuckle, but notice the way his eyes flicker to your lips again, lingering longer than usual, then back to your eyes. His gaze is mesmerizing, with the warm brown color and hazel undertones, you can’t bring yourself to look away.
“I mean, I w—”
“Hey, St— oh,” Robin’s in the doorway of the bathroom, smirking at the two of you. “Am I interrupting something?” You lean back, fingers curled around the edge of the counter while Steve’s standing up straight, taking a step back from you as he clears his throat.
“N- no, we were just fixing each other up.” Steve nervously spits out, adding a shrug like everything’s cool.
“Right. Sure you were.” Robin teases. You want to shrink into yourself and completely disappear on the spot. “Where’s the box of movies you stole from work?”
You quirk a brow at her question, then look back at Steve. “You did what?”
“Shut it— I didn’t— I borrowed them. Robin, stop spreading rumors about me.”
“Fine. Sure. You “borrowed” them,” She flashes air quotes with her fingers, and you laugh. “Where are they? The kids are driving me up a wall trying to find them.”
Steve looks puzzled, chuckling. “They’re literally right next to the damn TV. Dustin should know that by now.”
She rolls her eyes, “Oh my god,” she turns out of the room yelling down the stairs, “Dustin! Get your shit together, man!” Before walking away, she glances at the two of you again with a smirk, “Have fun playing doctor, or whatever.”
“Leave.” Steve points out the door as Robin’s already leaving.
“Yeah, you showed her.” You tease Steve, trying to let go of what he was about to say before Robin barged in. You’re sliding off of the counter, and Steve playfully pushes your shoulders from behind, forcing you out of the bathroom.
“Alright, smart ass, let’s go.” He nudges you across the hall to his room, but you try turning away. Swiftly, he turns you back towards the door. “I wasn’t kidding, I’ll throw you over my shoulder if it means getting you to sleep in a bed.” He keeps a firm grip on your shoulders, pushing you through the doorway comically.
“Steve, if you wanted me in your bed so bad, all you have to do is ask nicely.” You’re not even trying to be coy or flirt, but it makes him choke on air. You spin around quickly, “Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah, I— wrong pipe.” He rasps out, clearing his throat. You don’t buy it, realizing your lazy joke was the reason for his coughing fit. Still, you let it go, not wanting to embarrass him. Steve continues clearing his throat as he pulls some old blankets out of his closet, and some pillows from his bed to lay out on the floor.
“Stay in your bed, I’ll take the floor, it’s fine.” You’re trying one more time, hoping he’ll stop being so stubborn and sleep in his fucking bed.
“Why are you so damn stubborn?” He wraps his arms around your waist and picks you up off the floor slightly, carrying you a few feet over before dropping you into his bed.
“I was just thinking the same about you.” You murmur, arms crossed as you look at the bed behind you. You realize how big it is, and have an idea. “If you won’t let me sleep on the floor, just sleep next to me. There’s plenty of room for the both of us anyway.”
“Sleep— sl— next to you? Same bed?” Steve’s voice cracks, pulling giggles out of you.
“Yes, Steve. Same bed. Unless you’ve got another one hiding around here.” You’re surprised you’re even suggesting this when the idea makes you incredibly nervous, but you need sleep, and Steve needs sleep, and you’re out of any other ideas. “If you want it to yourself though, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No- I- stop it, I’m gonna sleep on the floor, and that’s final.” His hands are on his hips, his signature, go-to move when he’s scolding the kids, but you’ve qualified for its appearance tonight, too. You rise to your knees on the bed, hitting eye level with him while you mirror him, hands falling to your hips in the same pose he has.
Steve isn’t having it, and before you can start verbally teasing him, he’s pushing you back into bed. You catch yourself on your hands as you stumble back onto the pillows. “I’m gonna superglue you to the bed.”
“Now you’re just being a child.”
“Me? You were just—” Steve sighs, hand dragging over his face. “Just go to sleep.”
“I don’t want to!” Your bottom lip is wobbling as your bloodshot eyes tear up ever so slightly; you’re doing all you can to hold them back, reminding yourself logically this isn’t that serious, but your emotions show otherwise.
If anyone else in any normal circumstances yelled this, they’d be deemed childish. You, on the other hand, you’re yelling this for perfectly valid reasons. And Steve knows what you’re feeling all too well. One more time, his heart breaks for you, watching the panic spread across your sleep deprived face.
“I don’t want to sleep, I don’t want to watch you get hurt over and over again in my nightmares. I’ve seen that too many times in real life, it’s sickening watching you get beaten to death time and time again… and I just— fuck. Steve, just take the fucking bed. Please? I don’t want to sleep, and you need it more than me, I really don’t mind the fl—”
Steve sits next to you and pulls you into a hug, holding you tightly against him. That’s when the floodgates finally break. You grip onto his shirt, balling the fabric into your fists as you begin crying on his shoulder.
“M’not going anywhere. Promise. You’re safe, I’m safe, everyone’s okay.” You know that’s not completely truthful; Max is hanging on by a thread in the hospital, and Eddie’s gone. Steve knows this, but right now his concern is getting you to finally fall asleep. “C’mon, you’ll feel better if you lay down.” You expect Steve to gently nudge you to the pillows alone, but he keeps his hold on you, carefully laying the both of you down. “You sure you’re okay with me staying in bed?” You nod against his shoulder, wrapping yourself around him as if that’ll anchor him here for good.
“Don’t go,” You’re mumbling into the fabric of his shirt, wanting to tug yourself closer to him, hang onto him like a clingy koala, but you’re trying to stay mindful of his injuries.
“Not going anywhere.” Steve whispers, kissing the top of your head before lingering for a moment. “Not going anywhere without you.” Neither of you untangle from one another, and Steve’s embrace is starting to calm you down to steadier breathing and shaky hiccups instead of heavy crying filled with anxiety and dread. With your body desperate for rest and the security you feel with Steve, it doesn’t take long for sleep to pull you in. Steve’s snoring softly shortly after you fall asleep.
At some point in the night, the two of you untangle, rolling to opposite sides of the bed. Steve’s woken up by movement, strange shifting in the bed next to him, and an airy whimper, just loud enough for him to hear. He rubs his eyes, turning over and sees your figure, facing away from him, remembering that the two of you fell asleep in his bed.
Steve’s not sure what time it is, nor does he really care, especially not after hearing another soft noise float from your parted lips. Trying to adjust to the dark surroundings, despite the weak glow from a night light plugged in, he stares at you, or what he can see, at least, worried you’re having another nightmare. He moves closer and leans over you, prepared to wake you up and give comfort if you need, but you don’t look scared. If anything, you look pained, frustrated; Steve’s eyes scan down your figure as you move again, noticing the way your hips roll forward against your own hand.
Holy shit.
Frozen, he can’t take his gaze off of you. He needs to. He should roll back over and force himself back to sleep, pretend he never heard anything, never saw you—
“Steve…” You murmur, languidly grinding against the heel of your palm, face buried into the pillow as you writhe under his imaginary touch. His mind starts spiraling.
That’s why you got nervous when he held your lip, or when you mentioned how with a lip scar inevitable in the near future, no one would want to kiss you, and the way the two of you couldn’t take your eyes off of one another. How you looked so mortified when Robin walked in, forcing the two of you apart. He begins to realize how this isn’t new, this has been going on for awhile, and he can’t believe how oblivious he’s been.
The signs have always been in your lingering touches, when you lock eyes with him and share knowing glances no one else would understand, the way you’ve always tried protecting him, or tending to his now routinely scheduled injuries whenever he’s caught up in anything related to the Upside Down. It’s always been in the way you’d give up your comfort for him, how you’d never complain if he woke you up from nightmares, calling at three in the morning.
How it’s an unspoken pact between the two of you to share your fries with one another, or when one falls asleep early during movie nights, the other thoughtfully covers them in a blanket, letting them rest. How you always keep extra medical supplies in your car just for Steve’s clumsy ass. How he’s sneaking you video tapes for free whenever you visit him at work. How you insist on calling him exactly at midnight on his birthday.
You’d drop everything in an instant for Steve, and he’d do the same for you without hesitation. Whenever he tries to put your needs first, you’re quick to point out that someone needs to care about him, too.
Steve can’t believe how clueless he’s been, and out of all the times he’s figuring this out, it’s now, while you’re having a wet dream about him. Because of fucking course it would hit him now.
While his thoughts ran in a million different directions at once, he wasn’t aware of how hard he became, hearing your cute little noises, and how he’s still pressed right against you from behind. Does he let you continue? Does he wake you up? If he does, what’s his excuse? Lie and say it was a nightmare? Or tell you the truth, risking ruining something before it could ever begin, embarrassing you on the spot?
Without warning, you turn over, still asleep as your arms slip around his torso loosely, as if you’re still trying to be careful with his wounds while knocked out. One of your legs slot between his, and Steve has to bite back a groan at the pressure against his bulge. As if that alone wasn’t threatening to make him fall apart, your hips begin moving lazily again against his leg, and he can feel your sticky heat on his skin through your sleep shorts. Steve’s about to lose his fucking mind.
“Stevie, wanna make y’feel good…” You’re still asleep as you murmur this. Steve knew you talked in your sleep, but never like this. He can’t take it anymore. One hand ends up on the hip facing away from the bed, while the other is drawn to your neck, curling to the back to hold you gently as his fingers slide up into your hair.
“Wanna make you feel good too, angel.” He’s guiding you slowly along his thigh, tensing up underneath you; he’s not sure how to wake you up without startling you, and he doesn’t want the building desire to end so soon.
In time with his thoughts, you begin to stir, eyes fluttering open. You blink a couple times, then Steve nudges against your core again, and you keen, throwing your head back into his hand already waiting for you.
“Oh- oh, fuck, oh my god…” You’re growing aware of the situation, realizing your dream is becoming reality so seamlessly. You’re embarrassed, you want to hide away and apologize, but Steve rubs himself against the leg you have pressed against him, releasing a throaty groan; the embarrassment falls away, fast. “St- Steve?”
“Yeah?” He’s trying not to pant this soon, trying not to sound so breathy and needy already.
“M’sorry, I- I didn’t realize that I—”
Steve shushes you softly, bringing your face closer to his as he leans in, noses touching while you’re both making the sweetest noises together. “I can stop, if you want. I- I shouldn’t just assume you want this, maybe it was a silly dream—”
“No, it wasn’t… I really want you, Steve.” Your hands test the waters, sliding up his body, but only over his shirt, before holding his face; your gaze locks with his, and despite the dim glow in the room, you can see the lust ridden look he’s giving you while nodding wordlessly to give his consent. You lean in to kiss him, lips touching ever so slightly; you freeze as self doubt sets in, but he senses it, and kisses you back fully, mindful of your split lip.
It’s slow, almost too slow for you and how wound up you are from the dream, but you do your best to stay patient. Steve’s hand on your hip sneaks under your shirt, just enough that the tips of his fingers brush against your skin, just beneath the hem. The hand cradling the back of your head moves to your jaw, fingers splaying out to get a better hold on you when his lips part against yours. You make some kind of small noise, a muffled yelp that slips into Steve’s mouth when his tongue slips into yours. Distracted by the kiss, your hips stopped rolling, so Steve begins guiding you along his thigh again.
A moan shudders out of you as you pull back to catch your breath. Steve can’t take his eyes off of you as your eyes flutter shut, head falling back as another sweet moan leaves your lips, losing yourself in the pleasure from such a simple action.
You’re not sure when, but your hands made it to Steve’s back, fists bunched up with the fabric of his shirt, not wanting to touch any part of him that might hurt, but needing to grab something.
“Does th- this happen a lot?” He manages to ask, and in his head, he’s rolling his eyes at himself, because he wanted that to sound so much sexier than it did. You’re in a whole different world, though, already blissed out when barely anything has happened yet.
“Mhm,” You open your eyes as you answer, the burning desire low in your body growing hotter as the two of you make eye contact again. “Can I- can we— take this stupid thing off.”
Steve laughs, realizing maybe sexy isn’t what either of you need right now; being best friends already, it only makes sense that the only time the two of you can’t form coherent thoughts laced with lust would be when you’re pressed up against one another for the first time.
Pulling his hands back, he gestures to his shirt in the goofiest way, like he’s Vanna fucking White, showing off a purchased vowel. “You can’t take this seriously, can you?” You’re not mad, in fact, you’re laughing with him, and something about the two of you nervously laughing makes you more comfortable being intimate with your best friend.
“I’m just filling in the blanks for you, angel.” He’s smirking, but he’s also trying to stifle more laughter, so it just comes out as a product of a snicker and a snort.
“Oh, that was real cute,” You tease, reaching for his waist. “Words, words are hard.” You’re grumbling, tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt, carefully pulling it over his head.
“Yeah, don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard.”
Whatever smart-ass retort you had ready to roll off your tongue disappears at the sight of Steve, now shirtless. It’s nothing new to you, you’ve seen him shirtless plenty of times before, but in the moment, you’re hyper aware of how different this is. There’s no going back, but if you were being honest, there was no going back once you moaned his name in your sleep.
“What?” Steve asks, laughter dying down as he watches you reach out to his torso, tracing his scars, both old and the ones just beginning to form.
“You’re so… pretty.”
Steve blushes, a rosy red shade blooms across his face, to the tips of his ears. “I— shut up.”
You scoff, “I’m being honest!” He tugs at the bottom of your shirt, waiting for your permission, but your hands hold his back, shaking your head. Shyly, you state the obvious, “I don’t have a bra on.” Of fucking course you don’t, you never sleep in bras. Even Steve knows that, forever impressed with how you could just unhook that damn thing with one hand so casually and slip out of it, pulling it out of your shirt without ever stripping. It’d take everything in him to hold his jaw from dropping, when you just wanted out of a ridiculously uncomfortable bra.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Steve reassures softly, only to follow it up with, “I don’t either.”
“Alright, that’s it, I’m going back to sleep,” You tease, beginning to roll back over, but Steve grabs you quickly to roll you on top of him instead.
“Like hell you are,” He’s tugging at your shirt again, looking up at you with those sweet doe eyes, filled with wonder and curiosity over what his best friend looks like under everything. “Don’t feel pressured to say yes. We can st—”
You’re pulling your shirt off with a determined speed, like ripping off a bandaid, throwing it on the floor. “I do not look good with these bruises.”
Steve sits up, all humor and admiration draining from his features as he takes in all of the severe bruising you have from a few days ago. “Wh… how— why didn’t you show me? Or tell me? Fuck, I probably made some of them worse—”
“Hey, Steve, it’s okay. Seriously. I’m okay. These are nothing compared to what you ended up with.”
He shakes his head, ghosting his fingers over some of the worst bruises, blooming in the darkest shades of purple and blue he’s ever seen on someone, including himself, and that says a lot. Some are beginning to grow into that sickly yellow, even greenish color.
“What the hell do I have to do or say to convince you that you’re allowed to show me your pain too?” He’s not sure what he’s feeling, he just wishes you said something, wishes he knew so he could care for you properly.
“There’s not much you can do for bruises, Steve.” You shrug. “M’sorry, I just wanted to put you first. You’re always caring for everyone else before yourself, and I wish you’d let someone care for you, too. I want to give you the love and care you give everyone but yourself. These mean nothing to me, I just didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
Steve can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Disappointed? From what? How you look with these? Because I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re still a babe with your face wounds, and that applies here too. You have… no fucking idea how badly I want to get my hands all over you, but I think we should stop. I don’t want to make those more painful than they already are.”
“Steve, I can handle it. I bruise like a peach, anyway.” You’re mentioning it casually, but enjoy the way he blushes at your words, clearly thinking of better reasons to be bruised. You smirk, “Feel free to tuck that fun fact away for another day.”
“I— I’ll bring that back up later.” He murmurs, trying to focus. “Anyway… are you sure?”
Rolling your eyes, you grab his hands, bringing them to your tits roughly. “Does this answer your question?”
Enthusiastically, Steve nods, fingers already toying with your nipples, breathing out, “Fuck yeah it does.” You start giggling until he latches onto one of the sensitive nubs, fingers softly pinching at the other every so often, in between grabbing a handful of you. He groans into your skin, thinking about how long he’s wanted to touch you like this, but it’s better than he imagined.
You’re arching your back as he switches sides, a thread of spit unraveling from his lips that’s still clinging to you; your eyes to roll back as you grind down onto his lap from just the sight alone, fingers twisting into his locks, tugging softly as he sucks, bites, soothes with his tongue, then repeats.
“I need…” You’re gasping, head falling back; Steve takes advantage of your exposed neck, kissing up your chest before leaving small, soft love bites up to your jawline.
