Hi! I plan on writing more, so I made a masterlist :)
Criminal Minds
Imagines:
☆ Goodbye Professor!Spencer Reid x Reader - The beginning of the semester is usually stressful; the combination of finding your classes, meeting professors, and getting used to the workload can be a lot. But nothing could have prepared you to see your boyfriend of three months at the front of the class, greeting students as they walked in.
From Memory, part two Spencer Reid x Artist!Reader - Growing up with a photographic memory shaped the way you saw the world, and eventually led you to cross paths with the FBI in your art studio.
The Rookie
Series:
☆ ♡ Earn it Tim Bradford x Reader - She spent her whole life chasing the badge. Getting it was only the beginning. Starting a year before the events of The Rookie, her story unfolds through the job, the people, and the choices that shape who she becomes.
Imagines:
☆ He Knows Tim Bradford x Traumatized!Rookie!Reader (platonic or romantic) - where Tim’s rookie finally lets her biggest secret slip.
♡ In His Arms Tim Bradford x Reader - In her day-to-day life, she takes control—at work and with others, always the one making the calls. But with Tim, she drifts. He notices what she misses, carries what she doesn’t have to, and gives her the rare space to stop thinking and just be.
Peacemaker
Imagines:
Watching Him Adrian Chase/Vigilante x reader - She’s obsessive, dangerously so — the kind of love that clings, consumes, and never lets go. But it turns out, he’s just the same, the kind of man who doesn’t want to escape from it, who looks at the chaos between them and calls it fate.
Stranger Things
(18+ CHARACTERS ONLY)
Imagines:
♡ A Place To Stay Young single mom!Nancy Wheeler x fem!reader - Nancy Wheeler has always had her life carefully planned—until a quiet classroom connection pulls you into hers. Between late-night study sessions, shared laughter, and the small hands of her daughter Audrey reaching for you first, what was once temporary becomes something far deeper. As love grows alongside the routines of family, you realize you’re not just visiting—you’ve finally found a place to stay.
Harry Potter
Golden Trio
N/A
The Marauders
Imagines:
☾ Movie Night 18+ Roomate!James x Reader - She can’t ignore her growing attraction to her roommate James anymore, not when it stares her right in the face during their weekly movie night. What starts as their usual cozy routine quickly turns heated when innocent touches lead to much more on his bed, and afterward they finally admit they’ve both been wanting something deeper all along.
Minecraft YouTubers AU - Self explanatory, The Marauders (sans Peter) as Minecraft YouTubers.
“You look nice,” Ryland says, smiling a little shy, as if the compliment had just slipped out and he was supposed to be embarrassed about that.
“I uh,” You pause, swallowing thickly.
Holy fuck he looks good in a suit.
in which: You need a date to the wedding you foolishly agreed to attend, luckily your co-worker is a willing sacrifice. Extremely willing.
[warnings: eventual nsfw 18+, a bit of fluff, excessively drawn out flirting]
wc: 14.2k (Whoops) [ Masterlist ] [ ao3 Link ]
Woe finds you on a Tuesday at the staffroom lunch table.
Picking apart the leftovers of a miserable thrown together attempt of fried rice that came to be after realising there were no better dinner options with the ingredients you had in the fridge two days ago and the determination to not get take out more than once a week that would surely fade come February. Alas, it is still January and all those new year resolutions are still sticking like cheap adhesive hooks that will eventually be weighed down enough to slip as time ticks on.
Eat take out once a week, maximum. Read one book a month, minimum. Sleep more. Stop turning down social invites
The last one is what leaves you particularly perturbed, as your lunch goes lukewarm and your thumb flicks about on the social media profile.
“I just… I can’t say no.” You lament. “It would be weird.”
“Weirder than going?” Margot asks, pulling her own container of lunch from the oven. It’s also leftovers, but slices of impeccably cooked roast with what looks to be red wine sauce and vegetables- no doubt made by her smokeshow of a house husband (he just works from home, she insists. You’re pretty sure the pair are sitting on a lofty investment profile because no man ‘works from home’ cooks roasts bi-weekly and buys his wife diamond earrings for her birthday).
“I don’t know. Maybe.” You manage, the next bite of fired rice tasting like loneliness packed into an over-salted flavour profile.
“What’s weird?” Ryland asks, sitting down in the chair across from you.
The staff room of E-Block is near abandoned. Of the ten-odd teachers with rooms in the little block of aging brick, most tended to eat in their classrooms. Save for you, Margot and Ryland. Occasionally there will be another visitor, but most days, it is just the three of you.
“Wedding.” Margot supplies, sitting down and shuffling her chair in with a sense of poise so rarely found in Middle-Schools. She’s older, somewhere in her early fifties, and still manages to approach the job with the same level of discipline as before ipads made their invasion into the classroom.
Ryland frowns. “You’re already married.”
He’s… well, Ryland's… actually you’re not sure how to put him into words, which is saying a lot considering the literature degree collecting mildew in the filing cabinet of your apartment.
He’s in the same boat as you in terms of finding yourselves with a teaching career. Studied something else first, got your passion and love for it soured by morons and went back to college for a second round, dishing out more cash for a masters in teaching that has you trying to tame fourteen year olds all day. Delightful, truly. Although, Ryland had certainly lasted a lot longer with that first degree than you had. A doctorate. He hates the kids knowing that though. A handful of them had called him ‘Doctor Grace’ last year, after digging about online and getting their grubby fingers on his linkedin profile.
‘Mr Grace’ as he is now known, is awkward. A little socially inept at times, but not enough to come across as anything other than endearing. Now is one such time, as he looks over the frames of his glasses at Margo, the stack of pop quizzes he’d brought to mark and keep himself occupied momentarily forgotten. His eyes darted from her face to the ring on her finger.
“Mm mm.” She hums, shaking her head as she chews, then levels her fork to point in your direction.
“You’re not getting married.” Ryland states when he turns to look at you, like it’s a scientific fact, one he’s so assured of.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr Grace.” You reply, still sort of wallowing at the photos on your phone.
His gaze flickers, a little less sure as the corner of his lips fall and, like he had with Margot, settles his eyes on your hands. Your lack of a ring. “You aren’t, are you?”
“No. My ex is, though.” You sigh, despondent. The reminder glares back at you from the overly-bright phone screen.
“Oh. That sucks.” He manages, clicking open a red pen to start circling and ticking the first sheet on his pile. “Happens to the best of us.”
The kettle rumbles away on the tiny kitchenette. You look at him for a long moment. The best of us. Like it’s happened to him. Ryland’s not one to discuss relationships beyond the occasional quip about quitting to be a house husband like Margot’s. He’s never mentioned past romances, you don’t think he’s been in a relationship in the three years since he started at Grover Cleveland Middle. It’s such a bizarre glimpse at his life, that he doesn't even seem to register what he's revealed, marking as he waits for the boiling water to cook another lunch of instant ramen.
You sit up a little straighter in your chair, weary of knocking your shoes against where his long legs sprawl under the small table. The staff room is meant for ten but is cramped even with the three of you, nothing more than a little kitchenette and big whiteboard in the corner. There’s a shelf against one wall, just far enough away from the doorframe that the door doesn't crash into it when pushed open. There’s a long window the length of the wall on the door’s other side, a good view of the eighth-grade outdoor lunch area. The other staff call it the fishbowl, it’s why they opt to eat in their classrooms, not keen on the kids' eyes on them when it is supposed to be one of the fleeting breaks during their day.
Thank god the door is closed- if the kids heard you whining about this, a wedding, they’d never let up. “I’m considering the pros and cons of skipping it.”
“You were invited?” He baulks, dropping his pen.
You try not to smile, focusing on your self pity instead of the three shoddy attempts Ryland takes to catch his pen from dropping out of his hand, rolling off the stack of paper then off the table. “I already said I’d go too.”
“Why?” Ryland sounds appalled, like that one time you’d caught him trying to explain that the five second rule is not an effective barrier against bacteria to a student.
“It’s complicated.” You say, biting at your cheek.
“Bullshit.” Margot aptly calls. Looking over with the same expression she used to call students on their bullshit. You're not a big fan of having it directed at you.
“We went out for maybe two months in college.” You sigh, setting your phone on the table face-down to stare at your lunch, contemplative. “He’s engaged to one of the girls from my sorority. We’re… friends.”
Margot watches. “With your ex or the sorority girl?”
“Sorority girl. Daisy.” That's the better option of the two at least. You think it is, not that there is much left to save you from the impending train wreck of discussing the relationship woes of your late teens and early twenties with the only two coworkers who care to eat lunch in a communal space. The company is nice, Ryalnd had said once, when you’d asked, gets me out of the classroom.
Margot screws her face up for a second, muttering it again under her breath as if the name offends her.
“You were in a sorority?" Ryland asks, face a little blank as he looks at you from across the table.
It makes you falter, the way his thoughts seem to be buffering like the school's slow wifi. “I… Yeah? That’s the interesting part?”
He shakes his head, looking down at his marking sheets and pushes his glasses up from where they’re slowly slipping down the bridge of his nose. “No, I just can’t picture it.”
You purse your lips, consider pulling up some photos from your sorority days, then remember the kind of outfits the lot of you wore and think better of it. “Well Daisy and I were roommates for a year and a half. She’s nice. Works in PR now.”
“But she’s marrying your ex?” Ryland asks, still kind of baffled.
You dismiss it with a lazy hand wave. “I mean, she asked before they went out and everything. I just think it’s a little weird. I don’t even know why I said I’d go. It’s going to be embarrassing.”
Margot tuts twice, done with her lovingly made lunch that symbolises how successful she has been in the department of marriage when you have all but failed so far. “Why is it embarrassing? Two months is nothing.”
“I was a little head over heels for this guy.” You admit, sheepish.
Ryland stands up, clears his throat as he turns away. “Yeah? How so?”
His back is to you, as he peels the lid off his cup ramen and wrestles with the flavour packet. You come to the conclusion it’s easier to confess this sort of stuff with only one set of eyes on you. “I was sort of convinced he was my soulmate. He was doing pre-law, witty too.”
“Hot?” Margot asks, always straightforward.
You feel a blush rise on your cheeks as you remember the early days of your sorority experience, flopped back on the bed as you made little love sick sighs at your ceiling. “God, his jawline. And his hair- it was so… ugh!”
The thud is dull when your forehead lands on the table, to the right of your now abandoned lunch. “I don’t even know why I said I’d go. It’s dumb.”
You hate how you sound- petulant like the kids you prod for not searching for better words in their assignments, moping like your world is ending over something so trivial. It’s not even the new years resolution that has you mulling this over so intently. You’d agreed to go months ago- six months ago- and said yes to the offered plus one, adamant to yourself that you’d have someone by then, a partner or something. Someone of importance.
Attending alone is going to be even worse than if you had just RSVP’d for yourself in the first place. It’s one thing to watch your college friend and ex-sort-of-boyfriend exchange vows alone, and a whole other monster to do it with a pointed empty seat beside you.
All of it tumbles out your lips in a hurried hurl of word vomit, followed by a few moments of silence that has you cautiously raising your head to peek over the wall of your forearms. Ryland is staring at you, cup noodles steaming in his hands where it hovers over the sink, like he’d been about to pour out the excess water. Margot is looking at you with a frown, the same one she wears when teaching senior mathematics and the children have drawn up an equation for her to solve with the foolish belief they could stump her for more than ten seconds.
And just as in class, Margot is not phased for more than a handful of moments. “Then find someone with a better jawline and better hair to go with you. You can borrow mine.”
You blink at her, mulling the words over before asking, “Are you trying to pimp your husband out to me?”
“Only for aesthetic reasons, of course. It’d be nice to have the house to myself for once. Not like you have better options.”
It would sting more if it wasn’t so true. There were very few options and with the wedding only two weeks away, that was certainly not enough time to squeeze in enough dates with someone to justify taking them to a damn wedding.
“I mean, how good is his jawline?” Ryland finally says, walking over with his little cutlery box, plastic chopsticks he washes and reuses almost everyday, to set his lunch down on the table and settle back in across from you. “Are we aiming high?”
There is no way to un-dig this hole, not now that they’ve both decided to put their two cents in. You concede with another sigh and reach for your phone, arms and chin still on the table as you fish about Instagram for a photo. It’s the one that had reminded you of this awful upcoming event, posted by Daisy. You all but toss your phone on the table between your coworkers, sinking a little lower into your folded arms, awaiting judgement.
The photos must be from a walk though of the venue, the pair of them posed together between some old marble arch where they were having the ceremony at. She was laughing, hand on his chest, showing off the ring on her finger while he looked at her, besotted. The caption made it worse. Only two weeks left till I get to marry my man on these very steps.
You like them both, you really do, but the thought of showing up by yourself, as the lonely friend who’d never found ‘it’, your own version of the love they were celebrating, well it was just nauseating.
Margot looks the photo over critically before humming in a sort of so-so tone. “You can do better.”
Ryland looks kind of at a loss. “This is your type?”
As if to emphasise the point, he lifts the phone up and turns it around to show you the image you were already being haunted by. “This is the hair that had you all…”
He doesn't find the words, just waves the hand with his chopsticks around in a messy motion, looks at you critically over the rims of his glasses.
“He slicks it back now. It used to be… I donno. Messy? Fluffy? Good to run my fingers though.” He scoffs a little to himself, dissatisfied maybe with your excuse.
The only forgiving factor is that the photo does highlight the sharp cut of his jaw, which even Ryland concedes to. “He does have a good jawline...”
Yours is better, you want to say. Immediate and impulsive, because it kind of is. Especially when the shadow of his stubble stretches a few extra days between shaves. Your ex is clean shaven- you used to think that was sexy, at least sexier than the patchy beards boys in college had back then. Now you’re kind of obsessed with the so-called ‘5-o’clock shadow’ Ryland sports on Fridays.
It’s not something you’re likely to tell him though, especially not when you glance at the clock and realise you have a duty across campus in three minutes. Saved by the bell maybe, either way you’re able to liberate your phone from the pair of them and their conspiratory whispers, bin the scraps of your lunch and haul ass out of there.
By the end of the school day, you have reached the conclusion that you will blame it on work. That some mandatory day of ‘professional development’ as it is called nowadays, has come up and you will just have to miss the wedding, truly you’re devastated about it all.
Then Ryland corners you in your classroom. The bell’s long gone, as are the students. He’s dressed like he’s on his way out, his green backpack tossed over one shoulder and bike helmet hanging by the strap in one hand. You’re halfway through explaining your plan and the wording you’re going to use in the tragic text message to Daisy when he cuts you off.
“I’ll go with you.”
He’s a little breathless with it, like he’d been saving up all his oxygen to get the words out, leaving him in one big rush as they topple though the doorway of your classroom and splatter onto the linoleum floor between you both.
“I know that I’m not Margot’s husband with a ‘better jawline and better hair’ but we can go and eat nice wedding food- If he’s a lawyer it’s gotta be fancy, right? And we can make fun of his stupid slicked back hair together and you don’t have to be alone or make an excuse and feel guilty about it.” Ryland’s big speech is as flawed as it is heartwarming
Because he does have a better jawline and better hair. And Margot looks between you both during lunch hours and staff meetings like you’re her personal romance drama, there to occupy her during the day.
But the wedding food will be good, your ex will shill out for the best and Daisy has always had a taste for the finer things in life. Ryland is the best company you can think of to have by your side and he knows you well enough to understand how guilty lying about something makes you feel, how it churns your gut.
“Yeah. Okay.” You smile, something warm and fuzzy in your chest.
His eyes don’t move, maybe widen a little before he speaks again, still a little breathless. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
It isn’t a hard thought to come around to, taking Ryland to a wedding. As a date is something that goes unsaid between the pair of you, not sure whether it could be classed as such for real, or if this is simply a favour between friends-slash-coworkers. It is certainly a date for show, to the many college friends you’re about to reunite with after a few years, for your Ex, Jack who’s obsessed with his wife, for Daisy who you’d told years ago to ‘go for it, he’s a nice guy’ working under the assumption that she’d only last a few months by his side too.
You’re not sure which answer you’d prefer, honestly; a date or a favour.
He texts you a lot- after school, on the weekend- asking about what he should wear, what you’re going to wear, how he should prepare for this sort of thing. It’s sweet, cute in a way that has little butterflies flapping around in your stomach.
“Okay, I’ll show you. Wait, hold on.” You placate, setting your phone down on the bed, screen up.
“It’s a lovely ceiling fan, but I doubt it fits the dress code.” Ryland drawls, and you can hear the smile there.
“Ha ha.” You reply, a little echo-y as you lean into your closet to pull the dress out.
He’s up in arms about what to wear, says he needs to know what you’re wearing too so he can match. The invite’s dress code called for formal attire in ‘dark colours’. On the facebook page she’d made for the event, Daisy had a full post going into more detail, about how she’d love any and all dark tones- forestry green, navy, even burgundy was fine. You had taken a firm stance against burgundy considering there’s some old wedding traditions that state wearing red indicated you’d slept with the groom. Which you had, but you were not about to advertise that.
So navy it was.
You’d sent Ryland a picture of the invite, where it was stuck to your fridge with letter magnets spelling out ‘woe’- it had felt fitting when you’d stuck it up there- and several screenshots of the lengthy dress-code post Daisy had made that went into excruciating detail. He wasn’t satisfied though.
Even your attempts to describe the dress you’d bought didn’t work well enough.
“I mean it! you expect me to know what any of those words apart from ‘floor length' means?” he bemoans from your phone speakers, face time call crackling. “I need all the data.”
“Oh listen to you, Mr. Science,” You drawl with a smile, pulling the dress out. It’s too long to hang from a door knob so you have to stretch up on your tip toes to hang the coat hook over the curtain rod of your bedroom window.
“I was thinking of changing my name. Very to the point, don’t you think?” He replies, still smiling as you collect your phone. His eyes are sparkling with something cheeky when you appear back in frame.
Ryland’s dressed down, in one of those dumb science t-shirts he wears on ‘Casual Fridays’ as it is called in staff meetings. This one’s dark blue and has the periodic table on it in worn down white transfer ink. You’ve seen it enough to know the punch line sprawled over his lower stomach even though it’s not in frame. I wear this shirt periodically. He finds an extra layer in humor that the shirt is factually correct as well, that he does in fact, wear the shirt in regular intervals as he’d explained to you during a free-period on one of those casual Fridays.
He’s at his kitchen bench, phone propped up against something, while he taps away at his laptop. You’ve not actually been to Ryland’s apartment before, but it sorta feels like you have, the cramped studio always on display in the back of video calls like this one.
It’s just one long rectangle. Kitchen by the front door, a bench, a gap that is probably intended for a kitchen table but he’s stuck a desk there instead, his bed that’s almost always unmade with a tv wall mounted across from it, and a balcony. Like this, you can see the expanse of it behind him. The stacks of paper piled up on his desk, the extra monitors and little trinkets gifted from students, the sage green sheets of his bed, peeled back on one side, sun shining in through his big glass balcony doors. Honesty, you kind of want to see the view from his apartment in person, he’s a little higher up than you are, in a better part of the city too.
Ryland’s not brushed his hair, it’s all spiked up in different directions and you wonder if the mug he’s been sipping from, periodically, is his morning cup even though it’s just past ten. He’s blinking slow behind his glasses, sitting a little too still for his brain to be fully functional yet.
“I’m sure the kids will love it. Harder to spell on their assessment sheets, though.” You can imagine it, the staff badge, the name on his board in fun bubble writing where it would stay untouched for a whole school term.
You flip the camera, showing him the dress he’s been complaining about not understanding for the last half hour over text before he gave up and called you.
It’s cute, how his head tilts and he leans towards his phone for a second before just picking it up and holding it close enough so his eyes and forehead are just about all that is in frame. “Is that velvet?”
“It’s fake satin. I think.”
“Fake satin?” He repeats, confused.
The dress was one you already owned, bought a year or so ago for another friend’s wedding that you had attended alone but not felt crappy about, even if it did seem like everyone your age was getting married nowadays. It’s got a fitted bodice, but there fabric is a little drapey, looks like it pools over the chest and down towards the fluid skirt. "Wasn't expensive enough to be real satin.”
“Okay, I know what you mean by delicate straps now.” That had been his main hang up, whining about, What do you mean delicate straps? Like they’re about to break?, swearing that the shit he was googling was just not helping the mental image considering there were about six different results for everything.
“Yeah, and here, the lace up back.” You say, stepping up to twist the dress away from where it sat flush against the curtains to show the corset style back, with thin cord lace just a little thinner than the straps.
“Isn’t that going to be a nightmare to put on?” He asks, squinting still.
“There’s a zip.” You say, dragging the little hidden zipper down, showing him how the dress fabric parts and slips open. “So it’s fairly easy to get on. The cords are about as tight as they should be anyway, it isn't hard to pull to fit.”
You fumble a little trying to get the zip back up but eventually just conceded to leave out like that until you put the dress away. When you glance down at your phone, Ryland has moved, no longer sitting down and if you had to guess, is now walking the length of his apartment instead. He looks a little distressed.
“Come on, you’ve got the easy part.” You try, a little concerned he’s about to say he shouldn’t go. “You just have to put on a suit.”
“I can’t just ‘put on a suit’.” He whines, flopping down onto his bed like the world is ending. “I’m supposed to be like, your big ‘fuck you’ to the girl who got with your ex. I’m supposed to look good with you. I don’t know if I have a suit nice enough for that dress.”
“Ryland. It’s not about saying ‘fuck you’ to Daisy, or pulling some revenge stunt. I just didn’t want to go alone like a loser when I said I was bringing someone.” You can’t really help the little breathy laugh that weaves its way though his name, because he sounds like you did four days ago acting like the world was about to end, face down on the lunch table. “You don’t have to come.”
“No, I’m coming. I just need to go through my wardrobe.” He’s cute, you decide, in a round-about sort of way. The determination to play this self elected role well, to perfect it and give it his all, like he does with everything else in his life. The whole situation was elevating your ‘aesthetic appreciation’ of Ryland that you’d been attempting to suppress, to a new sort of level.
You flop down on your own bed, roll over on your side and let him derail the conversation towards lesson planning, listen to him talk about the plans he has for the next weeks worth of classes, a couple of activities he’s got in the works. All while you consider the pros and cons of having him beside you instead.
Ryland was probably the teacher you got on best with at work, despite being from two very different teaching areas. When he’d first arrived, you’d assumed he would be a little pretentious, with his Phd and professional experience beyond the classroom. You weren't expecting him to be so awkward. The children took to him so quickly, and Ryland had told you time and time again that he doesn't understand why they think he’s cool.
Over the years you’ve found that he can be cocky, in certain bouts of confidence seemingly appearing via divine-intervention. A local bar had run trivia nights for some six odd months, and it had unleashed a beast within him.
On Monday afternoon he sent you a photo. A little black bag with a logo you’d googled, realising it was a menswear store before the second photo had come though. A tie, sleek navy like your dress, rolled up neatly with a matching pocket square beside it, both nestled in a box that screamed expensive. You’d sent back a random string of praise, imagining him lulling it over in the store. It was nearly five in the afternoon, he’d left work pretty much on the final bell. You wonder how long he spent comparing the seemingly endless ties the shop’s online store offered, considering what would match best to your dress.
It makes you a little giddy, to be honest, has you dreaming of a situation where you’d asked him to come to the wedding, or where you’d already been together long enough that it was simply a given when the invitation turned up in your mail box.
Neither of you mention it during school hours, not keen on the kids hearing whispers of you and Ryland doing anything outside work hours- students will take anything and run with it.
But he messages you about it constantly. Makes a plan; he’d come to your apartment and you would uber from there to the venue, it was a sunset ceremony and evening reception. He lived close enough that it was a brisk walk or quick bus trip. He pointedly mentions that he would not be cycling- ‘In a suit? God, never’- and makes sure you know that the uber would also drop you both back to your flat and he’d walk home or take another separate uber.
There’s talk about your ‘backstory’, which he takes as seriously as he does exam periods. You tell him it’s not super necessary, that saying you met at work is more than enough exposition for the gaggle of college friends you’d not seen in years. But he was never one to do things in halves.
“We obviously would have met at school.” He says, like it’s a given. Ryland is laid out on the reading rug at the back of your classroom, staring at the ceiling. And the fake clouds that are actually just a hobby-fill glue gunned to paper and taped to the ceiling, he’d turned the fairy lights that are threaded though them on before he’d decided the floor was his resting place. “Maybe trivia is where it happened. We liked trivia.”
“We did like trivia.” You agree, pointedly.
It’s almost impossible to not just sit there and watch him, the student folders that you’re sorting worksheets into acting as a very inefficient distraction.
He’s got a button down on, some pale blue that looks nice under his grey wool blazer. The pale wash jeans and white converse are a bit more casual, but he wears the combination well. Too well. Laid out like this, with one knee up, he looks far too attractive for you to swallow. Glasses pulled down to hang off his jaw, sitting there catching the afternoon light as it came through the windows, casting rainbow refractions onto the back wall.
“Maybe trivia was a date. What would you have done?”
“If you’d asked me to trivia as a date?” You glance up. He’s already looking at you, head tipped to the side, something soft, tentative there in his eyes.
“Yeah.” You can see the way his throat bobs when he swallows, how his chest rises with each breath.
Ryland sounds… nervous, in a way that does remind you of the first trivia night you’d gone to. He’d been dressed similarly there, you remember thinking he looked nice, polished up a little more than he did in the school day with dress shoes and what smelt like cologne. Handsome where he waited by the entrance, backlit by the bar’s warm lighting. He’d been a little twitchy for the first hour or so, but settled into himself by round two.
With the way he’s looking at you, now as he plans out the false scenario that’s beginning to sound a lot more like a confession, you’re starting to get the idea that trivia could have been a date. If either of you had put it into words.
“Enjoyed it, probably.”
“Really?” He looks shy, a bit of a flush working its way up his cheeks.
You smile at him, thinking about how nice it would have been to kiss him in that bar with a sweet cocktail on your lips, dizzy from his flattery about your trivia skills. You hum, nodding a little as you look at the folders and sheets spread out over your desk, feeling a flush rise to your own cheeks.
He knocks when you’re halfway through lacing up the back of your dress, holding the cords with one hand as you open the door. Ryland’s not been to your apartment before, something you’d failed to realise until he called you and asked during his walk over, if you’d have to buzz him in.
He was appalled to find out the front door to your building was sporting a broken lock and had been tied back with a length of rope for the last two months while the landlords procrastinated fixing it.
“See,” You say, opening the door for him, keeping it propped open with your foot as he shuffles in. “My door locks.”
“Still one less lock that you’re supposed to have.” he grumbles, stepping out of his very nice dress shoes. They look expensive- black leather shined up propper.
Actually, Ryland looks expensive.
“You look nice,” he says, smiling a little shy, as if the compliment had just slipped out and he was supposed to be embarrassed about that.
“I uh,” You pause, swallowing thickly.
Holy fuck he looks good in a suit. It’s the only thought spinning around your head. It’s a proper one, tailor made no doubt. Blazer, slacks and undershirt, all three of them a deep inky black. The navy tie he’d sent you a photo of is done up around his neck in a knot neater than you’ve ever seen him wear to work. The pocket square is folded too, fluffed up with a little volume that suggests he did so intentionally.
Suddenly you’re reminded of all those times he’d complained about all the formal conferences and charity gala’s he’d attended during his days in academia. You realise you have made a grave error.
There have always been little parts about Ryland that oozed wealth, the glasses he wore for one, that he told you were antique when you’d asked. The watch on his wrist that you thought looked like some practical sporty thing but found out was actually worth three months rent when you’d googled it out of curiosity. These little things fall out of the spotlight and become footnotes that are often ignored when he’s in his classroom, or tiny apartment.
Dressed in such a nice suit, here in you apartment definitely wearing cologne- the same from that very first trivia night, something a little warm, woodsy like oaky bourbon, sharp and contrary to the fresh nothingness he smelt like at work- Ryland seemed so far beyond you.
“You look good.” You manage, letting the door slip shut and dropping the lace of your dress, it loses its tension a little but stays in the same spot for the most part, to run a hand over the lapel of his blazer. “How long have you had this?”
“Ages. Dug it out of the back of my closet. A little tighter than when I last wore it, but it will do the trick. Right?” He tacks that last bit on, like he’s waiting with baited breath for your approval.
“I’ll say.” You slide your hand down the lapel a little bit, down over the press of his chest. The tightness just shows the subtlety of his build, lean muscle that comes from idle exercise and good diet, maybe even a splash of genetics. He’s tidied his facial hair up a little, slid the electric razor over all of it to make sure it’s the same length, no doubt. Ryalnd’s still got his glasses on, you were a little worried he might have opted for contacts and are very relieved you get to see this outfit complete with the lenses that frame his face so well.
With a realisation you might be getting a little lost in your head, you drop your hand, turning to walk further into your apartment, towards the couch where your shoes for the night sat on the floor. “Right, we'll, I'm nearly ready. The uber will be here soon.”
“Do you need a hand?” Ryland asks, and you’re about to turn, ask him, ‘with what’ when you feel his fingertips against the small of your back. It sends a jolt though your skin, he’s cold. From the outside air, where as you’ve been nice and cosy with the heat on while you’d done your hair and make up.
Goosebumps rise under his hands as they gather the ties for the back of your dress. Something low swoops in your gut, like the dip of a roller coaster, free falling as he chuckles a little behind you. “Sorry, cold fingers.”
You swallow. “It’s.. it’s okay.”
“How tight?” He asks, giving the strings a gentle tug. You almost sway with the moment, feeling a little swept off your feet already.
“Bit tighter.” You manage, as he presses a flat palm against the small of your back, over the criss-crossing cord, and gathers both ties in one hand to pull slow and firm. It tugs you back into his hand, a steadier hold than you’d expected.
“There?” He questions when the dress is pulled in to sit flush with your skin but not dig in. You get the feeling he might have done some research, when he plucks at each string to even them out and make sure none of them are too tight, on how these dresses are supposed to sit.
“Yeah, perfect.” It leaves you like a sigh, as his palm dips, brushes where the zipper sits before pulling back to tie a neat bow, tugging the cords out carefully so both loops are even.
All of it has you lightheaded, directing more effort than necessary to get yourself to the couch and pull your heels on, black mary janes that are comfortable enough to walk in. As you fiddle with the buckles, you eye him.
Ryland’s hair is tousled, intentionally a little messy, not combed or slicked back. Looks like it would be nice to run your fingers though, and you find yourself wondering if that’s why he’d opted for the style, if he’s here, dressed up as the guy with ‘better hair and a better jawline’ that Margot had pitched, unaware that he already was exactly who he’s trying to be.
He holds an arm out for you to loop yours though, walking down the stairs in steady but slowed steps. You smile. “Wow, full gentleman experience.”
“I told you, I can't just ‘put on a suit’. It’s more than that.” He chides jokingly, and you pity the version of you that didn’t realise this was an option.
He opens the door for you- the car door, the door into the building door tied back by a rope (he glares at it when you pass it)- then rounds the back of the little toyota that’s polished up to try and seem fancier than it was. You don’t talk much on your way to the venue, comfortable silence that the driver thankfully settles into.