“You need… what?” He kisses the corner of your mouth, but you can’t take it slow anymore, you need him now. You grab his face to kiss him, and it’s a little sloppy, a little clumsy, but he leans into it anyway. The two of you find a semi perfect rhythm, one that flows with the way you continue to grind onto him. You nip his bottom lip, tugging on it before letting go, and Steve moans into you.
“Need you, need you right now.” You’re frantically murmuring against his lips.
“We don’t have to rush.” He pulls back, searching your features for any sign that something is off, but all he sees are your lust blown pupils. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but—”
You kiss him quickly before pushing him back against the pillows, shimmying down his body, kissing his scars with care along the way, continuing down until you reach the waistband of his shorts.
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Steve, quit being nice for, like, five minutes. Are you okay with this?”
With a gulp he nods, breathing heavily “I— I’m more than okay with this.”
“Thank fuck.” You tug his shorts down, almost drooling as you watch his length spring free, the rounded tip red with desire, leaking precum. “Steve, what the fuck.”
“You’re sending me so many mixed signals tonight, holy shit. Is that … is that good?”
You need to shut your mouth, mind too far in a cock-drunk daze to tease him with words. So, you run your tongue up the underside his cock, broadly, taking your time to reach the head, eyes on him the entire time. Steve yelps on contact, eyes screwing shut as his head falls against the pillow, but he pushes himself to look down at you, bucking against your tongue before you take him in completely.
“Jesus fucking Chri-iiiiiiiist,” He shudders out, hands tangling into your hair as you begin to bob up and down on him. “This… you… hhhhohmygod—”
You pull off with a pop that echoes off the walls, a sound Steve wishes he could’ve recorded to play when he gets off in the future, followed by the sight of you drooling onto his cock as it kicks with need.
“Tell me how you really feel, Steve,” You tease before taking him in again, but he holds your head in place, making you pout. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“No, no, fuck no. Your mouth feels so fucking good, angel, but I need… I…”
“Take your time, babe, it’s okay.” You tease, making Steve groan, both with annoyance and a craving for you to get mouthy, just not now.
“Fuck me, just need you to fuck me, please baby,” He’s babbling as he tugs you back up his body, hands on your hips as you hover above his cock. “Need to feel you, angel.”
You push your shorts down and throw them to the floor with your shirt. “Yeah?” You lightly rub your core against his cock, and he bucks with a desperate whine.
“Yes, please, please—”
Words become nonexistent as you sink down onto him slowly, walls slowly stretching around him, adjusting to his size.
“Knew you w- were big, but not like… not like this.” You’re panting, overwhelmed by the slight pain from taking him to the hilt, but the pleasure is greater, rendering your brain useless. Not a damn thing on your mind except Steve and how fucking good he feels so deep inside of you.
“Fuckfuckfuck,” Steve gasps, grip digging into your hips roughly, knowing he’s just adding to your bruises, but he’ll apologize later. “You’re so— never felt a pussy tighter than yours, angel. M’god, don’t fucking move.”
You giggle, and he glares at you. “Don’t— do not do that either, just… fucking sit there for a second, okay? I’m really not trying to blow my load this early.” You’re doing your best to keep stoic, nodding as you fold your hands and wait patiently. “Oh my god, why are you like this?”
Shrugging, you begin to reply, “Why n— oh!” Steve pulls you down to him roughly, kissing you as he begins to move, fucking you slowly from below. He guides you by the hold on your hips, bouncing you on his cock, causing your eyes to roll back as he moves a hand to the back of your head. Holding you tightly against him, your forehead rests against his as the two of you gasp and pant lewdly onto each other’s lips. You’re riding him like no one else has, to the high fucking heavens, and he swears he’s gonna die a happy man right here, underneath you.
“How often have you dreamt about this?” You shamelessly ask, sitting up and leaning back as you roll your hips, grinding down so he hits your sweet spot just right. Steve’s speechless, flexing up into you, jaw slack as your walls flutter around him. “You’re so pussy-drunk right now, huh?”
A strained “Mhm,” leaves him; he’s not even going to hide how he’s putty in your hands, right now, and as long as you’ll have him. Finally, he rasps, “Fuck, wish we did this sooner.”
“We got all the time in the world to make up for it, Stevie.” Your legs twitch and shake, signaling you’re not far off from your high, but they’re also sore still from days ago, and right now, you’re just making them hurt more. Great cause, of course, but it doesn’t dull the pain, so you’re beginning to slow down. “Fuck, my legs hurt.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Steve pulls you back down arms wrapped around your back, one hand gripping around his other wrist, keeping you stable as he plants his feet against the bed, fucking up into you with everything he’s got. “It’s okay, angel, I’ve got ya’.” He grunts, hammering into you with so much force, you can’t help but moan loudly, almost screaming, but you bury your face into his shoulder, biting down to muffle your noises as you flutter around him. “Fuck, didn’t think you were so vocal.” At this point, you are screaming, but the noise barely leaves you as you keep your mouth on his skin.
Steve’s hips are starting to stutter, and his cock twitches, needy for release. “Good girl, don’t wanna wake up the whole house, right?” That’s the final push over the edge for you; grabbing Steve’s face, you kiss him deeply to keep quiet. The faint, metallic taste of blood works its way onto your tongue, and you realize your semi-treated split lip is split once again. You pull back, trying to keep as quiet as possible, frantically whispering, “I love you, I love you, fuck, I love you—” Following you into bliss, Steve pulls you back onto his lips as he cums, filling you shamelessly as you still squeeze him, milking him for all he’s got as he’s moaning into you.
When the two of you come down, covered in a sticky sheen of sweat and hearts ready to beat out of your chests, the shame hits fast as he pulls back enough to murmur, “Fuck. I didn’t even ask—”
“Birth control is a beautiful thing, babe.” You smile down at him, breathless. Steve sighs relief, thankful for whoever the fuck created the pill. His eyes fall to your lip before thumb swiping the mess away.
“Shit, m’sorry.”
“Worth it. So fucking worth it.” You giggle before he kisses you softly.
Pulling back, Steve reaches out to cup the side of your face, and you lean into his touch, giddy and exhausted all at once.
He’s admiring the view of you above him, softly replying to your confession, “I love you, too.”
The two of you are basking in the afterglow of one another, beaming and holding each other tight, unable to move just yet. Steve doesn’t mind taking a second to catch his breath, but then a loud bang against his bedroom door startles the both of you.
“About fucking time!” Robin shouts from the other side before walking away. Faintly you hear her huff, “Noisy assholes.” Steve locks eyes with you, both of you stunned and embarrassed before bursting into a fit of laughter together.
“Still worth it?” Steve teases, and you shrug playfully.
“Worth what, the impending shame fest they’re gonna put us through tomorrow morning?” You lean down to kiss him again before replying against his kiss-swollen lips, “Oh, fuck yeah.”
a no-touch rule sounds smart on a beach vacation with your secret boyfriend, especially when he happens to be your brother's best friend and twenty years your senior. unfortunately, neither of you is very good at keeping your hands to yourselves.
MASTERLIST | RULES | INBOX
PAIRING jack abbot x robinavitch!reader
WARNINGS 18+ MDNI explicit smut, age gap (reader is late 20s), girly girl reader, reader is robby’s little sister (and reader and jack play in this man's FACEEEE), reader wears sunscreen but no mention of burning/redness/etc, jack applies sunscreen to reader, jack and reader just tease each other all day every day, reader and jack take a shower together!, brief inspection kink mention, flirty!jack abbot, flirty!reader, sexting, lots of pet name usage (baby, doll, sweetheart, honey, etc), munch!abbot, oral (f receiving), reader wears a dress, jealous!abbot, someone mistakes jack for your dad, reader goes along with it soooo lowkey dad!bf jack??? but not really it’s more of just a joke, alcohol mention, tipsy!reader, lowkey some angst, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it b4 u tap it folks), twinkie (creampie is a banned word in this household), light breeding kink, kitchen sex, jack gets punched
WC 9.5k | REQUEST here!
You had no ill intentions when you sought Jack out on the beach. Truly. None whatsoever.
Your conscience was pristine. Clean enough to eat off of, if a person were inclined toward that sort of thing. And Jack would more than likely be inclined toward that sort of thing.
Which is neither here nor there and definitely not the point.
The point is that he happened to be the first available person you spotted who wasn’t elbow-deep in the cooler, manning the grill, hauling folding chairs closer to the water or otherwise occupied in some way that would’ve made your request an imposition.
He happened to be seated in the shade, sand-dusted calves stretched out and both hands conveniently free. You happened to wander over with your sunscreen and your very normal, very defensible need for help reaching the center of your back.
Never mind that your eyes tend to find him first everywhere.
Your first choice, always. In the hospital, in crowded rooms, in Friday-night bars, and now here, on a stretch of beach sand full of towels, melting ice cubes and boozy coworkers.
If Jack is there the geometry of the universe settles.
Noise levels drop. Potential catastrophe politely steps back in line. Statistically, things improve by, what, twenty percent when he’s within arms reach?
The only time Jack’s presence ever seems to tip from reassurance into danger is when Robby is nearby.
Your brother, his best friend, currently planted beside the grill with a pair of tongs in one hand and a beer sweating in the other, wholly unaware of just how intimately you know the man sitting a few yards away from you reading a book.
No idea that you even know Jack beyond hospital stories and holiday small talk. No idea that you’ve counted the freckles on Jack’s torso the way other people count blessings. No idea you know the small mole just above Jack’s hip because you’ve watched it disappear beneath the push of his own thigh when he’s folded you open beneath him. No idea you know how his forearm looks when it flexes beside your head, that raised vein appearing when your heels hook into his back and he grunts your name into his mouth. No fucking idea you know the pale scar on his ribs that becomes your personal tactical obsession whenever he cages you against a doorframe and breathes against your ear, quiet, sweetheart, unless you want your brother to ask questions.
You slip into the little wedge of shade cast by Jack’s umbrella, hip brushing the arm of his chair.
It takes half a second for Jack’s gaze to lift. First to your face, because he is decent, or because he has spent forty-nine years perfecting the performance of decency and can probably do it under sedation.
Then his eyes dip lower, catching on your chest and the heroic and doomed labor of your bikini top, the poor thing doing its absolute best with limited resources and no meaningful administrative support, and for one brief, gorgeous second, Jack Abbot’s whole face goes blank.
You unscrew the sunscreen cap with the patience of a saint and the moral character of someone much worse, pretending you don’t see a thing. It’s easy. You’ve been playing dumb your whole life, and Jack happens to make it especially rewarding.
“Hi, Jack.”
He blinks as though dragged out of a dream he has no intention of describing in mixed company.
The paperback folds around one finger; he swallows civility into a single neutral “Hey,” though his ears are flaming traitors.
You bounce once on your toes just to watch his eyes track the up-and-down movement. “Mind helping me with my back?”
A phantom movement ripples down his arm, the muscle memory that usually ends with his thumb sliding up the tender inside of your knee.
Half-second later he remembers the clause you made him swear to the night before you left, the one you recited while sitting on the edge of his bed in nothing but your earrings and a very serious expression: no contact during this trip. Not in front of Robby. Not in private. Not even the little absent-minded touches Jack was so fond of giving and so terrible at pretending were accidental.
He had listened with the patient, faintly amused face — oh, of course, let’s discuss boundaries — all while his hands were already easing your thighs apart, palm spanning half your quads. “That’s smart, sweetheart,” he had murmured, barely out of his mouth before he fucked you so hard you spent the first two days of this trip remembering him every time you sat down, crossed your legs, climbed stairs, breathed wrong, existed.
Day one started with Robby squinting at the careful, not-at-all-in-pain way you eased into the passenger seat.
“Pull something?” he asked, suspicion crinkling the corners of his eyes.
Jack, loading your suitcase into the trunk, had only said, “She’s fine — just overdid the beach volleyball warm-up.”
Now, beneath the umbrella, he eyes the bottle in your hand.
“You’re asking me to put sunscreen on you while I’m currently under express orders not to touch you,” he clarifies, mouth twitching. “Little contradictory, don’t you think?”
“It’s medicinal, Jack. Doctor-ordered sun safety. That puts it squarely under the ‘acts of basic care’ exemption we definitely agreed on.”
There is, of course, no exemption. But you say it with such polished confidence, such gorgeous little liar convocation, and Jack’s eyes keep distractedly slipping to your cleavage, you figure you might be able to gaslight him into believing otherwise.
Jack tilts in, voice dropping to bedside-manner dark. “Preventive exams are also acts of basic care, sweetheart. I offered to give you one last night. Head to toe. Very thorough. You didn’t seem to keen on the idea. Funny how selective you are with these exemptions.”
He knows perfectly well keenness was never the issue.
Keenness had been present and accounted for, actually, sitting upright in bed with a racing pulse while Jack spent nearly forty minutes vibrating your phone off the nightstand at one in the morning, apparently deciding the no-contact was less a boundary and more a diagnostic puzzle he could brute-force with persistence, semantics, and an irresponsible number of filthy hypotheticals.
How firm is the rule?
You had answered, Very.
Define very.
Jack.
I’m serious. Are we talking legally blinding or more of a strong suggestion?
I can’t sleep knowing you’re down the hall.
I keep thinking about your ass in that tiny fucking bikini.
And your mouth.
And the noise you make when I’m tasting your pretty pussy.
So if "very" has any flexibility, now would be an excellent time to disclose it.
You had flushed at that, instinct dragging your hand south, fingertips tucking beneath the elastic of your pajama shorts, privately checking how much trouble you were in.
Spoiler: a lot. Still, you forced your breathing steady and tapped out the grown-up response you promised yourself you’d give him.
Too risky. Robby’s awake.
Riskier to ignore symptoms.
You seemed flushed at dinner, baby. Could be heat exhaustion.
Standard protocol is immediate evaluation. Full tactical assessment of any sensitive areas.
Better I handle it now than you collapse tomorrow, right?
“The walls here are paper thin. I just didn’t want everyone to hear you,” you murmur, eyes flicking toward the grill where Robby still holds court.
Jack’s gaze drags over your face, patience fraying.
His head cants. “Me?”
An accusation rather than a question.
You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from grinning too hard.
It’s bullshit.
Jack makes sounds in bed, sure, these low rough little things he tries to swallow down into silence, but you are, historically, the problem. You are the one who forgets walls even exist, who gets whiny and breathless, saying his name too sweet and loud.
Still, riling him up is half the fun.
“Mhm. All those grunts you do? Very compromising. You really should work on that. I was just protecting your reputation.”
His mouth tugs into that bare-bones smile, parched and cutting, like a fence post bleached under Georgia sun.
“That’s interesting, doll, because I seem to remember you nearly getting us thrown out of that hotel in Atlanta.” He pauses, eyes steady on yours. “Had to clamp a palm over your mouth halfway through just so the folks next door would quit pounding on the wall.”
You make a thoughtful, entirely disingenuous sound. “I don’t recall.”
Liar, you think, but only to yourself, because the scene is seared onto the backs of your eyelids: big palm, slick with sweat; your own pulse popping under his thumb.
“Convenient,” he says. “Concerning, too. Memory loss at your age.”
The urge to fire back — your age, grandpa — sparks under your tongue, but you swallow it, knowing you’ve already won.
He’s picturing that night, too. You can see it in the way his jaw resets, in the way his fingers flex like they’re aching to reprise the role of impromptu gag.
“Memory loss and melanoma.” Your fingers skim your collarbone, then your shoulder, making a tiny show of your poor exposed skin. “That’ll be on your conscience, and you have so many sins already, Jack.”
Jack’s glare fractures, concern muscling past amusement.
“Turn around,” he orders.
His palm resignedly lands on your back and the first sweep of cool lotion is an instant balm, a hush in every raw, sun-tight cell that’s been screaming since day one of this self-inflicted separation.
Water to a dying flower. Oxygen after a held breath.
The peppermint chill kisses the nape of your neck, then fans outward in broad strokes, each pass ironing the ache right out of your skin.
Three whole days without his hands, seventy-two hours of pretending you didn’t need this, and now his thumbs slip beneath your bikini straps like they own the territory, tracing the warmed skin that’s been begging for him with every salty breeze.
“Missed you,” you murmur under your breath, words a little wobbly and petulant.
He huffs a soft laugh and bends to brush his mouth against your shoulder blade. “Yeah, missed you, too, angel.”
He smooths another cool ribbon down your spine.
You angle yourself towards the grill to allow him better access only to see Robby nudging the spatula at Mateo like a relay baton. Take over, man.
Mateo blinks, grabs the grill tools, and Robby wipes his palms on a dish towel as he starts striding across the sand.
Panic sparks hot in your belly. Abort, abort —
Jack’s fingers press reassuringly at the base of your neck. “Easy.”
Robby arrives, squinting against the glare.
Jack doesn’t miss a beat, straightening just enough to greet him over your head, palms still settling the lotion. “Need a second set of tongs, man? You were talking about that pineapple glaze.”
“Yeah, figured you could baste while I flip,” Robby says, oblivious.
“Sure thing.” Jack rubs the last of the lotion on your shoulder before flicking the cap back on the bottle.
Robby tips his chin at you, hooks an arm around Jack’s neck like a big brother claiming turf. “And watch it, man. Give her an inch and she’ll have you painting her toes next.”
Jack shoots you a wink. “Wouldn’t put it past her, bit on the spoiled side, isn’t she?”
You don’t get to be alone with Jack again until later that evening.
After a twelve-hour gauntlet of being herded from one little duty to the next, karmic punishment apparently being less fire-and-brimstone and more Robby glued to your elbow, Samira asking about plates, Dana hunting for towels.
The house had stayed swollen with noise, doors opening, voices carrying, bodies constantly moving through every room, leaving nowhere private enough to breathe, let alone get a second with your secret boyfriend.
And you would find some sort of humor in it all if it didn’t feel like torture, spending the whole day brushing past Jack close enough to catch bits and pieces of him but never close enough to keep it, catching his stare across the deck and breaking first because if you hold it too long, even for one more second, your face will say everything your mouth has forbidden to.
By the time you get into the shower, you’re wound so tight you feel one wrong move might split you straight down the middle. Steam flattens the bathroom, fogging the mirror in milky layers while condensation beads along the floor beneath your heels.
The water comes down nearly scalding over skin still balmy from the sun, rinsing the day off you in slow, glittering streams. Salt, sunscreen, sweat, sexual frustration, little crescents of sand, all of it spiraling together toward the drain.
You brace both palms against the wall and hiss when the spray finds the tender knot tucked between your shoulder blade and spine.
You don’t have time to decide whether the sting is pleasure or pain because suddenly the door latch is clicking.
You spin, palms crossing over your breasts, ready to apologize for… something (what, exactly? You’re not sure, because last time you checked you weren’t the person barging into an occupied bathroom.)
But then the silhouette resolves into Jack and the apology dies on your tongue.
He shuts and locks the door with a soft snick, arching a brow through the haze.
You hiss under your breath, “What — Jack, what are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He just looks. His gaze drags leisurely, like a hand down your body, over your breasts, the water-glossed dip of your waist, the slick shimmer on your thighs, then hovering at your bare pussy before climbing back to your face.
He looks utterly unhurried. A man content to feast with his eyes first and speak when the hunger becomes unbearable.
Fire pools low in your belly and you shift, thighs pressing together in a useless bid for modesty. “Seriously, what if someone saw you come in?”
He closes the distance until your breath clouds a small circle on the glass pane between you.
“Just grabbing my razor,” he says, offhand, like you’re the one overreacting as he tips his head toward the shelf behind you. “Promise I’ll be two seconds. In, out.”
You give him a long, squinting once-over, as though you can spot the lie on his skin. He just wiggles his fingers — see? Harmless — so you huff a tiny laugh and shift aside.
“Fine. Two seconds,” you mutter, watching him carefully.
You pull the slider door open.
The instant rush of cooler air leaves gooseflesh in its wake, and Jack’s shoulders seem suddenly much broader than you remember as he steps through.
“Appreciate it, honey.”
He ducks under the spray, and the stall feels two sizes too small.
Jack plants himself in front of you, torso filling your peripheral vision, trunks plastered to powerful thighs.
He doesn’t touch you, but the warmth radiating from his body seems to crowd every spare inch of space.
When his chest rises you feel the ripple in each breath through yours.
“You okay?” His tone drips false innocence as he reaches around you for the razor, the damp fabric of his trunks gliding over the sensitive swell of nerves between your legs in a feather-light pass.
You suck in a harsh breath.
He straightens as if nothing happened, twirling the razor between his fingers, eyes glinting with pleased mischief.
Dick-Face.
Your vision goes momentarily starry, the lost friction leaving you empty.
You rally with a shaky grin. “‘M fine.”
“Mind if I shave in here, then? Better water pressure and keeps the sink hair-free. Know you hate that.”
You squint up at him, water streaking your lashes.
“Jack…” One elongated syllable loaded with I know exactly what you’re doing.
“Relax, angel. Two seconds,” he reminds, though the slight tilt of his hips say otherwise.
He angles the razor at his jaw, drawing the first careful stroke. You watch the silver path he leaves on skin, the way tiny beads of water race after the blade. His face, stripped of stubble in increments, is almost too handsome. Straight nose, freckles you could count, lips made for kissing yours.
He catches you gawking and smirks. “Gonna nick myself if you keep staring like that.”
You tilt your chin, droplets collecting at the curve of your collarbone, mustering your usual sparkle, “Then focus, doctor. I won’t be held responsible for self-inflicted injuries.”
He lets the razor dangle forgotten at his side as he studies you a beat longer. His hand slides forward, knuckles skimming the silky bloom of your hip, then dipping inward to follow the hollow where muscle meets bone.
A shiver flutters through you. He feels it and grins, this slow, predatory spread of lips.
“Focus is a tall order,” he says, thumb brushing a streak of water off your stomach. “Pretty as you are.”
Your breath stutters as his thumb skims lower, and you grab his wrist. “Uh-uh. Hands to yourself, remember?”
“Don’t make me beg, sweetheart.” The husk in his voice slips through you from head to toe. “Because I will, if that’s what you want — say please a thousand times, just to prove how badly I need you.”
Before you can answer, he sinks to his knees.
Once again he doesn’t touch, free hand splayed on the grout, but his mouth hovers near the crease of your hip, close enough that every exhale fans liquid fire over your pussy.
His eyes flick to yours, desperate, waiting for the single syllable that will break every rule you set.
“I can keep my hands to myself, if that’s the rule. Just let me use my mouth, please. Need to taste you, angel.”
“I — Jack, we said —”
Your grip on his wrist feels fragile, ceremonial.
“That a yes, baby? Gotta hear the word.”
Steam curls between your bodies and it’s almost suffocating now, filling up your throat and nose and ears until you start to feel a little dizzy.
Rules clang in your skull — not here, not now — but the week-long ache in your belly chants louder: need, need, need.
You bite your lip hard enough to taste copper, eyes slipping shut.
When they open again, the answer is already there, shining in resignation. “Yes. Please — yes.”
He doesn’t waste another second.
He dives in like a man reprieved from drought. Three days and three nights and water turned to wine in his tongue. He presses it flat, dragging through your folds until your knees threaten to buckle.
The first targeted flick to your clit punches a helpless cry out of your throat and the second has you clawing for purchase on the handlebar to your left.
Jack mumbles something that feels like so sweet against you, vibration sparkling up your spine, then seals his lips and sucks hard, alternating pressure in prodding intervals.
You don’t think you’ve ever gotten to that blissful edge so fast before, seconds away from splintering, vision tunneling as pink and blue stars flare behind your lids.
It all comes crashing down when a brisk tap-tap-tap cuts through your near-climax.
Jack freezes, mouth still full of you and hot on your cunt but now motionless, eyes snapping up to meets yours. Beautiful eyes with pupils blown.
Santos’s voice filters through: “Whoever’s in there, hurry up!”
The pulse that was about to break erupts into silent, aching stasis instead. You bite your fist, whole body trembling on the cliff-edge he’s left you hanging from.
You choke back a whimper and call, “Be out in a sec!”
And like you said, you would find some sort of humor in it all if it didn’t feel like pure fucking torture.
Jack tries to remind himself that he has, by every measurable standard, survived worse things than this.
War, for one. Heat that cooked straight through the soles of his boots, nights sawn open by rotor blades and gunfire. The terror of deciding who needed his hands first when everyone needed them at once.
He lost a leg and learned how to walk again, then somehow went back to medicine because apparently nearly dying had not cured him of the instinct to run toward other people’s emergencies. He has cracked chests, led resuscitations, talked shaking interns through their first patient death, spent his free time embedded with SWAT because golf had always seemed both dull and something he wouldn’t thrive at.
He knows pressure. He understands discipline. He has built an entire life around refusing to be governed by fear, pain, adrenaline, or lesser impulses.
None of those facts seem to feel reassuring right now as he watches you from across the bar.
You’re burrowed into the center of a brand-new constellation of people you just met, telling one of your well-worn stories with the same sparkling conviction you gave it the first time, chin tipped up, bracelets chiming as your hands sketch the scene into the air.
Jack knows every beat.
Knows when your eyes will widen, when your mouth will pull into that scandalized little O, when you will pause just long enough to make everyone lean closer before delivering the line that sends the table into laughter.
And they do lean closer. Even the bartender’s polishing rag pauses mid-swipe.
That is the thing about you. You make strangers feel chosen. Make a whole room feel handpicked, lit from within, as if you opened the door just for them and meant it. Then you’ll drift away, leaving them there in the aftershocks, still facing the space you occupied like worshippers after the god has already one.
Jack knows exactly how dangerous that is because he has made that mistake himself.
More than once.
Sat across from you and read too much into every smile, every soft little lock of your focus, every gooey, honey-thick stretch of your attention. Mistook being seen by you for being chosen.
And then life, perverse as ever, let him be chosen after all. Let him earn the real thing.
Which only makes watching other men bask in the counterfeit version feel worse.
The feeling metastasizes when one of the men catches the opening after your final line and moves into it, all expensive veneer-looking teeth and effortless posture, bending toward you as though the room has naturally made space for him there.
He says something Jack cannot hear over the bass, punctuates it with a small, self-satisfied shrug, and wears the expression of a person who thinks being near you is already a kind of accomplishment.
Jack studies him.
Young. Smooth. Unscarred, at least where the world can see. A body that has probably never needed to be negotiated with before something as simple as walking barefoot across a beach. No prosthetic to strap on before dawn, no phantom pain flaring where flesh ends, no inventory of what still works and what must be accommodated.
He looks right beside you. No one would glance twice, no one would do the math. Robby could clap him on the shoulder, laugh at his jokes, maybe even approve.
Certainly wouldn’t have to excavate a grave under the rental deck.
Jack counts that as strike three.
“Jack.” Robby’s voice breaks across the table, dragging him back by the collar. “Tell ‘em I’m not making this up.”
Jack blinks, wrestles his gaze off you, and pretends he’s been part of the conversation all along. Dana and Baran blink back at him.
“You’re usually making something up,” he says and it earns Victoria’s laugh, though he hasn’t the faintest idea what improbable tale he’s just failed to corroborate.
It seems to be enough of an answer for Robby though, because he laughs too, his hand thumping Jack’s shoulder hard enough to slosh the liquor.
Jack drinks anyway, holds the bourbon like a tongue depressor to his worst instincts. Swallows. The burn chars every jittery nerve that wants to turn around and see if Mr. Linen Shirt is still siphoning oxygen out of your orbit.
But he wants to know. Wants to know whether the man has moved closer, whether you’re still smiling, whether Jack is about to make a decision that leaves the bastard sipping his own drink through a wired jaw.
He shouldn’t go that far. Healing hands and all. But he can make exceptions.
He lets boredom rasp across his tongue as he clears his throat. “Your sister know those guys?”
Robby looks over on reflex. Jack doesn’t move. Doesn’t need to. Robby’s face will tell him everything. “What guys?”
“Dunno. Thought one of ‘em looked familiar.”
Robby squints past the crowd.
“Nope. Don’t think I recognize any of them.” Robby decides, pushing a tired breath through his teeth, knuckles rasping over two-day stubble. “She does this everywhere she goes. Draws attention like wildfire. I swear, half my blood pressure medication is because of her.”
Jack’s arteries would corroborate that, but he lets the confession smolder unheard behind the rim of his glass.
“Well, can you blame ‘em? She looks like that.”
And Dana’s comment is the invitation he’s been waiting for. Lets him gorge on the sight without raising suspicion.
The little dress, the glossed-up lips, the endless stretch of your legs under the bar light. Your hair falling loose around your shoulders, your face animated as you talk, every feature sharpened by laughter into something almost indecently alive.
A cherry-red straw clacks against your teeth when you sip your rum punch, each drag leaving a perfect lipstick crescent on the plastic rim.
You are beautiful in every standard category and several highly specific ones Jack suspects may exist solely to inconvenience him.
“Don’t mean she needs a swarm,” Robby grumbles, waving his bottle at the cluster around you. “She treats everybody like they’ve known her ten years, then acts shocked when half the room starts trailing after her. And somehow I’m the prick when I tell ’em to give her some space.”
“I don’t mind being the asshole,” Jack pipes up. Across the table, Dana’s attention narrows, and Jack realizes, half a beat too late, that he may have sounded a little too willing. So he adds, “If you’re tired of the job, I mean.”
Robby snorts. “You’d scare the hell of ‘em.”
“That’s generally the point.”
He lifts his bourbon before the thought can show on his face, lets the rim conceal the faint tightening at the corner of his mouth.
Robby, thankfully, is already smiling, visibly seduced by the prospect of outsourcing his least charming brotherly obligation.
“Be my guest,” he says. “Tell her I sent you.”
Jack tips his glass, drains what remains, then taps the rim against the tabletop.
Signal received. Assignment accepted. He doesn’t need to be told twice.
By the time he is halfway across the room, you’ve already noticed him.
Your eyes flare with a brightness he can feel from here, and whatever polished little nothing Mr. Smooth is feeding you dies unattended between one word and the next.
He keeps talking anyway, poor guy, unaware that you’ve left the conversation without moving an inch. By the time Jack reaches the bar rail, your attention has funneled to one point, him, and nothing else.
It stirs something dormant in him, the same dark pull he felt in the shower, his pants suddenly tighter, less cooperative. He sees exactly what he would do without the table of coworkers and one eagle-eyed best friend behind him.
He would hook a hand around the back of your neck, pull you flush to his chest, and kiss every little thought clean out of your head. Kiss you until the gloss smeared, until your lipstick feathered over his mouth, until your lips went swollen and every polished stranger nearby understood, without needing it explained, who had put that dazed look in your eyes.
Instead, he leans one forearm against the bar and says, pleasantly, “You drinking enough water, sweetheart?”
“I could be persuaded to drink more.” Your lips curl around the straw again, eyes fixed on Jack with a private little shine.
The younger man follows your attention to Jack and gives him an affable nod. “Man, your dad’s on top of it. Mine would’ve let me dehydrate out of spite.”
Jack nearly coughs up his previously swallowed drink.
He can feel every one of his years arrange themselves in descending order between you. The gray at his temples. The scars. The apparently paternal concern over your fluid intake.
Fuck’s sake.
He parts his lips to correct the record, a dry little execution already waiting on his tongue, but you beat him to the trigger.
“Oh, he’s the best,” you gush, peering at him sideways. “Always checking on me. Sunscreen, hydration, curfew. Super over-protective.”
Jack gives you a long, level look, one that says he knows exactly what you’re doing and plans to deal with it later.
“She keeps me busy. Full time job, most days,” he finally says, playing along.
And it is a full-time job.
Just not remotely in the way this poor kid is imagining. You are a twenty-four-hour on-call position with no protected sleep and an astonishingly generous benefits package.
You need to be kissed before he leaves the room, touched whenever he passes within arm’s reach, listened to with grave concentration while you explain some internet drama involving some show he’s never watched and a man named Sincere he will never meet.
Then there is the other hunger, the one that wakes beside him already stretching toward his body, that has you squirming into his lap after dinner or whispering again against his mouth when any reasonable person would be asleep.
Jack is always on his toes with you, anticipating needs you have not articulated yet, figuring out whether a pout means hungry, horny, tired, or all three braided together.
It is exhausting in the way a life worth living is exhausting.
He has never minded work when the work matters, and taking care of you has become the most selfish labor he has ever loved.
The younger guy clears his throat, trying to recapture the momentum. “Anyway, like I was saying about the jet-ski tomorrow —”
“Actually,” Jack interrupts, “we’ve got to get back. Curfew, you know.” He aims a polite nod at the man, who now looks decidedly dejected, then drapes a guiding hand along the back of your stool in perfect over-protective-father form. “Appreciate you keeping her company.”
Your mouth twitches around the straw. Jack can already tell you’re going to make him suffer for this. The prospect improves his mood considerably.
He starts to walk you back to the table, when he spots Robby, who’s laughing much too loudly at something the new intern just whispered in his ear.
The girl is angled toward him, smiling with that shy, pleased little tilt people get when they think they’ve successfully surprised him, and Robby, miracle of miracles, looks genuinely interested.
That is information worth preserving. Worth interrogating later, too.