It’s nearing sundown when you pull into the driveway, a big circular road that’s already crammed with other cars and guests climbing out.
“You can just let us out here.” Ryland says to the uber driver, unbuckling his seatbelt to hop out, then rounding the car again to open your door, hand held out like it’s necessary, when the car is nowhere near low or high enough to warrant such assistance.
You place your palm in his anyway, letting him pull you from the car, no more temperature disparity in your hands since you’ve both been in the car for fifteen minutes, but it still makes your skin tingle. He’s got cufflinks, the same pale gold as his glasses, in the shape of atoms. You flick one lightly. “I like these.”
He smiles, something a little smothered like he’s trying to stamp it down from a grin as he threads his arm though yours again, beginning the small walk to the venue's front steps. “Well I like your dress, so I think we’re even.”
It’s a ballroom, with these big stained glass windows in the room they hold ceremonies in, you’d seen some lovely shots on the venue’s website of sunset light streaming through them. Imagining Ryland in the warm sunlight has you in a good mood, he’s always suited it, even if the city’s never had much to offer.
“Not too much for our first date?” You tease.
Something like a laugh tumbles out of his lips, leaning down to whisper in your ear. “First date was trivia- and you were underdressed. Keep up.”
You flush, crowding a little closer to his side to make it through the entryway without shoulder checking anyone. Had you been? It was so long ago you could hardly remember anything other than jeans, tight ones that dug into your waist when you sat down- tight jeans hardly felt like being underdressed, they probably meant you wanted him to stare at your ass. Either way you let him have the win, as minute as it is.
Doesn't really matter what you wore back then when you’ve got him like this now.
Together you sit about halfway down on the bride’s side, the pew’s nearly empty, only someone on the other end you don’t know but looks vaguely enough like Daisy, that's you’d guess extended family.
“So why’d you like this guy so much?” Ryland asks, quiet enough for it to just stay between the two of you. He’s glancing around, but his eyes keep bouncing back to Jack at the front of the venue, where he’s talking to gaggle of similarly dressed guys, his groomsmen.
“What?”
“Him,” Ryland says, tipping his head a little to gesture at Jack. “What had you talking about soulmates? Couldn't just be the hair, tons of guys have good hair.”
“They do.” You answer, raising a hand to tangle one of the longer stands where it’s dangling over his forehead around your pointer finger and give it a light tug. Ryland’s eyes settle on you, like there’s nothing else to look at. “He made me feel like the only girl in the world.”
“That’s a cliche.” He refutes. “And a song lyric.”
You smile. “I’m serious. He’s like that with every girl he went out with. He’s like it with Daisy. He just loses sight of every other woman, so attentive.”
Ryland stays silent for a moment, eyes searching for something in yours. Maybe permission, or a want, for him to keep digging, it’s almost as if he’s scared what he might find. “What'd he do? To make you feel like that?”
It’s cute, how nervous he is, despite the fact it feels as though all week, the pair of you have been laying this ground work, a path to follow that will lead you somewhere inevitable, like a trivia date, or the messy sprawled sage green sheets or Ryland’s bed. You smile at him, wondering if he’s thought about you in them. You wonder if he knows how easily you could be, that you might just follow him to the edge of the universe.
Still, you answer his question, offering a peek into your brain, the way you used to operate when teenage giddiness was closer than adult yearning. "Took me dancing. Kissed me slowly, cared about how I wanted things to go. It was like he just couldn’t stop looking at me, for me. It was intoxicating.”
“I can’t.” Ryland blurts out, all reckless abandon, and he’s looking at you like you’ve already kissed him breathless just by being here. You let your leg shift to press the length of your thigh against his, warm even through the layers of fabric.
You breathe in deep through your nose, the scent of his cologne sticking dizzyingly to the air, a scent you think is enough to get drunk on even without the assistance of wedding champagne. "Can't what?”
“Stop looking at you.” He clarifies, eyes darting down to your lips. “I can do the other things though.”
A flutter knocks about your chest, unsteady and uncoordinated. “Yeah, you like dancing Doctor Grace?”
“If it’s with you.” He amends.
“And slow kissing? You like that too?”
“Yeah I do.” He’s not even trying to hide it now, gaze settled on the dusty pink line of your lips, his own a little slick with spit when he darts his tongue out to trace one quick line along them.
You almost asked him to prove it, but in your peripherals, down the aisle and pausing at the sight of you, was Macey, another one of your college friends, smiling. So you place a hand on Ryland's thigh, just above his knee. “Good. Really good.”
Ryland looks dizzy with the praise, like it’s all rushed straight to his head.
“Hey Macey, good to see you.” You greet, using your hand on Ryland's knee to tip his legs towards you, making room for Macey to shuffle into the pew.
“Oh my god, good to see you too! It's been awhile, hasn’t it?” She leans down a little awkwardly to wrap you in a hug as you half stand, and it’s good to see someone after so long, to look at them and remember times when things were simpler and you were allowed to be a little stupid, a little dangerous. It’s nice to see her here, for her to sit next to you- Macey’s always encouraged you to be a little wild, and with the way Ryland’s been looking at you all night, you might need her ego-bosting tonight.
“I’m Macey, nice to meet you.” She extends a hand to Ryland over your lap and he shakes it curtly, offering his own introduction.
There’s a big rock on her finger, and you remember seeing it on an instagram post, some dreamy forest scenery with a ‘coming soon to a theatre near you’ caption under it.
“I suppose it will be your wedding next then,” You tease, “Where’s Jamie?”
“Oh she had a work trip, couldn't avoid it. She wanted to come though.” Macey waves off. Her and her fiance met on some film set, both camera operators, at the time, although you faintly recall reading something about Jamie’s name working its way up to director for some upcoming project, amongst the throws of social media posts from people who once knew everything about you and now you only see once every few years.
“So Ryland,” Macey starts with a glimmer in her eyes, something evil and mischievous that throws you back to seeing her in the living room with a bottle of tequila and monopoly board. “How’d you two meet?”
“We teach at the same school,” He grins, a hand sliding to your knee, just along the inside of it, where your dress fabric hangs low with slack, enough for his palm to press there, thumb drawing slow lines back and forth. “A little cliche but I don’t mind.”
Macey smiles, fans her face a little like that’s just soooo romantic. “What do you teach?”
“Science, opposites attract I guess.”
“Please tell me you used that line.” She practically swoons.
Ryland huffs a little laugh. “No, the kids threw that one at me actually.”
“Really?” You question, a raised eyebrow because that was not part of the backstory he’d been cooking up all week.
“Oh yeah. You should hear them. “Mr. Grace, you and Miss are ,like perfect for each other. You should ask her to the spring dance. They’re relentless, I swear.”
He pitches his voice a little, lazy tones and improper grammar leaking out in the way it did when he did impressions of your students and you can’t help but giggle a little.
“Their heads might explode when they find out.” Macey laughs too, then like a stroke of inspiration, slaps her hand against your arm a few times in pure, unrestrained excitement. “God- remember when we found out Professor Morisaki and Professor Collins were married? Holy shit it was like our heads exploded.”
You bark a laugh, muffling it under your hand considering the rather low level of idle chatter in the venue. “Oh my god, I forgot about that.”
“Professors of yours?” Ryland asks, this soft smile spread across his lips still.
“Yeah, we were doing a car-wash fundraiser! They were kissing in the background of one of our photos!” Macey still whispers gossip like she did in college, like your students do now.
Ryland looks a little red in the face when he asks. “A car wash fundraiser?”
Macey smirks, always too good at picking things up from others' words and you kind of want to stomp your heel over her toes to tell her off before you remember how this evening had been going so far. “Oh? Don’t you know? We were a little wild in college.”
You scoff. “A little?”
“Okay, a lot.” She corrects. “The car wash was an annual thing. White tshirts, bikinis. There’s definitely pictures. I have pictures.”
“Macey.” You scold, mostly joking.
She shrugs, straightens up and sits to face the fronts, pointedly not looking at you with a smirk on her face. “Hey- I’m just reminiscing on good times. Don’t you remember the kissing booth we ran? Of course you do you were the most requested-”
Now you stomp your foot onto hers, although she doesn’t do anything but laugh to herself.
Ryland is back to that dazed look, like he’s on some far off planet in his mind, when he murmurs, "Kissing booth?”
You glare at Macey, for a sharp moment. Before patting one hand on Ryland’s chest, leaning in close when you say, loud enough for Macey to hear. “Tell you about it later, handsome.”
He ducks his head a little close to you, a tiny little movement that stops as soon as it starts. His cheeks are the reddest you’d ever seen, looking a lot like he’s about to kiss you now, when there’s a music cue somewhere further up the aisle and a hush falls over everyone. He doesn't look away at first, eyes glued to yours for a long second before he bites his lower lip, to stop himself saying something and reaches a hand up to lace his fingers together with yours over his chest. He pulls it gently to his lap, smothering it in between his warm palms, fiddling with your fingers as the ceremony starts.
It’s beautiful, truly. The light lowered through the stained glass windows, reflecting and casting colour across the whole room, gentle music and teary vows. Picturesque really, and it reminded you of that time you’d all made ‘vision boards’ as a bonding activity, and Daisy had a little corner on hers that outlined the life she’d like to live, from a small sunset ceremony to the little white picket fence outside a cottage. You’re happy she’s finally arrived there, that she has a man who’s willing to give her everything she’d dreamed of.
You tell her as much, when you catch the pair of them in the reception hall. A warm hug for each of them and a firm hand shake between Jack and Ryland. It’s a lot less daunting than you had thought it would be, seeing them with the knot tied, no bad blood lingering or awkwardness about what once was. Just contentedness, with where your lives had led you each.
The food is good and the atmosphere is better, seeing people from a previous life chapter all reunited, laughing and catching up. The reception is held in a ball room, with gorgeous polished hard wood floors and lovely low lighting that hangs from the ceiling in delicate chandeliers. There’s a classical band, a memento board for people to take polaroids and write well wishes on them, a corner with photos from Both Daisy and Jack’s lives, in albums and tacked up on walls, showing where they meet and things bleed together into their future. All of it’s beautiful.
It’s heading into the later part of the night, when some people have excused themselves and cake has been cut, a hefty supply of the champagne depleted, that a nice slow song comes on.
You aren’t really paying that much attention to it, until you see Ryland shift beside you, rising and holding out one hand, palm up, towards you. “Care to dance?”
Something warm spreads over your face, a flush probably, as you lay a hand in his and he ever so gently pulls you to your feet, right in close to him. He leans down again, lips pressing feather-light to your temple before he leads you towards the dance floor.
It’s littered with other couples, celebrating the love they have for each other as well as the bride and groom.
All of it has you a little dizzy, settling a hand on Ryland’s shoulder as his palm slides around your waist, fingers slowing around the lace up back of your dress, pressing into your skin with gentle intent. He’s warm, firm against you, breath fanning across your cheek as you look up at him. “I know this isn’t the kind of dancing you meant, but it’s the best I can do for now.”
You humm, feet shifting in time with his, a slow waltz you weren’t even aware he knew. “I think I prefer this kind of dancing nowadays.”
Ryland’s lips tick up into a smile. “Yeah?”
He looks as good in the warm lamp light as he does in sunlight, kissing across his tanned skin and stubble, showing off the highlights of his hair. You want to run your hands through it, press a kiss to the scruff of his jaw. You settle on talking instead, worried he’s not one for such public displays of affection. “Left my wild nights behind in college.”
He sighs, like this is a devastating blow, hanging his head slightly, glasses slipping a smidge down his nose. “A shame. I was looking forwards to an appearance.”
You purse your lips, lifting the hand from his shoulder to cup his jaw, tilting his head back up a little, the pad of your thumb pressing his glasses back up to where they're supposed to sit. “Might do a private showing. Just for you.”
“You going to wash my car?” He asks, teasing. Eyes following the movement of your hand as it slips back down into place on his shoulder.
Your forehead falls, pressing against his collar bone as a furious blush blooms over your face, the worst it has been all night, murmuring, “You don’t have a car.”
He must have known what you were going to say, or some semblance of it because you certainly weren’t speaking loud enough for him to catch all of it, but he still sighs, a little dramatic. “Guess we’ll have to go with the kissing booth then.”
You lift your head a little, to look up at him where he’s smiling down, mirth dancing about in his eyes. “Oh, what a shame.”
The drawl has him crack a grin, cheeks flushed as he looks away. Fingers dancing slowly along the skin of your back, between the cords he’d tied up so perfectly for you.
For you, all of it. His nice suit he’d dug out from the back of his closet, the smart shoes nudging against yours with every step of the waltz. Ryland would do a lot for you, the realisation comes a little late, considering everything. You lean forwards a little, resting your cheek on his chest, as the song slows right down, indulgent.
“You got plans after this?” You ask, and it sounds so cheesy, so bland once it’s left your lips.
Still, when he answers, the smile is audible in Ryland’s voice. “Thought I was getting a private show. Is that offer off the table?”
“Think I can manage it,” You murmur, listening to the final few chords echo about the ball room, basking in the way his voice had rippled and rumbled through his chest, low against your cheek.
He lingers for a few seconds in the quiet, holding you close against his chest. You wonder if he, too, is basking in it. The closeness, the idea of having something that you’ve both been pretending couldn’t happen, wasn’t there in the air of exhaled breaths and weighted stares.
When he pulls back, there is nothing but adoration in his eyes, hand that holds yours falling low, but not releasing it, palm soft against your waist, almost as if he doesn't want to let you go just yet. “Wanna get out of here?”
“Bit forward, Ryland,” You tease, “we’ve not even taken photos yet.”
His eyes follow yours to the polaroid board in the corner, considers it for a moment before he’s pulling you gently by the grasp of his hand around yours, towards it.
The polaroid camera is a little hand held thing, there’s a stand for it, and poster board instructions on how to set a timer delay.
Ryland insists on taking one of just you, and while you’re grinning, trying to convince him to join you against the black fabric backdrop, the shutter goes off.
He rolls his eyes, but lets you drag him in beside you for the next photo. The timer is set, and just as you’re preparing to smile, something a little sweet and knowing, he gets one hand around the small of your back, knocks one of those very smart shoes against your heel and tilts you into a dip. It leaves you a little breathless, as he smiles, nose almost touching yours, shutter flashing off to the side.
He lets you choose which photo goes on the memo board. “Whichever one you don’t put up there, I’m keeping.”
You look a little silly in both, at least you think as much, caught off guard, and laughing a little out of breath. Ryland insists you look amazing in both. Something a bit selfish pulls at your gut, as you apprise both photos, and eventually, hand the one of you and Ryland to him- liking the idea of getting to see it again, of having a physical reminder of the night you two have spent together.
He grins like he’s won something, pulling his wallet out from his jacket pocket- a crisp brown leather that looks worn but well cared for- and to your mortification, tucks the photo into the clear slot. The one most people put their licences, or photos of loved ones, like heart-shaped lockets back in the old days. Ryland says nothing on the matter and he folds his wallet back up and slides it back into his pocket, waiting for you to write your message on the other polaroid’s back.
You scrawl some comment about happy endings and humble crazy beginnings, Signing your name on the bottom under the image of your laughter, and tack it up on the board next to the one Macey’s left.
Ryland’s got his arm out, hooked there for you to loop yours through again.
You manage to catch Daisy by the bar on your way out, and give her a tight hug, telling her again how beautiful the wedding has been, how happy you were for her.
The night air is crisp and the second you’re outside, waiting for the uber that’s just a few minutes away, Ryland strips off his suit jacket, draping it over your shoulders with a lack of hesitation that makes it seems as if he’s been waiting to do it all night.
You look at him and raise a brow, but don’t say anything when you catch sight of his pleased smile. It’s almost devastating to realise he looks even better in just the black button down and tie than he did in the full suit.
Again, the drive is mostly silent, but you notice pointedly, that you’re not going back to your apartment. And when you tilt Ryalnd’s phone and tap the screen awake, you recognise his street name in the trip’s destination.
“Presumptious.” You smile.
He grins back, lets a warm palm wander to the curve of your knee, fingers curling around it then venturing to settle a little higher around your thigh. “How are you going to wash my car if we don’t go to my place?”
“You don’t have a car.” You repeat, curious where all this teasing confidence has come from, if perhaps your very clear signals have finally given Ryland the means to throw out all of that unnecessary nervousness and doubt.
“Right,” He hisses, patting his other hand on his leg, as if to say ‘drat, there goes that plan’. Then he leans in close, whispers to you, “What was the back up plan again?”
“You are much bolder after a few glasses of champagne.”
He hums, a considering sort of sound that rumbles in the minimal air between you. “More so when I know I'm right.”
“And what, pray tell, are you right about?”
“That you like-like me.” He teases, like a child on the playground and if you were a little less level-headed, you might have kissed him right there, leant across the middle seat to lock lips with him in an uber.
But you don’t want the first time you kiss him to be viewed through a rear view mirror by a driver who looks very unimpressed by the conversation happening in the back seat. “You gonna prove that hypothesis in your apartment?”
“That’s very forwards of you.” He teases, head tipping down like he is going to kiss you.
Expect you turn your head, and his lips brush against your cheek, as you tut. “All scientists say experiments are supposed to be conducted in controlled environments.”
He leans back, still close enough for his warm breath to fan across your face. “You’ve been seeing other scientists? I’m heartbroken.”
“Give yourself some credit, your classes are very interesting.”
“Earsdropping, huh? Didn’t think you were the type.” He looks far too pleased by the idea that you’ve listened to him teach, like he doesn't know that when you come for something during class hours that you linger by the door and wait for him to finish whatever he’s saying, as if you could look at anything else when he was so captivating.
“I’ll Tell you exactly what type I am in,” You glance down to tap his phone awake, checking the ride estimate. “four minutes.”
He nods and you wonder if he’d get that head-rush distant expression on his face if you praised him for the patience. It’s something you want to save for later, you decide, for private. Just for you.
Ryland manages to wait, even keep his hands to himself, once you’re both out of the car, leading you though his building with a sort of reverent silence, that you get the impression wouldn’t return once broken. You stand across from each other in the elevator. With both his hands braced on the bar at hip height, Ryland fixes you with a look that echoes in the space, though the mirrors surrounding you and over the idle hum of machinery. You’re still wearing his jacket, over your shoulders, a slight barrier between the handrail and the curve of your back, as you stand with your arms crossed smiling at him.
The giddiness that bubbles up and about inside you, as you huddle in close behind him through the hallway, as he unlocks his door and lets you squeeze in past him, is something you’ve not felt in a long time. There’s not much room for childish excitement in the modern dating landscape, it feels as though everyone is in a rush, trying to get where they want to be with a relationship before it’s too late.
Ryland though, he’s here. You watch him latch the door, before he turns, standing there to let his eyes run up you again.
“Soooo,” He says, pursing his lips and tangling his hands together in front of him, like he’s suddenly nervous.
“So?” You ask, taking a few steps forwards to run your hand down the plane of his chest again, feeling it under your palm just like you did when he’d turned up at your apartment that afternoon.
“It’s been four minutes.” He swallows, and this close you can see how his adams apple bobs. Your other hand reaches up to scratch feather light against the stubble of his jaw, hand on his chest catching on the silky soft fabric of his tie, the one he’d picked out just for you.
Rylands hands are slow, one moves to the dip of your waist, landing where it had during your waltz, if not a little more firm as it presses you close against him. He catches his jacket by the collar, lets it slide back off your shoulders and hang from his grip as it slides to settle on the curve of your hip.
“It has.” You lick your lips.
Tuggin on his tie was not supposed to be a demanding thing, more so a gentle tease like you have been doing all night, stepping around that first move like it was a pitfall trap you’d never make it out of. Expect he pitches forwards much easier than you expected and Ryland's lips are pressed against yours.
Soft and still a little honeyed by the champagne, he moves slowly against you. He takes one step back, then another, pulling you with him and not letting his lips leave yours as he backs himself up against his apartment door.
Your teeth catch on his bottom lip, and a sharp inhale escapes him, almost a gasp, before he melts into the wood at his back, parting his lips and slipping his tongue up against yours.
It’s slow kissing, it’s dizzying and it’s want. Everything he’d promised you hours ago, in the afternoon sun of that venue, looking like a dream come true.
For what could be hours, you stay there, pressed up against him, kissing at his skin, until he shifts his legs, just slightly, enough to press one somewhere between yours, a soft presence halted by the fabric of your dress.
Breathless, you break the kiss and he lays a sweet peck against your temple, an echo of earlier, before he begins to nose at the line of your jaw, your neck. Kissing then sucking at the divot along your collar while you pant. “Ryland,”
He says your name, just as breathless against your skin, his hand dropping the jacket to pull at the chord of your dress.
“Is your doorway where you take all the girls?”
“There are no other girls.” He murmurs like a confession, far more earnest than you’d been prepared for.
“Just me?”
He pulls back, pupils blow wide and face flushed blotchy and red. “Yeah.”
Ryland leans forwards, crowds impossibly close until your feet begin to shuffle, back, back, back into his studio apartment. It passes in a blur as he presses in to kiss your lips again, glued to them until he deems it’s been enough backwards paces and presses another kiss to your jaw. Using his grip on your sides, Ryland turns you around, folds in around behind you.
His bed’s unmade, messy sheets splayed out in front of you, a pile of sage green cotton that feels like a promise, a sight you’ve dreamed about far too many times.
There’s pressure there, against your ass, a hard length that’s tight against his slacks and it makes your stomach swoop to know he’s so turned on by the slow kissing you’d been thinking about all night. His shuddering breath rushes like wind by your ear, as his fingers pull at the bow he’d tied himself. “Been thinking about this for too long.”
“Yeah?” You shudder when his lips find their place against your neck, sucking and biting at the skin there in a way that will probably result in a lasting reminder. “Since you laced it up?”
“Since you showed me this zipper." He pulls at it and the fabric gives, parting to sit low on your hips. Ryland kisses at the juncture of your throat, biting, and nipping.
The dress doesn’t fall, not with the straps still hanging loosely from your shoulders, but it’s a damn near thing. One of Ryland’s hands winds around your waist, dragging you back against him as he presses up with one slow grind that has him choking on a groan. His cock, still trapped in his slacks, drags between the zip and against your underwear in a tease that’s maddening with far too much still left to your imagination.
You try to turn but he’s got you wrapped up so firmly in his arms that it’s not plausible, so instead you reach a hand back, over your shoulder to tug at the knot of his tie, fingers slipping against the silky marital, catching in the bulk to it to tug. A particularly hard tug has him whining.
“Okay,” You huff out as he sucks a little harder just under your jaw that will definitely result in a hickey if you let him continue for much longer. “Come on, don’t you wanna fuck me?”
You punctuate this by groping around between you both until you get a hand over his cock, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Need to remember this bit.” He mumbles, hand around your waist retreating to slip inside your dress from behind, curving back around so his fingers can skate over the soft skin of your stomach, tips slipping just under the waistband of your panties.
It has you clenching down on nothing and you become actually aware of how uncomfortably wet you’re beginning to get. You squeeze your thighs together, squirming in his grasp.
“Next time, Ry-” He splays his hand over your stomach, using it to press you back into him. “Ryland, come on. Need you.”
It tumbles out in a breathy whine, and it’s like you’ve said the magic words. He’s turning you around in his grasp, hands reaching up to slip the straps off your shoulders and marvel at the sight.
He swallows as you reach for his tie again, loosening it gently now you can get your fingers into the knot properly. Ryland’s hands hover nervously before settling against your rib cage, fingers brushing anxiously against the underside of your breasts.
Your dress was not one that lent itself to a bra, so you’d gone without. You had assumed that he’d figured that one out, given how he’d both laced and un-laced the back of it, but now that it’s out of the way, he’s looking at your chest like he hadn’t expected to see it so quickly.
“You mean it?” He manages, sounding all tongue tied as you pry the tie off, letting it fall onto the floor, blending into the puddle of your dress- a perfect shade match. “I.. I get a next time?”
“Yeah.” You breathe, working on his shirt buttons, one after the other, coming apart as easily as Ryland did under your gaze. “As many as you want.”
When you get to the bottom of his shirt and reach for the belt buckle, Ryland’s hands move from where they’ve been gently nudging your breasts, to your wrists, snagging them gently as he pulls them back. His shoes nudged against yours, another one of those silent signals to step back that you didn’t know you understood so well until tonight.
“Let me.” He says, one hand coming to your hip to push you gently back and down onto his bed.
You land softly, mattress springing underneath you as you shuffle back, leaning on your elbows to gaze up at him as he toes off his shoes and pulls off his socks, a little off balance like the whole path from the door has altered his centre of gravity.
Ryland is a sight, heaven-sent.
His hair’s spiked out in six different directions, and you want to scratch at his scalp and pull at the strands all over again. He slides his glasses down his nose and sets them on the nightstand. The skin of his chest is just as tanned as his arms, a wide expanse that’s begging to be marked up with your teeth and nails.
The belt buckle clinks softly in the empty air as he slips it open, unbuttoning his slacks before he shrugs the black dress shirt off. God, you want to bite his shoulders.
Your teeth clamp down on your tongue at the thought, kind of wishing the tie was in the picture so you could pull him down on top of you. Just when you’re about to reach up, aiming for his shoulder or maybe even his cheek, Ryland surprises you by taking a knee.
His fingers are a little clumsy as they wrap around the heel of your left shoe, pulling it up onto his bent knee as he fumbles with the buckle. He’s gentle with it, more careful than he was with his own shoes that are certainly worth more than your cheap pair, right shoe, then the left.
Still, it has your stomach tied up in knots to witness with just how much reverence he’s treating you. And the sight of Ryland between your legs is certainly one you could get used to.
He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee before blinking up at you. “Are you… Can I-”
Ryland cuts himself off and that same unwarranted nervousness from before takes over his face, fingers curling tightly around your ankle, as if to ground himself. You smile at him, something that feels a little too giddy and a little too much like your 20 year-old self from college, fumbling and laughing your way to bed. “What is it Ry? You’ve already got me on your bed, no need to be shy.”
He bites his bottom lip, rolling it between his teeth as he considers the words. “If you say so.”
Then he gently leads your leg, by the ankle that’s still gripped tightly in his palm, off his propped leg as he drops it to kneel, and hooks it over his shoulder. Ryland kisses a path up your calf and along the inside of your leg and with an overwhelming flood of realisation, you fall back against the bed, bracing for the moment where he presses a soft kiss on your clit, through the fabric of your underwear.
Despite his earlier hesitance, Ryland does not dilly-dally. Once he hears your shuddering breath that sounds more like a moan than anything else, he hooks a thumb though the crotch of your panties, pulls them to the side and presses another slow kiss against you.
It’s maddening, has you gasping out his name as he licks a stripe up your cunt, sighing into it like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. He’s been teasing you long enough that when he presses two fingers along your folds, teasing the resistance of it, they sink in easily. He hooks them up, pressing up against the spongy wall and pulls another moan from your lips.
You're not sure how long Ryland spends between your legs with your hands in his hair and name on your lips, but it’s got you dizzy, clenching around his fingers as he strokes them inside you, languid and slow as he lays gentle kisses over your clit. His stubble scratches against your thighs in a way you’d expected to hate, but are getting rather fond of.
It’s a slow build that crests with you moaning his name and clenching around his fingers as his tongue slows, your hips twitching a little with overstimulation post-orgasm. He moves his kisses to the inside of your thigh, the one not hooked over his shoulder as you catch your breath and it’s highly plausible that he’s leaving another hickey there.
When he does pull back, Ryland is just as breathless as you. Cheeks flushed and chest stuttering as he licked his lips clean. His pupils are blown wide, so much so you can hardly see the blue as he gazes up at you. “You said I could fuck you, right?”
“Yeah,” you swallow, throat scratchy and dry. “You can.”
With your head still spinning from the attention and care he’s taking with you, it’s a moment before you realise his hands are back at your hips as he shuffles you around the bed, up until he can fit his palm behind your head and lift it onto a pillow that smells like him.
Ryland’s above you, propped up on one elbow and a knee to keep his weight off your body. You can feel each heavy exhale on your cheek. “Like this?”
“Just like this.” You say, nodding hand reaching up for his cheek to pull him down into another slow, languid kiss.
He leans in close, whining against your mouth as you part your legs for him to set his between and get a hand on the small of his back, pressing until he gets the hint and grinds downs. It has you both moaning and panting against each other.
You’re getting impatient, and while he must have ditched the pants somewhere between eating you out and repositioning you right side up on the mattress, he’s still got his briefs on and you’re still wearing your underwear.
“Off,” You grunt, hand pulling at the waistband of his briefs.
Ryland’s head drops to the space beside yours, just above your shoulder as he reaches a hand down to pull his underwear down over his cock and down his legs, kicking them off somewhere at the end of the bed.
He gasps, a shaky exhale hitting your skin as you wrap your hand around the length of him.
Warm and heavy in your palm, he’s bigger than you’d expected. When you slide your hand up, swiping a thumb over the head of his dick, there’s so much precum that it pools on your thumb pad. You give him a slow pump, slide eased by the wetness.
Ryland mouths at the skin of your shoulder, and the hand he’s not using to keep himself above you finds its way to your hip, slipping under your panties, pulling at them.
“Condoms. I need-” He cuts himself off with another groan, biting into your skin then kissing it softly like an apology. “I need a condom.”
His hand slips out from your underwear and he gets his knees up either side of your hips to reach over, straining for the nightstand. You take the moment to kiss along his collarbone, using the hand that’s not wrapped around him to tug your panties down, wriggling them off and down your legs.
It doesn’t go unnoticed, and he drops the condom wrapper somewhere beside your head as his gaze whips back to your face. “I was going to do that.”
He sounds a little bit thrown, like he’d really been looking forwards to pulling your panties off.
“You were also going to fuck me.” You prod, giving his cock another languid stroke, watching his face contort with pleasure as he groans. He eases himself back over you, legs between yours and his weight pressing down in a way that has you sighing in contentment.
“Not fair.” He pants, forehead dropping against yours. A hand, so gentle and far too tender comes up to brush the hair by your temple, away from your eyes. “Next time, you let me take my time, okay?”
You press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “We’ll take turns.”
The condom wrapper crinkles in your fingers and you pinch the edge of it between your teeth and rip the corner off, splitting it open with your thumb. Ryland whines, louder and needier than you’d heard him all night, when you roll it over his dick, hips bucking into your hand and cock bumping against your stomach.
He gets his hand down between your bodies, runs three of his fingers through your folds, making your breath hitch. Then he nudges your hand out of the way and runs his cock though them next. You whine, high pitched and stuttered.
It’s a slow steady push when he slips inside you, one that draws out a long moan from your lips. Ryland moans your name, panting and kissing at your throat.
“God,” he pants. “You feel so good, baby.”
A broken whine sneaks past your lips, one hand reaching up to slide around the back of his neck, to lead his face back to yours so you can kiss him all over again.
This type of slow kissing might have been your new favorite, Ryland’s tongue teasing the seam of your lips before you slip them apart, tracing the line of his teeth with your own tongue. He rolls his hips, grinding down in a slow motion. The curve of his cock drags along your walls, along that spongy spot before bumping so deep inside that it must hit your cervix.
You hook a leg up around his waist and it has his stomach pressing up against your clit when he moves again. Moaning into his mouth, you see stars. “Fuck, that’s perfect- so good.”