But for now he takes that opportunity for what it is and herds you into a corner out of view.
As soon as you’re tucked between a stack of surfboards and the dim EXIT sign, his fingers close over the curve of your backside, giving a quick pinch.
A startled “hey!” pops out, alcohol-loose and breathy, and you bat at his knuckles.
He catches your wrist, holding it against his chest as amusement darkens his gaze. “You’re testing me, angel. Missed me so much you had to start getting other men’s attention just to see if I’d come take you back?”
“Missed who? The pervert or the overprotective dad?”
Jack clicks his tongue and leans in until the tips of your noses nearly touch, crowding the joke right back into your mouth.
“Hated every damn second of that. Couldn’t lay a finger on you while that kid flirted his ass off. And you knew exactly what you were doing. Wanted to see how fast you could make your old man lose his cool?”
“Thought you liked being challenged?” You tilt your chin, lashes dipping. “Besides, you’d been ignoring me all night. What was I supposed to do, sit there looking pretty for no one?”
“You know that isn’t how it is. I’ve been following the rules you set, angel. Your rules.”
“Yeah, well, last night kind of blew those up, don’t you think?” You lean closer. “The line’s already smudged. Seems silly to keep pretending we can still see it.”
“Trust me, sweetheart, I’ve got no attachment to that line. I’ve wanted my hands on you from the second I saw that dress.” He leans closer, voice dropping into something meant only for you. “But you’d better mean it. You don’t get to rile me up all night and then act surprised when I collect.”
Your eyes flick toward the neon Restrooms sign, then back to him, lashes heavy. “Meet me by the bathroom in sixty seconds. If you’re late, I’m starting without you.”
One quick sweep confirms the coast is clear.
“Bought and paid for, angel. Be there in fifty-nine.”
You giggle, turning on your heel with a bounce that sets your dress fluttering. He tracks every inch as you stroll off, head cocked like you know he’s staring; the last thing he sees is the curve of your ass rounding the corner.
He waits just long enough not to make it obvious, then starts toward the hall, pulse already ticking off the seconds.
Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven.
“Jack.”
Shit.
Dana catches him mid-stride. When he turns, she is watching him over one lifted brow, empty glass raised loosely in her hand. “You getting another round?”
His gaze flicks toward the corridor before he can stop it. Mistake. Dana follows it, then looks back at him.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” he says.
“Could’ve fooled me. You look like you’re on a mission.”
And what can he say to that?
Yeah, Dana, good eye. I am on a mission to follow my girlfriend into a seedy beach-bar bathroom and fuck the living daylights out of her before Robby notices either of us are gone. By the way, she is his little sister and young enough that, from a distance, strangers apparently assume I helped raise her.
So Jack does what any sensible man would do under pressure.
He lies.
“Just gotta take a leak.”
Dana lets out a low hum, the kind that says she believes exactly none of him. “Sure.” And Jack thinks that’s it, but suddenly she shakes her head. “Just do yourself a favor and be careful.”
“Careful about what, exactly?” Irritation flicks hot across his scalp, mostly because it coats the thin, unfamiliar ache of fear.
She tips her chin, eyes dull with shift-long exhaustion, offering him nothing but that tired little smile that says You already know.
“Don’t make me say it out loud.” Her gaze dips toward the restroom sign, subtle enough that anyone else would miss it. Jack doesn’t. “I don’t care about the sordid details. But secrets like this don’t stay contained forever. People get hurt when they come out.” Her expression softens by a fraction. “And she has more to lose than you do.”
He doesn’t get the chance to answer before Dana slips past him, already lifting two fingers toward the bartender and calling for another round.
She has more to lose than you do.
Jack knows that. Or at least, he should’ve.
He is established. Difficult to shame in any lasting way. People already know who he is, have decided what sort of man he is, and most days he can live with that.
You, meanwhile, are still being decided. Every room you enter is another jury, every mistake fresh evidence for peers and others alike.
And men tend to survive a scandal differently.
Jack might lose Robby, take a hit to his reputation, become the subject of a few whispered conversations at work. Then the weeks would pass, another crisis would arrive, and people would remember he was useful.
The world permits men to outlive their mistakes.
It does not extend women the same courtesy.
You would be remembered through it, reduced to it. People would search backward through every bright smile and short skirt as if the proof had always been there, call you foolish where they called him weak, promiscuous where they called him lonely.
Even the people defending you would talk as though you needed defending from your own decision.
Jack suddenly feels sick because Dana is right, and because somewhere along the way he let himself pretend the risk belonged equally to both of you.
Half his, half yours. Fair.
It never had.
Jack lets the sixty seconds expire and stays exactly where he is, rooted with his hands by his sides and the first honest understanding of what protecting you might actually require.
Tonight, when you go looking for Jack, your intentions are not merely ill.
They are terminal. Premeditated. Your conscience is nowhere to be found, certainly not sparkling, certainly not clean enough to eat off.
Whatever small moral voice usually lives in you has been smothered beneath a white-hot blend of anger and a bruised ego, two things currently holding hands and skipping merrily through your bloodstream.
The house has only just begun to settle after several hours of drunk postmortems, everyone still riding the bar’s momentum and apparently determined to delay sleep through sheer noise pollution alone. Somebody had thrown up in the upstairs toilet, although nobody was admitting to it and Whitaker had somehow staggered into Jack’s room and passed out starfished across his bed, fully clothed, one shoe still on, leaving Jack exiled to the downstairs couch.
It’s almost completely dark when you creep down the stairs.
A small lamp glows beside the sofa, casting a little island over Jack and the book open in his hands.
The rest of the room dissolves into shadow, cluttered with the aftermath of everyone else’s good time: cups lined along the coffee table, half-empty glasses, plates abandoned with crusts and smears of dip.
You ghost past him without a glance, feet soundless on the hardwood.
Only when he murmurs, “Can we talk?” do you pause, but only long enough to throw a breezy, “Later — busy,” over your shoulder.
Jack pushes off the sofa, trailing you a step. “Busy with what, exactly?”
Busy making your life a living hell, you think, scrubbing dried food from a plate. Busy returning the favor. Busy ensuring he experiences even a fraction of the private humiliation you swallowed in that bar bathroom, standing beneath a flickering light panel while sixty seconds stretched into two minutes, then five, your invitation curdled into foolishness.
And when you had finally emerged, Jack was back at the table with the others, but every stiff line of him betrayed where his attention really was. Fresh drink in hand, barely touched. Shoulders set. Gaze locked on the corridor.
He had chosen not to come, but he had not stopped watching.
Jack would sooner lose his other leg than abandon you tipsy in a strange bar, and even furious, you knew that. He had been keeping vigil over the door, tracking who went in, who came out, waiting for your face to appear. But that garnered no brownie points from you.
When you approached, confused and annoyed and still stupidly hopeful, he had only leaned close enough to breathe, “Later,” against your ear.
As if it were of no significance. You were of no significance.
You snatch up another abandoned cup and tip its watery remains into the sink.
“This,” you say. “Some of us respect shared spaces.”
“Mm. At two in the morning?” Jack leans one hip against the counter, arms folding over his chest. When you dont stop, he adds, “All right. Scoot over. I’ll help.”
Jack has never encountered a mess, emotional or otherwise, that he did not believe could be improved by putting his hands on it. A wound, a crisis, a woman mad enough to scrub ceramic like she means to erase the glaze. Same instinct. Reach. Steady. Fix.
You turn before he can.
Dishwater slips from your fingers in clear little tracks, the oversized sleep shirt grazing high over your thighs as you square yourself toward him.
“No, thank you.” Your gaze stays fixed on his. “I’ve learned I can manage without help.”
He comes closer, and closer still, until your damp fingers have nowhere sensible to go except flat against the edge of the sink.
“That’s very independent of you, honey,” he says. “Always loved that about you.” His hand lands beside your hip, bracketing you in. His gaze searches your face, lightening at the edges. “But I don’t think we’re talking about dishes anymore, are we?”
You tip your chin up, refusing to let the gentling in his eyes sand down your irritation. “No, we’re not. We’re talking about you saying one thing and doing another. Apparently promises are more of a loose suggestion when they’re coming from you.”
“Give me a chance to explain, sweetheart.” The words slip out on a breath, softer than the rattle of the faucet. “You can be mad after. Hell, you probably still will be. Just hear me out first.”
You do not want to hear him out.
Explanations are unpredictable things, doors that open both ways, and you already have the sickening suspicion that whatever is waiting on the other side will hurt worse than not knowing.
Because yes, objectively, Jack failing to follow you into a bathroom means very little.
No fidelity breached, no grand betrayal, no concrete proof of anything beyond bad timing and worse communication.
But the small flutter in your stomach does not care about what your mind tries to litigate away.
It knows this feeling. Knows this small retreat before someone leaves, the subtle cooling, the moment affection starts becoming obligation.
Maybe he has simply had his fill of you. Maybe the novelty wore off and now you are no longer the bright, entertaining little thing he wanted to sneak around with, only a woman who talks too much and needs too much and has begun expecting permanence from something built in shadows.
And maybe now he has seen enough of the real thing to know he cannot imagine building a life around it.
So you do not give him the chance.
“Nothing to explain,” you say, seizing the sponge and escaping the cage of his arms for the opposite counter.
You start cleaning with theatrical diligence, collecting bottles, stacking plates, wiping crumbs into your palm as though the fate of the rental deposit rests entirely on you.
But you did not come downstairs to rescue countertops. You came because you need proof that Jack still wants you.
Any kind of proof. Emotional, physical, desperate, selfish. You would take whatever he gives you.
And if you cannot bring yourself to ask whether he still sees a future with you, then you can at least find out whether he still wants to put his hands on you.
So when you bend to retrieve a fallen fork from the ground, you let the hem of your sleep shirt climb unchecked over the backs of your legs until it bares you completely, exposes that you are wearing no underwear, your thighs parted just enough for Jack to see every soft, private inch you left uncovered for him.
Cool air brushes your pussy.
His stare burns hotter.
“Jesus Christ, honey.” The words leave him rough and disbelieving, dragged up from the well below his throat. Behind you, the counter creaks faintly beneath the sudden weight of his hands. “What the hell are you doing?”
You count to one before straightening.
You turn with the fork still balanced between two fingers, arranging your face into its sweetest approximation of confusion.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right,” he murmurs. “Must’ve imagined the whole thing.”
You drop the fork into the sink with an accusing clatter. “Probably. Memory goes with age, remember?”
He steps in behind you before you can turn away, chest brushing your back, one palm flattening over your stomach while the other slides beneath your shirt.
His knuckles skim the soft inside of your thigh, then settle exactly where you’re naked.
“Yeah,” he growls against your ear. “Didn’t imagine a damn thing.”
A whimper threatens and you bite it back so hard your jaw aches. In that stilled heartbeat the fight drains out of your muscles and your body answers him first, arching back, begging in the only language it trusts.
But the panic bubbles back up in fiery waves.
“Please don’t,” you say, and the plea is not the one he expects.
Jack’s hand freezes.
You close your eyes.
“If you’ve changed your mind about me, just say it.” Every word hurts your throat. You turn your face just enough for him to see what the anger has been hiding all night. Fear. “If you don’t want me anymore, then don’t touch me like you do. Don’t make it harder than it already is.”
Jack’s hand vanishes so abruptly from beneath your shirt, your knees dip with the loss.
Then he’s turning you, big palms framing your cheeks, thumbs parked just under your cheekbones. Your own slick glosses his knuckles. He tips your chin up so you can’t look anywhere but straight into the brown storm of his.
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about, baby?”
Your mouth opens, but what escapes first is a wet, hitching breath.
The tears rise fast, flood-waters breaching the levee before you can blink them back, Jack’s outline smearing into watercolor.
“I don’t know,” you hiccup, which is not true at all. You know too much. “You left me there. And then you acted like I was being dramatic for expecting you to show up when you said you would.” Your fingers curl around his wrists, not pushing him away, just holding on. “And maybe it’s not about that. Maybe it’s about how easy it would be for you to wake up and realize I’m not… serious-person material. I’m fun, I know that. I’m pretty and I make you laugh and I’m good in bed, but that’s not the same as being someone you actually want a life with.” Your lips tremble. “People always like me better at first.”
Immediately his face caves, all the structure in it imploding: brows hitching, mouth parting, a stricken slackness that makes him look ten years younger and infinitely more breakable.
“Don’t say that,” he says, too sharp at first, then immediately dampens. “No, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Say whatever you need to say. I’m just…” He shakes his head, jaw tight, eyes shining with something close to a fear that matches yours. “I hate that I made you feel like that.”
His hands slide from your face to your shoulders, holding you there as if he needs you to understand this with your whole body.
“You are serious to me. More serious than anything I’ve let myself have in a long time.” He exhales shakily. “You think I don’t picture a life with you? I picture it constantly.”
You just stare, lungs cinched tight, tears marooned mid-cheek as though gravity’s on pause. The room narrows to the pulse thudding in your ears.
“You’re… you’re serious about me?”
Jack makes a quiet, wounded sound. His hands come back to your face, thumbs stroking the wet tracks beneath your eyes.
“Christ, baby. Yes. Of course I am.” He bends closer, as though proximity might help drive the truth into you. “I don’t know how I let you believe otherwise… I didn’t follow after you tonight because I got scared for you, not of you. I should have told you. I should have found you, explained, apologized. Instead I left you alone with your worst thoughts. That was cruel, even if I didn’t mean it to be. Please let me fix it.”
Another hiccup rattles through you as you try to process the words at face-value. “Scared for me how?”
“Because if this blew up, I didn’t want you caught in it.” He says it simply, like there is no question which of you matters more. “I don’t give a damn what people think of me, baby. I care what it does to you.”
You shake your head inside the cradle of his hands.
“I don’t care what people think either. I don’t care about any of it.” Your voice snags, but you push through. “I love you, Jack. That matters more.”
His eyes close for half a second, like the words are almost too much to take standing up.
When they open again, he kisses you senselessly soft, both hands still holding your face as though you might vanish.
He kisses you once, twice, a third time, each one a little messier than the last.
“Love you too, baby,” he whispers, lips brushing yours. “Love you so much it scares the hell out of me.”
The brine of your tears slick the seam of your mouth. Jack doesn’t flinch, drinks it in like proof of living.
You surface for one ragged sip of air, barely enough, your lips still grazing his, fists knotted in his shirt like ballast against weightlessness.
“You mean it? You’re really serious about me?” you whisper again, softer this time, almost shy with it.
Jack lets out a low, guttural sound and grazes the corner of your mouth.
“So serious, honey.” Another kiss, deeper now, his hands sliding from your face to your waist, pulling you flush. “Want to put a ring on that pretty little hand. Want a house with your clothes everywhere and your shoes in places I’m gonna trip over.” His mouth finds yours again, swallowing your gasp before he adds, rougher, “Want a kid, if you want one. You want a baby with me, angel?”
“Yes, please, Jack.”
The words are still warm in the air when he fits his mouth to yours, a groan vibrating through both of you.
His palms squeeze your waist, then lift, your stomach swooping as he sets you on the cleared stretch of counter. Cool laminate kisses the backs of your thighs, shocking against the furnace heat of him stepping between your legs.
Your sleep-shirt scrunches between his hands, creeping, creeping, until the hem gathers at your hips and you’re bared to him again.
“Yeah?” he murmurs against your lips. “You’d give me that?”
You nod so eagerly the room tilts, fists in his collar, yanking him closer. “Anything.”
“My perfect girl,” he breathes, kissing you again, softer now, as if the tenderness makes what follows any less filthy.
His hand slips beneath the gathered cotton at your waist, fingers gliding south until one settles between your folds. He drags the wetness up in a lazy sweep, humming appreciation that burns brighter than the touch itself.
“And what’s all this, hm?” he asks, studying your face while his finger toys idly with your clit. His eyes darken, attention dropping to where his hand disappears between your legs. “You sittin’ here imagining me filling you up with a baby, sweetheart?”
Your hips lift helplessly into his hand, chasing pressure he has no intention of giving you yet.
“No teasing,” you whimper, breath breaking around the words. “Please, Jack. I need you inside me.”
Jack swears under his breath, hand leaving your clit only long enough to undo his pants. The zipper drops. Fabric loosens. Then he is back between your thighs, dragging the thick head of his cock through your folds once, twice, gathering the wetness you have made for him.
The sight of him nearly makes you stupid.
It has only been a few days, which is nothing, really, barely enough time for a normal person to miss anything, but your body has become accustomed to him, used to the heavy stretch of his cock at least once a day, sometimes twice when neither of you has somewhere to be.