Your fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling in a way that earns you a whine and a jerky thrust of his hips. “Y-yeah?”
“Yeah Ry- perfect. Feel so full.” The praise kicks him into gear and his slow occasional grinds turn into a building pace, hips pushing against yours and he buries himself to the hilt with every thrust.
You kiss at the line of his jaw, mouthing and biting at the stubble there. He moans, sharp exhale hitting your cheek. “‘M not gonna last much longer, sw-swetheart.”
“S’okay. Let go, baby.” You murmur by his ear, free hand slipping down to press against your clit.
The pressure alone is almost enough to tip you over the edge, pussy spasming around him. Ryland groans, loud and unrestrained, his rhythm falling apart as you do.
When he does come, he manages a couple more thrusts, shallow as they nudge up against that perfect spot inside you. Ryland whines, shaking a little with over stimulation.
“Couple more.” You moan, fingers winding tight little circles over your clit. “Almost there.”
Your spine goes stiff and a drawn-out whine slips out as you cum, clenching around the weight of him. Ryland stills inside, buried deep as he pants.
Slowly, he eases himself down over you, the gentle pressure of his weight relaxing. Ryland only takes a few moments there though, before sliding an arm under you and around your waist, slowly rolling you both, so he’s sprawled out with his back on those sage green sheets with you draped over him.
He kisses your temple, mumbling your name like a prayer. “‘S a good kissing booth. Might be a repeat customer.”
You push up a little to look at him, hands either side of his chest, and a hitched breath sputters out of his lips as you shift, his cock still inside you. “Might? What happened to ‘next time’?”
He smiles at you, hands reaching for your hips as he draws slow lines up and down your skin with his thumbs. “Well, I don’t wanna push my luck.”
“You’re not pushing anything.” You murmur, leaning back down to kiss him proper.
Once the aftershocks of your orgasm have faded and the idea of being empty no longer pulls painfully at your chest, you raise your hips up and let Ryland’s now soft cock slip out. He exhales heavily, and you lay beside him, eyes on the slow spinning ceiling fan.
He sits himself up not long after, slips the condom off and wanders off to the tiny door that you now know is his bathroom. He comes back with a damp cloth, smiling at you shyly as he cleans you up, gentle swipes over your core and along the inside of your thighs.
Ryland walks over and pulls some boxers on, then returns to the bed to slide a pair over your hips too. “You want a shirt?”
You bite your bottom lip in a poor attempt to smother a grin. “Only if it’s one of your nerdy ones.”
He kisses the smile off your lips and wanders back over to his wardrobe, throws a shirt in your general direction then goes about fixing the sheets.
You admire the sight. It had never occurred to you how nice his arms were, you want them around you again. He pulls the sheets straight, then up over you before he crawls in beside you.
“This okay?” He asks, pulling you over to lay up against him.
“More than okay.” You snuggle closer, cheek pressed against the warm plane of his chest. “Been thinking about this.”
The confession slips out in a rush of endorphins, like you’re so happy to be wrapped up in his arms and sheets, smelling like him, that you just can’t help but let him know.
You can hear the confusion in his voice when he speaks. “Having sex with me?”
No. You almost say, even though you had. It wasn’t where you were trying to go with this though. “Sleeping in your bed. With you.”
The rise and fall of his chest, of a heavy exhale, moves beneath you. “Oh.”
“I think our next date should be trivia.” You declare, a quiet sort of smile on your lips as his fingers trace slow little circles on your back between the waistband of your borrowed boxers and the ridden up hem of the shirt. “So we can get it right this time.”
“Deal.”
[ Masterlist ]
baby's first Goose fic? more proabaly on the way, although next fic published will proabaly be an oc one, with either Ryland Grace or Holland March from the nice guys.
warnings : dangerous amounts of awkward, nerdy ryland? terrible writing, not edited
summary : ryland has a crush on the kindergarten teacher that his class visits once a month
w/c : 4.3k
a/n : the chokehold this man has on me is INSANE
It was the last Friday of the month, Ryland’s favorite day. Once a month, he got to walk his homeroom class ten minutes down the street to the local elementary school. Once a month, his students got to hang out with their kindergarten buddies. Once a month, he got paid to sit around and be with her.
Y/n was the kindergarten teacher he was partnered up with. Last year he had been stuck with Mrs. Wilson. Her classroom always smelled of microwaved fish and sweaty fourth graders. She also had a bad habit of leaving the classroom without telling him, leaving him alone with nearly sixty children. Y/n was very different. Her classroom always smelled of lavender and citrus, and the only time he had ever been alone in her classroom was when she dropped the students off at lunch and went to the restroom.
Ryland was very grateful that he was visiting her classroom and that she wasn’t visiting his. Her room was a stark contrast to his. He had planets hanging from the ceiling, his desk was cluttered and trashed, and things fell down regularly. Here, there were paper lanterns hanging down, but that was all. They were evenly spaced and gave the room a cozy feel, not a trapped in low budget space feel. Everything had a place. Her desk was cleared, at least the top was. He had no clue if the drawers were in the same condition. The classroom was organized from the row of backpacks hanging on the wall to the cabinet filled with toys. It was structured, warm.
However, nice as the classroom was, that was not the best part of this arrangement the two schools set up. Working with Y/n was the highlight of his school year. There was just something about her. Maybe it was the fact that she always had a tupperware filled with baked goods for him when he brought his class to visit. Maybe it was the fact that she always smelled like vanilla and jasmine. And maybe, just maybe, it was the way she taught her students. The way that she could help one student understand a concept using props and hand motions and then turn around and help another by turning it into a game. She had a passion for helping them get from where they were, to where they were going. It was written all over her face.
This was what Ryland thought about as he walked his eighth grade homeroom over to the elementary school. The morning fog was still thick and a slight breeze sent a chill down his spine. The buzzing chatter of his students was making the grey sky seem a little lighter. He loved that they were just as excited as the kindergarteners were.
They made it inside the elementary building and the warmth immediately seeped into his bones, welcoming him like the embrace of an old friend. He navigated his class through the now familiar hallways and stopped outside a door that had been decorated with small laminated ducks, each one bearing the name of a kindergartener in the classroom. He turned to his gaggle of students.
“Remember, go in quietly and sit on the floor near your kid.” He said, making eye contact with the students who loved to go in squealing and hug their kindergarten partner.
“Yes, Mr. Grace,” the class echoed.
Ryland knocked on the door. He suddenly felt nervous. This had become the new normal since the first time Y/n opened the door. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat to no avail. He wiped one sweaty palm on his jeans and ran the other one, shakily, through his tousled hair. His stomach knotted, he felt like an idiot.
The door opened, and there was Y/n. She was wearing dress pants and an oversized sweater. Her hair was falling naturally. The smell of her perfume was wrapping him up like he just stepped inside after being out in the cold too long, which technically he did. His breath hitched quietly and he hoped she didn’t hear it. He felt the small smile creeping onto his face and there was no point in trying to fight it.
He didn’t get to bask in the feeling as long as he wished to, the overly excited five year olds started babbling behind her. She smiled at him. What kindergarteners?
“Hey,” she said, her voice low, like she was whispering a secret for his ears only.
The small smile broke into a full blown grin. “Hey,” he whispered back. Y/n opened the door fully so Ryland and his class could enter. The two teachers stepped aside while the students entered the space and situated themselves. As he entered the room, his eyes settled on her desk, finding a tupperware sitting on it, a pink sticky note on top with his name on it. He could feel the tips of his ears match the color of the sticky note.
“My kids have been excited all week. We had to make a countdown paper chain on Monday,” She said, beaming up at him.
Ryland let out a small chuckle. “Mine too. They try to play it off and act cool, but they’ve asked me once a week when we’re coming back.” Y/n laughed and both teachers got back to what they were actually supposed to be doing.
The schedule was simple enough. First was penmanship. The eighth graders had to help the kinders write a three sentence story. Y/n stood in front of the whiteboard, pink marker in hand.
“So if Mr. Grace is my partner,” She said, looking at the group of fifty or so kids crammed into the room. “Then he and I are going to come up with the story together! It can be about anything!” She looked over at him. “For example, I might write, ‘Mr. Grace is a good teacher.’” She wrote the sentence on the board. Her lettering was smooth and elegant, only in the way that teachers can have. She glanced over at Ryland expectantly.
“And I might want her to write, ‘Miss Y/n is a great teacher.’” He hoped that it wasn’t obvious that he was trying to elevate her. The smile and roll of her eyes told him he was unsuccessful. She wrote it anyway. He moved to stand next to her.
“After that, we might say, ‘They make a great team.’” She said, and the smile she gave him went right to his stomach. He had to snap his eyes anywhere else or he feared he would forget himself and make a really dumb move in front of the students. He felt his neck heat up and he was sure he was beet red. Y/n noticed. Her gaze drifted back to the students. “Are there any questions?” She asked.
A hand shot up instantly. Y/n nodded for the student to ask his question. “But, Miss Y/n! Our papers have a big square on top of our writing lines!” Y/n smiled at the urgency of the question.
“They do! Good job, Jeffrey, I almost forgot! At the top of your paper you have a blank space. You and your buddy are going to color a picture that goes with your story.”
Another hand went up. “Miss Y/n, you didn’t draw a picture.”
The middle schoolers chuckled, noticing the way their teacher was avoiding looking at Miss Y/n. One of them raised their hand. “Yeah, Mr. Grace, you have to help Miss Y/n color a picture of the two of you!”
He wanted to die. He hated how bad he was at being subtle. He was rescued when Y/n let out a laugh. “You guys are right. Tell you what, while you guys write, Mr. Grace and I will draw a picture on the board.”
The students got to work as Ryland uncapped a black marker. He started drawing a stick figure. It was lopsided, and the eyes weren’t evenly spaced out, but Y/n assumed it was his best efforts based on the way his brows knit together and his tongue poked out slightly from between his lips.
He looked over to where Y/n was finishing her drawing. It was very obviously him. From the glasses to the cardigan he was wearing, the dry erase drawing was very evidently Ryland. He was even giving a thumbs up. He glanced back at his drawing. Not terrible. Not great. He picked up the pink marker she had been using earlier. He drew a flower in the stick woman’s hand. He took a step back and admired his work. Y/n did the same.
“We really do make a great team,” she said, turning to look up at him.
His brain short circuited. She didn’t even compliment him. Why was his brain offline? Think of something! Say something! Say anything! She’s looking right at you! Say something! Say something now!
“Like ribosomes and protein synthesis.” Not that! Idiot.
But the panic subsided as Y/n let out a huff of laughter and her body involuntarily leaned into his. It was brief, a slight graze of her shoulder against his. Yet it was all he could focus on. He stilled as it happened, trying to memorize the feeling instantly. He spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out if his arm tingled from the force of impact or if his brain was experiencing a minor chemical imbalance. His internal debate subsided as Y/n instructed the students to turn in their work.
The rest of the morning passed by in a flurry of raised hands and tiny confused sighs as math worksheets were handed out and completed. There was a breath of relief when Y/n announced it was time for recess. He shrugged his cardigan off and onto the chair as he pulled his blazer back on. Y/n led the group down the hall and outside as Ryland manned the end of the line, ensuring no wandering or straggling.
This time, the fresh air felt less inviting, like it was stripping the atmosphere of all the warmth and depth that Y/n’s classroom supplied. It smelled Earthy and sharp. Normally it would be one of his favorite things in the world. In this moment, he wanted nothing more than to be inhaling her scent. Her classroom scent, that is, or so he told himself. His inner lament was silenced when a soccer ball went flying into his left foot.
“Mr. Grace!” A chorus of students yelled his name and ran over to him. A tiny boy with a mop of dark curly hair peered up at him through thick eyelashes. His hands were clasped near his chest as he started to speak. “Mr. Grace, will you play with us?”
Ryland felt something profound tug at his heart strings as the boy looked up at him expectantly.
“Sure, but only if we beat these middle schoolers, deal?” He stuck out his hand, the soccer ball now pinned under his foot.
The boy, Miles, shook his hand and giggled out, ‘deal’.
“Kinder versus middle school!” was all Ryland shouted before kicking the ball towards a five year old and running towards the goal, guarded by one of his own students.
Y/n watched from the sidelines as Ryland weaved, not so elegantly, between the students. He was constantly stumbling over his own feet, and his glasses kept sliding down his face. However, Y/n also saw the way he passed the ball to her students every time. The way he would steal the ball from an eighth grader, pass it to a little kid, only to have the ball stolen by a middle schooler again. She noticed the way he fell backwards and landed on his back in order to avoid lightly bumping one of her students. She watched him pause the game to help a girl tie her shoe. He had never looked so attractive. He was squatting down, her yellow shoe resting atop his knee. His glasses hung around his chin and his hair was tousled and sweaty from running. The way he smiled, watching as the girl ran back to the game once her shoe was properly tied again. She noticed the way that the water ran down his hair to his cheek to his neck, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. Wait, water?
Y/n’s train of thought was cut off by a splash of rain hitting her forehead. Oh great. Before she knew it, five year olds all around her were losing their minds. She pulled her sweater tighter around herself as the rain picked up. Ryland was by her side in an instant, shrugging his blazer off and, awkwardly, draping it over Y/n’s head, an attempt to shield her from the rain. Y/n smiled despite herself as she watched him concentrate. A whistle blew and all the kids quickly got in line as Y/n led them towards the classroom. Ryland, soaked to the bone, stood at the end of the line, waiting for one kindergartener to catch up after he ran back into the playground for his water bottle.
The group was buzzing as they re-entered the classroom. Y/n gave instructions for the kids to hang up their coats and find a seat on the rug. Ryland stood next to Y/n, who was finally pulling the blazer from her head. “You didn’t have to do that,” She whispered, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
“Yes I did,” he breathed out. Y/n tried to hand him the blazer, but it was quickly draped around her again, this time, over her shoulders. She smiled as he rubbed the fabric up and down her arms. There was a faint smell of clean linen and stale coffee. It was uniquely Ryland, like the scent only existed for him. She had been mostly protected from the rain, and she didn’t really need dried off, but she let him do it.
His glasses had little drops of water on them, sliding down the lens and onto the floor. His hair was completely soaked, dripping down his face steadily onto his clothes, which had been thoroughly drenched. Yet here he was, drying her off. The whole world seemed to narrow down to just the two of them as Ryland pulled the blazer off of her and wrapped his knit sweater around her. The sleeves were too long for her, but she pushed them back slightly, freeing her hands. The soft fabric brushed his arm as he tucked a stray hair behind her ear. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, Y/n waited with baited breath.
“Miss Y/n?” A tiny hand pulled on the sweater and Y/n reluctantly pulled her eyes away from Ryland’s.
Ryland felt his mouth shut quickly, suddenly very aware of where he was. He looked over at his students, who were smirking and looking away. Because that's what he needed, a class of middle schoolers noticing his awkward crush on the nicest woman in the world.
He tried looking anywhere else. The pattern of the floors was suddenly riveting. His gaze snapped back to Y/n as she turned on a movie and told the class to watch quietly and eat their lunches. He turned the lights off and made his way to the back of the classroom, sitting on a tiny table. Y/n sat next to him, tupperware in hand, pink sticky note still on top. She handed it to him wordlessly, the air around them full and comforting. He opened the container as Y/n started eating her lunch next to him.
“Banana bread?” He whispered excitedly. “You didn’t!”
Y/n smiled, and she was overjoyed that the lights were off and he wouldn’t be able to see the way that her cheeks flushed. “Of course I did. You said it was your favorite.” Ryland leaned back in the chair slightly and started eating quietly, eyes trained on the students in front of him.
He let his hand settle on the table beneath him, slowly letting it drift closer to Y/n’s until his hand was ghosting hers. Y/n didn’t look away from the kids as she carefully shifted so her hand was pressed against his, trying to get him to just take a hint already.
He let his fingers delicately trace over her knuckles before hooking his pinky under her hand and flipping it gently so it rested in his. It was slow, and a little clumsy, but it was also warm. Solid.
Ryland could feel the quickening thump of his heart against his chest. His throat was dry and he was suddenly very nervous that his hand was going to start sweating.
The thoughts were subdued when Y/n brushed her thumb over his knuckles, trying to memorize every ridge, every valley. He looked down where they were joined together. A small smile graced his features and he went back to watching the kids.
Lunch was over too soon in his humble opinion. In reality, they had actually gone fifteen minutes over because Y/n didn’t want to let go of Ryland’s hand. Only two more hours before he had to leave, and he tried to push the thought away, like not thinking about it delayed the inevitable. He took his place at the front of the room as Y/n settled her students into their seats.
“Alright you guys! Who’s excited to learn about space?” Every little hand shot into the air.
He uncapped an expo marker and started asking questions. “Who knows what is in the middle of the solar system?” A middle schooler started whispering into her kindergartener’s ear. The five year old jumped up frantically, waving her hand in the air.
“I know! I know!”
“Tell me, Amaya!”
“The sun!”
“Good job! Yes! The Sun is in the middle of our solar system! Everything goes in circles around it.” He drew a sun on the whiteboard. “Alright, Amaya, I need your help now.”
Amaya looked over at Y/n for reassurance. After receiving a nod of approval, Amaya walked to the tall teacher.
“Okay. Amaya, you are the sun. You’re gonna stand right here.” He gave her a high five as she stood where she was told to.
“Who knows what planet is closest to the Sun?”
There was more whispering. Then more voices shouting out ‘I know’ and ‘Me! Me!’.
“What is it, Jack?”
“Mercury!”
“Good job! Come on up!” Ryland added another circle to the board. “Okay, Jack. You're gonna go in a circle around Amaya, and you’re the fastest planet in the solar system! So go! Faster! Faster!” The class erupted into giggles.
“What comes after Mercury?” He didn’t have to wait this time. “Which planet is it, Claire?”
“Uh, Venus?”
“Venus is right!” Claire didn’t wait for permission before walking to the front. “Okay Claire, you have to walk in a circle too, but you’re very slow,” He said, dragging out the last part of the sentence. Claire started marching in slow motion around Jack. Laughter again.
He continued on until he had an entire solar system of kindergarteners running around the space. Y/n watched as he laughed with the kids and inevitably started to ramble about how technically Max, the Earth stand-in, was moving slightly too fast for this example to be realistic. She didn’t realize she was smiling until Ryland glanced over and shot her a grin.
He finally settles them down and returns everyone to their seats. Y/n watched him for a moment longer before remembering the coloring sheets in her hand.
They sat together at her desk once the kids started coloring together. “I don’t think they’ve ever had that much fun during science,” Y/n said, her voice sincere, with a hint of something more. God, Ryland hoped he wasn’t imagining it.
“I don’t know about that,” He said, his gaze flicking quickly to her lips and back up to her eyes. Y/n noticed. Her cheeks heated up and her eyes shifted to the ground, remembering quickly that they were still working.
Ryland wanted to die. He looked up at the ceiling and wished that it would fall on him. He was saved from the awkwardness when a voice called his name.
“Mr. Grace,” A teary eyed Amaya approached him with her coloring page in her grasp. He was moving before he realized it, crouching down so he was eye level with her.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He held his palm out and let her grab it with her small hand. She sniffled and Y/n felt her breath get caught in her throat at the interaction. The way his eyes scanned Amaya for something wrong. The way he subconsciously made her feel seen. The way he knew to hold out his calloused hand. It all caused something to bubble under the surface.
“I messed up my drawing,” she mumbled, showing him the paper. Ryland looked at the page and then back at the small girl.
“Messed up? I don’t see anything wrong!” He said, embellishing his confusion slightly.
“Saturn isn’t supposed to be pink,” She sniffled again and let out a small, sad sigh that made Ryland want to tear up a little.
“Well you know what?” He asked, looking at the girl holding his hand.
“What?”
“I think pink is the best color anyway. I think that Saturn looks better in pink than any other color.”
Amaya cracked a small smile. “Pink is your favorite color?”
Ryland beamed back. “Well, I don’t know, orange is pretty cool, but pink is too.”
Amaya giggled and let go of Ryland’s hand, bouncing back to her seat. He stayed crouched on the ground, watching her go back to her seat for a while longer.
It was at this moment that Y/n subconsciously noticed how strong his shoulders looked through his still damp shirt, which clung to his muscles in all the right places. She shook her head as he stood up, like it would remove the thought from her brain.
“You’re really good with them, you know.” Her voice was quieter. It sent a warm tingle down Ryland’s spine. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it quickly.
Y/n giggled and looked back at the students. He opened his mouth to try again.
“Well, statistically speaking, it’s easier to induce dopamine at that developmental stage.” He noticed the way her lips curved into a smirk and her eyes slightly narrowed in confusion. “Their baseline for excitement is much lower than in adults, so small achievements tend to produce disproportionally strong reactions. So like,” He took a breath, realizing he was still staring at her lips, and moved his eyes to meet hers. “High return on minimal input situation.”
Y/n rolled her eyes and laughed, lightly shoving his shoulder. “That was a lot of words to say that I was right.” He smiled and pressed his shoulder into hers.
They sat together until Y/n went up to give the next instructions. Her eyes kept wandering over to his frame, sitting in a tiny, blue chair meant for a five year old. The older kids helped their kindergarten partners put their things away and start their reading work.
Y/n started picking up markers that had fallen on the floor. Ryland followed suit. He stopped at Amaya’s seat, noticing how Saturn was bright pink with orange rings around it. He smiled softly and went to pick up the orange marker at the same time that Y/n did. Their fingers brushed, and at first Ryland pulled back, startled by her presence, letting out a quiet gasp.
Y/n let out a small giggle, and quickly clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. He rolled his eyes at her laughter, but smiled despite himself. They cleaned up quietly, enjoying the last moments together.
“Alright, kinders! Let’s say bye to our middle schoolers!” Y/n said as the eighth graders lined up with their bags.
“Bye!” The class shouted. The middle schoolers waved and filed out of the room, Ryland hesitated outside the door. Y/n stood in the doorway, wanting to see him as long as she could before closing the door.
He turned from Y/n to his class. “Start walking to the bus, I’ll meet you there. Gotta ask Miss Y/n what grade you guys should get.” The class groaned but started walking anyway.
He turned back to Y/n. “I uh,” what was he doing? This was a terrible idea. “I, well, you,”
Y/n smiled and he completely forgot whatever it was he was trying to spit out. In a moment of foolish bravery, his mouth moved faster than his brain.
“Would you want to go out with me?” He breathed out.
Y/n smiled, looking at the ground, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. She looked back up at him, cheeks flushed. “I’d love to.”
He let out a sigh of relief. There was something about the way she looked at him. The way her eyes flitted down to his lips and then back to his eyes. He forgot himself for a moment. His lips went crashing into hers. It was a little clumsy, and a little rushed, but his lips were soft, and molded nicely with hers.
He pulled away, breathless, eyes a little wild. Y/n leaned against the door, not registering the students behind her talking and coloring.
“I‘ll see you later,” he mumbled as he walked backwards, eyes still trained on Y/n. He stumbled only twice before he turned around and walked towards the school bus waiting for him in the rain.
He was startled as he climbed on board and was greeted with applause.
“Yeah! Get it Mr. Grace!”
“Finally did it!”
“You wanted her so bad!”
“It was like an awkward nerdy soap opera!”
He rolled his eyes but smiled as soon as he sat down. Now he just had to survive the date.
❥・tags: nsfw, ryland grace blurb, established relationship, college au, he's so eepy, ryland was SO an arrogant person in college tyty, eater!grace, fingers in mouth, so much praise, mild dumbification (in the sense that he praises you to hell while you go dumb), gn!nicknames (sunshine, baby), gn!reader, no use of y/n
❥・word count: 1255
Ryland’s at your door. It’s barely midnight.
When opened, you see your very tired-looking boyfriend in a wrinkled tee and slouchy pajama pants, glasses hanging haphazardly on one ear.
“What’s the face?” you huff a laugh, stepping aside for him to enter.
“I've been up nearly every night this week adding your edits from our last read-through of my dissertation,” he mumbles, handing you his paper, tossing his glasses onto your desk, and shutting your door behind him.
“‘An Analysis of Water Based Assumptions and Recalibration of Expectations for Evolutionary Models’. You took my edit to make the title more cohesive,” you note, “sounds fancier. Better than ‘Analysis of Water Based Lifeforms’ and whatever whatever,” you mumble, settling onto your bed, already starting to read.
“You’re so… nitpicky,” he huffed in half-frustration and half-appreciation, pressing a quick kiss on your temple.
“Mm. Well, I know how important this paper is, Ry. I want to make sure my edits align with ASM formatting and whatnot. If you think about it, I’m the one struggling, since I’m not familiar with this citation style,” you comment, glancing up from the paper briefly as he settles on standing in front of you.
You don't miss that look in his eyes. You know, the one he has when he’s stressed and tired and oh so pent up.
He leans over you, warm palms pressed on your knees as you read over the abstract of his paper, his eyes tracing your features.
“How’s the paper?” he mumbles quietly, hands running up your thighs slowly.
“Good. Same as before. You didn't make any major edits to the abstract?” You glance up at him again.
“Nothing major, sunshine,” he whispers, one of his hands meeting your shoulder to push you onto your back.
“Do you want me to help you or not?” you huff softly, adjusting your grip on the paper to hold it properly now that you are lying down.
“You’re helping plenty. I just need a little more help,” he says lowly, his voice rumbling in his throat.
His fingers pull on the band of your shorts, a silent request for consent.
You nod. He’s slow with the fabric, pulling it down your legs and tossing the shorts onto your desk chair.
“Just… keep reading,” he mumbles, pressing slow kisses on your inner thighs, his stubble prickling against your skin.
“Ry,” you start, a shuddering sigh escaping your lungs when he licks near your entrance.
“Let me make it worth it, sunshine. I know I'm pushing my paper onto you for no payment. I can… I can help us both,” he whispers, kissing your skin to punctuate his words.
Your eyes flick over the same sentence a few times as he continues kissing and licking between your legs, strained groans rumbling in your chest as you try to focus on the paper.
“You’re so smart. So so helpful to me, baby,” he mumbles against your skin, eyes peeking up from between your legs. His arm reaches up, fingers pushing against your lips.
“Open,” he says softly before giving a slow lick against your sensitive parts.
You shiver at the sensation, parting your lips as he pushes his middle and ring fingers into your mouth.
Your saliva coats his fingers as he continues working his mouth against you, grunting softly against your skin as he feels himself tense up.
He pulls his fingers from your mouth, eyes peeking up at you again.
“Breathe,” is all he says before he eases his wet fingers into your entrance.
He continues licking and sucking on your most sensitive parts, fingers working to stretch your entrance.
Your breath becomes shaky as you near your peak, warm cum spurting out as his fingers curl into you. You whine quietly, a small noise in the back of your throat.
“I love when you make that noise, sunshine,” he whispers, licking up any stray beads of cum from your skin.
“Spelling,” you say softly.
“What?” he smiles.
“You have a spelling error. On page 12,” you say slowly, whining quietly when he pulls his fingers out before thrusting them back in quickly.
“Ah, okay. Mark it for me, baby?” he hums before returning between your legs to draw out another orgasm.
“Yeah, I um…” You start feeling spacey as he gets a good rhythm going.
“Pen, or… something,” you huff quietly, finally settling on dog-earing the page. You continue reading to the best of your abilities while your boyfriend is trying his hardest to make you cum on his tongue again.
Ryland’s winning.
You buck your hips against his face, earning a quiet grunt and a gentle shove of your hips back onto the mattress as his fingers pump faster.
“The um, the grammar. In this… this sentence,” you stammer, fingers gripping the paper tightly as he pushes you over the edge again.
“Mm, yeah?” his voice rumbles against your sensitive skin, causing your legs to shake as your cum coats his tongue again.
“The- the sentence. It flows weird,” you say slowly, whimpering softly as you push the last of your cum out.
“Does it?” he hums softly, standing from his spot on the floor, still slightly bent over to keep his fingers warm inside you.
You nod, eyes outlining his bulge as he pulls his pants off. You've missed this. Him. He’s been so busy with his dissertation; it's been the only reason you've seen him in the past few weeks.
“You're doing so good right now,” he mumbles softly, stroking himself with his free hand while the other one pumps into you slowly.
“So smart, reading and correcting my paper. Even when you’re not in my major or familiar with the citation style. So so smart, baby,” he whispers, pulling his fingers out.
“What page are you on now, sunshine?” he says softly, adjusting himself to line up with your entrance.
You stammer out “something-teen”, a quiet moan cutting off your words as he pushes himself into you.
“Such a fast reader,” he says slowly, guiding your legs to hook around him.
“How many mistakes have you found so far, baby?” Ryland whispers into your ear as he rocks his hips ever so slowly into yours, grinding deep into you.
You mumble something of an answer, not quite coherent, as his hips roll into yours, painstakingly slow.
“Didn’t quite catch that,” he mumbles softly, licking the skin of your neck.
Rather than words, all Ryland gets from you are soft gasps and moans.
“C'mon, baby. I need some feedback on my paper. Don't you want to help me?” His teeth graze your skin, earning a quiet sigh from you.
You nod slowly, eyes drifting from the paper to the ceiling as you reach your peak again, legs clasping tightly around his waist.
“Sunshine,” he mumbles softly, lifting his head from the crook of your neck, breath hitching slightly as he helps you ride out your high.
You whine softly in response, earning a huff from your boyfriend.
“C’mon… use your words for me,” he whispers, peppering kisses on your jawline.
Slow, steady rolls of his hips continue. Soft praises and featherlight kisses litter the silence as your senses slowly drift to focus solely on him.
You don’t know how long he’s been going at it until you feel the familiar sensation of a cold towel wiping you down.
“You did so good for me, sunshine. And you got about halfway through the paper this time. Good job,” he whispers, pressing a soft kiss on your temple.
❥・a/n: the way i would freak this man ,, consider mr staggering waste of carbon had an ego in college bc hes j soooo smart tyvm ,, love yall and stay safe !! <3
thinking about eva stratt crafting a coffin for her friends. the very best coffin, full of every piece of pirated media the entire world has to offer. crafted for maximum comfort, this coffin, with every bit of authority available to her, which is all of it.
and then thinking about all the people who call her cold or uncaring or clinical about what she has to do to save earth. eva stratt, who had silly t-shirts and vodka and favorite meals stored in the Hail Mary and treated with the same level of importance as the finely tuned equipment and the centrifuge the entire planet relies on for salvation.
and then thinking about eva stratt nodding and saying, “yeah, I’m pretty awful. that’s why i’m in charge” with a neutral expression and even believing it. as if crafting the most beautiful coffin and homage to her soon-to-be dead friends won’t haunt her always.
thinking about eva stratt being the first person on the “eva stratt is a monster” train, welcoming ryland grace aboard and knowing she believed in him more than anyone else.
it’s fine, really it’s fine and normal and eva stratt makes beautiful coffins for the people and things she cares about.
Summary: She thought the hardest part was earning her place. She was wrong. The job doesn’t get easier, it just changes, leaving room for choices without clear answers. And somewhere in that shift, her dynamic with Tim becomes something far less certain and harder to ignore.
Word count: 3.9k
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a/n: tbh have been STRUGGLING to find the it in me to keep writing this series, so I'm so sorry if this chapter disappoints... I'm just trying to remind myself that I love to do this.
A week and a half had passed since Captain Andersen's funeral.
It had been long enough that the black mourning bands had disappeared from everyone's badges. Long enough that the station had settled back into something resembling its normal rhythm. Calls still came in. Reports still piled up. Roll call still happened every morning at exactly the same time.
Life had moved forward.
Your eyes drifted toward the captain's office almost absentmindedly, stopping on the figure moving behind the glass.
Captain Weatherby.
Even after more than a week, seeing someone else sitting behind Andersen's desk still caught you off guard. Every now and then you still found yourself expecting her to step out of the office carrying another stack of case files, asking Grey a question, or stopping to check in with one of the rookies before briefing started.
Instead, Weatherby wandered in and out of the office with a coffee cup permanently glued to one hand and an expression that always suggested he had somewhere else he'd rather be.
It still didn't feel real.
The grief had become quieter over the last week, less like a wave threatening to pull you under and more like something that lingered in the background, surfacing when you least expected it. Throwing yourself into work had helped. Long shifts left very little room to think, and lately you'd been volunteering for just about every overtime opportunity Grey would approve. By the time you got home most nights, you were too exhausted to do much besides shower and fall into bed.
It wasn't exactly healthy.
But it was working.
"...Per Captain Weatherby, the following protocol changes will take place immediately." Grey's voice pulled you back into the briefing room.
He stood at the front with a clipboard in one hand, reading with all the enthusiasm of someone announcing a tax audit.
"No more putting any boots on top of lockers. Any boots left on top of lockers will be thrown away at midnight and noon daily."
A confused silence settled over the room.
Grey continued without looking up. "Second, every officer must provide a business card to every citizen they contact. If a citizen doesn't want a business card, the officer must write a police report documenting that the citizen refused a business card."
The silence lasted exactly one second before a chorus of groans spread across the room.
"Sir," Lopez said, "with all due respect... this sucks."
A few quiet laughs followed.
Grey looked up from the clipboard with an expression that suggested he wasn't exactly thrilled either. "It's not our job to judge, Officer Lopez. Command believes the captain's focus on efficiency is what Mid-Wilshire needs right now."
Almost on cue, the briefing room door swung open, and Captain Weatherby wandered inside carrying a paper coffee cup, glancing around the room as though he'd forgotten why he'd come in.
Grey looked over. "Captain. Can I help you?"
"I need an updated vehicle list."
"Yes, sir. I'm in the middle of roll call. I'll get it to you right after." Grey paused before gesturing toward the room. "But since you're here, would you like to say anything inspirational to the day shift?"
Weatherby blinked. "Did you tell them about the boots?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oh."
He looked around at the room full of officers waiting expectantly.
"Okay... well..." He shifted his coffee to his other hand. "Keep up the... uh... good work."
Without another word, he turned around and wandered back out of the room.
You bit back a smile.
Grey looked like he was reconsidering several life choices before clearing his throat. "All right. Last bit of business. The District Attorney's Office has a witness on ice. They need our help watching him."
From the front row, Nolan immediately raised his hand.
Grey didn't even pretend to consider it.
"I usually don't assign rookies these types of details, Officer Nolan. And Officer Bishop would have to agree."
Bishop looked over at her rookie. "Forget it. Protection details are like watching paint dry."
Grey nodded. "Looks like you're out of luck."
"I'll do it."
Your eyes lifted automatically toward the back of the room.
Bradford hadn't moved from where he'd been leaning in his chair, but there was the faintest hint of amusement in his expression.
"Nolan and I haven't had a chance to bond yet."
Laughter rolled through the room.
You couldn't help laughing too, mostly because the look on Nolan's face was somewhere between confusion and outright panic.
"Great," he said, sounding anything but convinced.
Your smile lingered a moment longer than you expected.
You hadn't really spoken to Tim since everything with Andersen. Not since that phone call in the middle of the night. It wasn't that either of you had been avoiding the other. If anything, the opposite was true. The station had been stretched thin ever since Weatherby arrived, everyone working longer hours while the division adjusted to a new captain. Between shifts, paperwork, and overtime, there simply hadn't been an opportunity.
Still, seeing him felt... easy.
Comfortably familiar.
The thought surprised you enough that you pushed it aside before it had a chance to settle.
Grey glanced back at his clipboard.
"All right. Bishop, you'll be riding with Chen. That's it." He looked up, almost apologetically. "Oh, and remember, when you take your shops in tonight, you'll need to drive by the garage for a mechanical inspection and mileage report."
A collective groan spread through the room.
Grey gave a small shrug.
"You're welcome."
///
By midday, the shift had settled into its usual rhythm, and after a handful of traffic stops, a noise complaint, and helping an elderly couple whose car had died in the middle of an intersection, it almost felt like Mid-Wilshire was beginning to resemble itself again.
You were stopped at a red light, fingers tapping absently against the steering wheel as you watched pedestrians filter across the crosswalk. The radio had been unusually quiet for the last few minutes, giving you just enough silence for your thoughts to wander.
You found yourself wondering how Nolan was surviving his protection detail. The image of his face that morning when Bradford volunteered still made you smile. If anyone could make watching a witness feel like boot camp, it was Tim.
Your smile faded almost as quickly as it had appeared.
The thought brought you back to the conversation you'd had with Max after Andersen's death, then to the phone call later that night. It wasn't something you'd let yourself think about much since then.
Tim had been your training officer. He was still navigating the end of a marriage that had shaped most of his adult life. There wasn't really anywhere those thoughts could go.
So why did they keep showing up anyway?
You exhaled quietly and shook your head; there were more important things to think about.
The light ahead finally turned green.
You eased your foot toward the accelerator—
The world lurched.
At first it was subtle enough that you thought another car had bumped your rear bumper. Then the entire patrol shop began to shake. Violently.
"What the—"
The steering wheel jerked beneath your hands as the pavement rippled in front of you. Buildings groaned somewhere nearby, a sound so deep it barely seemed real, and every instinct screamed at you that something was terribly wrong.
Earthquake.
You threw the shop into park and killed the engine without thinking, your training taking over as your heart hammered against your ribs.
There was nowhere to go.
Traffic boxed you in on every side.
All you could do was stay put.
You ducked lower in your seat and braced yourself against the steering wheel as the shaking intensified.
The city erupted around you.
Car alarms screamed to life one after another until they blended into one continuous wail. People abandoned their vehicles in the middle of the street, some running without any clear destination while others froze in place, looking around in confusion as storefront windows shattered onto the sidewalks.
You looked up just in time to see power lines whipping violently overhead before one snapped free, crashing into the street in a shower of sparks.
"Oh no..."
The words barely left your mouth before another violent jolt rocked the patrol shop, strong enough to throw your shoulder into the driver's side door.
You tightened your grip and waited.
The shaking finally began to ease.
The violent jolts gave way to smaller tremors before the ground eventually settled beneath the tires. For several long seconds, nobody moved. It was as if the entire city were waiting to make sure it was really over.
Then all at once, everything happened.
People poured out of buildings. Drivers climbed from abandoned vehicles, shouting to one another across the intersection. Somewhere nearby a woman screamed for someone named Daniel while car alarms continued blaring from every direction.
You pushed your door open and stepped onto the pavement, immediately scanning your surroundings.
No buildings had collapsed nearby, but several storefront windows had shattered, leaving broken glass scattered across the sidewalk. A utility pole leaned at an angle that made your stomach tighten, power lines hanging dangerously low over one side of the street.
Your radio was already in your hand. "Dispatch, Unit Seven-Adam-Twelve. Status check."
Nothing.
You frowned and tried again. "Dispatch, this is Seven-Adam-Twelve. Radio check."
Silence.
A knot settled in your stomach.
You pulled your phone from your vest; you had no signal.
Of course.
For the first time since pinning on a badge, you had no way of reaching dispatch. No way of calling for backup. No way of knowing if anyone else was okay.
You took one slow breath, forcing yourself to push the panic aside.
Standing here worrying about the radio wasn't helping anybody.
People needed you.
So you went to work.
The next several hours blurred together until it became impossible to remember where one call ended and the next began. You helped an elderly man whose walker had tipped over during the quake, directing a passing couple to the nearest emergency shelter after learning their apartment building had been evacuated. A family stood outside a daycare in tears after finding the building temporarily closed, and you spent nearly twenty minutes helping them locate the emergency reunification site the city had established a few blocks away.
Everywhere you looked, people had questions.
Was another earthquake coming?
Which hospitals were still accepting patients?
Which roads were safe?
You answered what you could.
When you didn't know, you found someone who did.
At one intersection, the traffic lights had gone completely dark, leaving four lanes of confused drivers trying to inch their way through at once. You directed traffic until another unit arrived to relieve you, exchanging a quick nod with the officer before climbing back into your shop.
"Everything good over here?"
"As good as it's gonna get."
It became the conversation you heard over and over again that afternoon.
Everyone was managing.
Hours passed before you finally had a chance to catch your breath.
You climbed back behind the wheel and started the engine, taking a moment to glance at the silent radio before trying it again. "Dispatch, Unit Seven-Adam-Twelve."
Static.
You checked your phone.
Still nothing.
With communications down, there wasn't much point heading back to Mid-Wilshire. Even if the station had managed to establish command again, every instinct told you they'd be giving you one order.
Help the city.
So that's exactly what you did.
You spent the rest of the afternoon weaving through neighborhoods already crowded with emergency vehicles, slowing whenever you spotted damaged buildings or groups gathering on street corners. Every few blocks, you'd stop to check on stranded motorists, point frightened residents toward the nearest medical aid station, or help clear debris that was blocking intersections.
Whenever you crossed paths with another patrol unit, you made it a point to stop.
"You good?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Still breathing."
"Stay safe."
It wasn't much.
But with the radios still dead, it was the closest thing the city had to a status check.
Every so often, almost out of habit, your hand drifted back to the radio. Every time, it answered with the same empty hiss.
The silence never got any easier. It lingered in the back of your mind with every mile you drove, reminding you of another day when unanswered radios had meant something much worse.
You refused to let yourself think about that.
Instead, you kept driving.
Looking for the next person who needed help.
///
You weren't entirely sure how you ended up near the beach.
You'd already been working the western side of the division when the earthquake hit, and between detours around collapsed roads, checking on stranded motorists, and responding to whatever needed your attention next, you'd slowly drifted closer to the coast without really thinking about it.
The beach was quiet.
Most people had already left after the quake, leaving behind abandoned towels, coolers, and umbrellas that now rolled across the sand in the ocean breeze. The parking lot was scattered with cars that looked like they'd been left in a hurry, several sitting at odd angles where their drivers had simply stopped and run.
You slowed your shop as you approached, looking for anyone who may need your help.
Movement caught your eye.
Three figures were making their way quickly across the sand, one of them being practically dragged between the other two.
Instinct immediately put you on alert.
You eased the patrol shop to the curb, shifting into park before stepping out.
As you got closer, recognition settled in. Two of the men were Bradford and Nolan; the one in between them must have been their witness.
Neither of them looked injured, but they were moving with far too much urgency for this to be routine. Bradford's attention never stopped scanning the beach, his hand resting on his sidearm while Nolan kept a firm grip on the witness's arm, practically hauling him toward the nearest lifeguard tower.
You picked up your pace until you were jogging to meet them.
"Hey," you called once you were close enough to be heard. "What's going on?"
Bradford barely slowed, recognizing your voice.
"The earthquake compromised the safe house," he said matter-of-factly.
"They've already made one attempt," Nolan added, glancing over his shoulder toward the parking lot. "We're assuming they'll try again."
You looked from one of them to the other before your gaze swept across the beach.
There was limited cover and too many sightlines.
"How many?"
"We don't know."
That wasn't the answer you'd been hoping for.
Your eyes landed briefly on the man between them. Hayes, their witness, looked pale beneath the sweat coating his forehead, though whether it came from the earthquake, the sprint across the sand, or the fact that someone wanted him dead, you couldn't tell.
Probably all three.
Bradford reached the lifeguard tower first and motioned for Nolan to get Hayes inside.
"You don't have comms either?" you asked.
He shook his head once. "Radio's dead. Phones have been in and out."
You looked back toward the parking lot one more time before turning your attention to Bradford. "Then you've got one more gun."
For the first time since you'd walked up, Bradford looked directly at you.
It wasn't much more than a brief nod.
"Good."
That single word was enough.
You drew your weapon as you moved with them toward the lifeguard tower, your attention already scanning the beach for whatever, or whoever, was coming next.
The three of you hurried Hayes inside the weathered lifeguard hut, the wooden structure offering little more than four walls and a slightly elevated view of the beach.
Hayes glanced down at the cuffs around his wrists before looking at Bradford. "It would be a lot nicer without these."
"Tough."
Nolan's phone buzzed.
He frowned as he looked down at the screen, surprise flashing across his face.
"Texts are back online." He scanned the message before looking up. "It's from the ADA. The hit team wasn't trying to kill Hayes." His eyes snapped toward the man in cuffs. "They were trying to rescue him."
Hayes looked away.
Nolan's expression hardened. "You were in on it the whole time? You set us up to be killed."
Hayes shifted uncomfortably.
"No... Well, yeah." He offered an awkward shrug. "As much as I love the idea of being a barista in Armpit, Arizona, I've got other plans."
"How did they know where to find you?" Nolan asked. "You were sequestered. No phone. No internet."
While Nolan spoke, Bradford had already started searching Hayes again.
You watched him work methodically, his hands checking places that had already been searched once before. Suddenly, he frowned, crouching to pull Hayes' shoe free.
A small black device dropped into his hand.
"GPS tracker." Bradford held it up between two fingers before muttering under his breath, "Son of a bitch."
"That's not mine," Hayes protested immediately.
Bradford looked at him without a hint of sympathy. "No?"
"No."
Before anyone could answer, movement caught your eye. Your attention snapped toward the parking lot.
Two dark sedans had just rolled in. Three men climbed out.
They were scanning, searching.
One of them pointed toward the lifeguard hut.
Your grip tightened around your pistol. "We've got company."
Everyone turned.
Hayes let out a defeated sigh. "Uh-oh."
Nolan looked between the approaching men and the hut. "What do we do now?"
Hayes glanced toward the parking lot.
"You guys could just let me walk away. Nobody gets hurt." He looked between the three of you before adding, "Think how you're going to feel if another buddy gets killed in the line of duty."
"Shut up." Bradford drove an elbow into the side of Hayes' head hard enough to drop him to his knees.
Hayes groaned.
Nolan blinked. "So... what now?"
"They can't afford to kill Hayes," Bradford said, already looking around the hut, assessing angles and cover. "They have to come up here and get him."
"You do know there are three of them, right?"
Bradford glanced between the three of you.
"So it's a fair fight." His eyes settled on you. "Take the east side. Don't let anybody wrap around the hut."
You nodded once.
Nolan secured Hayes to one of the hut's support rails while you slipped out the opposite side, circling wide enough to cover the blind spot Bradford couldn't see. The sand shifted beneath your boots as you crouched behind the weathered staircase, giving yourself a clear view of the eastern approach.
The three gunmen spread out exactly as Bradford had predicted.
One headed straight for Hayes. Another moved toward the front of the hut. The third broke off, circling toward your side.
Your finger settled against the frame of your pistol.
The man crept closer, weapon raised as he searched beneath the structure.
Bradford moved first.
Dropping from beneath the lifeguard tower, he slammed into the nearest gunman before the man could react, sending both of them crashing into the sand.
"Drop your guns!" Bradford shouted. "Get down on your stomachs now!"
Gunfire erupted almost instantly.
The man on your side swung his weapon toward Bradford.
You stepped from cover. "Drop it!"
He spun toward your voice instead.
That hesitation was all it took.
A single shot cracked across the beach, striking the sand inches from your feet as you fired back, forcing him behind a picnic table instead of toward Bradford.
"Nolan!" you yelled.
Nolan shifted position immediately, keeping Hayes covered while drawing a line on the second gunman before he could reach the hut.
Within seconds, the fight was over.
One suspect lay wounded in the sand, clutching his shoulder.
The other two slowly lowered their weapons.
Bradford kept his pistol trained on them. "Get down. Now."
This time, they listened.
Nolan moved in quickly, kicking the nearest weapon away before securing both men in handcuffs.
You covered them until the last set of cuffs clicked shut.
Only then did you finally lower your weapon.
Behind you, Hayes blinked groggily from where he'd slumped against the railing.
"So..." he mumbled. "I'm guessing my immunity deal's out the window."
Bradford gave him a flat look. "You think?"
///
By the time the three of you made it back to Mid-Wilshire, the station was busy. Phones rang constantly. Officers moved through the bullpen carrying stacks of reports, dispatchers relayed information to units still scattered across the city, and every few minutes another aftershock report filtered across the scanners.
The earthquake might have been over, but the aftermath wasn't.
You'd barely stepped through the doors before a man in a district attorney's office windbreaker intercepted the three of you in the hallway.
Del Monte.
He looked thoroughly exhausted.
"So," he said with an awkward sigh, "I guess it's our bad."
Bradford didn't even slow his pace.
"Our bad?" he repeated flatly. "Your guys were supposed to give Hayes a thorough pat-down before bringing him to the safe house. How the hell did they miss a tracking device?"
Del Monte rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... they didn't."
That got all three of your attention.
"The deputy who searched him confessed to slipping Hayes the tracker before transport. " He shook his head. "He's in custody now, too."
Nolan let out a quiet breath. "So what's gonna happen to Hayes?"
"Half a dozen new charges, at least. Two counts of attempted murder." Del Monte shrugged. "He's looking at twenty years easy. That's assuming he still cooperates."
Bradford gave a single nod. "Good."
Del Monte disappeared toward the detectives' bullpen, leaving the three of you standing in the hallway.
For a moment, none of you said anything.
It had been one hell of a day.
Nolan finally broke the silence.
"So..." He let out a tired laugh. "Does every protection detail end with an earthquake and a gunfight?"
Bradford looked at him with the same unreadable expression he'd worn all afternoon.
"No." Bradford waited a beat before adding, "Some are worse."
You couldn't help it, you laughed.
So did Nolan.
Even Bradford's mouth twitched into something that almost resembled a smile before he shook his head.
"Go home," he said. "Both of you."
Nolan didn't need to be told twice. "See you tomorrow."
He disappeared toward the locker room, leaving you and Tim standing alone in the hallway.
For a few seconds, neither of you moved.
The station buzzed around you, but somehow it felt quieter than it had all afternoon.
"You did good today," Tim said finally.
The words caught you slightly off guard.
Coming from your former training officer, they carried a little more weight.
"You too."
He let out a quiet huff of amusement.
"I wasn't fishing."
"I know."
Another comfortable silence settled between you.
"You all right?" he asked.
You thought about the chaos on the streets. The people you'd helped. The gunfire on the beach. The city is still trying to piece itself back together.
Then you thought about the last two weeks.
"I'm getting there."
He studied you for a moment, as if deciding whether to say something else.
Instead, he gave a small nod. "Good."
You returned the nod before turning toward the locker room. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Tomorrow."
///
By the time you stepped outside, the sun had already begun to sink behind the skyline, casting the city in shades of gold and orange. Emergency vehicles still crisscrossed the streets in the distance, their lights flashing against buildings that looked just a little different than they had that morning.
Los Angeles had taken a beating.
Somehow, though, it was still standing.
You climbed into your car, taking one last look at the station before starting the engine.
Tomorrow would bring more reports. More work.
For the first time since Captain Andersen's death, though, it finally felt like everyone had stopped looking backward.
Not because they'd forgotten.
Because they were learning how to carry her with them.
Then you pulled away from the curb and headed home.
➴ PAIRING: Brother's Best Friend!Bucky x Reader
➴ WC: 6k
➴ WARNINGS: friends to lovers, reader is 18, bucky is 20, college!bucky, romanogers, SMUT (p in v, protected sex for once, fingering, dry humping, car sex, virginity/virginity loss, BCB (big cock bucky), pussyjob if you squint really hard) yearning, j*hn w*lker is a dick, miscommunication, YEARNING, slow burn but not but super slow burn?, excessive use of eye rolls, he's down bad, tooth rotting fluff, open ending.
➴ SUMMARY: Your prom date ditches you, and Bucky, ever the gentlemen, offers to take you. He gives you the full senior prom experience even though he's your brother's best friend and your crush for the past decade.
+fran: I wrote this with greasy hair, after work, before a shower. apparently I reach a flow state when I'm feral. this is my baby and I love this fic so much please for the love of all that is holy, tell me what you think. can be read alone, it will have sequels tho.
⤷ songs/playlist for this: there she goes - the la's, always everywhere - charli xcx, ruin the friendship - taylor swift, back to friends - sombr
more
The Rogers' backyard was, for all intents and purposes, the hottest wedding venue in town.
At least if anyone asked nine-year-old you and 11-year-old Bucky, as much was true.
The cracked sidewalk leading to the clothesline was the aisle, peony and dandelion flower beds were the decorations. The old apple tree was the altar at which Steve stood taller on an upside down wooden crate, one of your father's old dress shirts over his shoulders to pretend he was a preist, or a pope, or some sort of higher entity able to witness this whole thing.
Bucky had one of your dad's suit jackets on, the navy fabric completely swallowing his frame, overlapping at the front and masking the Yankees jersey he had on, and all the dirt and grass stains on it.
You had a pillowcase that definitely needed to be in the hamper for laundry day pinned to your hair with your favorite hair clips, of a little crystal blue butterfly.
"Everybody be quiet," Steve announced, nose high up in the air like he was presenting a case to the Supreme Court. "This is serious business."
"It is serious business," you agreed immediately, failing to bite back a grin, missing your top right canine tooth.
One that Bucky held your hand the whole time so you'd let Steve run away with the string and pull it out.
"We are gathered here today because Bucky and my sister wanted to play wedding instead of baseball."
"You said you'd play too!" you accused.
Steve ignored and just kept going. "Now, Bucky Barnes." He cleared his throat, trying to make his voice lower. "Do you promise to be nice to her forever, always save her a seat to watch fireworks on my birthday, and never eat the last s'more?"
Bucky rolled his eyes, his dimple coming out as he smiled wth the side of his mouth. "Yeah," he said simply. "I promise."
You raised your brow, mock-scolding him. "You're supposed to say I do."
"Okay, yes," Your heart did an odd flip. "I do."
Steve then turned to you next. "And do you promise to be nice to Bucky forever, not tell Mrs. Barnes when he sneaks cookies before dinner, and always let him have the red Popsicle if there's only one left?"
"But they're the best ones!" You whined.
Steve sighed, ever the dramatic, looking at Bucky with fake sorrow. "Okay, then I guess you don't love him as much as—"
That set panic in your little heart. "I do! I do!" His face changed immediately, and Bucky smiled at you.
The kind of smile that always made you feel like maybe the sun shined a little brighter on your side of the street than everybody else's.
Steve smiled, as if everything was back on track. "Now, for the rings."
Bucky dug into his pocket and produced two dandelions he'd twisted into little circles. Your eyes widened. "You made those?"
He nodded, brown hair bouncing up and down his head with the gesture. "Took me forever, but they're your favorites."
He held one carefully between his fingers before sliding it onto yours with all the concentration in the world.
"You made me a flower ring." Your grin stretched so wide your cheeks hurt.
Bucky shrugged. "Yeah."
Steve interrupted your thoughts, "Okay, okay. By the power in this vest… or in me, whatever they say in movies, you are now married." He pointed at Bucky. "No cooties." Then at you. "And don't make him play tea party every day."
Your stomach did that weird fluttery thing it always did around Bucky Barnes. It did the same thing when you rode rollercoasters, felt like it was gonna fly away and take you with it.
"You may now high-five the bride." Steve announced, stepping down from the crate.
Bucky extended his pinky towards you, "We'll be best friends forever."
"No take-backs." You smiled, wrapping your pinky around his.
TEN YEARS LATER
As time passed, you grew up. You got new interests, all of you got new friends, and the found family you had just seemed to get bigger. Of course, you weren't as close with Bucky anymore, no college sophomore wants to hang out constantly with his best friend's kid sister.
It's kind of uncool.
The house was loud in that familiar, comfortable way—the kind of loud that doesn’t feel chaotic so much as lived-in. Every sound has a place. Every voice belongs. Bucky, as much as he isn't family by blood, grew up running up and down these stairs the same you and Steve did, as Steve did in his house.
Both of your moms were best friends since diapers, and it was only fate that Bucky and Steve were too.
The kitchen doorway had his height and age and name scratched on it just the same as it did yours, he knew that house in the dark just as much as Steve, trying to sneak around to get snacks during late nights playing video games.
Controller clicks. Steve muttering under his breath. Bucky’s low laugh every time he wins—because of course he’s winning.
“Dude, you’re cheating,” Steve groans, tossing his controller down for a second.
“I’m just better than you,” Bucky shoots back easily, stretched out on the couch like he owns the place, long legs kicked up, completely at home.
He always is.
Him and Steve drove back home from their Sophomore college parties for your graduation weekend, still half-running on energy drinks and bad decisions from the night before, which just happened to fall in the same one as your prom, only separated by three days.
They could hear your speaker booming in your bathroom while you got ready with your two best friends, Yelena and Kate, and Natasha, Steve's girlfriend, helped you with your makeup.
It was a mix of Megan Thee Stallion playing and giggles coming from the three of you, your two best friends gushing over their dates.
Makeup scattered across the counter. Curling iron plugged in and dangerously close to knocking something over. Dresses half-hanging, half-draped over the shower rod.
And Natasha’s laugh, warmer, older, threaded through all of it as she tried to keep things somewhat under control.
Kate is perched on the edge of the tub, kicking her heels against the porcelain. Yelena is leaning into the mirror, fixing her lip gloss with unnecessary intensity.
And you—
You’re standing between them, half-finished, dress still unzipped, hair clipped up, trying to decide if you feel as good as you’re supposed to.
“Okay, no—seriously,” Kate says, pointing at you like she’s making a case in court. “John is going to lose his mind.”
Yelena hums in agreement. “He already looks at you like he has no thoughts.”
You laugh, a little breathy. “That’s not even true.”
“It is completely true,” Kate insists.
“You’re just saying that.”
“We are not just saying that,” Yelena shoots back.
Natasha, standing behind you, gently brushes powder along your cheek, more focused than the rest of them—but she’s listening. And she notices there's a sparkle in your eye that's missing when John's the subject.
He's nice, he's good looking, he's captain of your football team, maybe he has some anger issues with other guys, but all in all he's a solid boyfriend. He's just not—
“Alright,” Natasha says finally, pulling you from your thoughts, lightening her tone again. “Turn around. Let me see the full thing.”
You do as she asks, and she takes in her work of art, your hopeful eyes, and the soft blownout curls of your hair framing your face.
"Perfect!"
Careful with your steps as she reaches for the zipper, pulling it up your back slowly, sealing you into the dress, into the night, into everything that’s supposed to happen.
A knock sounds on the bathroom door. "You girls alive in there?" Steve calls. "Or did the hairspray fumes get you?"
"We're decent!" Natasha calls back.
Steve pokes his head in for a second. "Oh."
You raise an eyebrow. "Oh?"
His expression shifts immediately into something resembling offense. "What happened to my little sister?"
"Oh my God." You snorted.
Steve's broad frame now came into full view in the tiny bathroom as he stood on the dorway. "Who is this grown woman and where did she put the gremlin that used to steal my fries?"
You rolled you eyes. "I'll still steal your fries."
He shakes his head. "You look beautiful, Bug."
Your expression softens. "Thanks, Stevie."
As Pietro and Bob scrolled their phones impatiently at the bottom of the stairs, making small talk with Steve and Bucky, you were almost wearing a path into the carpeted floor of your bedroom.
Seconds after he was supposed to arrive with the other two, he texted you some shitty excuse as to why he was taking Olivia, his ex, to prom instead.
“I was gonna explain,” John says finally, like that makes it better.
You let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Explain what? That you’re ditching me the night of prom?”
“I’m not ditching you,” he says quickly, defensive already. “It’s just—Olivia asked me to go with her and it’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” you repeat, your grip tightening around your phone. “John, it’s prom. We’ve had this planned for weeks.”
“I know, I know,” he says, exhaling like you’re the one making this difficult. “But she’s going through stuff right now and I don’t wanna make things worse.”
Your chest tightens. “So you thought canceling on me last minute wouldn’t make things worse?”
“That’s not what I said.”
You huffed. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
He goes quiet again for a second, and you can practically hear him thinking—calculating—trying to figure out how to spin it in a way that makes him look less like the bad guy.
“Look,” he says finally, voice shifting into something more controlled, “you’re gonna have fun no matter what. You’ve got your friends, it’s not like you’ll be alone.”
The words hit harder than anything else he’s said.
Because they’re so easy for him. So dismissive.
“So that’s it?” you ask, quieter now, but it wavers anyway. “You just—drop me and go with her, and I’m supposed to be fine with that?”
“I’m not dropping you,” he insists again, frustration creeping in. “It’s one night.”
“It’s prom,” you snap, the word catching in your throat. “It’s not just some random thing, John.”
“Why are you making this such a big deal?” he shoots back.
That’s what does it.
Your eyes sting, tears blurring your vision as you shake your head even though he can’t see it. “I’m making it a big deal?” you echo. “You’re the one who decided, what, an hour before we’re supposed to leave, that I don’t matter as much as your ex?”
“It’s not like that,” he says, sharper now. “You’re twisting it.”
“I’m not twisting anything,” you say, your voice breaking despite your best effort to keep it steady. “You just told me exactly where I stand.”
He exhales, long and annoyed, like he’s already over the conversation. “You’re being dramatic. The words land like a slap. And for a second, you can’t even respond.
“Okay,” you say finally, and your voice is quieter now, but steadier in a way that feels final. “Okay. Go with her.”
“—See? That’s all I’m saying, it’s not that—”
“No,” you cut him off, shaking your head again, even though he still can’t see you. “I get it now.”
There’s a shift on his end, like he didn’t expect that. “Wait—”
“Have fun at prom, John.”
And before he can say anything else, you hang up.
The silence that follows is immediate and heavy, pressing in around you as you stare at your reflection, your chest rising and falling too fast, your phone still clutched in your hand.
For a second, you just stand there. And then your face crumples, and the tears come before you can stop them.
Great. You think. An hour of Natasha's hard work gone in two seconds.
You ripped a couple squares of toiled paper off of the roll, trying to dab away the tears when a knock interrupted you. You didn't even have time to tell whoever it was to leave you alone, the door opened anyway.
And of course it was Bucky.
"Hey, Walker finally—" Then he saw your face. The red rimmed eyes, the puffy nose and lips, he'd recognize your crying face if he was in a dark room blindfolded and you were three states away. "What happened?"
His voice wasn't panicked our loud, just immediate.
"Apparently my boyfriend had a better offer." You said with a humorless laugh, fiddling with the corner of the tissue.
His expression then changed to confusion, then disbelief, then anger. "He did what?"
Your eyes stayed on the paper, humiliated. "He took his ex to prom instead." It sounds ridiculous out loud. Embarrassing. "I know it's stupid—"
He shook his head. "It's not stupid."
You shrugged one shoulder anyway. "It kind of is."