You’re practically drooling, inner muscles fluttering around emptiness while he takes his sweet, sweet time wetting himself in what you’ve made for him.
You shift on the counter, thighs widening of their own accord, a needy sound slipping free when the head catches against your entrance and pulls away again.
“I know, honey. I know.” His voice roughens as he traces the head up your inner thigh. “Should’ve given you what you needed hours ago.”
Then he finally does.
He braces one hand at your hip and pushes forward in one long, steady stroke, the thick head breaching you first, then every heavy inch following.
Your cunt flutters, welcoming, molding around him until there’s no space left unexplored.
The counter shudders with the low sound that tears out of both of you.
The inexorable pressure sutures the empty ache that’s haunted you, stuffing it full until there’s no room for jealousy, no space for worst-case scenarios.
There is only Jack.
Your thighs cinch hard around his waist, heels gouging into the backs of his legs like spurs demanding more.
He doesn’t stop until pelvis meets pelvis, forehead thunking against yours while both of you gasp as if you’ve sprinted a mile in the sand.
He retreats a heartbeat’s width and your walls seize around him, possessive. He curses under his breath.
“This tight little cunt missed me, didn’t it?” he asks, already driving back in.
He starts pumping into you at a saint’s tempo, each drag of his cock thick and thorough, his hips grinding flush against you at the end of every thrust.
Your arms lock around his shoulders as your body rocks with him, bare thighs trembling against his sides.
Pleasure gathers everywhere at once, starting at your pussy and climbing until your whole body feels tuned to the rhythm of his hips.
You try to tell him that. Try to say yes, missed you, feels so good, but what comes out is a breathless spill of syllables, half his name and half a sound you would be embarrassed by if your brain were still capable of embarrassment.
His hand slips between your bodies, two fingers finding your clit.
“You’re mine, aren’t you? All mine,” he growls, cock still working inside you. “And I’m yours. Never gonna be anybody else’s, you hear me?”
Your answer is a helpless chain of nods and breathy mewls, but he isn’t satisfied with that.
He catches your jaw, thumb pressing your cheek until your eyes snap to his.
“Look at me. Hear me.”
“Y-yes, Jack… yours — love you, love you s’much,” you babble.
“Love you, angel.” He presses a kiss to your trembling lips. “Want me to fill this pretty pussy up? Want me to leave every drop inside where it belongs?”
“Yes, please. Need it — need you — m’so close.”
The first warning licks up your spine. A trembling in your calves, nipples pebbling hard against your shirt.
Pleasure stacks in breath-stealing layers, so heavy it feels like quicksand pulling you under.
Jack’s tells flare with yours. His hips snapping hard, hands tightening on your waist until his knuckles blanch.
Sweat beads at his hairline, drops down to your skin, and your walls clamp down in greedy pulses, each flex beginning for the flood he’s a second away from letting go.
“Keep looking at me,” Jack pants, curling a hand from your waist to the back of your neck. “Need to watch you fall apart.”
“Can’t — can’t hold it,” you whimper, thighs shaking.
“Don’t hold a damn thing,” he growls. “Give it to me, come on, baby.”
The quicksand finally liquefies and the world folds to white noise.
Jack breaks with you, a strangled — fuck — on your lips, thrusts turning short as he empties himself in thick bursts.
You cling to one another, quake for heartbeat after heartbeat, until the tremors fade into breathless, boneless warmth.
When Jack’s breathing finally steadies, his mouth roams in slow increments. First your collarbones, up the column of your throat, over the quiver of your lips.
He eases back only to reach for a paper towel, thumb already swiping at the mess seeping down your thighs.
“Don’t,” you plead, catching his wrist. “Wanna keep it.”
Jack huffs a low laugh before moving to kiss away your protest. “Sweetheart, you’re not making it five steps up those stairs with that sliding down your legs.”
Even as he says it, he dabs gently between them.
The light friction has your hips ticking forward, little whimpers breaking free.
“Sensitive, huh?” he tuts.
“Thought you wanted to put a baby in me?” you argue.
Jack’s thumb circles your thigh. “Oh, I plan on it — but not until there’s some extra hardware shining on your hand. One thing at a time, yeah?”
Old-fashioned as he is, you probably should’ve expected that.
Jack Abbot is the kind of man who still opens doors, calls restaurants instead of booking online, and apparently requires jewelry before intentional procreation. There is probably a proper sequence filed away in that stubborn head of his: ring, vows, house, baby.
You find, to your own surprise, that you do not mind the order at all.
You tap his chest with a teasing finger and dopey smile. “I can live with that. I do love shiny things, after all.”
What he does not tell you is that the shiny thing already exists, hidden in his sock drawer, waiting for the right moment.
You won’t find that out for another two months, until after the two of you finally sit Robby down and tell him everything, until after Jack takes one clean punch to the face without even trying to dodge it, because fair is fair, and until after Robby’s anger burns itself down into something survivable.
By the time Jack slips the ring onto your finger, his lip is healed, your brother is calling him Jack instead of Dick-Face (you can’t be sure where he learned that insult from), and the future no longer feels like something borrowed.
It is yours.
MARIA NOTE this lowkey was supposed to be like 1k words and the ideas just kept flowing and it turned into a full psychological case study on why making ur brother's best friend jealous is both a terrible idea and, unfortunately, very effective. also jack saying ring first, baby later made me briefly black out. hope u enjoyed!! <3
Tags ✢ post-Dance, grief/mourning, arranged marriage/political marriage, enemies to lovers, falling in love, eventual romance, eventual smut, angst with a happy ending
Chapter count ✢ 2/10
Summary ✢ Jacaerys is crowned king as his mother perishes from her wounds shortly after retaking the Iron Throne. He makes a match with you, the last daughter of King Viserys and Alicent Hightower, to secure peace and rebuild the Targaryen dynasty.
Jacaerys Masterlist
Chapter One ✢ King of the Ashes
Chapter Two ✢ Sealed in Blood
Author's Note ✢ Dividers by @zaldritzosrose, as always.
- ser gwayne hightower x rhaenyra’s daughter!reader
synopsis. Ser Gwayne Hightower is tasked with escorting you, the sole daughter of the newly anointed Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, across the Reach and into the Crownlands as part of a deal securing amnesty for House Hightower. Along the way, you realize you do not hate him as much as you thought.
contents. smut, angst, slowburnish, reader is rhaenyra’s eldest daughter (around the same age as aegon) and silverwing’s rider and is so spoiled that she has never seen a baby chick before, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, grief, show elements but also canon divergence, sex pollen, oral (f recieving), fingering, p in v, loss of virginity, multiple orgasms, cum eating, bath sex, reader is comically oblivious at some points, gwayne needs you so bad
a/n. 13.5k words wow big day for me, spoilers for the show?, inspired by a request i got (thank you very much anon wherever you are), inspired by the film lady chatterly’s lover at some points, takes place directly after jace dies and rhaenyra takes the throne
It was a glum day, the day you were told your brother was dead, and you were alone with the usurper’s uncle. The dread—that feeling that something was just wrong—settled deep in your stomach before the words came out of his mouth.
The Hightower army had found you many months prior, nearly deceased following an attack on your dragon, Silverwing. You had told her to fly home to Dragonstone, to leave you, and you have lived off of the hope that she made it back safe.
They took you as prisoner that day, and in spite of all you thought of them, they did not treat you too horribly. You believed it was like preparing a pig for slaughter, though, so you never wavered in your loyalty to your mother. You would die as a Black. It was not going to take the threat of death to let a word of the Green agenda come from your mouth.
Surprisingly, it was your cousin, Daeron, who offered you the most kindness. He was the only person you could yield to in the entire Hightower base. You could only pray he wasn’t relaying every conversation you’d had back to the Lord Ormund Hightower.
Everyone else treated you like you were common. Specifically Ser Gwayne Hightower.
He was rude—and vain—and arrogant. He was irritating. When he would try to make conversation, you would always end up in a fight. And it was just your luck for him to be the one instructed to take you on a multiple-week-long journey from the Reach and back to your rightful home in the Red Keep.
He was the one to tell you that your mother had taken King’s Landing back. You assume your mother saw it fit to have the Queen Dowager’s brother be the one to accompany you, because maybe she has something in store for him when you make it there. Perhaps a beheading? He could do without the ability to speak.
Then he was the one to tell you that you would join her in King’s Landing. That you were finally going home. It was the only thing to come from his mouth that made you joyful.
You overheard chatter that by you departing the Reach as soon as the letter was received, and by you making it back unharmed, House Hightower would be granted something close to immunity for their role in the war. You knew it was something a lie. Your mother and stepfather would never let the Green beasts live with what they had done—not only to you, but to her son too. To your mother herself.
The thought of what your mother might be doing to the Dowager Queen now gave you anxiety from being excluded. You should expect that they’ll be calling for Daeron’s capture too, though perhaps you will be able to put in a good word for him—get him sent to the Wall instead of hanged.
Speaking of Daeron, he was already somewhere distant when you had finished gathering your belongings, even though the things you owned in the encampment were scarce. You had said your goodbyes to each other not long ago—he claimed he had to prepare for something with Lord Ormund, and that he would not be available the next morning, for your departure.
You were, as expected, ready to leave. You had wanted to lie down and rest so that the next morning would come sooner, but Ser Gwayne had called you into his tent for one final word.
“There was something else written in the letter. Something I believe should have been saved for a calm moment, such as this,” he begun, and held up the refolded parchment which illustrated the clemency that would be provided to House Hightower upon your safe return to King’s Landing. “Would you prefer to read it, or shall I?”
The glint in his eye was one of compassion. You did not like it.
You shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Proceed.”
He raised his brows, pressing his lips together before giving a heavy sigh and opening the parchment back again. The fingers that gripped either side of it seemed to waver. His eyes quickly found the line he had so desperately wanted to read.
He inhaled a heavy breath. “The Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne Jacaerys Velaryon was slain in battle against the Triarchy Fleet. He was struck down by crossbow fire alongside his dragon, Vermax, in the waters off the Gullet.”
Gwayne let his hands drop slowly, and he sealed the parchment back. He looked back up at you.
Your head was shaking back and forth. Denying his words, maybe. The movement had come naturally, and you could not stop it.
“Is this a jest?” you exhaled a small laugh, hoping it would work to quell the distress already coursing through your veins.
You knew it was not a jest.
You knew if the war did not end soon then he would die in some violent, gruesome way, but to hear it confirmed was something entirely different. To hear it confirmed by a Hightower was something worse. The primal need for the man before you dead, perhaps in such a way your own brother was killed, washed over you in an instant.
He remained silent at your question. "It pains me, though your brother's death does not alter our course,” he said instead. “We shall depart at first light.”
It pains him?
You will show him something that pains him.
There was a lengthy distance between the two of you already, but you quickly closed it as you rushed across to smack him across his cheek.
Your hand stung, yet you did not wait for his reaction. Instead, you turned on your heel and left the tent.
Jace did not hit you until the fresh air did, and you let yourself shed the tears that you had pushed back into your sockets. The tears that you could not—would not—let fall in front of the enemy.
day one
You never liked Gwayne. He was arrogant, and he would treat you as if you weren’t the daughter of the Queen—or more importantly to them, the granddaughter of King Viserys, and the niece of their usurper.
The ride up the roseroad so far had been silent. He had tried, but you did not speak a word in response. It pains me, he had said, and then he practically told you to get over it and go home! He is moronic, and conceited. It pains you that you have to make this journey with him.
If need be, you could be doing this by yourself. You’re fierce enough to ride alone—gods, you’re essentially already riding alone, Gwayne’s useless self.
Your brothers taught you to be fierce, in spite of their age. Jace had always insisted on letting you spar with them in the yard of the Red Keep, and you learned quite well from it. You certainly couldn’t beat a knight with your skills, but it had helped you gain a certain confidence that princesses tend not to have.
Aegon had never liked you practicing with them. Neither did Ser Criston. You did beat the usurper once—caught him off guard and swept him out from under his feet—which must have bruised his ego in the process, as he felt it just to push you to the ground when your back was turned right after. That earned him a clout in the ear from Ser Harwin.
You chuckle to yourself recalling the memory—specifically Aegon’s stupid face when he realized who had hit him, and more specifically when Ser Harwin did not get in trouble for it—and you notice Gwayne looking at you in your peripheral. The smile is wiped clean off of your face.
“Does something amuse you?” he mutters.
When you look over to see him, he is glowering at you, his upper lip lifted with judgment.
“I understand you may not have many fond memories to look back on when times are tiresome, but I do.” You look forward at the road ahead.
He scoffs out a laugh. “I have many fond memories.”
“Tell me one,” you counter.
All you can hear is the wind blowing through the trees. Ser Gwayne Hightower, the parentless knight, no recollections to look back on fondly.
Gwayne sucks in a breath. “I do not have to.”
“That is what I thought.” You smirk to yourself, and lightly kick the side of your horse, forcing it forward and ahead of him.
day two
You were unsure if you should speak the words you did, but they had just slipped out at a certain point.
“I take it you did not care much for Jace.” Your gaze had already been trained on the head of your horse. It seemed hard to look anywhere else.
You and Gwayne had been mindlessly trekking forward all morning, both of your eyes still heavy with the slumber that you had lacked, sleeping in an inn on top of stiff beds.
“What makes you say that, princess?” he asks.
“You are a Hightower. Your sister is the Dowager Queen. Your nephew is the usurper. You kill for them—” you look over to him. He has been staring at you the whole time, and he looks quite furious.
“I believe you will find I do not have much of a choice in the matter,” he interjects sharply.
Your head shakes. “Everyone has a choice.”
He huffs. “What do you reckon I do? Desert my army? Get caught and hanged for treason?”
“I would.” You look back at the road ahead. “I should.”
Gwayne sighs, and returns his attention to the road as well. “We both have duties, my princess. Duties one cannot simply run from once they get to be too demanding.”
“Essos is said to be nice this time of year.”
A short laugh escapes him. “Essos is said to be nice all times of the year.”
You let out a heavy, deflated sigh. “Would it not be nice? I’m sure they don’t care about who we are there. We could be free. You could be a sellsword, and I…” your thought trails off. You cannot think of what you would be somewhere like Essos.
“You could be a scribe,” Gwayne says sincerely.
You nod. “I could.”
The idea of a life in Essos, perhaps with Gwayne, seems appealing at the very moment. The lack of sleep much be getting to you.
It does seem nice. Abandoning your name, as much as you are loyal to it, could be the best decision that you have made. He seems to want the same, if you convince yourself his words weren’t just tactical, some way to earn your empathy so that you will convince your mother to spare him once you reach the Red Keep.
If the war would not come to an end with her taking of the throne, you would have to escape there yourself. And if Gwayne wanted to come with you, if he was still alive by the time you left, you might just be willing to take him with you. Silverwing—who had surely made it back to Dragonstone—was large enough to saddle two.
day three
The inn you would stay in tonight would be much worse than the last. Not only because of the stiff beds, but because of the lack of them too.
Gwayne knew of the ones that would not ask any questions while not costing all the coins in his possession. So far they had been shit, but they had been true to their history of keeping quiet with matters that did not concern them, as far as you both knew.
You would remain outside with your cloak hood pulled tight over your head and your body facing a wall until Gwayne would come fetch you to take you to the room.
He would refer to you as his squire to the innkeepers and guests who questioned your presence. If they had questioned your demeanor, he would call you reserved and paranoid. Nobody had asked anything past that, but if they did, he was prepared to tell them that you had been tormented by some childhood event.
When Gwayne had taken you to your room that night, you had not expected to be faced with a singular bed.
“Have you gotten your own room?” you had asked, not realizing until you had drawn off the cloak from your head that there was only one mattress before you.
Gwayne only shrugged. “It was all that remained. The innkeeper told me that puppeteers are traveling in town, and all seem to be staying here.”
You could not contain your fury at the thought of sharing a bed with him. Or making him sleep on the floor. “How many fucking puppeteers are there?” you demanded, body tense with unreasonable anger.
He scoffed out a laugh. “My princess, it isn’t exactly the largest inn.” He had already begun shucking off his armor, as well as ridding himself of his gambeson and chausses. “You will live. I will sleep on the floor.”
“Are you sure? Can’t you speak with the innkeeper?”
“There is no need to draw any more attention to us. And what, princess, will you be sleeping on the floor in place of me?” he mocked, already in knowledge of the answer. “Do not fret over it. I have slept in worse places.”
You were silenced at that, and had called him for help with undoing your dress. The whole ordeal was strangely impersonal. He had done it the night before, and you felt nothing. Perhaps it be the exhaustion both of you had carried.
The two of you had retired to your respective sleeping areas shortly afterward, both clad in just your smallclothes.