"It kind of isn't." Bucky insisted.
Your laugh broke apart into another shaky breath. "He said I was being dramatic." Your voice was small, like a small part of you almost believed John.
"No the fuck he didn't." Bucky's voice, on the contrary, sounded like he was about to make sure John was in three zipcodes at the same time.
You wiped at your face furiously. "Can we not do the whole protective older brother routine thing right now? Steve's probably already planning a felony downstairs."
Bucky nodded, as if agreeing that yes, Steve should be planning felonies. "Good."
Despite yourself, a tiny laugh escapes you. "Bucky."
"I'm serious." He took the couple steps needed to lean back against the sink, back to the mirror, while you faced it. The familiar weight of him beside you settled something in your chest. "You know what I think?" he asks.
You sniffled. "What?"
"I think he's an idiot."
You snort. "Very eloquent."
"You spent weeks excited about tonight." You shrug. "You talked about your dress for months." A smaller shrug, your head shaking like you agreed with him three weeks was a little excessive. "And some guy decides at the last second that he doesn't feel like showing up?"
His eyes looked for yours, and he continued once you met his gaze. "That's his loss."
Downstairs someone was shouting something about finding the car keys. "I just feel stupid."
His brows furrowed immediatelly. "Why?"
"Because I was excited." The words came out smaller than you meant them to. "I really thought tonight was gonna be special."
Bucky's expression softens. "It still can be."
You laughed weakly. "My date literally dumped me an hour before prom."
"Okay." He says, like the solutions is obvious. Like a dragon staring you in the face.
You were confused. "Okay?"
"Okay." He stands up straight. "Counterpoint." You raise an eyebrow. "I've seen enough terrible teen movies to know where this goes." Despite yourself, curiosity wins.
"Oh yeah?"
"Oh yeah." He nodded, and started counting on his fingers. "Option one: you go with your friends and have an incredible time."
"Mm." An amused smile played on your lips.
He continued. "Option two: Steve commits a crime."
You smiled widened. "Likely."
"Or a secret, better option three—"
You quirked a brow. "There are three options?"
Bucky rolled his eyes playfully. "There are always three options." You gestured for him to continue and he grinned. "Option three: some devastatingly handsome college sophomore heroically steps in and saves prom."
You stared at him in disbelief. "Bucky Barnes."
"What?"
"You are not asking me to prom."
"Why not?"
"Because that's ridiculous." You stammered. "You're a college guy and it's gonna be a bunch of drunk high school seniors and—"
"Seems pretty straightforward to me."
You crossed your arms over your chest, the action making your breasts stand out more, and Bucky had to hold back from looking briefly. "You drove eight hours home from college."
"Correct."
"You haven't slept." Another excuse.
"Also correct."
Truth is… You didn't trust yourself not to ruin your friendship, and Steve's, with Bucky as your date. Yes it was a childhood crush, yes it was stupid, yes he only saw you as a little sister, but for some reason every time you smelled sandalwood and listened to divorced dad rock, your stomach did the same fucking thing it always did.
It flipped.
"I'm serious." The grin on his face faded into something gentler. "You shouldn't miss your prom because some idiot couldn't see what was standing right in front of him."
Your throat tightens. "I don't want a pity Bucky Barnes date."
"I wouldn't dream of it." Bucky shook his head. "I want to go to a high school prom sleep deprived, listen to bad music, and drink shitty punch."
You pretended to think about it. "I want milkshake and fries from Juniper's after."
Bucky got down on his knees dramatically, clutching his hands together, play-begging. "Please, let me spend my hard earned student loans on a malted brownie shake for you, m'lady."
You signed, as if you weren't blushing seven shades of red at the moment, all hidden by Natasha's foundation. "I suppose."
After Nat talked Steve down from whatever Law Abiding Citizen crap he was gonna pull, Bucky borrowed one of your dad's suits while you touched up your makeup, and off into his jeep you went.
Bucky lingered back as he watched you walk to the old car excitedly, Natasha stopping right beside him as your friends walked to their cars, watching you get twirled by Kate.
Bucky noticed Natasha staring at him and raised a brow in question. "What?"
She gave a noncommittal noise. "Nothing."
"Romanoff." Bucky scoffed.
She put her hands up in surrender. "I didn't say anything."
"You've got the face."
Now it was her turn to raise a brow, trying to bite back a grin. "What face?"
Bucky rolled his eyes. "The face where you've figured something out before everyone else."
Nat shrugged her shoulders. "I always figure something out before everyone, Bucky." Tapping him on the shoulder and turning arounfd to go inside.
The prom commitee worked very hard to make sure the night looked exactly like every movie promised it would.
String lights draped from the ceiling of the gymnasium like stars somebody had caught and hung overhead. Balloons clustered in the corners. A photo booth occupied one wall. The basketball hoops had been disguised beneath enough tulle and fairy lights to fool almost everyone.
Turns out, getting ditched by John Walker was the best thing that ever happened to your prom night. You didn't even notice when Olivia was cryingin the bathroom because she caught him making out with someone else.
No.
You were too busy slow dancing with Bucky Barnes.
When the first chorus of the song came on, he held out his hand. "May I have this dance?"
You rolled your eyes. "You're such a dork."
"Tick tock, Rogers." He wiggled his fingers impatiently.
You took his hand as if it didn't make your fingers go numb with excitement, and Bucky quickly nestled a hand on your low back, your forehead to the side of his jaw.
"You know," Bucky said after a minute, "this is definitely better than my prom when I was your age."
"Okay, grandpa." You laughed softly. "What happened at your senior prom?"
"My date spent forty-five minutes crying in the bathroom because her friend wore the same shoes she did."
You clicked your tongue. "That's tragic."
"It was devastating." Bucky agreed, nodding his head, laughing softly.
You nudged his jaw. "I'll try to hold it together."
"I appreciate that."
A moment passed, then another, and you spoke up. "Thank you for doing this for me."
"Anytime." He let out a soft breath, leaning back the slightest bit so he could look at you. "You do look beautiful, I mean it."
Thank fuck for Natasha's foundation, powder, and concealer for hiding your flush. "Thank you, Bucky." Oh how you wished you hadn't looked into his pretty eyes, reflecting the lights off of the mirrorball back onto the dancefloor.
The ten seconds seemed to stretch an entire decade. Somehow Bucky's face getting closer and closer to yours, eyes switching from your lips back to your eyes and to your lips again.
"Hey." The word cut through the moment like broken glass. Fucking John Walker. King of never in the history of the world reading anything. Specialy the fucking room. "Can we talk?"
Bucky's hand tightened around your waist, "What do you want, John? Olivia is probably looking for you."
"C'mon, baby, you're not gonna throw our relationship away over one bad call, are you?" He was seriously trying to play this off. "I made a mistake." His hand reached for you but you stepped away.
"I'm not your baby."
He scoffed. "Aw, c'mon." And tried again.
This time, Bucky got between you two. "She's done, Walker. Walk away."
Now John got… Defensive. "This isn't any of your business."
Bucky clicked his tongue. "She kind of is." The words slipped out before he could stop them.
The air stood still for a minute before the football bros came to get John, leaving you and Bucky with the weight of unsaid words and unspoken looks.
Juniper's was closed by the time you finally left prom.
Not closed enough to stop Bucky from leaning halfway out of the driver's side window and convincing one of the employees locking up to sell him two milkshakes and an order of fries out of pure pity.
It wasn't until you were stargazing in his jeep with soft music from his Spotify mixing with the crickets hiding in the grass that your heart settled again.
You were in the passenger seat, your burger already eaten, just finishing your delicious fries and your milkshake with Bucky in the same predicament in the driver's seat.
Now the two of you sat on the hood of his Jeep in the empty parking lot overlooking the river, the New York spring air cool enough that your bare shoulders prickled every time the wind picked up.
Without a word, Bucky shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over your shoulders. You blushed. "Thanks."
He shrugged. "'M not using it."
"You literally had it on 30 seconds ago." You rolled your eyes. Bucky just muttered details between a mouthful of fries.
"You know," you said eventually, "this wasn't exactly how I pictured prom going."
Bucky laughed quietly. "No?"
"I don't know. There was significantly less public humiliation in the original draft." You laughed softly. "But I like this version better."
Bucky nodded. "I had fun."
You looked over. "Yeah?" Hopeful little edge in your voice giving you away to anyone that knew you remotely well.
"Yeah." His expression softened. "Got to dance with a pretty girl."
Heat climbed into your cheeks immediately. "You flirt with everybody." You rolled your eyes.
Bucky made an offended expression, clutching his chest. "I absolutely do not."
"You absolutely do." You lolled you head to the side, raising a brow to make your point. He laughed.
God, you loved his laugh. Always had. The thought came and went so quickly you almost didn't notice it.
Your eyes drifted back toward the sky. "You know what this reminds me of?"
"Hm?" He lifted his eyes from the milkshake cup he was trying to get every last bit out of.
"The meteor shower."
Bucky smiled immediately. "Oh man."
You grinned. "You remember?"
"Remember?" Bucky chuckled. "I had baseball tryouts the next day and I was up all night to make sure you didn't miss it."
It stopped you dead in your tracks. He did what? "No, you didn't. Your mom came and woke us up."
Bucky nodded. "Yeah, because I woke her up. I was outside waiting for it while you and Steve snoozed it off. Played like shit the next morning." He continued. "You had the date circled on the calendar."
Your brow furrowed. "I did?"
He nodded. "You drew stars around it."
"Oh my God."
Bucky chuckled, his own head lolling to the side on the head rest to look at you. "You made Steve and I promise we wouldn't stay up late the night before because we had to be rested."
You buried your face in your hands. "That sounds insufferable."
"It was kinda cute." He smiled at you like he always did, and your heart promptly forgot how to function. Bucky, meanwhile, was blissfully unaware of the devastation he'd just caused.
Trying so desperately to change the subject to something that wouldn't make you tear up or your heart jump, you fiddled with your milkshake, taking a sip and making a face. "You know, I think this thing is eighty percent whipped cream."
Bucky grinned. "I can see that, it's all over your face." His left thumb came up to wipe down the leftover shake on the corner of your mouth, and it lingered just a second too long.
For a second, or three years, the world felt like it stilled. A moment frozen in a snow globe to be forever replayed.
Neither of you moved, not entirely sure how to. Suddenly Bucky was very close, close enough to see the tiny scar in his eyebrow from falling off his bike when he was fourteen, to count the freckles dusting across his nose, enough that you could feel your heartbeat somewhere in your throat.
His eyes flicked down to your mouth, then back up, and your heart and lungs stumbled over themselves.
His hand lowered slowly, resting on your thigh. The night around you seemed quieter somehow. Smaller, as if the entire world had narrowed down to the space between you.
"Buck..." His name came out softer than you intended.
His expression shifted into something you'd never seen directed at you before. "If you don't want—"
And then your body moved forward on instinct, your brain a mess of fuzzy TV static, and when you came back to your body, your lips were on his.
Not because you were brave or even confident, just mostly because if you let him finish that sentence you thought your heart might actually explode.
For one terrifying second you were convinced you'd made the biggest mistake of your life. Then you felt the warmth of his hand on your cheek, pulling you closer and deepening the kiss as his tongue slipped past your lips.
The kind of kiss that felt less like fireworks and more like coming home after a very long trip.
One of your hands quickly found the nape of his neck, gently scratching your manicured nails against his scalp. He whined against your lips, hand drifting to your waist, and just as much as he pulled you onto his lap, you climbed over the console to him, food wrappers forgotten on the floor.
You shrugged the suit jacket off, accidentally honking the horn with your butt in the process, and Bucky's hands rubbed up and down your thighs as you rocked your hips against him, feeling the heat of him against the suit pants.
Your hands dropped from his shoulders down to his arms, then forearms, directing him to paw at the zipper on the back of your dress.
That made him pull away, looking for your eyes. "Are you—"
You could not have nodded more feverishly if you were a damn bobblehead.
Bucky needed no further incentive, he made quick work of the zipper, excitement bubbling in your stomach like freshly popped champagne while he peppered kisses along your jawline and neck.
The now bothersome fabric of the dress fell to your waist as you worked on the buttons of his shirt, hands moving to his belt and pants after.
He kissed you again, deeper as his hand snuck under the hem of your dress to find the wet spot on your panties.
You moaned against his mouth, your own hand finding its way inside of his boxers. You broke the kiss, gasping for air.
"Is this— I mean— okay?" It was hushed and murured against his lips as you stroked his length. "I've never— oh!"
You got rudely interrupted by Bucky's index and middle fingers rubbing your sensitive clit over the blue cotton of your panties.
He nodded against you, "Y-yeah, you're— fuck— you're doing so good."
His hips bucked up against you, and the second he slipped out of his pants with your movements his hand left your core and now were both squeezing your ass.
Bucky brought you flush against him, the angry red tip of him begging for friction found it when you started to dry hump him through your underwear, gasping into his mouth every time it nudged your clit.
"Bucky, please…" He couldn't not give you what you wanted, right? "I can't take it." Not when you begged this pretty.
He nodded against you, "I know, baby." And his right hand went under your dress, behind you, and pulled your panties to the side. "I know."
The second his bare cock made contact with your wet slit, he hissed, and a lightbulb went off in his head.
Condom.
He did not trust himself to pull out. Not of you. "Condom." His voice was almost distant to you, like it hadn't crossed your mind to use protection. Not with Bucky, anyway. He'd never hurt you, he was your—
"I—" You were dazed, lost and drunk in the scent and thought and feel of him. "My purse."
His hands let you go and you leaned over the seat to grab your purse from the backseat, your ass right beside Bucky's head.
Of course he took advantage of that fully pull your panties down, now that you had the leg space.
You sat back down on top of him with a little huff, trembling hands fumbling with the wrapper.
Bucky hissed as you rolled it down on him, and one of his hands lined himself up with your entrance.
As you sank down on him, you thought maybe you should've thought twice about it. I mean, you knew he was packing, you walked in on him changing one time a couple years ago, there was no way you could—
"Hey," Bucky's voice brought you back from your spiral. "Look at me." Beautiful cerulean eyes stared up at you like the moonlight was made to bounce off them specifically. "Breathe."
His other hand brushed your hair away from your face, just as the hand that was holding his shaft traveled up, thumb finding your clit rubbing soothing circles on it.
"Just take it slow." Your eyes fluttered closed.
"How do you not get knocked over hauling this thing around?" That brought a chuckle out of him, landing straight onto the skin of your neck. "Oh, God..."
You rocked yourself back and forth, until he was fully inside of you, your lips touching the light hair at the base.
Bucky kissed all over your face, his thumb never stopping its work. "You're doing so good, baby."
"Feels full." He laughed softly. squeezing your waist and helping guide you into a rhythm. "Feels good."
"Yeah?" Hushed and right by your ear, you felt like drowning and the happiest person alive at the same time. "You're so tight," He continued. "So warm."
You whined against his lips, the vibration going all the way down to his core.
He moved you up and down his cock, listening to the obscene wet squelch each time you sat up and sank back down on him, and each time it dawned on him what was actually happening, he got louder.
Bolder.
He bounced you on his length, hissing each time, you squeezed around him. "Feel good, Buck. Hah!"
It surprisingly didn't take long for Bucky to have you right at the edge, not as long as people online led you to believe losing your virginity would feel like. "Can feel you fluttering." His thumb worked faster.
"Wanna come, Bucky." You whined, kissing him, and pulling away with his bottom lip between your teeth, "Can I?"
He hissed, the question making it hard for him to not blow his load right then and there. "F'course you can, pretty girl, c'mon."
Your release felt like a million meteors hitting you at once. Like Earth came apart and got put together all in the same breath.
It felt entirely different, better, than when you tried to do it on your own. And your orgasm triggered Bucky's, waves of pleasure milking rope after rope of cum from him into the unworthy latex of the condom.
For what it felt like forever for the milionth time that night, neither of you spoke. Your breaths and the crickets were the only sounds.
It was quiet after.
Just… quiet.
The kind that only existed when two people had known each other so long that silence wasn't something to fill. Starts lit up the sky that was now your ceiling, and Bucky had taken the condom off and tied it, throwing it inside of the trash with the fry bag and the milkshake cups.
For once in his life, James Buchanan Barnes appeared to be completely out of words.
Which was concerning.
You smiled a little, back in the passenger seat with the suit jacket around your chilly shoulders. "What?"
He glanced over. "Hm?"
"You're thinking too loud." That got a laugh out of him. A quiet one, but still a laugh. "Sorry."
A beat of silence, then another. "I don't want this to ruin anything."
Your smile faltered slightly.
Of course, you thought. Of course he doesn't feel that way about you, why would he—
"Oh, Buck." You faked a smile as his eyes met yours. "We'll be okay."
A sheepish, hopeful look hit his face. "Yeah?"
"Of course." You nodded and reached over and laced your pinky with his. "We're us."
His expression softened when he looked down at your joined fingers. "We're us," he echoed.
You smiled. "We survived Steve's bowl cut phase." You listed off. "The great Thanksgiving mashed potato incident."
"Traumatic." He chuckled.
"The time I accidentally backed your Jeep into Mrs. Russo's mailbox." You continued.
He scolded you playfully. "You still owe me for emotional damages."
You laughed softly. "We'll be best friends forever."
The words came so naturally, so easily. The same words you'd said years before ona hot day beneath a tree. A pinky promise.
Forever.
Beside you, Bucky went quiet. Of course she wouldn't want anything to do with you, you're her brother's best friend. That shit only works in mov— "Right." His eyes dropped for a moment. "Friends."
Your stomach twisted at the word for the first time in your life. Because why did that sound disappointing?
Why did it sound like something had slipped through your fingers without you realizing you were holding it?
a little bit of fran in your life: okay did we like it??????? it was meant to read like a first chapter but also a standalone in case you wanted to just be done with it. yippieeeeeeee
More period issues on the ship with Grace and Rocky because I’m on my period and I’ll be damned if everything isn’t about me. Btw half of this is a anatomy/biology lesson
“Grace, y/n, question” Rocky rolls into the room where you’re both working.
“What’s up bud?”
You stay silent because Ryland is usually better at explaining things to Rocky than you are.
“Earlier, y/n say y/n has period, Rocky no understand”
Grace looks at you, because who the hell else would he look at, this is not his area of expertise.
“Gosh okay-“ you start. “You know about male and female right?”
“Yes stupid stupid human biology structure”
“Yeah well human females have uteruses which is an organ, and this organ goes through a cycle, one of the steps is building up an inner lining for a baby, and then when or if there is no sperm to fertilize the egg, the lining serves no purpose so it- well it destroys itself I guess”
Rocky paused to take it in, you glanced at Ryland to see him still working but you could see he was actively listening.
“And while it’s destroying itself it hurts pretty bad and sort of makes the human leak the lining”
“Rocky is.. need word”
“What word? Describe it” you said softly.
“Is angry. Is confused and upset for humans, so stupid, so unfortunate!”
“Okay.. so like frustrated?” You typed in frustrated with the sound Rocky made.
“Yeah human biology is kinda stupid. Grace any comments? Questions?”
“For your information I taught sex ed at Grover Cleaveland middle for a whole year so I have no questions.” He said a little defensively, making you laugh.
“Rocky want to help”
“Help what?”
“Y/n feel pain, feel cramp? Rocky want to fix”
“Oh you’re so sweet rock, I’m not sure there is much you can do”
“Well we have the heating pad charging and some Tylenol-“ Grace started, and then was rudely cut off (typical Rocky behavior)
“Rocky is heat! Rocky give human heat!” Rocky rolled over to where you were sitting on the floor, repeatedly bumping into you “Rocky help!”
“No rock it’s- it’s okay” you giggled. “Cmere remember hugs? How about a hug, a hug would help rock”
With your legs on either side of his ball you hugged him, and suprisingly the heat radiating through the xenonite was really nice.
“Wait this actually does feel nice”
“Human so stupid. Rocky always right” you heard Ryland tsk at that and laughed softly.
synopsis: Adrian always makes everyone else's birthdays feel really special. You're determined to return the favor.
tags/warnings: FLUFF, Checkmate office dynamics, HR manager!reader, Adrian makes her life more difficult in practically every way, brief mention of childhood birthday trauma
word count: 3.3k
notes: everything has changed chapter twelve ideally coming next week. I'm working on part thirteen right now!! for now, have some fluff in honor of our boy's bday
Masterlist
You expect him to make a big deal out of it, the way he makes a big deal out of everyone else’s.
On Chris’s birthday in November, Adrian went all out. Balloons that matched the exact colors of his Peacemaker costume (and you mean exact—you spent hours at the party store with him comparing shades of red and yellow and blue). An Eagly-shaped birthday cake, which Eagly himself did not appreciate very much and pecked into crumbled pieces. A dozen old appliances bought off of Facebook marketplace for the two of them to go out shooting together. A wrapped box with lingerie that confused everyone in the room until Adrian said, “It’s for Harcourt. So she can look sexy for you. Duh.”
Somehow thoughtful and weird and inappropriate all at once—Adrian in a nutshell, you’ve come to learn. He’s a walking HR violation.
Which means, as the Checkmate HR manager, you have lifetime job security.
Despite his inability to read a room and function with any kind of social skills, you find him…endearing. He really does make an effort for everyone, especially when it comes to birthdays. He’d done something special for your birthday, too, just a few weeks after you first started at the company. A little party in the break room with all your favorite snacks, a multitude of colorful gel pens in the brand you like.
When you asked him, bewildered, how he knew any of that stuff about you, when you had just met him. He readily admitted to peeking through the window of your apartment from the fire escape in the middle of the night while he was on patrol.
(Thus ensued your first bizarre HR meeting where you had to explain that stalking his coworkers is not an okay after-hours activity.)
But when it comes to his own birthday, Adrian’s lips are sealed. Not even Chris knows when it is.
“He’s cagey about it,” Chris says when you ask him in the break room one day. “I think it’s part of his whole secret identity thing, I don’t know. He’s weird about it.”
“He’s weird about everything,” John says.
“Stop insulting your coworker directly to the HR manager,” Emilia says.
“It wasn’t an insult! He’s an endearing kind of weird.”
“He’s also the reason we hired an HR manager,” Ads says. “I’m sure they are fully aware of exactly how weird Adrian is.”
You are, in fact, perfectly well-aware of Adrian’s quirks. He makes your work life more difficult in practically every way.
Since then, you have a standing weekly meeting on Friday afternoons to talk about every faux pas Adrian has made that week. You quickly realized it was easier to tackle his social missteps in bulk than to address them one at a time. Otherwise, you really would just be following him around all day correcting his behavior. Not that it would be any trouble. He’s really fucking nice to look at, even when he says stupid shit.
Though you were expecting those conversations to be awkward at first, you’ve weirdly started looking forward to them. He seems to actually like talking to you.
“You tell me what I’m doing wrong, so I can fix it,” Adrian says all the time. “And not in a mean way. In a nice way. No one else ever did that for me. They just tell me I’m an idiot, or laugh at me.”
In fact, since you started the weekly meetings with him, and spent more time with him…you’ve fallen a little more in love with all of his quirks every time he talks. You are by no means trying to change him. You like Adrian, just the way he is. You’ve just helped him learn some boundaries, that’s all. Set some ground rules.
And Adrian is nothing if not a rule follower.
“That’s sexual harassment," Adrian says one day, when he overhears Chris telling Emilia that her tits look great in that shirt. “Which is illegal. Vigilante kills people for that, you know!”
All this to say—despite his social deficiencies, Adrian makes up for all of his shortcomings with sheer effort and enthusiasm. Especially when it comes to birthdays. If Adrian is around, you feel special on your birthday, because he makes it special. Even if he crosses a few socio-emotional boundaries along the way and you need to help him course correct.
“I can’t believe none of you know his birthday,” you sigh.
“Don’t you have access to our personnel files?” John asks. He looks at Ads. “We do have personnel files, don’t we? If you don’t have the password, I can hack them—”
“I’m not sure why all of you talk about Adrian like he’s the only person in the office who has no boundaries,” you comment. “Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?”
“I don’t know, you tell me, madam HR manager.”
You look at him, unimpressed.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to do a little snooping. All in the name of celebrating a good friend’s birthday, right?
“We never had this conversation,” you say, and you head back to your office with a determined skip in your step.
Adrian’s best friends doesn’t know his birthday. But you—you can find out. Because John was right. As the sole member of the human resources department at Checkmate, you have access to everyone’s personnel files, including Adrian’s. No one needs to know if you take a little sneak peek—
“June 30,” you murmur triumphantly, staring at your computer screen. Next week. A Tuesday.
It might be an abuse of power, and it might not be a great look for the HR manager to be snooping through employee data, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You’re determined to make Adrian’s birthday as special for him as he makes everyone else’s.
That Friday, when you ask Adrian to go out and pick up the lunch you’d ordered for the whole team, he trips over himself to say yes to you, like he always does. It makes your tummy flutter a bit, the way he’s wrapped around your finger, but you try not to take it to heart. He’s wrapped around Chris’s finger too. You’re not special.
You wander casually over to Chris’s desk and tap on his shoulder.
“Hey. Can I talk to you in my office real quick?” you whisper. Ads, nearby, makes an ooooohhhh you’re in trouble sound.
“Is this about the dick joke I made at our team meeting this morning?” Chris asks. “Because it was funny. Everyone laughed at it. Including you.”
“It’s not about the dick joke you made. And I did not laugh, I snorted, which is not the same thing—”
“It was an amused snort!”
“Okay, yes, your dick joke was funny, even if it was absolutely not office appropriate,” you sigh. “Now will you come with me? I want your help with something.”
“Sure,” Chris says, smiling proudly, because he got you to drop your professional persona, even for just a moment.
As the door to your office closes behind him, he asks, “What’s going on?”
“Adrian’s birthday is next Tuesday,” you say.
“You dirty dog,” Chris teases. “You did snoop in the personnel files.”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Next Tuesday,” Chris muses, ignoring you. “Not much time to plan anything.”
“It’s not. Which is why I’m asking for you to help,” you say. “You’re his best friend. It would mean a lot if you helped plan his surprise birthday celebration.”
“We can’t do a regular surprise party,” Chris says, thinking aloud. “Especially not at his house, since he still lives with his mom. She would be a downer. I would say do it at my place and we can surprise him, but—if anyone pops out from around a corner, Adrian would probably shoot them before he could every say happy birthday.”
You bite your lip and wince. “True.”
“What about the retro video arcade?” Chris suggests. “He fucking loves that place. He’s got the high score on the Frogger machine.”
Your eyes go wide and bright. “That’s perfect. I’ll call the owner today and see if I can set something up on short notice. It’s a Tuesday night, so it can’t be that busy.” You start to reach for your phone to look up the address and phone number. “Then I just need you to get him there.”
“That won’t be a problem at all,” Chris says. “He is constantly asking me to go there with him.”
“You won’t give away the surprise?”
“Adrian will be too excited that I want to spend time with him to question my motives.”
“True. I’ll—” You cut yourself off when you hear the slam of the front door and realize Adrian is back with lunch. “We’ll reconvene later. I’ll spread the word to the rest of the team.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Chris nods.
The two of you leave your office together, and when he sees you together, Adrian’s brow furrows for a moment, then he smiles and laughs.
“Dude, I warned you not to make that dick joke earlier—it was fucking hilarious, but I told you it was an HR violation—”
Everything comes together exactly the way you want. The owner gives you a discount on the party room despite the short notice because Tuesdays is always a slow night, anyway, and Adrian is a regular who the man likes, despite his odd quirks. You run to the party store for teal, black, and silver balloons. Ads orders a cake. Even Emilia helps out, running to grab drinks, plates, and plastic utensils.
And Adrian is none the wiser.
“Me and Chris are going to the video arcade tonight!” Adrian tells you excitedly, late that afternoon as everyone wraps up their work.
“What if he beats your Frogger high score?” you tease.
Adrian frowns. “He better not. Especially not on my—” He cuts himself off, eyes cutting away from yours quickly, and his face flushes red.
Your brow furrows. Why doesn’t he want you to know it’s his birthday? Is he upset that no one remembered?
“Maybe just don’t let him play that machine,” you quip, moving the conversation along and ignoring his blunder. He looks at you gratefully.
“Hey, dude, you ready?” Chris calls from across the room. It’s a signal for everyone else to get their asses moving and head over to the arcade before he and Adrian can get there.
“Coming!” Adrian calls. He grins at you, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” you say.
Adrian heads out to the Vigilante-mobile with Chris. He chews on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully.
He’d almost admitted it to you, just now. That it’s his birthday today. Not a good idea, he thinks. After years and years of disastrous failures when he was younger, hoping and praying that anyone would show up to his birthday party—no. He can’t do it all again. It’s better for no one to know. To not expect anything from anyone.
He glances at Chris in the passenger seat as he pulls out of the parking lot and smiles. Some time with his BFF is more than enough for him.
“They’re coming, they’re coming!” Ads reports from her spot by the window. “Everyone hide!”
“No,” Emilia says. “We are not doing the hide and pop out to surprise him thing. Remember?”
“He would shoot somebody,” John reminds her.
“Just—stand over by the front door. The whole group. In plain sight,” you suggest. “No jumpscares necessary.”
“Okay, okay—”
You wait with the rest of the group with your eyes locked on the entrance to the arcade. Adrian is laughing when Chris opens the door, a sound that quickly dies when his best friend steps aside and he sees you and the rest of the 11th Street Kids standing there holding Happy Birthday balloons.
“What the fuck?” Adrian asks, a little wary.
“Happy birthday!” you say. You elbow Ads.
“Happy birthday!” Ads says reflexively. She nurses her wounded side. “Jesus, you have a strong elbow—”
“What the fuck?” Adrian repeats, and you start to get nervous before his entire demeanor transforms, a giant smile taking over his face. “You—how did you even know—”
“Someone snooped through the personnel files,” John says.
Adrian’s head swivels from Chris right beside him to the rest of his friends standing in formation in front of him.
“I—what—” he cuts himself off. His hands are shaking a little. He looks to the nearby table, at the Super Mario themed cake you’d ordered, at the Vigilante-colored balloons. “You guys did all this for me?” His voice cracks a little. He clears his throat and flushes.
“We can’t take the credit. It was her idea,” Chris says, gesturing toward you. Adrian turns to you with wide eyes.
“You stalked me?” he asks in awe.
“Adrian. I did not stalk you. I just…checked your personnel file for information I didn’t know,” you try.
“You stalked me,” he says, delighted.
Your cheeks feel hot. “You always make everyone else’s birthdays so special. I just wanted to do that for you, too. You deserve to have the best birthday ever.”
Adrian’s face morphs into an unfamiliar expression. He blinks quickly, like he’s suddenly trying to hold back tears.
“No one has ever done anything like this for me,” he chokes out. “Thank you.”
Chris takes pity on him when Adrian starts actively sniffling, clapping Adrian on the back.
“Why don’t we play some games? I am told you have the record on the Frogger machine. So I obviously have to beat it.”
“No,” Adrian says, immediately snapping out of his impending emotional spiral. “You can’t. The machine, uh…is broken.”
It’s an obvious lie. The Frogger machine is blinking and beeping less than a yard away. You smile.
“How about some skee-ball, then?” you suggest. “There’s enough lanes for each of us.”