Later that night, you found yourself wide awake, shivering in the relentless cold that seemed to break in past the shut windows.
Gwayne had been sleeping on the floor furthest from where you were lying on the bed. You assumed he was sleeping as well, but it was strangely silent. You had expected to hear the soft breathing of someone consumed by their slumber, though all you heard was the whistling of wind outside.
And your heart still held unpleasant sympathy for where he had been forced to rest. If your thoughts were true, he was not sleeping at all.
“Ser?” you whisper.
“Is something wrong?” you hear from below.
You smile at his voice. No, at being right. You do not smile at his presence, you smile because you like being right. You rolled over then, the mattress groaning beneath you, to stare at the dim expanse of the side where he lay.
“Are you comfortable there, on the floor?” you question, smile piercing through your words.
He scoffs. “You jest, princess, but I have no doubt that this floor is just as soft as the mattress you lay on.”
You were hit with a flurry of breathless laughter at his words. It must be your lack of sleep. You could hear him chuckle too after some point, but both of you had been slowly silenced as the seconds passed until you could only hear the commotion outside again.
Perhaps you should invite him to sleep alongside you. You are not without mercy. Of course, it would be strictly unromantic, not like how a wife and her husband might find one another on restless nights such as this one.
“Would you like to put that to the test?” you say without a second thought.
Gwayne clears his throat. “I would not want to invade on your solace, princess.”
“There is plenty of room for you.” You crawl across the bed to see him.
Your eyes find him as he thoughtlessly fiddles with the edge of his chemise, and as he freezes once he meets your gaze.
You beam down at him again. “And it would bring me solace, knowing you were sleeping the slightest bit easier.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“I am.” You think it is the sleep deprivation deluding you. You would never act like this normally. He can sense it too.
He slowly rises from his position on the ground, and multiple bones crackle once he stands.
You roll back over to your side of the bed, watching as he joins you. He seems tense, especially as you join him under the covers.
The two of you lie in bridled silence, neither one of you able to fall asleep. A chill runs through you from the temperature, and Gwayne’s head swivels to look at you.
You turn over on your side to meet his gaze, expecting him to say something. He does not, and looks back up at the ceiling instead.
Your brain, clouded by the fact that you are simultaneously freezing cold and devastatingly fatigued, opens, then pauses as you search for the words.
“Are you cold as well?” you mumble.
Gwayne shrugs nonchalantly. “Slightly.”
You chuckle mirthlessly. “I am.” The sheets suddenly feel rough against your skin. “More than slightly.”
“I can ask the innkeeper for another quilt.”
His earlier words flash back to you. “There is no need to draw any more attention to us,” you repeat.
You see the corner of his lip turn upward. “What do you reckon I do, then, princess?” he asks, and you reach out to touch his arm.
The muscle quickly tightens under your hold.
“You’re warm.” You move closer to him. “If we lie close together, we might just make it through the night.”
That is how you ended up huddled next to Ser Gwayne Hightower for the rest of the night.
You were unaware of the fact that he was lying frozen next to you, and that he did not get a wink of sleep, especially as you mindlessly slung an arm around his middle in your slumber. And as your nipples, solid from the cool breeze that had seeped in through the windows, brushed up against him as you shifted throughout the night.
day four
Gwayne had stopped to relieve himself when you heard them.
The myriad of chirps from some kind of birds had caught your attention, and you had jumped from your horse in an instant, following the sound.
You found yourself on the edge of an open field, behind some bushes, as you looked down to some small yellow birds that weren’t flying away. You deduce that they must like your presence.
It wasn’t long before Gwayne anxious voice interrupted your calm, calling your name just moments before stumbling upon you.
“What are they?” you whisper.
“Chicks,” he responds, in a normal tone. At your silence, he continues, “baby chickens.”
“Truly?” you question, head cocked to the side, watching them.
Gwayne stares at you. “Have you… never seen chicks before?”
“No, only…” you turn your head to him, “chickens.” You shrug.
He shakes his head with a theatrical sort of despair. It would have seemed real if the corners of his lips were not upturned.
“You truly are a princess,” he mutters, and crouches down to the ground.
You stoop down alongside him, watching as the chicks run past one another, chirping quietly.
“Can I touch one?” you mumble.
He gestures with a chin toward the chirping bunch. “Go on, then.”
You reach down to one of the animals, but you can’t quite seem to get a good grip on it. You don’t really try to grip it. You do not find the chance to. Instead, your hand just lingers hesitantly above the crowd of them.
Gwayne’s hands come down to meet yours. He grabs one of them, effortlessly and gently, cradling it in his hands.
Your hand is still lingering beside his, still in a motion as if you were going to grab one, as he did, so he brings the chicken in his hands to yours. You bring your free hand to join the other and cup them together.
He lets one hand release the chick into yours, and it comes down below the two of your hands as if to hold it steady. The other covers the chick to prevent it from jumping out of your hold.
The hand that is under yours touches it, and urges it to close. “Gently,” he murmurs, and you’re holding the chick on your own now, gently and effortlessly, just like he was.
His hands withdraw from yours. He watches as your lips curl up, a pure joy that he had yet to ever witness fill your face, do exactly that. His own mouth mirrors something similar.
You shudder nervously as the chick twitches around in your grip. It comes out half in the form of small chuckles and half in struggled exhales.
Your brows draw together. It seems impossible to relax them, and you feel a panic settle in at nothing in particular. Perhaps it be that your brothers are dead, maybe because you are with a man that you have such complicated and mind-boggling feelings for, or that you were just held as a prisoner for the Greens, and that man is a Green, he is the Green, the Hightower Green you have been conditioned to hate—
Gwayne has stopped smiling. You feel tears running down your face. The chick flies out of your grip once you try to see it closer, and you try your hardest to catch onto your breath, to catch it as it runs from you, but you cannot. You are sobbing before you get any sense to stop it.
“My princess?” he leans closer to you, a wavering hand inching dangerously close, and you push yourself from off the ground. He follows.
“I’m sorry,” you manage through heaving breaths, smoothing down your now wrinkled dress. Why are you apologizing? You do not know why you are apologizing. He is a Green. He should be apologizing to you, for being on the side of the war that killed your brothers—oh, gods, your sweet brothers. Your sweet, young, desperate, dead brothers.
“It’s all right,” he mumbles. His hands, still, are reaching toward your arms, yet not touching. Never touching. Just hovering near yours, always, like he wants to touch you, but he doesn’t.
You wipe your eyes, but the tears keep falling. You mutter something again. Sorry, you hear yourself say again, and then your body moves for you. You wrap your arms around his neck in an embrace so tight you might be strangling him.
He stumbles back slightly, arms still hesitating beside you, and then finally you feel it. He folds them gently around your waist. As gentle as he held the chick.
“Don’t cry,” he comforts.
You do not obey. You would if you could, but for now, you remain in his hold. You, regrettably, enjoy it.
day five
Gwayne did not like to see you cry.
He had first seen it the moment you realized you were captured by the Hightowers. You hadn’t been conscious enough when they found you to care about where you were being taken. He hadn’t enjoyed the sight then, not as his belligerents did, and he does not like to see it now.
He was the one to convince his fellow commanders to spare your life and to instead take you as a hostage. He was the one to have you held in a tent next to his own in the encampments with his two most upstanding soldiers posted outside, and not in those grimy cages fit for animals. He was the one to have you ride your horse directly next to his when on the road with the rest of the army—much to your dismay—as to prevent any dishonorable conduct from occurring. He would never tell you these things, of course, but they live with him.
Gwayne would tell himself that he did all of these things because it was right, that he would do it to any other female prisoner-of-war, given the shocking lack of honor among his knights who vowed to defend it. He had done a good job separating the wheat from the chaff when he became a commander, but there were only few he truly trusted to never harm the young, an innocent—and those who cannot protect themselves. Like you.
You liked to put on a front. And it somewhat worked with others, but not with him. He wishes it would, for some odd reason. Maybe he would not see you the way he does, if it did. He would still treat you with mercy, but it would not be to the level it is. He would never have accepted your hug. He thinks he would have pushed you away.
He wouldn’t have, but he believes he would have.
Since he had finally felt your touch the afternoon previous, the road to the Red Keep had been as quiet as the first day of your journey together. He suspected you had been embarrassed after letting him see your emotions, as you had been combative toward him every day since you had woken up from your comatose state.
He had expected it to come at some point, the unveiling of your feelings, but not in that way. He had expected to hear you sniffle from beside him while on your horses. He would have stayed silent, and he would have let you cry. He believes he would have let you cry on your own if you hadn’t come to him for comfort first.
The fact that you did had brought him joy. It made him hopeful, in some strange way he did not feel himself familiar with.
“You are betrothed to Lord Samwell Blackwood, are you not?”
You look at him, puzzled. “He has been with the Stranger since the war begun.”
Gwayne nods curtly. “So I’ve heard.”
“Then why have you asked?”
He inhales a heavy breath. “I feel it my duty to tell you of this.” He clears his throat. “Before your mother took the throne, there was word among our commanders to betroth you to your cousin, Prince Aemond.”
“You jest.”
“I do not.”
You cock your head to the side, wetting your lips. “And what did you have to say in the matter?”
“That is unneeded for you to know.”
“Why? Because you encouraged them to?”
His voice picks up immediately where you left off. “No, because I fought against it.” He scoffs a laugh. “The One-Eyed Prince is… he is mad.” At your gawking laugh, he turns his head to you. “You must know it too. He is simply and utterly mad.”
“You are his uncle.” You would never tell of his treasonous words to any other, but you feel you must remind him.
“Are you going to betray me and inform my army of the fact?”
“I do not have loyalty to you, though I will not speak of the words to another.”
“Good. Now you tell me something in confidence,” he presses.
You shake your head at the sheer audacity of him. “Why would I do that, ser?”
“What else will we converse about? It is a long and arduous road ahead of us.” His eyes peer into yours, and you feel a sudden urge to tell him everything you have ever kept from him.
“Alright then,” you look to the sky in mock ponder. “When I was young, I would pray to the gods each and every night for a gallant and true knight to take me away from the Red Keep and off to some distant land. There was this one knight, he had belonged to our Kingsguard, who I absolutely adored.” You sigh on the memory, oblivious to the fact that a true and gallant knight was riding right alongside you. “I was just a girl then. It was a silly dream. And the gods do not always play in my favor.”
Were you jesting? Or were you truly so oblivious?
“Do you remember his name?” he asks.
“It has lost me. But I remember his face. He was gorgeous, that one, and very gentle, too. Back then he was the same age as my brother is now.”
He does not let you sit with the fact that you mentioned your brother as if he were alive. “That’s quite young, isn’t it?”
You nod. “Indeed. He was the youngest of every knight in the Keep. Perhaps the youngest in history.”
“What happened to him?”
You exhale a breath, and look down to your horse’s head. “He was in the fire that killed Ser Harwin. I do not know why he had been called to Harrenhal, and I suppose I shall never know. Are you yourself betrothed, or married, ser?”
He huffs. “Gods, no. I was, and remain, of little use as a political pawn for House Hightower, my father being the second son.”
“Therefore if you were to wed, you would do so for love,” you state.
“I suppose so.”
day six
The hood of your cloak was pulled tightly over the upper half of your face, seemingly ritual for whenever you made it to inns, and you felt a tap on your shoulder.
You turn, expecting to see Gwayne, but in his place stood a knight in armor, donning a Hightower sigil on his gambeson.
It is your luck to see Gwayne rushing up from behind him to fetch you.
“Squire, let us retire to our room, yes?” he says, and you nod eagerly, pulling the hood further over your face. The two of you attempt to move forward, and you make it past the knight—
“That is no squire,” the man interjects, grabbing onto your wrist, stopping you. “That is a girl.”
Gwayne steps in between you and the knight, forcing him to release your joint from his hold. His gaze flicks down to the man’s gambeson.
He takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice. “If it pleases you, she’s my distraction for the night, ser. Not worth your notice.”
The knight clears his throat, and Gwayne steps back.
“Blessings upon King Aegon.” He smiles, turning back to the inn entrance.
His hand guides you forward, lingering on the small of your back, surely for the sight of the knight behind you. And then it trails down, over the curve of your back end, and you feel the slightest grip onto it before the door behind you closes, and his hand immediately falls away.
The walk to your room is silent.
Gwayne swallows painfully once you make it to your room.
“I’m sorry—” he begins.
“How may I distract you tonight, ser?” you interrupt, smiling stupidly at his lie, and he sighs one of relief at your lack of offense.
He breathes out a laugh, and swiftly moves to shed himself of his armor. He has been struggling on his own each time he has done so. You only noticed it the last night, and offered help, but had been rejected.
You would not ask this time, you would simply do. Your fingers were desperate and untrained in their efforts, but they did the trick in time for him not to deny you, and he was rid of the metal captivity.
You turn as he does, ridding yourself of your heavy cloak and pushing your hair out of the way of the laces of your dress. He pulls them loose without a word, and the warmth of his body behind yours would surely prove the most effective thing of the night, you decide as you gaze at the thin quilt on your bed.
As your gown slides down your body, you can hear the shuffling of Gwayne removing all but his linens behind you. If you took just a step backward, you would be touching him.
“It is a terrible coincidence, the Hightower army resting here,” you mumble, your hands fiddling with the light cloth around the your wrists.
“It is,” he agrees solemnly.
You retreat from his warmth and sit on the edge of your bed, your back up straight and your fingers clasped together in your lap. You weren’t particularly tired this night. Maybe it be from the surge of adrenaline at the knight outside, and it had already raged through your limbs, rendering them restless the moment the door to the inn had shut behind you.
Gwayne’s hand was close to you then, to an area you regarded as most private among you, a maiden. The memory of it twinged deep in your stomach. It was an unfamiliar feeling.
He had joined you in sitting on the edge of a bed, albeit his own. His own stature had mirrored yours. All tense and surged with the possibility of a fight.
“It is rather cold this night,” you mutter.
Gwayne nods curtly. “It is.”
Your gaze lowers to watch your fingers be relentlessly picked on by those of the other hand. “I fear one of those knights will bust through the doorway, and take me away with little fight, you being so far from me,” you whisper. The night was silent enough for him to hear it.
“I fear the same.”
You look up at him. “If he were to do so, it would certainly raise suspicion if your whore was sleeping in a bed adjacent to yours.”
He takes a turn to meet your eyes. “If you wish to sleep in the same bed as I, you need only ask.”
Your tongue darts out to wet your lips. “May I sleep in your bed tonight, Gwayne?” you muster.
“As you wish, my princess.”
day seven
Your horse stops before you instruct it to.
In the distance lies a field of flowers, pink and purple, some yellow, and all illuminated by sunlight. It was nearly time for it to set.
You cannot still be in the Reach, you think. It has been much too long, but thank the gods if you are. What a sight to see.
You want to see it closer. Gwayne will be okay with it, you declare, and you hop off of your horse and begin walking in the direction of the field.
“No, princess,” he says, exasperated. “We cannot go off trail again.”
“The flowers,” you breathe. “It is beautiful.”
The scent in the air is intoxicating. It is rather pungent, the closer you get to it, and the air seems more sultry than just moments before.
You remove your cloak from your shoulders, letting it drop behind you as you continue forward. It is the slightest bit relieving from the heat, but your body quickly acclimates to it again, and the sweat begins beading. It is no wonder. The sleeves under your dress are long. It makes you question why you decided to wear such a stupid thing, in this climate.
Once you make it to the field, it envelopes you. The fever. It starts in your lower abdomen in a heavy thrum and travels up the rest of your body.
Where is Gwayne?
You turn around. He is just a few steps behind. He has been trailing behind you the entire time. It was hard to notice, with the pull of the meadow, but now that you are here, he is all you can think about. All you can focus on. You do not like that.
His hair illuminates in the sunlight, much like the flowers. Your skin tingles.
He froze in his movements the moment you did. You continue further into the field. His feet fall in step with yours, and you think you can hear his breathing, all shaky and uncertain.
You make it to an empty patch of the meadow, and stop once again.
“Ser?” you turn back to face him. The scorch of the sun worsens with each passing second. Sweat gathers on your brow. “My dress... please… help me get it off.” You raise a timid arm to your back, accepting defeat once you find yourself unable to reach the laces.
Gwayne’s thumb twitches toward you. His forehead glistens. He must be burning too.
You spot the clench of his jaw, and take a wary step toward him.
“Stop—” he holds a hand out, body turning away from you. “Do not move. Please. Just stay there.” He avoids your gaze.
“What is it?” you ask. You know what it is.