Adrian smiles. “Yeah. Hell yeah.” He rushes in the direction of the machines.
“Lowest score has to babysit Eagly next time Chris is on an away mission!” Emilia calls, rushing after him. You laugh, glad that even stone-faced Emilia Harcourt is willing to get in on the fun.
“Fuck all of you,” John says. “You all know that I suck at things that require hand-eye coordination—”
“You carry a gun, maybe you should fix that,” Ads says.
“I guess it’s a good thing Eagly likes you the best anyway,” Chris laughs.
John smiles, just a little.
As the night goes on, the group breaks up to try out different machines, but the entire arcade is ringing with laughter, friendly jabs traded back and forth over pinball scores and failed levels of Space Invaders. After a few hours, as it grows later, things quiet down a bit. About twenty minutes ago, you parked yourself in the section with maze-games, working your way through all the different versions, listening with a smile as John and Ads try to beat each other’s Centipede high scores.
You feel someone walk up behind you, but you don’t look up, your brow furrowed with concentration as you stare at the screen, jerking the joystick back and forth as you try and epiclaly fail to beat a level on the Pac-Man machine.
“Can I ask you something?” Adrian asks, his voice directly next to your ear and the console makes a womp-womp noise as you startle and get eaten by a ghost.
“Damn,” you mutter. “I was so close!”
“You were not,” Adrian says. “Respectfully.”
You laugh and turn to face him. Your face flushes a bit when you realize how close he’s standing to you. He’d been looking right over your shoulder at the screen, but now his attention is fixed on your face. You feel your whole body flush with heat.
“What’s up, Adrian?” you ask. “You had a question?”
“I thought you didn’t like me,” Adrian says.
“What?” you say, bewildered. “Why on earth would you think that, Adrian?”
“I mean—I’m like. So fucking annoying. You constantly have to hold my hand through behaving appropriately at work, and I’m just a dumbass and a bad person and an inconvenience—”
“Stop that,” you chide gently. “You are not an inconvenience, Adrian. I like our weekly meetings. I like spending time with you. You are a good person and I like you, you idiot.”
“You called me an idiot,” Adrian gasps, delighted.
“That’s what you got out of that? Really?”
“You tell me all the time not to call people idiots at work. I’m rubbing off on you,” he grins, a little wicked glint in his eye.
“We are not at work,” you point out. “Those rules don’t apply.”
“None of the office rules apply right now?” Adrian asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Well,” you consider. “This is not a work event. It’s a birthday party. With your friends. Who just happen to be your coworkers. So I think we can bend the rules a bit.”
“Even like, the sexual harassment rules?”
“Adrian,” you say, exasperated.
“No, no,” he says quickly. “I just—I mean—” He swallows, looking suddenly nervous, but still excited. “You’re always telling Chris and Emilia not to make out at work because the rest of us did not consent to seeing all that. Right?”
“Yes,” you say. “So if they wanted to make out right now, no one is stopping them. But we are still in public, so—”
“And if I kissed you?” Adrian blurts. “Since, you know, we’re not at work? That wouldn’t be an HR violation?”
Your heart stops. You pause and look at him, waiting for the punchline. But he just looks at you, eyes wide and earnest behind his glasses, with a smile on his face.
“Uh, no,” you say, a little flustered. “That wouldn’t be an HR violation.”
“Great,” Adrian exclaims. “Can I kiss you then?”
“You want to kiss me?” Your voice goes up an octave higher than usual.
“I always want to kiss you. Even though you are so, so shitty at Pac-Man. But I only ever see you at work, and that would be an HR violation.”
“Please stop saying HR violation,” you say, your voice high and thin.
“Okay,” he says, his voice softer as he steps closer to you. “But…I can? Kiss you?”
“Yes,” you whisper. “You can.”
His lips touch yours, eager and searching, and you respond in kind, letting your arms wind around his neck. His arms snake around your back, pull you into him by the hips, and you can already feel how you’re affecting him. It makes you giggle, and when he pulls away from you, he laughs too.
“This was really, really nice,” Adrian says.
“The kiss, or the party?”
“Both,” he says.
“I’m glad you liked it,” you giggle.
“The kiss, or the party?”
“Both,” you say softly. Your fingers twist the curls at the nape of his neck, and he hums, leaning forward to kiss you again.
“I think I liked the kiss more,” he says against your mouth.
You don’t bother answering with words, just open your mouth for him, let his tongue touch yours, let him press you against the game console. The joystick and buttons press uncomfortably into your back. You can’t bring yourself to care.
“The arcade closes soon,” Adrian says when you break away for air. His chest is heaving too, but he’s smiling, wider than you’ve ever seen. “I was thinking, maybe I could bring you home, and we could HR violate each other.”
“Adrian,” you deadpan.
“I mean we should have sex,” he clarifies.
“I know what you meant, you idiot.” But even as you roll your eyes with exasperation, you smile. “We can do whatever you want, birthday boy.”
Since there is a wave of anti-birth control propaganda, this is your reminder that the birth coontrol pill was responsible for 30% more women graduating with college degrees between 1970-1990
Also a whole lot of people need it to hold down a job or stay in school regardless of reproductive risk: it offers menstrual control. It can be the difference between debilitating, bedbound periods and normal function. It’s medicine. It’s also very cheap to produce and returns soooo many thousands of dollars to the economy for every dollar it costs, so don’t let anyone make a false financial argument about it.
tags: fem!reader. spiderman au. spider girl!reader. friends to lovers. slowburn. gender bend spiderman x gwen stacy? blood and violence talk related to this universe.
a/n: gasp…
part eleven 🕸️ series masterlist
—
Maybe it’s a good thing you’ve gotten stitches on your palms and wrists, that way you have a genuine reason to skip Spidergirl activities until you can take out the stitches—you’re trying not to think or worry about the fact that they’re exactly where your webs come off. But that’s a problem for future Spidergirl to handle. Now? Now you get to enjoy the blissful liberty of carrying just one identity.
The weather is finally nice and sunny, and everyone in the city has taken to walking outside and enjoying the light breeze that accompanies this beautiful day. You’re not one to miss this, either. You push your board a little farther, gaining speed as you go down the path just outside the art center's area and deep into the main courtyard of campus. The music in your earphones is high and positive, a direct reflection of your mood as you crouch down on your board down the small hill and tapping your finger against the edge. Truly, you feel like you’re flying. And not like you’re used to.
“Coming through!” you call out, not having any qualms to hide your joy as you roll past a few groups of friends and students. “Sorry!”
None of them pay you any mind, simply splitting to the side to let you pass through. Or, well, rush through—with the speed you’re going? It’s a miracle you haven’t crashed yet. And honestly? You’re too happy, you wouldn’t even care about it.
As you rush past McGonagall as she leaves the photography building, you only wave meekly at her and chuckle to yourself when all she does is shake her head. Almost fondly. You half turn on your board, holding her gaze and saluting her with two fingers before continuing your track down the courtyard. Except, when you turn around—a tree just miraculously appears in your way. It takes you half a second, and your reflexes reacting a tad too late, to realize this before you’re bumping your shoulder and falling down the grass.
You groan, music echoes from your earbuds where they’ve fallen off somewhere a bit away and overlaps with the sound of the wheels of your board clattering as it continues rolling. You scramble, flicking your wrist to shoot webs and catch it, but then remember your current predicament and let it be. It’s not heading into any walking area, anyway.
A shadow clouds the sun, and then a black converse shoe is stepping on the end of your board to stop it from getting too far. You squint your eyes, glancing up and catching the way Remus tucks it under his arm. His smirk is a dangerous mix of amusement and fondness as he turns back to you—maybe it’s just your giddy predisposition, but you swear there’s a halo around him. Or maybe it’s just because he’s standing against the sun.
“Going somewhere?”
“Yes, actually.” You lean over your elbows. “This specific stretch of glass.”
Remus looks around, raising an eyebrow. “Uh, really?” he asks, tapping a finger on your board. “Could’ve sworn you were rushing to the humanities building.”
“Wrong assumption, but I’ll allow it,” you shrug. “I was actually hoping someone from the humanities center noticed me faceplanting, and, I don’t know…” you fiddle with the grass. “run to my rescue?”
His lips twitch again, it seems to be a conscious effort to keep his smirk at bay. “Were you, now?”
“Hm.”
“Did it work?”
You shrug again. “I don’t know, you tell me.”
Remus shifts his weight, crossing his ankles as he leans on the tree. Your perpetrator. “Well, now that you mention it—I was on my way to the arts center, too,” he looks around, feigning casualness. “but then I saw this very pretty girl faceplanting and, I don’t know, I had to check.”
“Naturally.”
“For obvious reasons.”
“As one might expect,” you say agreeably. And a tiny bit giddy. “knowing you’re such a gentleman and immediately helped her up.”
It’s enough to make Remus drop the facade, he holds an hand out and you readily take it to stand up. He doesn’t let go, and neither do you. It coasts up the length of your arm until it cups the side of your neck, thumb sweeping your skin and lips twitching into a knowing smirk when he feels your goosebumps. You only roll your eyes, cheeks warm as you take the board from him. It’s in this distraction that he finally kisses you, soft and gentle and long enough to make your knees week again. Honestly, this whole Spidergirl business has only proven to you how easily reactive you are to Remus.
His lips curl into a smile as he breaks apart, though he doesn’t drop his hand. “You okay?”
You hum. “That depends, are you asking me about the fall or the kiss?”
Remus shakes his head, but his cheeks warm up. Taking a pinkish hue that you have to kiss him now or you could, like, die if you don’t. And you do, leaning closer and smiling into the kiss when he meets you halfway.
“Hi, sorry. I forgot to say,” you mumble as you break apart. Despite yourself, honestly.
“S’okay. You were… occupied.”
You huff a quiet laugh, a tiny bit embarrassed but too in love to truly care. Remus strokes your jaw once before dropping his hand, but doesn’t go very far. He offers you his arm, instead. You set the board down and readily loop your arm around his, a well practiced routine. He waits for you as you stop to collect your phone and earbuds, and accepts the one you offer him before setting out to continue your walk down the courtyard. Or, well, he walks and waits as you push your board to roll down by his side. Sharing earbuds and little shy smiles.
“Hm, no wonder you were zooming around,” he says at the sound playing. He gives your arms a small tug. Playful, almost.
You look away, biting back a smile. “Shut up.”
Remus only chuckles, bending just enough to drop a little kiss to the side of your head. “Were you actually heading to the humanities building?”
“Yes, and then out campus,” you give your board a little push, harder in your giddy excitement. But Remus is well acquainted with your bursts of energy, holding you back before rolling too far away. “Sorry, uh—James and Lily are near, asked if I wanted lunch. We, I mean.”
”We?” he asks, grinning.
“I mean, oh—” You push a little too hard, but Remus’ catches you before you can faceplant again. On the cobblestone path this time, though. “Fuck, uh, sorry. I mean… if you want to… come?”
”Of course,” he answers easily. It makes your heart melt and slam and do multiple somersaults. Even more when he looks at you sideways, lips twitching. “Is it a double date?”
Your feet wobble a bit, but you don’t fall this time. “What?”
Remus has the gall to laugh. “I’m messing with you, dove,” he nudges your side lovingly. “I’ll come, yeah.”
You look down at your board, rattling as you skate through the uneven path. You hate to say it, you really do. But... “Just remember—”
“Yeah, I know,” he nods, sounding awfully normal. His mood doesn’t dim when you remind him of the quiet aspect of your… well, your relationship. And the most painful one: the secrecy. “It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he stops, and you force yourself to stop as well. On top of the board you are a tad taller, just enough to be at eye to eye and notice the constellation of freckles on his nose and his scars. “I’ll take you any way you’ll have me.”
“Still…” you look around, knowing you're outside of campus and into the city. Where anyone can see you, Spidergirl or not. “I promise it won’t be long. Just until… uh, until I handle Junior and all that.”
“y/n, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. Especially when I don’t mind, truly.”
“I just,” you sigh, setting one foot off your board, rocking it back and forth. “I don’t want you to think I’m hiding you or anything like that. I promise.”
“I mean,” Remus looks around, too. Then, he takes a step closer. “you sort of are. But I know why, and I know it’s a security measure.”
“It’s not very fair to you, though.”
“No, and it’s not fair to you, either,” he bends a little, searching for your gaze. “Can I confess something to you?”
“Sure.”
“If the roles were reversed… I’d want you to be safe, too.”
You pause, looking back at him. “You would?”
“Of course,” he nods with resolve. Like any other option could ever be possible. It makes you feel a bit better, just a smidge. The guilt is too big, there isn’t much room for anything else. Maybe if—Remus taps gently at your temple. “Stop thinking. It’s okay, I promise.”
“Okay,” you nod once, hesitant at first before your eyes land on your bandaged hands. Then, again with more conviction. “At least we’ve got a couple of more days before… uh.”
Remus’ lips twitch to the side. “Then, we better make the most of it, hm?” he unhooks his arm, looking around first before cupping your cheek. He drops the quickest but sweetest kiss to your lips, and you must rein yourself from chasing him when he pulls apart. “Besides, you think James would shut up about it if we told him?”
You blink, then again before remembering yourself. Remus waits, lips stretched sideways in a little smirk. “Oh, right,” you laugh quietly, bashful. “He’d be shooting out from the rooftops.”
“Would he?”
“Hm,” you hop back on your board. Grateful for the change of topic and growing confident because of it. “He was so insufferable at first, saying he knew Spidergirl’s weakness and all. Annoying prick.”
Remus hums. “I’m your weakness?”
“Ah, fuck,” your knees wobble, narrowly missing the small hill on the pavement. Remus laughs, delighted and endeared at once. You only shake your head, caught. “You’re enjoying this a little too much.”
“A little,” he murmurs, like a shared secret. “So it’s true, huh?”
“Yeah, yeah,” you wave him off, pushing off your board again. “Don’t let it get to your head.”
“Too late.”
You roll your eyes, too in love for it to have any real effect as you continue the walk to the café James and Lily are waiting for you. The streets are a tiny bit packed, with the nice weather it’s only obvious, so you hop down the board and bite back a shy smile when Remus’ arm lowers to hold your hand instead. Careful of your bandages and with enough pressure to make your insides melt—even more when he looks down over his shoulder with a knowing little smile. Both of you pretend it’s for the sake of wandering through the crowded street.
At the café, James and Lily are too busy being openly obsessed with each other to notice your joined hands when you walk past the window. Remus only spreads an arm out to you as he opens the door, sharing a little smile before walking inside. Pretending nothing has changed.
James glances up when the bell chimes. “Ah, there you are!” he stands, beckoning you closer. “The one person guaranteed to give me grey hairs.”
You roll your eyes, but turn to point at Remus behind him. “You mean him, right?”
Remus makes an amused sound, sliding into the booth without even deigning to hide his endeared smile. “Yeah, right. Since I’m the one skating everywhere.”
“What? This?” you set it against your side of the booth. “I knew it looked familiar.”
He only waves you off and you smile before turning to James and Lily, who eye you curiously with different degrees of confusion. James being the most obvious when your gazes meet. His eyes flicker between you and Remus, then down at your bandaged hands before looking at you. Lily, for her part, only hums knowingly and sips at her coffee.
James shakes his head. “Uh, y/n, would you, um… coffee?”
You dip your chin, sending him a questioning look when he stands. He only makes a funny gesture with his eyes, and Remus’ lips twitch as he pretends not to notice when Lily asks him about his meeting with Albus and how his dissertation is going. You stand, and Remus readily adjusts, setting your backpack on your spot while you follow after James and he continues his conversation with Lily. Like nothing has changed.
Of course, as soon as you’re out of earshot, James drags you to an even more secluded area.
“Wait, the coffee—”
“I don’t care about your coffee. Where the hell have you been?” he whispers, eyes wide as he scans you over. Your bandaged hands and the treated little scar on your lip. “You disappeared on me for days and next time I see you, you’re… wait—oh God, Remus?”
“Huh?”
“y/n, focus? Please?”
“I am focused!” you whisper in the same urgency. “I just don’t know what you mean.”
He levels you with a look. “Don’t act daft with me.”
You look around your little alcove, a quick sweep of the room to make sure no one can hear before bending closer to whisper in his ear. “I told Remus.” Like a reflex, you stamp a hand over his mouth before James can fully react. He pauses, and you only send him a warning look. “It was… uh, sort of an accident.”
“An accident?!” he whispers back, eyes wide as he looks back at the booth. Lily and Remus continue chatting normally, not at all minding you and James taking forever to return. “How can that be an accident, y/n. Wait—did he catch you with the suit? Oh my god, does this mean—”
“James, I’m not stupid enough to make the same mistake twice,” you say, but keep your palm up in case he reacts again. You clear your throat, lowering your tone. “Well, uh… funny story, so… I’ve been, sort of, walking him home for a while now? As Spidergirl?”
James only blinks. “…what?”
“It was an accident at first but, uh…” you glance back at the booth. “That’s not important—”
“Not important?” he repeats in disbelief. “y/n, do you know who we’re talking about?! For all we know he could’ve connected everything ages ago!”
You tilt your head from side to side. “Funny you mention it…”
He groans. “You’re impossible.”
“In my defense,” you start to say. “I didn’t know he found out, either. Until, uh…”
“Until what?”
“I, um, climbed into his flat through the window?” your whispers get impossibly lower, the slower his blinks turn at your admission. You clear your throat. “I mean, it wasn’t like I actively went there to tell him. I had my suspicions but…”
“But?”
“It was sort of, like… a,” you gesture with your hands. mimicking your web shooting. “a shot in the dark? Get it?”
James sends you an unimpressed look.
You scramble to explain. “What else do you want me to say? It was an accident.”
He sighs. “Yeah, sorry. It’s just…” he looks around, calculating. “y/n, you said you didn’t want him to know.”
“I know, I know, okay?” you nod, brushing your hair away. You fiddle with your bandages. “I didn’t want him to know but—I just…”
James nods, too. In understanding. “I get it,” he sighs, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes. “It’s okay, just… I want you to be careful, and him, too.”
“We are,” you say immediately, though quieter. You cut a quick glance back at the booth, meeting Remus’ eyes across the café. He sends you a little smile. You turn back to James. “We’re keeping it a secret for now. Just until things settle with… well—”
He curses. “Regulus.”
You nod, looking up, and frowning when you see the way his face falls looking over your shoulder. “How do you know—”
“No. Fuck, just…” he points. “He’s here.”
“What?” your head whips around, following his gaze and catching the way Regulus beelines to the booth with Sirius in tow. You’re momentarily relieved to see Barty is nowhere in sight. Small mercies. “Oh, fuck, fuck—”
“What now?”
“I don’t—” you let your face drop to your hands, exasperated and disappointed that this little stretch of joy lasted so little. “I don’t know.”
“Well, uh…” James stands straight, tilting his head to look over the café. “Let’s just go back and see what happens, yeah? Maybe they’re just passing through.”
“Okay,” you exhale. “Okay, yeah. Just… I know this goes without saying but—”
“Yeah, I’ll keep quiet about you and Remus,” he finishes off. Then, he halts and you almost slam into his back. You blink when he turns around to point at you. “Wait, does this mean?!”
You sigh. “James, for fuck’s sake. Now you are the one acting daft.”
“You’re joking.”
“Why would I joke about this, Potter?”
“I mean,” he shrugs. “I’ve seen you daydream about this day for years so…”
You swat his shoulder, biting back a wince and James gawping at how hard you accidentally hit him. “Be lucky I can’t web your sodding mouth shut.”
“You’ll have to fill me in immediately after today.”
“Yeah, yeah,” you wave him off, voice trailing off as you look over his shoulder. Remus sends you a look between conversations with Sirius. You look back at James, panicked almost. “James!?”
“Right, yeah. Regulus. One villain at a time.”
You roll your eyes, sidestepping him when he doesn’t immediately move to return to the booth. Remus is nodding along in what you know is his polite smile to Regulus. There’s a small moment where guilt gnaws at you—it dissipates into warmth and affection when your gazes meet and his smile spreads.
“Hi,” you nod, smiling in greeting at Regulus and Sirius. “Sorry, we were, uh…”
Lily bites back a laugh. “Getting coffee, I believe?”
Your head whips towards James, who, in return, looks back at you in panic. Lily laughs louder this time, and so does Remus. Knowing and fond at once.
“Right, coffee.” James says, looking around. “Uh… be right back.”
“And make sure to actually bring the coffees back, honey.” Lily calls out, watching him venture into the café.
James sends her a thumbs up, nearly collapsing into a couple on his way to the bar and apologizing profusely when he notices. You drop your face to your hand in fond exasperation, but of course, your luck is rotten when the sound of the smack is loud enough to catch Sirius’ attention. His eyes flit down to your bandages, and his gaze hardens.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“Huh?” You blink. Sirius waves you off, reaching across the table to hold your hands. Remus tuts, but he gets ignored as well. You only shrug, letting him inspect the bandages and casually scrambling inside your head through your list of excuses. “Oh, this? I burned my hand on the catwalk.”
“And the other one?” he asks, not pausing at all as he takes the other hand. Equally bandaged.
“Hands, I mean.”
Sirius shakes his head. “I miss one rehearsal and you burn the skin off your hands.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” you amend, biting back a wince when his thumb presses a little too hard on the exact spot the stitches are. “I’ll survive.”
“One day you won’t, and you’ll end up handless,” he sighs, dramatic as always as he finally lets go of you. “Oh, your poor, beautiful hands—did you know she has the prettiest hands in the theater department? Right after mine, of course.” He tells Regulus.
Regulus only rolls his eyes at his brother, but flashes you a polite smile. “No, I didn’t know,” he tells him, then turns to you. You don’t miss the way his eyes, to their own accord, flicker to Remus next to you. “But I’m glad it wasn’t too bad.”
Your bloody cronies did this, you think bitterly. But only flash him an equally polite smile before sliding down to your spot on the booth. Remus readily takes your backpack to leave you an extra space, and the baby hairs at your nape stand when his ankle hooks around yours under the table. It’s a conscious effort to keep your lips in a straight line.
“Right, so,” Sirius says, leaning back on his seat, taking up space and not caring about it. Jesus, Junior is beginning to rub off on him. “What were you talking about before we graced you with our presence?”
“About how much of a knobhead you are.” Lily counters immediately.
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” she crosses her arms. “Do you know how worried Jamie and I were? Waiting for you last night?”
You frown. “Last night?”
Sirius waves you off, like he can already tell his next words are going to worry you even more and make your frown deeper. “Had a date with Junior, then things escalated and—”
Regulus makes a disapproving sound. “Spare us the details.”
“Well, you can get an idea, anyway,” Sirius goes on, shrugging a shoulder. Though his lips twitch in a smirk. “Terribly sorry. I know you’re going through withdrawals.”
With your free leg, you kick him under the table. “Don’t be crass.”
“I’m not!” he raises his hand in surrender. “I did spare the details, didn’t I?”
“I’d rather you shut up, actually.” Regulus deadpans, looking around the café with disinterest. “No one wants to hear about your—you know what? Forget it, you’re too much of a nuisance to turn my words into childish innuendos.”
“Oh, so little faith!” Sirius gasps, feigning upset. The facade drops as he shifts on his seat, grey eyes zeroing on Remus. You feel the way he nudges his foot closer to yours. “What happened to living vicariously through your friends?”
Regulus scoffs. “You fail to remember that I’m not your friend. I’m bloody your brother.”
“Why would we want to live through you, anyway?” Remus counters. “Being locked up in a theater every single day isn’t the upper hand you think it is, Sirius.”
You frown. “Hey.”
“Not you,” he amends quickly, knowing your upset is an act but indulging you, anyway.
Sirius draws out a long sigh. “Right, well, I suppose my life is boring when you go around flirting with massively attractive vigilantes and things of the sort.”
You feel the floor giving out under you. “What?” you scrape out.
Regulus does react to this, too. Head whipping with such speed you hear the way his neck clicks. He frowns at Remus. “You what?”
Remus parts his lips to offer a rebuttal, but Sirius beats him to it. “Oh, didn’t you hear? This twat got saved by Spidergirl and won’t stop raving about it.”
“Raving?” you repeat, feeling a strange mix of nerves and amusement as your eyes flicker to Remus.
“I wasn’t raving. I just mentioned once,” he says quickly, though the tips of his ears turn the faintest shades of pink. “And of course you’re now using it against me, you dickhead.”
“Oi, you called me boring first. I’m just evening the playing field.”
“What do you mean Spidergirl saved you?” Regulus asks, his voice taking a slight edge that you definitely do not enjoy. “When?”
“At that hijacked building,” Remus says, toying with a napkin in a way you know it’s all pretense of casualness. “You know, the one we agreed to meet up at?”
Your eyes flicker between them, and so do the rest of the table as they stare each other down. It makes your insides twist in a way you also don’t enjoy. Why the fuck is James taking so long?
Sirius clears his throat, nudging Lily rather playfully. You know him well enough to know it’s his attempt to ease the tension. “Now you know why he’s massively in love with Spidergirl.”
You can’t help it, you snort. Remus nudges your ankle under the table. “Sorry, it’s just,” you huff a laugh. “Spidergirl, really?”
“Yeah, really?” Regulus leans back, crossing his arms. Everything about his stance is calm, but you’re beginning to notice a simmering tension around him. It makes your senses tingle again.
Remus shakes his head. “I can’t have a serious conversation with you lot.”
Lily hums. “Don’t lump me in with them. I barely said anything.”
Sirius shrugs. “My apologies, I forgot who I was talking to—Spidergirl’s number one fanboy and her loyal coworker.”
Regulus’ arms loosen and your heart clenches in panic again. “What?”
You clear your throat. “I take pictures of her. Sometimes… for the paper,” you explain, trying not to make your tone as dry as you want to. “It’s mostly a freelance gig.”
“Wait,” Regulus frowns. “So you’re… like her photographer?”
“No.”
He raises his eyebrows. “The paper acquires her photographs through anonymous sources. Is that you?”
“How do you know that?” you ask back. “Anonymous sources?”
“You can say that, yes.”
“The coffees have arrived!” James says, somehow managing to set the four cups of coffee on the table. He frowns, immediately picking up the tension clouding the table and the way you and Regulus stare each other down. “Uh… what did I miss?”
Sirius, of course, takes his coffee first. “About Remus’ crush on Spidergirl—is this decaf, Jamie?”
James, to his credit, remains awfully casual despite the way his muscles tense. You look away from Regulus to send him a fleeting panicked glance. He catches it immediately, taking a step to the side and clearing his throat. You nudge Remus’ side under the table.
“Uh, y/n, I actually just hung up with McGonagall—she asked if you can stop by her office?”
You nod. “Of course,” you stand, barely giving the table a chance to react. “Thanks, Jamie. And for the coffee, too.”
“No problem.”
When Remus stands as well, Sirius frowns. “Where are you going?”
Remus makes an amused sound. “It’s midday. I have places to be, Sirius.”
“Now, though?”
“Well, since y/n is going back to campus, I might as well come with her. Right, dove?”
“Hm,” you say, sipping your coffee and taking your board in a hurry. “Sorry, uh, raincheck?”
Sirius blinks, but, for some reason, it’s Regulus who answers. “Of course. Good luck.”
You nod, feeling your insides fill with concrete when he holds your gaze. Remus nudges your side, distracting and grounding at once as you force your eyes away. The rest of the table share farewells, and you make sure to send James a thankful little smile on your way out. He only nods in reassurance. I’ll call you later, he mouths.
It’s a testament to how long you’ve held your breath when you step out of the café, exhaling sharply and feeling your muscles unclenching. Remus looks over his shoulder before setting a hand on your lower back, guiding you a bit away from sight. Just in case.
“Jesus fucking Christ, did you notice that?”
“Yeah,” he nods, tapping a finger on the side of his own coffee. Pensively, almost. “The fucking audacity to show up here and ask questions.”
“You don’t think he’s… suspecting anything?”
He looks back at you. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with Regulus,” he sighs. “Hopefully not.”
You cling to that thought, too. Remus frowns, eyes scanning your face and the way you keep trying to glance back to the café. He does the same, but with different intentions as he cups the side of your face. He shifts, standing in front of you and knowing he can cover you when he bends down to search for your wandering gaze.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Don’t go there. You’ll drive yourself mad thinking about it.”
“No, I know. It’s just…” you swallow nervously. “for a moment, I thought…”
“Yeah, me too,” his thumb strokes your cheek. “We have to be even more careful from now on.”
You nod, knowing it’s the least you want but something you must do to ensure Regulus doesn’t suspect again. Remus mimics it, hoping to reassure you.
“Want to head home?” he asks instead.
“Home?”
“If you’re free, of course,” he adds, trying to pull your attention back to him. His thumb sweeps your skin again for good measure. And because he can do that now. “Or we can go somewhere else.”
Your lips twitch, and Remus smiles when you relax into his palm. Melting, almost. “You’re asking me out?”
He makes a show of feigning surprise. “Am I that obvious?”
“I don’t know, sort of,” you shrug one shoulder, squeezing his hand between your cheek and shoulder. Remus makes a sound like it’s physically costing him an ounce of strength to not kiss you. You mimic it, but mostly as a preamble to your jab. “Just like your crush on Spidergirl.”
“Oh, God,” he closes his eyes, embarrassed and fond at once. You laugh, and his own laughter follows a beat later. “Please don’t let it get to your head.”
You smile. “Too late.”
Remus shakes his head, and for a moment you think it’s in exasperating fondness before he’s pulling you even more to the side and farther from the café. Then, he dips down to kiss you. Perfectly hidden away when he takes a step back and cornering you against a brick wall. Perfectly concealed, of course. Smart move, as always.
“So… it is a date, then?” you ask when he breaks apart.
He rolls his eyes, kissing the corner of your lips before stepping back. He offers you his arm. “Of course it is, dovey. Where to?”
You smile, hooking an arm through his and setting your board down. Remus walks by your side and deep into the crowded street.
From the window, Regulus manages to catch a small glimpse between conversations. He pauses to take out his phone, stealing quick glances up as he types.
Summary: She thought the hardest part was earning her place. She was wrong. The job doesn’t get easier, it just changes, leaving room for choices without clear answers. And somewhere in that shift, her dynamic with Tim becomes something far less certain and harder to ignore.
Word count: 3.4k
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a/n: Okay! I don't really know what to say here other than enjoy and lmk what you think!
The station felt different the next morning.
Normally there was always noise at this hour. Conversations between officers finishing one shift and starting another. Someone complaining about paperwork. Someone else trying to convince whoever was closest to grab coffee before briefing. The usual rhythm of a station full of people who spent more time together than they did with their families.
The bullpen wasn't silent, but it was quieter than you'd ever heard it. Conversations stayed low and brief. Officers moved between desks with a kind of subdued purpose, speaking when necessary and little beyond that. Nobody was gathered around the coffee machine. Nobody was laughing.
The first black mourning band caught your attention as Officer Jan crossed the room, a thin strip of black fabric wrapped around her badge.
It wasn't the only one.
Every officer in the bullpen wore one.
When you entered the briefing room, a small box sat near the door. You grabbed one without thinking, fastening it across your own badge before heading towards your usual seat.
Yesterday, Captain Andersen had been standing in front of the division leading a briefing. Less than twenty-four hours ago she had been giving orders, coordinating an operation, and reminding officers exactly what was expected of them.
Now she was being remembered by a strip of black fabric pinned across hundreds of badges.
The thought settled heavily in your chest.
Around the room, officers continued filtering towards the briefing. Lucy sat besides West, neither of them speaking much. Nolan looked exhausted, dark circles beneath his eyes making it obvious he hadn't slept. Angela stared down at a file for several seconds before finally turning a page. Even Bradford seemed quieter than usual, standing near the back of the room with his arms crossed and his attention fixed somewhere distant.
Nobody talked about Andersen.
They didn't have to.
Her absence filled the room anyway.
It sat in the empty spaces between conversations. In the way people avoided looking towards the captain's office. In the way every officer in the room seemed to carry themselves a little differently than they had the day before.
Eventually Grey stepped to the front of the room.
The remaining conversations died away almost immediately.
For a moment he simply stood there, looking out at the division.
You'd known Grey long enough to recognise the strain around his eyes. Andersen had been more than his captain. More than his commanding officer. They had spent years working together, building Mid-Wilshire into something both of them believed in.
When he finally spoke, his voice remained steady.
"Yesterday, we lost Captain Zoe Andersen." The words settled over the room. "There'll be time for grief later. We have a job to finish. Midas gave up his son. We know where he's headed. Look, I know what's in your hearts. What you want to do more than anything. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want it, too. Word is, if you kill a cop, you never see the inside of a cell. But that's not what Captain Andersen would want. Killing this loser won't honour her memory. Doing our jobs will. And we owe it to her to do it the right way. Agreed?"
A chorus of quiet affirmatives answered him.
Grey nodded once. "All right, let's go."
///
Less than an hour later, you found yourself standing behind a patrol unit on a stretch of empty roadway outside the city.
The operation had been planned quickly and executed even faster. Units had been positioned at key points along the route, creating a controlled interception point with enough officers present to ensure Cole Midas wouldn't have any options once he arrived.
You'd never seen this many officers gathered for a single arrest.
Patrol officers stood shoulder to shoulder behind their shops. Detectives moved between vehicles making final preparations. SWOT officers occupied positions further back, rifles trained towards the roadway. Every officer present wore a black mourning band across their badge.
A reminder of why they were here.
The California sun beat down on the asphalt, but nobody seemed to notice.
The atmosphere felt heavy, the kind of focus that came from hundreds of officers trying very hard to remember Grey's words from the briefing.
Do it the right way.
You adjusted your grip on your rifle and looked down the road.
Besides you, Max stood in position, his attention fixed on the same stretch of pavement. Neither of you had spoken much since the night before. There hadn't been much to say.
Around you, officers checked equipment and exchanged quiet updates. Radios crackled intermittently before falling silent again.
A helicopter circled overhead, its steady thrum carrying across the otherwise quiet roadway.
Then Grey's voice. "All units, get ready. Airship has a visual. Two minutes out."
The effect was immediate.
Every set of eyes turned towards the road.
Two minutes.
After nearly twenty-four hours of grief, anger, and exhaustion, the man responsible for all of it was finally on his way.
Besides you, Max shifted slightly, his attention still fixed on the roadway. For a while neither of you spoke. The silence wasn't uncomfortable exactly, but it wasn't easy either. There had been too much distance between you lately for that.
Eventually he let out a slow breath and shook his head. She would've hated this."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of your mouth before disappearing just as quickly. "Probably."
For a few moments the conversation threatened to die there. Around you, officers continued checking equipment and exchanging updates while the helicopter circled overhead, but Max surprised you by speaking again.
"Yesterday kind of put things in perspective."
When you glanced over, his eyes never left the road.
"I spent a lot of time being angry. I kept telling myself it was about what happened between us, but honestly, I don't think it was." He paused briefly before continuing. "I think I was putting a lot of things on you that had nothing to do with you."
The admission caught you off guard enough that you didn't immediately respond.
"I told you what happened with my ex, and part of me was putting that onto you. Even after that, I was still looking for her in you." His jaw tightened slightly. "Looking back, I think I was comparing everything, and that wasn't fair. I know that."
The words settled heavily between you.
"I kept comparing you to somebody you were never trying to be," he continued. "And I kept expecting things from you that weren't fair."
You looked down at the rifle in your hands for a moment before shaking your head. "You weren't the only one."
Max glanced over.
You sighed. "I wasn't exactly clear about what I wanted either. Half the time I acted like I knew what I was doing, and the other half I just expected you to somehow figure it out without me actually saying anything."
That earned the first genuine laugh you'd heard from him in weeks.
"Yeah," he admitted. "You did."
You rolled your eyes despite yourself.
"Thanks."
"I'm serious."
The corner of your mouth twitched.
Looking back now, it seemed ridiculous how much damage had been done simply because neither of you had communicated. You'd both made assumptions. You'd both got hurt. Then you'd both doubled down and spent weeks avoiding each other because it was easier than having an uncomfortable conversation.
"I should've talked to you," Max admits.
You smile. "I definitely should've talked to you."
This time the laugh that escaped both of you came easier.
Yesterday you had stood besides a pool looking at someone who had been alive only hours earlier. Suddenly all the energy you'd both spent being angry felt small compared to that.
Neither of you spoke for a while after that.
You found yourself looking further down the line of officers, where Bradford was standing with Lucy. Even from this distance it was obvious she was getting some kind of lecture. Tim's posture gave it away immediately. Arms crossed. Expression serious. Lucy looked increasingly guilty with every passing second.
A smile pulled briefly at your mouth.
Besides you, Max followed your gaze before letting out an amused huff. "Poor Chen."
You nodded. "Tim's definitely turning this into a lesson."
"One hundred percent."
The smile lingered as you watched Tim say something else that immediately made Lucy's shoulders slump.
Then Max looked at you. "You know, you probably think I'm a major asshole for bringing this up again, but you do look at him differently."
You frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
"Bradford."
The answer came so quickly that it took a second to process.
"What? No."
"Come on."
"He's my TO."
"Was."
You gestured vaguely towards the pair. "We got close."
Max laughed. "You don't see me looking at Lopez like that."
"Okay, but that's completely different—"
"All units, twenty seconds out. Get ready." Grey's voice cut through the conversation.
The conversation with Max disappeared instantly beneath the weight of what was coming. Officers adjusted their grips on their weapons, attention narrowing towards the stretch of roadway ahead as movement finally appeared in the distance.
A dark sedan emerged around the bend, moving steadily towards the roadblock, and the atmosphere changed immediately. The grief that had been sitting heavily over the operation since morning didn't disappear, but it seemed to sharpen into something else. Purpose.
This was why they were here.
The vehicle continued forward before gradually slowing, finally rolling to a stop several yards from the line of patrol vehicles. For a moment, nothing happened.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
The helicopter continued circling overhead while dozens of officers kept their weapons trained on the sedan. The tension was almost physical now, stretching across the roadway as everyone waited to see what Cole Midas would do.
Grey stepped forward, raising the megaphone. "Cole Midas, you are surrounded by the LAPD. Step out of the vehicle with your hands in the air."
The order echoed across the roadway before fading into silence.
Still nothing.
The doors stayed closed.
You could feel the officers around you tightening with every passing second.
Then Angela's voice cut across the radio. "I've got a clean shot, Sarge."
Grey's expression hardened. "Get out of the damn car now!"
The pause that followed seemed to last forever.
Then a voice finally called back. "Okay! I'm getting out! Don't shoot!"
The driver's side door opened slowly.
Every weapon on the scene tracked the movement.
Cole stepped out with both hands raised above his head, looking significantly less intimidating than the man who had dominated every conversation in the station for the last two days.
You found yourself staring at him.
This was the man who had ordered a green light on a Noland. The man responsible for Captain Andersen's death. The man whose actions had left an entire division grieving.
And he just looked like a man.
Grey never took his eyes off him. "Nolan, go arrest that man."
The words settled over the roadway.
A few feet away, Bishop immediately turned towards him. "It shouldn't be him."
Grey's gaze remained fixed on Cole.
"No," he said quietly. "It needs to be."
Your eyes found Nolan automatically.
He hadn't spoken since arriving at the roadblock. Truthfully, you weren't sure he'd spoken much at all since the pool. He looked exhausted, grief etched into every line of his face, but there was something steady about him as he stepped forward and began crossing the distance between himself and Cole.
Nobody argued.
Every officer there understood exactly why Grey had chosen him.
Cole attempted confidence at first, talking before Nolan had even reached him, but the bravado felt hollow now. Whatever power he thought he had disappeared the second he stepped out of that car. Nolan secured his hands, positioned him against the vehicle, and began reading his rights with the same calm professionalism he brought to every arrest.
Watching it felt strange.
Then Cole laughed.
The sound carried further than it should have in the silence.
"Come on. We both know I won't live to stand trial."
For the first time, something shifted in Nolan's expression.
"Yes, you will." The words were firm enough to make Cole fall silent. "Because the woman you killed taught us it's not our job to punish you. Just to see to it that you are."
The statement settled over the officers gathered along the roadway.
For a brief moment nobody moved.
Captain Andersen would've approved of that answer.
Nolan finished the arrest and guided Cole towards a waiting shop, placing him in the back seat before closing the door behind him.
Just like that, it was over.
The hunt that had consumed the division since Andersen's murder was finished. Cole Midas was in custody. He would stand trial. He would answer for what he'd done.
But as officers gradually lowered their weapons and began returning equipment to their vehicles, you realised that nobody looked relieved.
Maybe because relief implied something had been fixed.
And nothing about this was fixed.
Captain Andersen was still gone.
Your attention drifted across the scene as officers slowly began breaking formation. Most looked exhausted. Some looked numb. Others seemed lost in thought. It wasn't until you noticed Bradford moving away from the group that something finally pulled your attention from the aftermath.
His posture had changed.
The exhaustion was still there, but it had been replaced by something sharper.
Anger.
Following his gaze, you found the source almost immediately.
Murphy.
The Internal Affairs investigator stood a short distance away observing the scene, and whatever Bradford was thinking, it was obvious he wasn't happy to see her there.
"Wh— no, don't—"
Lucy spotted it too, hurrying after him before he could reach her.
You watched the exchange from a distance, unable to hear most of what was being said but understanding enough from their expressions. Bradford looked ready for a fight when he approached. Murphy didn't back down. For several tense moments, it seemed like the conversation could go either way.
Then something changed.
The anger slowly left Bradford's posture. Murphy's expression softened. Whatever was being said, it clearly wasn't the confrontation either of them had expected.
The conversation lasted another minute before Bradford finally nodded and stepped away.
By the time he returned, Lucy was waiting for him.
"Is everything okay?"
Bradford glanced back once before looking at her.
"Yeah," he said. "For now."
Then he gestured towards the vehicles and started walking again. "All right. Back to work."
You watched them go for a moment before looking away.
There was obviously history there. More than you understood, and probably more than you wanted to understand.
Today wasn't the day to ask.
When you finally turned back, Max was already looking at you, wearing that familiar expression that immediately made you suspicious.
You narrowed your eyes. "Don't."
His grin widened. "I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"Maybe."
You pointed a finger at him. "We literally just made up."
The grin only grew. "And?"
"And I'm not ruining it by arguing with you again."
A laugh escaped him, the sound easier than it had been in weeks. "That's probably smart."
You rolled your eyes. "I take back everything I said."
"No, you don't."
Unfortunately, he sounded entirely too confident about that.
For a second, neither of you spoke.
Then Max bumped your shoulder lightly as the two of you started back towards the shops.
"We good?"
The question was simple.
So was the answer.
"Yeah. "For the first time in a long time, you meant it. "Yeah. We're good."
///
By the time you finally made it home, exhaustion should have been enough to drag you under, but the bedroom remained stubbornly awake around you. The apartment was dark except for the thin golden pool of light spilling from the stove, the same one you always left on when your shift ran late. Your boots lay kicked off by the front door, and your uniform shirt was draped over the back of a chair like a discarded second skin. Yet sleep refused to come.
Every time you closed your eyes, the last two days pressed in again, Captain Andersen’s body besides the pool, Nolan kneeling in the blood, the silent line of officers standing at attention as the gurney rolled between them, the black mourning band stretched across your badge. And then Cole Midas stood in the middle of the roadway, hands raised, while Nolan’s voice cut through the air.
You stared at the phone in your hand for a minute before pressing 'call'. The line rang twice.
“Hey.” Tim’s voice was rough with exhaustion, but you weren’t surprised.
“Hey.”
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The silence felt strangely comfortable, like neither of you needed to explain why you were still awake at this hour.
“Can't sleep?” he asked.
A humourless laugh slipped out of you. “Not even a little.”
“Yeah.”
The single word told you everything. He wasn’t sleeping either.
You sat up slightly, resting your back against the headboard, and the words slipped out before you could stop them. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Tim was quiet for a beat. “Lose someone?”
You swallowed. “Yeah. I keep thinking I’m okay, and then something reminds me of her and it’s like…” You trailed off, shaking your head even though he couldn’t see it. “I don’t know. The station felt different today. It felt… less safe.”
“It did," he agreed, voice low.
“It felt more fragile. More real.” You hesitated, then added, “I keep thinking about yesterday. She was sitting in her office talking to me about becoming a detective. Not even twenty-four hours later, we were standing in formation watching her leave in a coroner’s van.”
The silence on the other end stretched for a few seconds. When Tim finally spoke again, his voice was quieter than before. “She believed in you.”
“I know.”
“No,” he said gently. “I don’t think you do. She talked about you all the time.”
A weak laugh escaped you. “That’s terrifying.”
“I’m serious,” he said, and something in his tone made your chest tighten. “She saw something in you early, before everybody started noticing, before you proved yourself a hundred different times. She saw what kind of cop you were becoming.”
The words landed harder than you expected, hitting something raw you’d been trying to keep buried. Your eyes burned instantly. For a second, you couldn’t speak, because hearing it from Andersen would have been encouraging, but hearing it now felt like losing her all over again. A sharp breath caught in your throat, and you pressed a hand against your eyes.
“Damn it,” you whispered, the curse breaking on the way out.
Tim didn’t try to fix it or tell you everything would be okay. He just stayed on the line, steady and present, listening while the tears came.
You weren’t even sure if you were crying for Andersen, the pool, the empty office waiting at the station, or the simple fact that tomorrow would come and she still wouldn’t be there. Through all of it, he never interrupted.
Eventually, the tears faded, leaving the silence gentler than before.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
You laughed weakly. “No.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.”
For some reason, that made you smile.
A few more minutes passed before the conversation finally wound down. “Get some sleep,” Tim said eventually.
“You too.”
“I’ll try.”
The line disconnected a few seconds later.
You rolled onto your back and stared at the ceiling. The apartment felt quiet, the kind of stillness that only made the thoughts louder. They drifted, unwillingly, back to the conversation with Max earlier that day, the way he’d looked at you and said you looked at Tim differently. Even now, your first instinct was to scoff at the memory. But lying here in the dark, another thought surfaced instead.
When the day had finally caught up with you and the grief grew too heavy to carry alone, you hadn’t called Max. Or Angela. Or Lucy. Or anyone else at the station. Maybe Max wasn’t completely wrong. Maybe somewhere along the way, you had started looking at Tim differently.
The thought barely had time to form before you shoved it away. It wasn’t fair, not to him, not right now. Tim had spent years fighting for Isabel, and even after rehab and relapses and heartbreak and finally letting go, he was still trying to figure out what his life looked like without her. Whatever complicated feelings might be flickering to life could wait for another day.
Summary: She thought the hardest part was earning her place. She was wrong. The job doesn’t get easier, it just changes, leaving room for choices without clear answers. And somewhere in that shift, her dynamic with Tim becomes something far less certain and harder to ignore.
Word count: 4.8k
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a/n: thank you all for being so patient with me!! I know this update took forever, and I can't promise the next will be any quicker, but I promise I'm trying!! Life has just been stupid crazy with family stuff and school stuff :/
Captain Andersen’s voice cut through the bullpen before the room had fully settled into the morning. “Can I have your attention?”
The chatter dropped almost instantly.
You looked up from your desk as officers began to gather beneath the landing outside the briefing room. Chairs scraped back, papers were straightened, and radios were adjusted out of habit more than necessity. The shift in atmosphere was immediate, that familiar quiet tension that always came when the captain decided the room belonged to her.
Andersen stood at the top of the steps, hands relaxed at her sides, waiting until everyone had fully assembled. Her posture alone was enough to make the space feel smaller, more contained.
“All right, guys, listen up,” she said. “Internal Affairs will be conducting random integrity tests this week.”
That landed in the room with a noticeable pause.
"The goal is simple,” Andersen continued. “Ensure officers behave appropriately, follow procedure, and avoid misconduct.”
A few low sighs broke out immediately.
From somewhere off to the side, you heard Tim Bradford scoff under his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, not really aiming it at anyone in particular, but loud enough that half the room heard it anyway. “This is just a chance for cops to go undercover to rat out other cops.”
Grey stepped forward just enough for everyone to see him clearly.
“We are professionals,” he said evenly. “So we will act like it. IA is doing its job. You do yours. Don’t give them anything to write down about you.”
That settled the room a little, though not completely.
Around you, officers were already shifting into quiet side conversations, muted complaints, eye-rolls, and the shared understanding that this was going to make an already unpredictable job even more tedious.
You let out a slow breath, adjusting your stance as you listened without really engaging in any of it.
Your radio crackled softly on your shoulder, a reminder of what was actually waiting out there: real calls, real emergencies, things that didn’t care about internal oversight or staged evaluations.
You stepped out of the station a few minutes later, the morning air already carrying that familiar mix of exhaust, heat, and distant sirens that meant the city was fully awake. Your shop sat in the lot like it always did, unremarkable at a glance, but immediately yours as soon as you slid into the driver’s seat.
It didn’t take long for the pattern to start revealing itself.
The first call was routine on paper. A “suspicious civilian complaint” that didn’t feel quite right the second you arrived. A man was standing near a storefront, shifting his weight like he was waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. A woman nearby insisted he was “acting threatening", but her attention kept flicking between you and something just behind her.
You clocked it in seconds.
Too clean. Too staged.
You approached anyway, calm and procedural, letting your tone stay neutral as you asked questions, positioned yourself where you could see both of them, and let the situation unfold at its own pace. The man gave you exactly what you expected: minimal resistance, vague irritation, and just enough confusion to sell the illusion without breaking character.
But it was just a test.
You de-escalated it anyway, documented it anyway, and left with the same quiet annoyance settling in your chest that had been building since the briefing.
By the second call, you were already over it.
Traffic stop on a black sedan; expired registration was flagged in despatch. Simple enough.
You pulled it over cleanly, positioned your shop correctly, and approached with the same controlled pace you always used. The driver was overly polite. Too polite. Hands visible before you even reached the window, voice steady in a way that didn’t match the nervous energy people usually had when they actually did something wrong.
"Licence and registration", you said.
He handed them over immediately.
Everything checked out faster than it should have, but you already knew what this was before despatch confirmed anything.
Nothing criminal. No violations worth escalating.
You let him go with a calm warning, watched him drive off, then stood there for a second longer than necessary with your attention fixed on the empty road ahead.
You weren’t irritated at him.
You were irritated at the fact that you knew you were being watched while doing it.
The third call made it more obvious.
Domestic disturbance, “verbal only", and no weapons reported. You arrived with another unit already on the scene, both officers speaking to a couple outside a small apartment complex. Voices were raised, but not out of control. The kind of argument that could’ve been real, except for the way it softened just slightly when you got closer. The way the tension seemed to hold itself just a fraction too neatly, like it had been practised.
You took over one side of the conversation, letting your tone stay even, giving them space to talk without pushing too hard. You watched body language instead of words. The subtle tells. The timing between responses.
And that’s when it clicked fully.
One of them was watching you more than reacting to the situation.
Waiting for you to slip.
You didn’t give it to them.
Instead, you did what Andersen had reinforced without saying it directly; you slowed everything down. You didn’t rush to fill the silence. You let discomfort sit without reacting to it. You asked fewer questions, but better ones. You let people reveal themselves instead of forcing conclusions.
Within minutes, the tension deflated on its own.
No incident. No escalation. No mistake for anyone to record.
Just a quiet resolution that felt almost anticlimactic.
You felt your phone buzz on your way back to your shop.
Lucy.
You picked up immediately.
“Hey,” her voice came through, slightly breathless.
“Let me guess,” you said as you eased the shop into traffic. “IA.”
A pause.
“…How did you know?”
“Because I keep getting them,” you replied, glancing at the intersection ahead as you turned.
Lucy huffed a quiet laugh. “Okay, so it’s not just us, then.”
“They're accessing everyone, you know,” you said.
There was a brief shuffle on her end, like she was moving while talking. “No, you don’t get it. We literally just watched Mario Lopez run a stop sign, and Tim almost lost it when he realised IA recruited him to help monitor compliance.”
That got your attention in a way you didn’t fully expect.
You blinked once, then let out a short laugh despite yourself. “I wish I’d seen that.”
“I promise you don’t,” Lucy said immediately. “He was this close to accepting his bribe just to make a point.”
You exhaled through your nose, shaking your head slightly as you merged lanes. “That sounds about right.”
“Yeah,” she said, then hesitated like she was deciding whether to say the next part. “It’s just… he’s getting worse. Like, by the day.”
You slowed slightly at a red light, eyes focusing on the cars ahead.
You didn’t respond right away because the first thing your mind went to wasn’t IA.
It was Isabel.
“Yeah,” you said finally, your voice quieter than before. “That actually makes sense.”
You watched the light turn green but didn’t move immediately, thinking instead.
Tim didn’t do well with things he couldn’t fix, and he especially didn’t do well with things he couldn’t control. A separation, no matter how “right” it was, was still a loss he didn’t get to solve his way out of. There was no procedure for it. No protocol. No clean resolution where effort guarantees an outcome.
Silence settled for a moment on the line.
And because, for a brief second, you couldn’t help but picture him earlier, jaw tight, voice sharp, that edge in him that wasn’t just irritation but pressure with nowhere to go.
You knew what Tim looked like when he was fine.
And you knew what he looked like when he wasn’t.
“This is going to be a long week,” Lucy said finally, pulling you back.
“Yeah,” you agreed softly. “It is.”
You ended the call a moment later, the phone slipping back onto the passenger seat as the despatch crackled through your radio.
But even as you answered it, your thoughts stayed a few steps behind.
On Tim.
And on the uncomfortable realisation that whatever was building in him right now… Internal Affairs probably wasn’t the real cause, just the easiest thing to take it out on.
The rest of the shift doesn’t slow down, calls coming more frequently, more often with IA officers watching than not.
You handle them the way you always do. Calm. Direct. Professional.
No openings. No escalation. No unnecessary movement or emotion that could be read the wrong way.
By the time you’re called back to the station, the shift doesn’t feel like it’s winding down anymore.
It feels like something has already happened.
The bullpen is louder than usual but somehow more contained, as everyone has already been told enough to know they should be paying attention even if they don’t know why yet. Conversations cut off mid-sentence. Officers gathered in clusters instead of moving freely. The energy is alert in a way that doesn’t belong to a routine debrief.
Grey is already waiting at the front.
The moment you see him, you know it’s not small.
"Alright", he says, voice steady but carrying just enough weight to pull the room into silence. “Listen up.”
Everything stops.
“This afternoon, Nolan was involved in an arrest involving a civilian, Astrid Heisserer.”
A few heads shift.
Grey continues without hesitation. “During the arrest, there was a minor tear to her clothing. She is now alleging misconduct.”
That alone would normally be noise. Paperwork. Investigation. Routine friction.
But the way he pauses tells you it isn’t routine.
“She’s connected to Cole Midas,” Grey says.
That name changes the room immediately.
Son of the imprisoned Southern Front leader.
You feel it land in your chest before you even consciously process it.
“And due to that connection,” Grey continues, “a green light has been issued on Nolan.” Grey’s voice stays controlled, but there’s urgency underneath it now. “Nolan has been advised to stay hidden until further notice.”
The words settle heavily because this is no longer about a complaint or a misunderstanding or even an internal procedure. This is someone deciding Nolan should not exist on the street anymore.
You glance around the room.
Tim is there.
So is Max.
And for the first time all day, whatever personal friction existed between anyone feels completely irrelevant.
Because Nolan is out there somewhere.
And now he isn’t just working a shift.
He’s in a situation that wants him dead.
///
The next morning feels different the moment you step into the briefing room.
Officers are already filling the space, most of them standing in small clusters instead of sitting, the usual pre-brief noise subdued into something more focused. Conversations stop and start in short bursts, like nobody quite knows how to talk around what’s coming.
You take your usual spot, but it feels less like routine and more like waiting for impact.
Grey is already at the front when Andersen steps in from the side entrance, her presence immediately sharpening the room’s attention.
“Thank you all for coming in,” she says, scanning the room once. “Most of you are on your day off. Until this is resolved, all overtime limits are lifted.”
That alone tells you how serious this is.
Grey steps forward, voice steady but firm. “As you may know, Southern Front originated as a white supremacist prison gang about fifteen years ago. Since then, they’ve expanded significantly.”
Andersen continues without hesitation, like she’s making sure no one misses the reality of what they’re dealing with.
“Drugs. Prostitution. Extortion,” she says. “But what sets them apart is their access to military-grade weapons.”
Grey nods once. “Their leader, the so-called King Midas, is currently serving three consecutive life sentences. His son, Cole, runs day-to-day operations on the street—but make no mistake, his father is still pulling the strings.”
Andersen’s expression tightens slightly. “Lifting a greenlight would be a major loss of face for Cole. He’s not going to do it willingly.”
Grey finishes it cleanly. “So we make it a business decision. If we hit their operation hard enough, they’ll reconsider.”
There’s a brief shift in the room after that, officers exchanging looks, recalibrating what this means operationally and what this turns into now.
And then the side door opens again.
Nolan steps in.
In uniform.
You can feel the collective realisation ripple through the room. He was supposed to be gone. Off-grid. Protected. Hidden until this blew over.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Nolan says simply.
No explanation beyond that.
He starts towards his seat, but he doesn’t make it all the way there before the room shifts.
Tim stands first.
No hesitation.
Just a firm clap that cuts through the silence.
It spreads quickly after that.
Bradford sets the tone, but it doesn’t stay his alone for long. Officers rise one by one, the applause filling the room in a way that feels less like celebration and more like acknowledgement of courage, or stupidity, or maybe just the fact that Nolan is standing here anyway.
You stand too.
Nolan gives a small nod, almost uncomfortable under the attention, and finally sits.
Andersen watches it all for a moment before speaking again, voice steady but carrying weight.
“Yesterday, Southern Front tried to kill one of our own,” she says. “Today, we hit back.”
The room shifts again, focus sharpening, and adrenaline replacing hesitation.
Almost immediately, assignments began moving through the crowd. Detectives and supervisors spread out across the briefing room with folders and intelligence packets, dividing personnel into teams and redirecting resources towards every known Southern Front associate they could identify. Conversations became more focused now, officers exchanging names, addresses, vehicle descriptions, and known affiliations.
You were scanning through a list of known associates when you heard Grey's voice call your name.
He was standing several feet away, motioning towards you and Max.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then you both headed over.
The distance between the two of you felt strangely familiar now. Not comfortable exactly, but established. Weeks of avoidance had settled into its own routine, one where conversations were kept brief, and eye contact was mostly accidental.
Grey waited until both of you stopped in front of him before speaking.
"Under normal circumstances, I'd have both of you working separate sectors today." His gaze moved between you. "But these aren't normal circumstances."
Neither of you argued.
A greenlight against a police officer changed things. Everyone in the room knew that. Traffic stops became more dangerous. Routine calls became less routine. Every officer stepping out of a shop had to consider the possibility that somebody might be watching.
"Until this situation is resolved," Grey continued, "nobody rides alone."
You felt something tighten briefly in your chest before you pushed it aside.
Besides you, Max's expression remained unreadable.
"I know you two have worked well together in the past." Grey didn't seem particularly interested in how either of you would react. So, until further notice, you'll be riding together again."
"Yes, sir," you said.
Max nodded once. "Understood."
Grey handed over a thin folder, and you opened it immediately.
Inside were photographs. Arrest records. Vehicle information. Known associates.
The first photograph belonged to a man named Travis Mercer from the Southern Front. He had weapons charges, multiple gang enhancements, and most importantly, known ties to Cole Midas.
"We've received information that Mercer has been operating around a warehouse district east of downtown," Grey said. "Auto salvage businesses. Shipping facilities. Several properties connected to known Southern Front associates."
You flipped to the next page.
Eric Vaughn, distribution runner, suspected involvement in moving both narcotics and weapons through Southern Front territory.
Grey tapped the folder lightly. "Your assignment is intelligence gathering and pressure. Locate them. Identify movement. Track associates. If you find something actionable, call it in."
"Not arrests?" Max asked.
"Not without backup." Grey's voice remained calm, but there was an edge underneath it. "If you locate either target, I want surveillance first. Backup second. Nobody is making hero plays today."
You nodded.
Warehouse districts offered too many hiding places. Too many blind corners. Too many opportunities for things to go wrong before help arrived.
Grey clearly knew it too.
"Southern Front wants officers making mistakes right now," he said. "They want someone angry enough, scared enough, or distracted enough to do something stupid."
His gaze lingered on both of you for a moment.
"Don't give them that."
"Understood," you said.
Max echoed the response a second later.
Grey gave a short nod before turning his attention towards another group of officers across the room.
"Get moving."
You closed the folder and stepped back into the flow of activity filling the briefing room.
For a few seconds, neither you nor Max said anything.
Around you, officers were already filtering towards the parking lot, conversations blending together beneath the constant movement of a division preparing for something bigger than a normal shift.
You started walking towards the exit.
After a moment, Max fell into step besides you.
Outside, shops were already pulling out one after another, radios crackling through open windows as officers headed towards their assigned sectors.
You reached your shop and slowed automatically.
For a second, your attention drifted towards the passenger side.
Then towards Max.
He noticed the hesitation.
Neither of you commented on it.
A moment later, he walked around the front of the vehicle and opened the passenger door.
Something unexpectedly familiar settled in your chest as he climbed inside. You hadn't realised how long it had been since someone had sat there.
The realisation lingered for only a second before you pushed it away, rounded the driver's side, and slid behind the wheel.
The radio crackled to life almost immediately.
///
The shift settled into an uneasy rhythm almost immediately.
The city felt different today.
Every radio transmission seemed a little sharper than usual. Officers checked in more frequently. Backup requests were answered almost before despatch finished broadcasting them. Everywhere you looked there were additional units moving through the city, patrol officers, detectives, and motors, all working the same problem from different angles.
Nobody was taking chances.
Not with a greenlight in play.
For the first hour, you and Max focused on the assignments Grey had given you, moving between warehouse districts, salvage yards, and businesses connected to known Southern Front associates.
The strange part wasn't the work; it was him. The silence between you wasn't the same silence you'd shared before everything happened. Back then, neither of you had felt obligated to fill it. It had been easy.
Now every quiet moment felt more deliberate. The conversations stayed professional.