You know what he is feeling, because you feel it too. It presses hard and deep in your abdomen, and it just wants to be relieved. You want to be relieved. And Ser Gwayne Hightower looks rather handsome in this light, surrounded by the pink and purple—and was it red?—flowers. He seems close to pouncing on you like a wild dog. Gods, may he?
He had always been alluring. May it be your frustration that you could never have him in the way you wanted that made you so combative, or the fact that he is a Green—it is probably both, but neither seem so important now. Not when you feel the heat of a thousand suns burn through you, all the way to your core, and then all over again.
The man himself looks close to releasing in his braies just by looking at your face. It brings you some ease, yet also further discomfort, to know that he feels the same as you. You had blocked out the idea, seeing yourself as delusional and unrealistic for thinking he would ever show any form of attraction toward you.
“Gwayne—” you exhale, though it releases itself in the form of a groan. “It is sweltering.” You bend over to clutch the end of your dress, and you are close to pulling it off yourself, if fate was willing. Something halts you.
“Please, don’t.” His voice sounds pitiful. It is all low and whiny. “I do not know if I can handle that. Not now. Not when… fuck.”
You want to keel over and die.
You release the cloth from your grip and let the dress fall back down. You rise back up, slowly, and flatten down the wrinkled fabric of your middle with your hands.
Your lips tremble. “What do you want to do?”
“I am unsure.” He still cannot look you in the eye. “It is impure, and unchivalrous for me to be thinking of you this way.”
“I am all right with it.” It is then that you realize how you sound. Desperate for a Green, as if you were a common whore, which is probably what he thinks of you as. At least he tries to fight it. You should fight it too. You are fierce enough to fight whatever it is that is welling up inside of you.
Your eyes are squeezed shut, and the shame tries to conquer the hunger—but the hunger wins in the blink of an eye. The blink of your eye, in fact, as you look back at Gwayne.
“We cannot,” you mumble. “We should not. I am a maiden. You are the opposition. We cannot.” You repeat the words to yourself, over and over, like a mantra. If the shame did not prevail, perhaps distraction will. Your eyes shut tight again, and you repeat the words. We cannot. We should not. You are a maiden. He is the opposition.
We cannot, we should not, you are a maiden, Ser Gwayne Hightower is hard by simply standing in your presence—
Your eyes snap open, and you find that you are standing directly in front of him. You must have been inching closer to him with each sentence you repeated.
Your gaze flicks down to his crotch. Sure enough, your thoughts did not lie to you. Perhaps your dragon blood has given you the gift of prophecy.
He finds it appropriate to look at you, finally, and you realize how close you are to one another.
In specific—how close your lips are to one another. So, so close, yet so far. You almost want to give in, and you lean just a little closer. He stays still, though when you stop moving, his head moves closer too, close enough that you can almost feel his breath fanning into your own mouth.
Your noses are touching, that is how close you are. You could just slot your lips right onto his. It would be so easy, so incredibly simple, if you would just move forward, just a little—
His hands reach up to cradle your face in his hands, thumbs on either side grazing your cheekbones. They move down your face, down to your lips, and one of the thumbs strokes over the bottom lip. And he closes the gap.
You feel his lips envelope yours first, and then you feel his tongue inch into your mouth. Your lips close over one another’s, and he moans. Ser Gwayne Hightower is moaning into your mouth, and it feels like you have been sent to each of the seven heavens and back again. Your head is pushed backwards with the force of his kiss.
Your hand reaches around to brush over his nape. His hands travel further down your body, one finding itself wrapped around your waist, the other petting your breast over your dress. It seems that the true touch of it pacifies him, as it allows you to push deeper into the kiss, letting your tongue slide into his mouth.
You only break away to lower yourself to the ground. He follows, as though the answers to every challenge in his life were held on your lips. He hikes your dress up your legs, your smallclothes with it, until they both pool at your waist.
He lifts two fingers to his mouth, coating them in spit before reaching down to your bare cunt and thrusting them inside. You let out a shrieking moan, letting your head press into the dirt below you and thrashing back and forth in pleasure.
“Look at me,” Gwayne instructs. You let your eyes lock onto his, you try, but the deep press of his fingers inside of you makes it hard to focus. His lips, hanging open, hover just above yours, and he moves forward to bring you and he together again.
It is breathing moans into each other’s mouths and pathetic, desperate mashing before you finally get the hold onto his lips, or perhaps him onto yours. His fingers cease, and slip out swift enough for it to go unnoticed for a single moment.
He breaks apart from your mouth, and wastes no time in sliding himself down your body. The disappointment at the loss of his fingers does not last long, as his lips lock onto your cunt.
Gwayne snakes his arms under your legs and he yanks your body closer to him. Your fingers curl in his hair, and he only laps harder at you.
“Y—yes, ser—” you cry, your thighs squeezing his head, clit pulsating under the assault of his tongue.
He breaks away for just a moment, big blue eyes locking onto your weak ones. “Not ser. Gwayne. My name is Gwayne.”
And he dives back into you, gathering your wetness on his tongue in a torturous swipe from bottom to top, one that earns a sweet little whine from the depths of your throat. It reminds him, in that moment, of the sounds you would make when you did not get your way back in Oldtown—the sounds he would shamefully think of as he fucked his fist late at night, the sounds that he would repent about for thinking and acting on with such humiliating vitality, and more importantly, for not regretting any of it in the slightest.
The sheer relief you get from his mouth onto yours is unlike anything you have felt before, because you have not felt it before. You had heard word of the act in song, and in gossip spread around by your ladies-in-waiting, but to experience it was the greatest decision you ever made. A true, gallant knight between your legs, satiating the hunger that spread in your loins and his alike, yet he is only focused on your release now, latching his tongue on your clit and sucking hard.
His fingers graze your folds and glide around the edges, already slick with your wet. One finger probes, just the slightest bit, and you shudder at the contact.
You let out a loud cry as it presses itself fully inside, without warning. Perfection, you think you hear him say. The words vibrate on your clit, agonizingly so.
His finger pumps in and out of you, and his mouth works on your cunt all the same. The fire in your veins only grows stronger as your climax approaches.
Your fingers tug and pull on his hair, and somewhere in the middle of your gratification a second slim finger of his joins the first, pressing deep into your cunt as they allow him.
The sounds coming from your mouth you do not think you have ever made before. They approach from deep in your lungs and are hoarsely ripped from your throat.
It creeps closer, that unfamiliar thing called release, and your walls tighten around his fingers. Gwayne only sucks harder, and pushes his fingers further into your cunt, his knuckles pressing into your folds.
The feeling floods your body in an instant. It feels prickly, for some odd reason, and it nips your limbs, but blissfully so. Your brain feels fuzzy, and you cannot think of anything but him. It is a way that makes you crave for it immediately once it ebbs.
You let out a little sob once his fingers slip out from inside you. You didn’t know you were crying, and a few stray tears fall from your eyes before you realize.
Gwayne licks a stripe up your cunt, collecting whatever fluids he procured down there into his mouth and swallowing them with the gulp of a man who might just be dying of thirst.
He is up your body and has his wet lips on yours by the time you tear yourself away from the sight. It is then that you feel how truly hard he is under his linens. His cock presses against your spent core, and he nearly jerks back at the contact.
“Gwayne,” you breathe, and his head shoots up to look at you.
“What is it, sweet girl?” he mumbles, suddenly winded by the sweet sound of his name on your tongue.
“I want you to fuck me.”
He is frozen solid at your ask. Your arousal on his mouth glistens with each slight twitch upward. “You’re sure of it?”
You nod, but it is not enough.
“Tell me,” he commands.
“I want you to fuck me, Gwayne, how else must I tell you?” you reply impatiently, and grind your hips up to feel his hardened cock brush against you once more.
Both of your hands come up and intertwine themselves behind his neck, preventing him from straying any further—pulling him down to you, in fact, so you can grind up on him some more.
You lift your head from the ground to try and capture his lips into a somewhat calculating kiss, but his strength prevails, and his head softly twitches back before your mouth can get hold on his.
You fall back, defeated, but his hand comes to hold your wrist, and he comes down to close the gap. He chuckles into your mouth at your desperation, and you only kiss him harder, as if you were trying to become one with him.
His hand rubs up and down your wrist for a moment, before he reaches down to release his lower half from his linens.
You take a hand from off his neck and reach down to meet his own, searching around for his cock. You get a firm grip on it, stroking it up once. He lets out a shuddery moan, and his hand finds your wrist once again—not stopping you, but guiding you, perhaps.
He pumps himself with your hand, and you let him for only a moment, before overpowering his gentleness and guiding his length to your cunt. The tip of it glides on your folds. You could die right here, and it would be okay.
Gwayne pushes into you with a wounded groan, his jaw hanging wide open. You, on the other hand, nearly shriek.
He rocks himself out of you slowly, then back into you almost sluggishly.
“Is this all right?” he manages through strangled breaths, and you nod fervently, using the hand still on his neck to push his head closer to yours.
You mean to kiss him, but his forehead lies on yours instead. You’ll take what you can get.
He presses swift pecks on your cheeks, on your nose, and on your lips as he gains momentum. Your eyes flutter shut, but his hand comes up to press a few light smacks to your cheek.
“I said to look at me,” he grunts. “I want to see your eyes—“
You open them back up at that. They’re glossed over again, with tears, and you’re glad that Gwayne does not take it as pain. There was pain, but it is long gone. He kisses the droplets as they fall from the corners of your eyes.
It is utterly intoxicating, the drag of his hips. He seems to lose himself in the feeling too. Wave after wave of constant pleasure washes over you with the somehow gentle slam of him into you.
You babble incomprehensible speech, just as lost as he is as he, slack-jawed as he fucks you. His eyes are focused on your face, your face saturated with sweat, for a single twitch of anything at all, yet he finds nothing. Nothing but rapture, as he believes it should be. He brings his hand back down to your clit and strokes it so delicately, but it brings you sweet relief all the more.
You feel it cresting again. Up your spine, down your legs, dumbing your brain into mush, prickling at the back of your neck. “Gods, Gwayne—Oh, gods, I’m gonna—“
You don’t finish the sentence. It hits you, you cum again, so hard around his cock, and it isn’t long into your perfect bliss before he is pulls out, spilling his seed onto the bunched-up cotton of your dress.
You feel as though you are one with him. It is like your flesh melts into his. Your sweat certainly does, especially as he joins his forehead with yours again, all sticky and damp.
“I am deeply sorry—” he says in between quick kisses, “to have taken your maidenhood.”
You shake your head softly. “If it shames you so, I can raise a proposition of marriage to my mother once we get back to the Keep.” He laughs at that, unknowing you were not telling a joke.
Still, you breathe out a chuckle.
day nine
The communal bath that you had found yourself in was satisfyingly empty. Since Gwayne had taken your maidenhood two moons previous, you had been desperate for it to happen again, and again, and perhaps a thousand times more, though you resisted the urge to ask outright while in the inns.
Now, though, seemed like the perfect moment to do so. You could clean yourself properly for the first time in weeks, and then dirty yourself all over again with the satisfaction of your mutual sin.
He had already undone the laces of your dress for you, and you stepped out of the gown that dropped to your feet, eager to feel the warmth of the water envelop your skin. And for him to join you. So that you could see—and feel—his bare body, properly. You had already shed your linens by the time you made it to the water.
You had retreated to the further side of the bath, so that you could watch as Gwayne undressed himself. It was nicer like this, being able to take in his body for the first time, as he stripped off his gambeson, then his chausses, and then, finally, his smallclothes.
His figure was very unsurprisingly robust. The light of the countless candles surrounding the baths set for quite the intimate atmosphere.
You bit back a smile as he inched closer to the bath, stepping inside with a heavy sigh of relief. The Hightowers did seem to prioritize cleanliness. Perhaps they place it next to godliness. Gwayne certainly does not seem to mind, given how keen he was to eat your cunt until you came undone on his tongue.
He threw his head back with a shuddering sigh once he finally sunk into the water. You watch as the grime expels from the surface of his body in one fell swoop, becoming one with the rest of the stream.
“Have you something to say?” he questions, a brow darted upward at your uncharacteristically blissful expression.
Your cheeks flushed, a harder, content smile crossing over your face. “Just observing.”
“Must you observe so far?” he mutters.
“I must,” you sneer, giving a firm nod.
His eyes flick down to your bare breasts, sat warped on your chest under the soft wave of the water.
He quickly averts his gaze to the center of the bath once you perk them forward with your arms.
“I am truly apologetic,” he starts. “For taking your maidenhood. ‘specially in such an unclean place, where anyone could have seen us if they had simply come to probe into the noise.”
You scoff. “Would you have preferred it happen inside the walls of some dull inn?”
“I’d have preferred you comfortable.”
“I was comfortable. I am comfortable.”
At his silence, you push yourself off of the wall and glide over to him. He sits frozen as your chest brushes against his arm.
“Are you a maid, ser? Well—were you a maid?” you question, feigning a look of innocence.
“I haven’t been a maid for a long time, princess.” His head hangs low.
He lets you grip his arm and guide it between your legs. “Are you ashamed of the fact?”
“I am ashamed that I am not,” he mutters, seemingly unfazed as you grind your cunt against his wrist. You let out a low moan, your breath wavering before you realize his lament.
So you release his arm from your hold and straddle his hips, placing your hands on each of his shoulders. Your chest is eye level with his face. It seems to be the only thing that can bring his head back up.
You can feel his cock hardening below you as you rock back and forth against him. He watches your face that stares down back at him—both of your jaws are slack, and you breathe heavy pants into each others mouths, gaining some semblance of pleasure from the act.
But it is not enough, no. It is never enough.
You take a hand from his shoulder and reach down to grip his length, guiding it into your walls at once. You push down unto him with a sweet little cry, one quickly silenced by his lips on your own.
His kiss is just as tender as you remember it being, amorous flowers aside, and you hum into him. A hand cups your cheek and he tilts his head, his tongue breaching the plush of your lips, just exploring.
Your fingers curl around his nape as you thrust, up and down, up and down, and he concurrently rolls his hips back and forth.
“Fuck—sweet princess—” he moans once he breaks apart from your mouth.
You gasp and shudder, and he reaches his head up to kiss all over your face. Your eye, the brow bone above it, down to the highest point of your cheek on the side of your face, then to the corner of your lip, and then he cranes his head down to kiss you on your neck. You throw your head back to allow him access.
Once he reaches your sternum, he darts his tongue out first when attaching his lips to it. “Oh, gods,” you whimper into his hair.
“Ser? Gwayne—” you can't quite speak, the words near dying on your tongue. “Are you mine, Gwayne? Tell me—” your hips slow, and his only speed up. He begins fucking up into you, and another moan rips through your throat.
He nods fervently against your neck, lifting his head back up to see you. “I am yours, princess. Fuck—” his hips stutter, though he relents.
It does not give you solace. If he is yours, how long shall he remain so? Until the gods rip him from your grasp—which would be soon now, with each tread of your horses closer to the Red Keep.
His hand slides up to your ribs as if to stabilize you, and he wraps it around your middle. His forehead drops to your shoulder, raising with each jolt of your body upward, the constant slam of his cock up into your cunt and then out again.
You know few things now, except for him. Your walls clench around him, and he nearly ceases at that. You continue in his ministrations, rocking back and forth onto him, savoring in the way his length hits you in the spot that makes you feel near the brink of climax.
“I love you.” You think you hear yourself say. And he just watches you, as you chase your peak, so blissfully unaware of the words that just came from your mouth. Your sweet mouth.
Gwayne reaches a hand to cradle your head, and push it closer to his, so that he can take your sweet mouth into his. It is less of a kiss and more of two mouths pressing against each other, but you accept it either way. The two of you pant raggedly against each other, and you feel your core tighten with each deep press of his cock inside of you.
He can feel it too. It is more of threat than satisfying, the idea of spilling his seed inside of you, but you seem to not care. You might just not know. If you were true to your word of your maidenhood—he does not care if you were or not—you must be pitifully unknowledgeable on the subject.
He remembers word of you being betrothed to some high lord widow who had died on the frontlines of battle when the war first broke out, fighting for the side of your mother. Then, once you were captured, there was word of you marrying one of his two younger Targaryen nephews. The thought of you being kept as a prisoner for Aemond sends a shudder through his body, and he rids himself free of the idea as his orgasm approaches closer.
“My princess—” he tries. You do not notice. You persist in your pursuit of release, and he grips your jaw gently, catching your attention. “Look at me.”
You nod at nothing in particular, mouth hanging open and mewling needy whimpers as you oscillate on his cock.
“I cannot—I cannot cum inside.” He lets out a strangled moan as you begin grinding faster than just moments before, as if encouraging him to do so.
“Why not?” you breathe.
His head nearly lulls back as he staves off his own release. “You could get with child.”