And yet, as the hours passed, you found yourself slipping back into old habits without meaning to. You'd point towards a vehicle before realising Max had already noticed it. He'd start pulling up information on the MDT before you asked. At one point, you found yourself reaching for the radio to update another unit, only to discover he'd already done it.
Small automatic things, the kind built through repetition.
The day kept you busy enough that neither of you had much opportunity to think about it.
Leads came in; officers requested backup; known associates were identified and questioned; and a handful of arrests were made throughout the day, most requiring multiple units. And every single time, the same thing happened.
The second a situation became active, whatever awkwardness existed between you disappeared. A suspect would run, and both of you would move without discussion. A building needed to be searched, and somehow you always ended up covering opposite angles without having to coordinate it.
Months of riding together had created habits neither of you seemed capable of shutting off. It shouldn't have surprised you. But it did.
Because outside of calls, Max barely looked at you, yet the moment something became uncertain, he trusted you completely.
He trusted you to cover his blind spots, to be exactly where you were supposed to be.
The realisation followed you through most of the afternoon; despite it all, Max still trusted you. And you trusted him.
By late afternoon, the entire division seemed to be operating on the same wavelength. Units moved quickly, check-ins came constantly, and backup arrived almost immediately whenever it was requested.
Every officer knew exactly why. Nobody wanted to be the one caught alone. Nobody wanted to be the reason another officer got hurt.
The tension never fully disappeared.
It simply became part of the day.
Something everyone carried with them as they moved from call to call, waiting for the next update, the next lead, the next sign that Southern Front was finally starting to crack under the pressure being applied from every direction.
By late afternoon, the search for Southern Front had settled into something relentless. Units moved from lead to lead, detectives coordinated surveillance, and every available officer seemed to be working the same problem from a different angle.
The tension that had hung over the city all day never really eased. If anything, it became more noticeable as the hours passed. Officers checked in constantly. Backup requests were answered almost immediately. Every traffic stop seemed to draw more units than usual. Nobody wanted to be alone if things went sideways.
The radio crackled again as you pulled away from another location connected to one of Southern Front's known associates. Despatch was requesting status updates from units across the city, something that had become increasingly common throughout the day.
You barely paid attention at first.
Check-ins were constant.
Then, despatch called for Nolan and Andersen.
Neither responded.
A few seconds passed before despatch tried again.
Still nothing.
You noticed Max glance towards the radio.
The same thought crossed your mind, but neither of you said anything. There were plenty of innocent explanations. They could be interviewing someone. They could be away from their radios. They could simply be occupied.
A minute later, another attempt was made.
Again, nothing.
This time the silence felt different.
The radio traffic continued around it, officers checking locations and reporting updates, but something had shifted beneath the surface. You could hear it in the voices coming across the air.
People had noticed.
Several minutes later, Grey's voice cut through the radio. All available units were being redirected to assist in locating Andersen and Nolan.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
Whatever operation had been running throughout the city suddenly became secondary. Patrol units, detectives, supervisors – everyone pivoted towards the same objective. Locations were assigned. Search areas were expanded. Air support was brought in.
Within minutes, the radio became a constant stream of overlapping transmissions. Possible sightings. Negative searches. Requests for additional units. Updates from officers moving from one location to the next.
You and Max joined the search without question, moving through assigned areas alongside dozens of other officers. As daylight began fading, helicopters appeared overhead, their spotlights sweeping across streets, parking lots, rooftops, and abandoned properties.
Hours seemed to blur together after that.
The search grew larger.
The radio grew louder.
And with every failed attempt to locate them, a little more tension settled over the division.
The longer Andersen and Nolan remained silent, the harder it became to convince yourself that everything was fine.
You and Max had stopped worrying about whatever existed between the two of you; there simply wasn't room for it anymore. Not when every officer in Mid-Wilshire was searching for two of their own.
And as darkness settled fully over the city, the uneasy feeling that had followed everyone throughout the day finally became something harder to ignore.
Something was wrong.
///
The call finally came nearly an hour later.
A location.
You barely remember the drive there. The radio never seemed to stop: units calling out locations, supervisors coordinating the search, and despatch trying to keep up with all of it. Patrol cars converged on the neighbourhood from every direction, red and blue lights washing over houses and front lawns by the time you and Max arrived.
Officers were already moving towards the property when you jumped out of the shop. The front gate stood open, voices carrying from somewhere deeper inside the yard as officers rushed through the house and around both sides of it. You followed them automatically, your pulse pounding harder with every step.
The backyard came into view, and the world seemed to stop.
Nolan was sitting on the ground besides the pool, completely motionless. His uniform was stained with blood, his shoulders slumped forward as though simply holding himself upright had become too much effort. Captain Andersen lay against him, her head resting in his lap, and for a moment your brain refused to make sense of what you were seeing.
There was blood on the concrete. Blood on Nolan's uniform. Blood in the water.
No.
The thought came immediately, irrational and desperate.
No.
This wasn't possible.
Yesterday she'd been sitting across from you in her office, telling you not to rush your career. Telling you to trust your instincts. Telling you that you were doing good work.
You could still see the look on her face when she'd told you that you already thought like a detective.
Most people in the department knew Captain Andersen as a respected leader. You knew her as the woman who had believed in you when you were still trying to prove you belonged here. She understood what it meant to start over after the military. She understood the adjustment, the uncertainty, the feeling of having to rebuild your identity from the ground up. More than once she'd given you advice when you needed it, and more than once she'd seen potential in you before you saw it in yourself.
She wasn't supposed to be lying besides a pool.
A strangled sound escaped your throat before you could stop it.
Your vision blurred instantly.
The tears came so fast they almost startled you. One second you were standing there staring, trying to convince yourself there had to be another explanation, and the next you couldn't breathe. Your chest felt tight, your knees suddenly unsteady beneath you as the reality of what you were looking at crashed into you all at once.
Someone stepped into your side.
A hand settled firmly against your shoulder before another wrapped around your arm, steadying you before you could lose your balance completely.
Max.
You hadn't even realised he'd moved.
You grabbed onto the front of his uniform as a sob finally broke free, and Max simply pulled you closer.
Because Captain Andersen wasn't supposed to die.
Across the yard, Nolan finally lifted his head.
You barely recognised him; he looked hollow, like something essential had been ripped out of him and left behind at that pool.
For several long seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Nolan swallowed and looked at the officers gathering around him. "It was Cole."
His voice sounded raw.
The words settled heavily over the yard.
Cole had murdered a police captain.
And nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Word spread quickly.
By the time Captain Andersen was ready to be moved, officers from across the division had gathered outside the property. Patrol officers stood alongside detectives, supervisors alongside rookies, every available member of Mid-Wilshire lining both sides of the driveway in full uniform.
You stood besides Max, hands clasped tightly behind your back.
Further down the line, Tim stood at attention besides Angela and Talia. Grey was near the front, his expression carefully controlled despite the grief visible in his eyes. Lucy, West, Nolan, and dozens of other officers filled the space.
No one spoke.
The only sound came from the slow roll of the gurney as it emerged from the house.
Your throat tightened immediately.
Just yesterday, Andersen had been standing in front of an entire room of officers, leading a briefing and directing an operation. She'd spent years fighting for this department, protecting the people under her command, pushing officers to become better than they thought they could be.
Now she was leaving beneath a white sheet.
Grey's voice carried across the driveway.
"Officers, order arms."
The line snapped into a salute.
You raised your hand with everyone else, fighting to keep it steady as the gurney moved slowly between the rows of officers.
Besides you, Max shifted slightly closer, a movement so small nobody else would have noticed it.
You did.
The gurney continued past.
Grey's voice rang out one final time.
"Execution arms."
As one, the salutes lowered.
The rear doors of the coroner's van closed.
And in the silence that followed, with no radios speaking and no orders being given, the loss finally felt real.
For the first time since you'd put on a uniform, it felt like the department itself had lost something it would never get back.
Summary: She thought the hardest part was earning her place. She was wrong. The job doesn’t get easier, it just changes, leaving room for choices without clear answers. And somewhere in that shift, her dynamic with Tim becomes something far less certain and harder to ignore.
Word count: 4.8k
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a/n: thank you all for being so patient with me!! I know this update took forever, and I can't promise the next will be any quicker, but I promise I'm trying!! Life has just been stupid crazy with family stuff and school stuff :/
Captain Andersen’s voice cut through the bullpen before the room had fully settled into the morning. “Can I have your attention?”
The chatter dropped almost instantly.
You looked up from your desk as officers began to gather beneath the landing outside the briefing room. Chairs scraped back, papers were straightened, and radios were adjusted out of habit more than necessity. The shift in atmosphere was immediate, that familiar quiet tension that always came when the captain decided the room belonged to her.
Andersen stood at the top of the steps, hands relaxed at her sides, waiting until everyone had fully assembled. Her posture alone was enough to make the space feel smaller, more contained.
“All right, guys, listen up,” she said. “Internal Affairs will be conducting random integrity tests this week.”
That landed in the room with a noticeable pause.
"The goal is simple,” Andersen continued. “Ensure officers behave appropriately, follow procedure, and avoid misconduct.”
A few low sighs broke out immediately.
From somewhere off to the side, you heard Tim Bradford scoff under his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, not really aiming it at anyone in particular, but loud enough that half the room heard it anyway. “This is just a chance for cops to go undercover to rat out other cops.”
Grey stepped forward just enough for everyone to see him clearly.
“We are professionals,” he said evenly. “So we will act like it. IA is doing its job. You do yours. Don’t give them anything to write down about you.”
That settled the room a little, though not completely.
Around you, officers were already shifting into quiet side conversations, muted complaints, eye-rolls, and the shared understanding that this was going to make an already unpredictable job even more tedious.
You let out a slow breath, adjusting your stance as you listened without really engaging in any of it.
Your radio crackled softly on your shoulder, a reminder of what was actually waiting out there: real calls, real emergencies, things that didn’t care about internal oversight or staged evaluations.
You stepped out of the station a few minutes later, the morning air already carrying that familiar mix of exhaust, heat, and distant sirens that meant the city was fully awake. Your shop sat in the lot like it always did, unremarkable at a glance, but immediately yours as soon as you slid into the driver’s seat.
It didn’t take long for the pattern to start revealing itself.
The first call was routine on paper. A “suspicious civilian complaint” that didn’t feel quite right the second you arrived. A man was standing near a storefront, shifting his weight like he was waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen. A woman nearby insisted he was “acting threatening", but her attention kept flicking between you and something just behind her.
You clocked it in seconds.
Too clean. Too staged.
You approached anyway, calm and procedural, letting your tone stay neutral as you asked questions, positioned yourself where you could see both of them, and let the situation unfold at its own pace. The man gave you exactly what you expected: minimal resistance, vague irritation, and just enough confusion to sell the illusion without breaking character.
But it was just a test.
You de-escalated it anyway, documented it anyway, and left with the same quiet annoyance settling in your chest that had been building since the briefing.
By the second call, you were already over it.
Traffic stop on a black sedan; expired registration was flagged in despatch. Simple enough.
You pulled it over cleanly, positioned your shop correctly, and approached with the same controlled pace you always used. The driver was overly polite. Too polite. Hands visible before you even reached the window, voice steady in a way that didn’t match the nervous energy people usually had when they actually did something wrong.
"Licence and registration", you said.
He handed them over immediately.
Everything checked out faster than it should have, but you already knew what this was before despatch confirmed anything.
Nothing criminal. No violations worth escalating.
You let him go with a calm warning, watched him drive off, then stood there for a second longer than necessary with your attention fixed on the empty road ahead.
You weren’t irritated at him.
You were irritated at the fact that you knew you were being watched while doing it.
The third call made it more obvious.
Domestic disturbance, “verbal only", and no weapons reported. You arrived with another unit already on the scene, both officers speaking to a couple outside a small apartment complex. Voices were raised, but not out of control. The kind of argument that could’ve been real, except for the way it softened just slightly when you got closer. The way the tension seemed to hold itself just a fraction too neatly, like it had been practised.
You took over one side of the conversation, letting your tone stay even, giving them space to talk without pushing too hard. You watched body language instead of words. The subtle tells. The timing between responses.
And that’s when it clicked fully.
One of them was watching you more than reacting to the situation.
Waiting for you to slip.
You didn’t give it to them.
Instead, you did what Andersen had reinforced without saying it directly; you slowed everything down. You didn’t rush to fill the silence. You let discomfort sit without reacting to it. You asked fewer questions, but better ones. You let people reveal themselves instead of forcing conclusions.
Within minutes, the tension deflated on its own.
No incident. No escalation. No mistake for anyone to record.
Just a quiet resolution that felt almost anticlimactic.
You felt your phone buzz on your way back to your shop.
Lucy.
You picked up immediately.
“Hey,” her voice came through, slightly breathless.
“Let me guess,” you said as you eased the shop into traffic. “IA.”
A pause.
“…How did you know?”
“Because I keep getting them,” you replied, glancing at the intersection ahead as you turned.
Lucy huffed a quiet laugh. “Okay, so it’s not just us, then.”
“They're accessing everyone, you know,” you said.
There was a brief shuffle on her end, like she was moving while talking. “No, you don’t get it. We literally just watched Mario Lopez run a stop sign, and Tim almost lost it when he realised IA recruited him to help monitor compliance.”
That got your attention in a way you didn’t fully expect.
You blinked once, then let out a short laugh despite yourself. “I wish I’d seen that.”
“I promise you don’t,” Lucy said immediately. “He was this close to accepting his bribe just to make a point.”
You exhaled through your nose, shaking your head slightly as you merged lanes. “That sounds about right.”
“Yeah,” she said, then hesitated like she was deciding whether to say the next part. “It’s just… he’s getting worse. Like, by the day.”
You slowed slightly at a red light, eyes focusing on the cars ahead.
You didn’t respond right away because the first thing your mind went to wasn’t IA.
It was Isabel.
“Yeah,” you said finally, your voice quieter than before. “That actually makes sense.”
You watched the light turn green but didn’t move immediately, thinking instead.
Tim didn’t do well with things he couldn’t fix, and he especially didn’t do well with things he couldn’t control. A separation, no matter how “right” it was, was still a loss he didn’t get to solve his way out of. There was no procedure for it. No protocol. No clean resolution where effort guarantees an outcome.
Silence settled for a moment on the line.
And because, for a brief second, you couldn’t help but picture him earlier, jaw tight, voice sharp, that edge in him that wasn’t just irritation but pressure with nowhere to go.
You knew what Tim looked like when he was fine.
And you knew what he looked like when he wasn’t.
“This is going to be a long week,” Lucy said finally, pulling you back.
“Yeah,” you agreed softly. “It is.”
You ended the call a moment later, the phone slipping back onto the passenger seat as the despatch crackled through your radio.
But even as you answered it, your thoughts stayed a few steps behind.
On Tim.
And on the uncomfortable realisation that whatever was building in him right now… Internal Affairs probably wasn’t the real cause, just the easiest thing to take it out on.
The rest of the shift doesn’t slow down, calls coming more frequently, more often with IA officers watching than not.
You handle them the way you always do. Calm. Direct. Professional.
No openings. No escalation. No unnecessary movement or emotion that could be read the wrong way.
By the time you’re called back to the station, the shift doesn’t feel like it’s winding down anymore.
It feels like something has already happened.
The bullpen is louder than usual but somehow more contained, as everyone has already been told enough to know they should be paying attention even if they don’t know why yet. Conversations cut off mid-sentence. Officers gathered in clusters instead of moving freely. The energy is alert in a way that doesn’t belong to a routine debrief.
Grey is already waiting at the front.
The moment you see him, you know it’s not small.
"Alright", he says, voice steady but carrying just enough weight to pull the room into silence. “Listen up.”
Everything stops.
“This afternoon, Nolan was involved in an arrest involving a civilian, Astrid Heisserer.”
A few heads shift.
Grey continues without hesitation. “During the arrest, there was a minor tear to her clothing. She is now alleging misconduct.”
That alone would normally be noise. Paperwork. Investigation. Routine friction.
But the way he pauses tells you it isn’t routine.
“She’s connected to Cole Midas,” Grey says.
That name changes the room immediately.
Son of the imprisoned Southern Front leader.
You feel it land in your chest before you even consciously process it.
“And due to that connection,” Grey continues, “a green light has been issued on Nolan.” Grey’s voice stays controlled, but there’s urgency underneath it now. “Nolan has been advised to stay hidden until further notice.”
The words settle heavily because this is no longer about a complaint or a misunderstanding or even an internal procedure. This is someone deciding Nolan should not exist on the street anymore.
You glance around the room.
Tim is there.
So is Max.
And for the first time all day, whatever personal friction existed between anyone feels completely irrelevant.
Because Nolan is out there somewhere.
And now he isn’t just working a shift.
He’s in a situation that wants him dead.
///
The next morning feels different the moment you step into the briefing room.
Officers are already filling the space, most of them standing in small clusters instead of sitting, the usual pre-brief noise subdued into something more focused. Conversations stop and start in short bursts, like nobody quite knows how to talk around what’s coming.
You take your usual spot, but it feels less like routine and more like waiting for impact.
Grey is already at the front when Andersen steps in from the side entrance, her presence immediately sharpening the room’s attention.
“Thank you all for coming in,” she says, scanning the room once. “Most of you are on your day off. Until this is resolved, all overtime limits are lifted.”
That alone tells you how serious this is.
Grey steps forward, voice steady but firm. “As you may know, Southern Front originated as a white supremacist prison gang about fifteen years ago. Since then, they’ve expanded significantly.”
Andersen continues without hesitation, like she’s making sure no one misses the reality of what they’re dealing with.
“Drugs. Prostitution. Extortion,” she says. “But what sets them apart is their access to military-grade weapons.”
Grey nods once. “Their leader, the so-called King Midas, is currently serving three consecutive life sentences. His son, Cole, runs day-to-day operations on the street—but make no mistake, his father is still pulling the strings.”
Andersen’s expression tightens slightly. “Lifting a greenlight would be a major loss of face for Cole. He’s not going to do it willingly.”
Grey finishes it cleanly. “So we make it a business decision. If we hit their operation hard enough, they’ll reconsider.”
There’s a brief shift in the room after that, officers exchanging looks, recalibrating what this means operationally and what this turns into now.
And then the side door opens again.
Nolan steps in.
In uniform.
You can feel the collective realisation ripple through the room. He was supposed to be gone. Off-grid. Protected. Hidden until this blew over.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Nolan says simply.
No explanation beyond that.
He starts towards his seat, but he doesn’t make it all the way there before the room shifts.
Tim stands first.
No hesitation.
Just a firm clap that cuts through the silence.
It spreads quickly after that.
Bradford sets the tone, but it doesn’t stay his alone for long. Officers rise one by one, the applause filling the room in a way that feels less like celebration and more like acknowledgement of courage, or stupidity, or maybe just the fact that Nolan is standing here anyway.
You stand too.
Nolan gives a small nod, almost uncomfortable under the attention, and finally sits.
Andersen watches it all for a moment before speaking again, voice steady but carrying weight.
“Yesterday, Southern Front tried to kill one of our own,” she says. “Today, we hit back.”
The room shifts again, focus sharpening, and adrenaline replacing hesitation.
Almost immediately, assignments began moving through the crowd. Detectives and supervisors spread out across the briefing room with folders and intelligence packets, dividing personnel into teams and redirecting resources towards every known Southern Front associate they could identify. Conversations became more focused now, officers exchanging names, addresses, vehicle descriptions, and known affiliations.
You were scanning through a list of known associates when you heard Grey's voice call your name.
He was standing several feet away, motioning towards you and Max.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then you both headed over.
The distance between the two of you felt strangely familiar now. Not comfortable exactly, but established. Weeks of avoidance had settled into its own routine, one where conversations were kept brief, and eye contact was mostly accidental.
Grey waited until both of you stopped in front of him before speaking.
"Under normal circumstances, I'd have both of you working separate sectors today." His gaze moved between you. "But these aren't normal circumstances."
Neither of you argued.
A greenlight against a police officer changed things. Everyone in the room knew that. Traffic stops became more dangerous. Routine calls became less routine. Every officer stepping out of a shop had to consider the possibility that somebody might be watching.
"Until this situation is resolved," Grey continued, "nobody rides alone."
You felt something tighten briefly in your chest before you pushed it aside.
Besides you, Max's expression remained unreadable.
"I know you two have worked well together in the past." Grey didn't seem particularly interested in how either of you would react. So, until further notice, you'll be riding together again."
"Yes, sir," you said.
Max nodded once. "Understood."
Grey handed over a thin folder, and you opened it immediately.
Inside were photographs. Arrest records. Vehicle information. Known associates.
The first photograph belonged to a man named Travis Mercer from the Southern Front. He had weapons charges, multiple gang enhancements, and most importantly, known ties to Cole Midas.
"We've received information that Mercer has been operating around a warehouse district east of downtown," Grey said. "Auto salvage businesses. Shipping facilities. Several properties connected to known Southern Front associates."
You flipped to the next page.
Eric Vaughn, distribution runner, suspected involvement in moving both narcotics and weapons through Southern Front territory.
Grey tapped the folder lightly. "Your assignment is intelligence gathering and pressure. Locate them. Identify movement. Track associates. If you find something actionable, call it in."
"Not arrests?" Max asked.
"Not without backup." Grey's voice remained calm, but there was an edge underneath it. "If you locate either target, I want surveillance first. Backup second. Nobody is making hero plays today."
You nodded.
Warehouse districts offered too many hiding places. Too many blind corners. Too many opportunities for things to go wrong before help arrived.
Grey clearly knew it too.
"Southern Front wants officers making mistakes right now," he said. "They want someone angry enough, scared enough, or distracted enough to do something stupid."
His gaze lingered on both of you for a moment.
"Don't give them that."
"Understood," you said.
Max echoed the response a second later.
Grey gave a short nod before turning his attention towards another group of officers across the room.
"Get moving."
You closed the folder and stepped back into the flow of activity filling the briefing room.
For a few seconds, neither you nor Max said anything.
Around you, officers were already filtering towards the parking lot, conversations blending together beneath the constant movement of a division preparing for something bigger than a normal shift.
You started walking towards the exit.
After a moment, Max fell into step besides you.
Outside, shops were already pulling out one after another, radios crackling through open windows as officers headed towards their assigned sectors.
You reached your shop and slowed automatically.
For a second, your attention drifted towards the passenger side.
Then towards Max.
He noticed the hesitation.
Neither of you commented on it.
A moment later, he walked around the front of the vehicle and opened the passenger door.
Something unexpectedly familiar settled in your chest as he climbed inside. You hadn't realised how long it had been since someone had sat there.
The realisation lingered for only a second before you pushed it away, rounded the driver's side, and slid behind the wheel.
The radio crackled to life almost immediately.
///
The shift settled into an uneasy rhythm almost immediately.
The city felt different today.
Every radio transmission seemed a little sharper than usual. Officers checked in more frequently. Backup requests were answered almost before despatch finished broadcasting them. Everywhere you looked there were additional units moving through the city, patrol officers, detectives, and motors, all working the same problem from different angles.
Nobody was taking chances.
Not with a greenlight in play.
For the first hour, you and Max focused on the assignments Grey had given you, moving between warehouse districts, salvage yards, and businesses connected to known Southern Front associates.
The strange part wasn't the work; it was him. The silence between you wasn't the same silence you'd shared before everything happened. Back then, neither of you had felt obligated to fill it. It had been easy.
Now every quiet moment felt more deliberate. The conversations stayed professional.
And yet, as the hours passed, you found yourself slipping back into old habits without meaning to. You'd point towards a vehicle before realising Max had already noticed it. He'd start pulling up information on the MDT before you asked. At one point, you found yourself reaching for the radio to update another unit, only to discover he'd already done it.
Small automatic things, the kind built through repetition.
The day kept you busy enough that neither of you had much opportunity to think about it.
Leads came in; officers requested backup; known associates were identified and questioned; and a handful of arrests were made throughout the day, most requiring multiple units. And every single time, the same thing happened.
The second a situation became active, whatever awkwardness existed between you disappeared. A suspect would run, and both of you would move without discussion. A building needed to be searched, and somehow you always ended up covering opposite angles without having to coordinate it.
Months of riding together had created habits neither of you seemed capable of shutting off. It shouldn't have surprised you. But it did.
Because outside of calls, Max barely looked at you, yet the moment something became uncertain, he trusted you completely.
He trusted you to cover his blind spots, to be exactly where you were supposed to be.
The realisation followed you through most of the afternoon; despite it all, Max still trusted you. And you trusted him.
By late afternoon, the entire division seemed to be operating on the same wavelength. Units moved quickly, check-ins came constantly, and backup arrived almost immediately whenever it was requested.
Every officer knew exactly why. Nobody wanted to be the one caught alone. Nobody wanted to be the reason another officer got hurt.
The tension never fully disappeared.
It simply became part of the day.
Something everyone carried with them as they moved from call to call, waiting for the next update, the next lead, the next sign that Southern Front was finally starting to crack under the pressure being applied from every direction.
By late afternoon, the search for Southern Front had settled into something relentless. Units moved from lead to lead, detectives coordinated surveillance, and every available officer seemed to be working the same problem from a different angle.
The tension that had hung over the city all day never really eased. If anything, it became more noticeable as the hours passed. Officers checked in constantly. Backup requests were answered almost immediately. Every traffic stop seemed to draw more units than usual. Nobody wanted to be alone if things went sideways.
The radio crackled again as you pulled away from another location connected to one of Southern Front's known associates. Despatch was requesting status updates from units across the city, something that had become increasingly common throughout the day.
You barely paid attention at first.
Check-ins were constant.
Then, despatch called for Nolan and Andersen.
Neither responded.
A few seconds passed before despatch tried again.
Still nothing.
You noticed Max glance towards the radio.
The same thought crossed your mind, but neither of you said anything. There were plenty of innocent explanations. They could be interviewing someone. They could be away from their radios. They could simply be occupied.
A minute later, another attempt was made.
Again, nothing.
This time the silence felt different.
The radio traffic continued around it, officers checking locations and reporting updates, but something had shifted beneath the surface. You could hear it in the voices coming across the air.
People had noticed.
Several minutes later, Grey's voice cut through the radio. All available units were being redirected to assist in locating Andersen and Nolan.
The atmosphere changed immediately.
Whatever operation had been running throughout the city suddenly became secondary. Patrol units, detectives, supervisors – everyone pivoted towards the same objective. Locations were assigned. Search areas were expanded. Air support was brought in.
Within minutes, the radio became a constant stream of overlapping transmissions. Possible sightings. Negative searches. Requests for additional units. Updates from officers moving from one location to the next.
You and Max joined the search without question, moving through assigned areas alongside dozens of other officers. As daylight began fading, helicopters appeared overhead, their spotlights sweeping across streets, parking lots, rooftops, and abandoned properties.
Hours seemed to blur together after that.
The search grew larger.
The radio grew louder.
And with every failed attempt to locate them, a little more tension settled over the division.
The longer Andersen and Nolan remained silent, the harder it became to convince yourself that everything was fine.
You and Max had stopped worrying about whatever existed between the two of you; there simply wasn't room for it anymore. Not when every officer in Mid-Wilshire was searching for two of their own.
And as darkness settled fully over the city, the uneasy feeling that had followed everyone throughout the day finally became something harder to ignore.
Something was wrong.
///
The call finally came nearly an hour later.
A location.
You barely remember the drive there. The radio never seemed to stop: units calling out locations, supervisors coordinating the search, and despatch trying to keep up with all of it. Patrol cars converged on the neighbourhood from every direction, red and blue lights washing over houses and front lawns by the time you and Max arrived.
Officers were already moving towards the property when you jumped out of the shop. The front gate stood open, voices carrying from somewhere deeper inside the yard as officers rushed through the house and around both sides of it. You followed them automatically, your pulse pounding harder with every step.
The backyard came into view, and the world seemed to stop.
Nolan was sitting on the ground besides the pool, completely motionless. His uniform was stained with blood, his shoulders slumped forward as though simply holding himself upright had become too much effort. Captain Andersen lay against him, her head resting in his lap, and for a moment your brain refused to make sense of what you were seeing.
There was blood on the concrete. Blood on Nolan's uniform. Blood in the water.
No.
The thought came immediately, irrational and desperate.
No.
This wasn't possible.
Yesterday she'd been sitting across from you in her office, telling you not to rush your career. Telling you to trust your instincts. Telling you that you were doing good work.
You could still see the look on her face when she'd told you that you already thought like a detective.
Most people in the department knew Captain Andersen as a respected leader. You knew her as the woman who had believed in you when you were still trying to prove you belonged here. She understood what it meant to start over after the military. She understood the adjustment, the uncertainty, the feeling of having to rebuild your identity from the ground up. More than once she'd given you advice when you needed it, and more than once she'd seen potential in you before you saw it in yourself.
She wasn't supposed to be lying besides a pool.
A strangled sound escaped your throat before you could stop it.
Your vision blurred instantly.
The tears came so fast they almost startled you. One second you were standing there staring, trying to convince yourself there had to be another explanation, and the next you couldn't breathe. Your chest felt tight, your knees suddenly unsteady beneath you as the reality of what you were looking at crashed into you all at once.
Someone stepped into your side.
A hand settled firmly against your shoulder before another wrapped around your arm, steadying you before you could lose your balance completely.
Max.
You hadn't even realised he'd moved.
You grabbed onto the front of his uniform as a sob finally broke free, and Max simply pulled you closer.
Because Captain Andersen wasn't supposed to die.
Across the yard, Nolan finally lifted his head.
You barely recognised him; he looked hollow, like something essential had been ripped out of him and left behind at that pool.
For several long seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Nolan swallowed and looked at the officers gathering around him. "It was Cole."
His voice sounded raw.
The words settled heavily over the yard.
Cole had murdered a police captain.
And nothing was ever going to be the same again.
Word spread quickly.
By the time Captain Andersen was ready to be moved, officers from across the division had gathered outside the property. Patrol officers stood alongside detectives, supervisors alongside rookies, every available member of Mid-Wilshire lining both sides of the driveway in full uniform.
You stood besides Max, hands clasped tightly behind your back.
Further down the line, Tim stood at attention besides Angela and Talia. Grey was near the front, his expression carefully controlled despite the grief visible in his eyes. Lucy, West, Nolan, and dozens of other officers filled the space.
No one spoke.
The only sound came from the slow roll of the gurney as it emerged from the house.
Your throat tightened immediately.
Just yesterday, Andersen had been standing in front of an entire room of officers, leading a briefing and directing an operation. She'd spent years fighting for this department, protecting the people under her command, pushing officers to become better than they thought they could be.
Now she was leaving beneath a white sheet.
Grey's voice carried across the driveway.
"Officers, order arms."
The line snapped into a salute.
You raised your hand with everyone else, fighting to keep it steady as the gurney moved slowly between the rows of officers.
Besides you, Max shifted slightly closer, a movement so small nobody else would have noticed it.
You did.
The gurney continued past.
Grey's voice rang out one final time.
"Execution arms."
As one, the salutes lowered.
The rear doors of the coroner's van closed.
And in the silence that followed, with no radios speaking and no orders being given, the loss finally felt real.
For the first time since you'd put on a uniform, it felt like the department itself had lost something it would never get back.