You grip his hand and lead it to your breast, and he lets himself fall for your entrancement, kneading it between his fingers. Your nipple is caught between two of them, and he presses them together just the slightest bit too hard, earning a wince from above him. It makes him realize he has been regrettably neglecting them this entire time.
“My breasts are sore.” You inhale sharply. “I shall bleed soon.”
Ah. In that case—
Gwayne dips his hands back into the water, finding your hips to guide them, delighting in the way your moans grow more and more fervent as his cock drags against your walls.
It approaches swift, and you do not have any time nor stamina to warn him of it. You wonder if he can sense it.
Just as quick as it came, it washes over you in an instant. Your muscles clamp down around him, and he moans loud into your shoulder—you soon feel a warmth deep in your womb, the warmth of his seed. A minuscule part of you hopes it will take.
Shortly afterward, he lifts your bodies from the water, carrying you with your legs wrapped around him. His cock has slipped out of you, but the kiss he places on your lips distracts you from the loss.
You push his chest, separating your mouths, and wrap your arms around his neck. “Let us leave together, Gwayne. Silverwing is large enough to saddle two. You could be a sellsword, and I a scribe—I your wife. I shall give you children, if it is what you desire. We can spend our days in rest and tranquility, like this.” Your breath still hasn’t caught.
It is a moment of silence before Gwayne finds the words. The dubious words, though the ones that provide enough hope to settle you. “Perhaps, my princess. Do not worry yourself with eventuality.” And he sets you down on the marble just above the bath. Your calves dip back into the water, and it is then you realize that they are aching.
He kneels down into the water and takes your legs over his shoulders. You feel the stretch in your thighs, equal parts from their growing soreness and the length of his shoulders. His release begins seeping out of your cunt from the pressure of it all.
He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, then to the inside of your thigh, and then finally to your clit. His head dips down to your opening, and he sucks.
It becomes more like he is kissing, or eating you, at some point. You cannot tell. The pleasure has already gotten to be too much, and you are writhing under him.
His arms wrap around your thighs and he pulls you closer to his mouth, and you loudly and embarrassingly moan, your fingers rake through his hair, gripping it tight when his nose brushes against your clit.
You haven’t discovered his objective, but thank the gods for him. It is somewhat relaxing and simultaneously frustrating for him to be lapping away mindlessly at your cunt.
“Please, Gwayne, let me cum—” you beg, all breathless and crestfallen, and his eyes flick up to you. He finds you are the most spoiled thing he has ever met, yet also the most beautiful. He thinks, in that moment, that he truly should consider being taken as your husband.
He nods once. “As you wish.”
And his mouth is replaced by his fingers. He pumps them into you, a relentless pace, and his lips find themselves back onto you, but now on your clit.
He laps at you and rocks his fingers further inside, getting your folds all slick and glossy with both your own and his own arousal, as well as his own saliva.
He curls his fingers deep in your cunt, in that spongy spot that once sheathed his cock, and it is enough to bring you to climax before you realize it.
You swear your vision goes black for a moment as you cum, and the bliss fills your body over the irritation. It was embarrassingly fast how quickly he brought you to absolution, but you did not have enough might to let it wash over you the way your orgasm had.
Gwayne looks up at you with those big blue eyes of his, now glossed over. The lower half of his face is sheen with your cum—his cum—and he pants and lifts himself up to join you on the marble, his strong body glistening with the damp of the bath.
You think you might faint.
day fourteen
Tonight’s inn had been the nicest of all fourteen. You and Gwayne had jointly decided for it to be the last of your stops, and that you would make the journey the rest of the way there without sleeping.
It was not long to King’s Landing. As much as you had longed to see your mother, and to be home again, the thought of what would happen to Gwayne in the coming days was a thought too harrowing to bear.
But it had lingered in your mind since the field. Certainly he could not leave you, having taken your maidenhood. Your mother would find a way. She knows what it is like to be infatuated with someone you should not be infatuated with. She knows Gwayne. As a soldier for the opposition, yes, but she knows him all the more.
If she has held mercy for his sister, she would certainly hold mercy for him, especially given the situation at hand. The situation of you being in love with a Hightower, and him having bedded you—well, fucked you in a field, then in a bath, a few scattered moments along the road of him lapping at your cunt, or sticking his fingers there to cull your nerves the nights you were too tense to sleep. Your mother coddled you enough before you were taken hostage, and she would certainly do more once you are back with her.
Gwayne seems to sense your restlessness. You have resorted to single bed rooms in the inns, given the underestimated lack of coin he decided to bring with him. He has been able to pick up on your behavior for the last few days—noting to himself how much you lack sleep the closer you get to King’s Landing—and he has always been able to get you to talk about it. Tonight, you seem not wanting of his perception.
He turns over to face you. “Are you feeling well?” he asks.
You look to him for a moment. “I feel fine.”
Propping himself up on one arm, he maneuvers himself closer until he is hovering above you, as he stares down at where you lie. “You mustn’t need to lie.” His voice is soft.
Your lungs expand with a heavy breath of air. “I do not wish for you to leave when we return to the Red Keep. You told me that we would talk about it, and we never have.”
He brushes your hair behind your ear with his free hand. “What would you like to talk about?”
“I want us to wed.”
Gwayne stares into you. And then hangs his head low with laughter.
“I am serious, Gwayne. If you swore fealty to my mother, the rightful queen, she would show you mercy. I have no doubt she has shown it to your sister, and to your niece and her daughter too.” His smile was wiped from his face sometime as you spoke.
“You cannot be certain of that, though, can you princess?” he mumbles, raising his head back up to cock it to the side.
“I cannot.” You begin picking at the skin around your fingernails.
Gwayne places a hand over them, stopping you. “The agreement was for me to bring you, unharmed, to the Red Keep. And then I would leave, or they would have my head.” His hand envelops one of yours.
“My mother would not let them have it, if I simply tell her.”
“You speak lightly of a heavy thing, my princess.” He squeezes your hand a bit tighter. “If you so much as suggest that the Hightowers are anything less than treasonous vipers, your mother’s council will smell a captive who has learned to love her cage. You are her only daughter, yes, and she adores you. Therefore, if she discovers how thoroughly I have failed to keep my distance, amnesty will be the last thing she grants my house. It will be fire and blood, starting with my head on a pike.”
“She knows what it is like to love someone forbidden to her.”
Gwayne grins at your words. “She also knows she must satisfy her council,” he says softly.
As much as it pains you, you realize he is right. Yet he still remains as handsome as ever in the dark, and his lips are glossed over, looking so plump and lonely.
“Will you kiss me?” you mutter, and kiss you he does. His mouth is just as soft as you had imagined, and he is still so tender and hesitant in his ministrations you almost feel a want to take over.
Your lips are pliable, though, and part for him almost instantly. The hand that held yours comes up to cradle your cheek, and your legs open up a spot for him to slot himself into.
You are grateful for the loss of layers in spite of the outdoor elements—which have been terribly cold nearly the entire journey—as they give you easy access to the growing length in Gwayne’s linens.
He breathes a low groan into your mouth when you reach a hand under the fabric cuff of his waist to grip his cock. You pump him in a slow rhythm, and he nearly falters completely, the arm propping him up above you buckling and lowering him to his elbow.
The hand cradling your face moves to your own core, and he hastily hikes your shift up your thighs. His fingers find your cunt, pressing his thumb to your clit and stroking it.
The two of you breath and pant into one another’s mouth, the speed of both of your caresses increasing as your moans do.
“Would you—” Gwayne pants, “like me inside?”
You nod eagerly, and pull your hand from his cock. His own hand ceases motion on you, and he uses both arms to gather your body and flip you onto your stomach. The featherbed mattress bounces with the movement, and you reach your hands behind you to pull your shift up entirely to your middle, perking your ass up toward him.
Gwayne has already rid himself of his smallclothes in the meantime. He places a hand right above your backend, stabilizing both you and himself, and lines himself up with your cunt.
He leans his body over yours and presses soft kisses along your spine, pushing himself inside of you with a long groan. You let out a needy one all the same.
“Keep moving—” you beg, letting the top of your head fall to the pillow below you. He hums in response, and begins thrusting slowly, still hesitant.
It is a stretch, but a welcome one nonetheless. It is easy to lose trail of your thoughts with the drag of his cock in and out and the press of his chest to your back, the song of his pretty little grunts and groans singing in your ear.
He wraps his arms around your middle, one hand gripping a breast through the soft cotton of your shift. You flick your hair away from your neck, and his lips quickly find the spot, tipping you into absolute bliss.
One of his arms, the one not clutching your chest, sneaks down to your core, and he begins rubbing your clit with a seemingly endless vitality.
The other pushes the two of you up so that you are both standing on your knees. Your hands extend to his head behind you, pushing it closer as you awkwardly crane your neck so that you can join your lips with his in what may be the sloppiest way they have ever met each other.
His fingers continue their assault on your pearl, and his hips rock into you, and it all feels so much. So good, yet so much. Your chest rises and falls rapidly with each slam of his cock into your cunt, the strength of which also makes his head bob slightly into your kiss, coating the area above and below and beside your lips with his own spit.
There is little surprisingly little build-up to your release. It comes quick, like the tide coming in to take away a shell from the shore. It seems to tear through you, lighting up every nerve in your body, pulled straight from your breathless lungs and your racing heart and illuminating your frenzied brain with nothing other than euphoria.
He is still pumping in and out of you, seemingly chasing his own release. You feel a warmth deep in your overwhelmed cunt, and you know he has come, his body slowing entirely. He breaks away from your lips with a soft little cry, and you simply look at each other for a moment as your breath returns to the both of you.
In this moment, you think Ser Gwayne Hightower is the most beautiful creature in the world.
“You are more than a beauty,” he says in turn. You grin at him, still breathless, and join your lips together once more.
day sixteen
When you arrive at the gates of the Red Keep, Syrax and Caraxes are posted on the battlements.
You look over, and Gwayne seems as if he might just curl up and die. You scoff out a laugh at the sight, and he immediately straightens his back.
Open the gates, yells some guard from behind the wall, and the gate begins to part, grinding against the gravel below.
You will see your mother today. For the first time in months, you will see your mother. Will she be different? Is she a different person now that she is on the throne? More importantly, will she be a different person now that her eldest son is dead? You wonder if they have burned the body yet, or perhaps even set it out to sea. He could not become a Targaryen, as he would never become King—the gods would not allow it, so history will remember him as a Velaryon. It would only be fitting for his body to be released into the water.
You should tell her about this. She must be so overwhelmed with all of her recent duties, she may have forgotten about the fact. Is little Joffrey still in the Vale? Surely, mother must have sent for his return by now. He is too vulnerable there on his own, no matter who he is with.
When you blink hard in an attempt to settle yourself, you realize your horse has been guided inside the walls of the Keep, and Gwayne is helping you off of your horse. His hands are on your waist, and you jump down with a grip on his wrists to stabilize you. Yet your eyes are not on him—they are on any entrance, every door where your mother could come out of.
He sighs, and you finally glance at him. His hands hesitate to leave their spot on your middle. “You are home, and you are safe, my princess.” And then his arms drop back to his side, as if ashamed he let them linger for a moment too long.
“Must you go?” you breathe out a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood that seems to deepen with each passing moment.
His hand reaches for yours, and his voice is lower now. “It is the deal.”
For some reason, your heart seems to shatter. It feels odd and disheartening, knowing that he in this moment has a harsher effect on you than anything before.
Your expression has dropped, and Gwayne must be able to see it. His hand grips yours tighter, and he sucks in a breath, his head dropping to avoid your gaze. Your gaze, which quickly wells with tears. You are confused as to how this would have been the outcome of your journey together—and you are unsure if you are glad of it, or instead disappointed in yourself for not realizing that this is what would always happen.
You lower your voice too. “I do not want you to go,” you say, and your hand finally reciprocates Gwayne’s affection. You clutch it, tight, hoping it may get through to him.
It does not. His head does not lift, not even a single bit. You think you can see his brows furrow.
“I have done my duty, my princess,” he mumbles.
Hundreds of solutions flow through your mind in an instant. He could stay, swear fealty to your mother, and he could be yours. He could be your sworn shield and protector. He could be yours, if he would only say yes.
You open your mouth to say it, but nothing comes out. The words die on your tongue.
“Stay,” is what you can manage. “Please, Gwayne.”
His head tilts up, but he still averts his gaze from yours. Something else, something in the distance, catches his attention. It catches yours too. Two heads of familiar lengthy silver hair—your mother and her husband—inch closer to you and Gwayne.
The hand that held onto his was already back at your side. You must have done it without thought.
“Mummy,” you mumble. And she smiles.
She inches closer to you, seemingly dumbfounded that the sight before her is real. “Sweet girl,” she says, and you feel close to crumbling.
You want to step closer, to close the gap between the two of you, but you cannot bring yourself to leave his side.
But Gwayne is by your side one moment, and gone the next. He is pulled away by the gold cloaks, and it is with little struggle. He lets himself be pulled away. He lets himself be pushed out of the walls of the Keep, and he watches as you stand and stammer all bewildered and reaching to plead his forgiveness to the queen.
The gate closes on him once his horse is by his side.
day thirty five
You have not found much use for yourself since you have returned to the Red Keep. Neither has anyone else.
The war still rages on. It reminds you of the promise you had made to yourself, to leave if it did not end, to leave with Gwayne to Essos. He would be a sellsword, and you a scribe, under the protection of Silverwing.
It seemed a better life, a freer life, you and he on the road together. Being locked away in your chambers of your own volition, anything seemed better.
But Gwayne had abandoned you that day. He had let himself be carried away, and your mother had ignored your pleas of his fealty. It seemed nobody was on your side.
You had only wished for peace. Whatever had grown in place of it had taken your brothers away from you, and Gwayne, too, in some way.
If the war had not gone on, perhaps you could have met him another way. Perhaps he would have been your betrothed. And you could love him the way you wanted to, the way you should have since you woke up in the encampment with him by your side.
He had protected you all those months ago, you had come to realize. The violence of the men who fought under his command would have harmed you more than the words that came from his mouth when defending himself in your stupid fights, the ones you would feed into when he forced you to ride alongside him as the soldiers would march further into the Reach. The words that you replied with when he would anger you, when he would attempt to get close to you.
You should have let him get close to you when he tried. Your need for survival had prevailed then and you took every attempt as some sort of tactic to manipulate you to his side.
But Gwayne had no side, as you swiftly figured out. He wanted out of his cage seemingly as badly as you did, but he did the intelligent thing—the thing he warned you he would always do—and returned to his people, to those he swore loyalty to.
These days, it feels you have no people. Your mother is always off attending to her royal duties, your stepfather and cousins assisting her. And you have no brothers left to bond to. Joffrey is still too little, and too shy, to converse with. The others, your half-siblings, are just a few years young.
If the Hightowers had left you for dead that day, you think you would be more comfortable in the arms of the Stranger than you do in this seemingly haunted home. Your maidenhood would be untainted, and your memory would live on as tragic and loyal. You had left to fight for your mother’s cause after all and you would have died for it then, gods willing.
A piece of you wants to hurl yourself from a window for the treasonous thoughts you have had, but you just want peace. You want peace and freedom. Most of all, though, you want Gwayne.
You can only hope he wants you too, wherever he is. You will wait, and you will bide your time until the war is over—if you live until then. And you will take Silverwing and fly to him, and you will be with him, and you will exile yourselves to Essos. You will dream of that outcome until it happens.
By some miracle, your husband wakes from near death still remembering you. But he is not the same tender man you married. Maybe it can be beneficial for the both of you—and maybe you can teach him how to love you the way he did.
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON
gwayne hightower:
scantily clad (sworn protector!gwayne hightower x targaryen!reader)
You drink wine that someone mixed with something that makes you desire touch more than all else. Touch from someone particular. You need his touch, or you’ll die. Luckily, your sister—the queen—can be quite the matchmaker.
to be alone with you (gwayne hightower x rhaenyra's daughter!reader)
Ser Gwayne Hightower is tasked with escorting you, the sole daughter of the newly anointed Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, across the Reach and into the Crownlands as part of a deal securing amnesty for House Hightower. Along the way, you realize you do not hate him as much as you thought.
𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: steve harrington x reader
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you don’t do dates. you do the backseat. you do frantic, messy sex on hideous shag carpet, killing time in a metal box while you both wait for the world to change, or maybe for it to just end already. the rules of the crawl are simple. but whatever this thing with steve is? it's not even close.
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: friends with benefits to eventual lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, touch/love-starved!steve, ‘no-strings’ fwb with rules, d/s dynamics, no-kissing sex, end-of-the-world angst | playlist
