Summary: After a drunk night on the town turns you into the only unfortunate witness to a horrific crime, you quickly find yourself in a bit over your head. The bad guy doesn't like loose ends, and the good guys wanna do their job. There's always collateral in some form... isn't there?
A/n: i've got a short little epilogue written but that's pretty much it for this series! I'm so open to blurbs and one-shots with this pairing, and i do have a vague plan to weave this into the story of ghost and mouse. i hope you guys enjoy!!
~*~
“I don’t even know, anymore, to be honest.”
Your therapist looks up from the circles he was drawing in the corner of the paper.
“Can you elaborate on that a little bit?”
The question that sparked such a response had been: 'What are you looking forward to these days?'
“I don’t know… what is there to look forward to these days? I don’t have any friends or family… what am I supposed to be looking forward to when all I see when I look toward the future is a blank abyss staring straight back? How could I possibly have anything to look forward to when the only things in my life are reminders of the worst things to ever happen to me?”
Instead of doodling on his notepad the way he normally would during one of your weekly sessions, Doctor Martins is taking quick notes and nodding along with a few of the things you say.
He hasn’t been able to extrapolate much from your weekly sessions till this point.
You just haven’t had much to say.
“It’s gotten to a point where I can’t help but question if saving my life was the right thing to do.”
His pen scratches the paper with such force it tears it a little.
“Miss Doe, your life matters. It well and truly does.”
You snort and give your head a tiny shake.
“Not sure how a life like this could matter.”
He opens his mouth to speak again, but the little timer on his desk chimes softly, signalling the end of your session.
You give him a bland smile and rise to your feet.
“Looks like we’re out of time for today. Until next time, Doc.”
He watches you silently, a little worried for you as you leave the room, but not worried enough to do anything about it.
One of your handlers is waiting outside in the car, silent as you get in and silent as she drives toward your safe house.
The entire ride, you’re pondering… everything.
Everything you’ve lost. From your friends to your family to your new friends and new family to John. Hell, even Ruth is on that list.
But now you’re stuck with Agent Greene and Agent Patel and sometimes Agent Ryback and being around any of them is as riveting as watching paint dry.
Maybe, you decide, they’re this boring because you’ve never opened the door for any sort of conversation or friendship.
Eventually, when you pull up to the house, you turn to Agent Greene and give her a friendly smile.
“Did you want to come in for a coffee or something?” The words are rushed and blurted, but she doesn’t flinch. She only gives you a polite smile and unlocks the doors.
“I don’t think that would be appropriate for your safety.”
You blink at her once, then turn and exit the car without another word.
Welp. There goes the door to conversation or friendship slamming in your face.
As you sulk your way through your little safe house, you can’t help but think bitter thoughts about your last team.
Maybe if they had Agent Greene’s mentality, they would’ve kept you safe.
It’s a stupid thought, especially when you remember that you asked Simon to put you in harm's way.
Price hadn’t wanted to put you in that position. He didn’t want to end the daydream. Maybe he was on to something.
Tears are streaming down your cheeks as you get into the shower.
How is this all that your life is now?
You find yourself thinking, as you so often do these days, that it would be better if that bullet had killed you.
~*~
Price is nursing his second cup of ‘tea’ when there’s a knock on the door.
He ignores it, as he usually does, and looks through the files on his desk for the most prospective opp.
It's been less than a week since he got back from his last one.
The door opens and the big bear at the desk sighs, glaring at the person who dares to enter his cave.
“Don’t remember saying you could come in.”
Simon ignores his grumbling and makes himself comfortable in the chair across from his Captain, watching him for a long while.
He looks bad, Simon notes. Though, he and the boys noticed this starting several months ago. His eyes are tired and dull, weighed down by heavy bags.
Simon’s not sure the last time he saw the Captain leave base for any reason besides work, much less get a good night’s sleep. The man looks old and grey and withered. He reeks of sweat, booze, tobacco, and a hint of misery to top it off.
Hard to believe the only difference is the lack of one pain-in-the-ass little dove.
His strong, revered Captain looks old, tired, a little bit drunk, and straight up bad.
Only when the vein on Price’s forehead pulses with enough force to burst does Simon lean forward and drop a piece of paper on the desk.
Price stares at it for a long moment, flicking his eyes between the paper and Simon’s eyes before leaning forward and taking it between his fingers.
He’s not sure what it is at first.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
They’re coordinates. That much is obvious.
But where and what they’re for is beyond him.
He stares at the coordinates intently, as if watching them will somehow reveal their destination.
“S’been like watching a two-legged dog hobble around these past few months,” Simon finally says, glancing at the paper. “Figured I might as well put you out of your misery.”
Misery?
How could this possibly…
He glances up at Simon, eyes asking the question his tongue refuses to taste.
Simon only looks pointedly at the coordinates once again.
When Price had given you that manila folder with your new life inside, he refused to take a single look. He couldn’t bring himself to read one tiny detail about you or your new life. Hell, he doesn’t even know the names of your handlers.
If he knew anything, he would’ve found you by now.
He needed a clean break. No loose ends.
And he’s been fine! Has he been drinking… more than he used to? Yeah, so what? That happens when you’re in the field of work he finds himself to be in. Has he been struggling maybe a little bit with sleeping at night? Mmmmm how is that anybody’s business but his own?
He was fine.
And then in saunters Simon Riley, loosening his meticulously tied ends.
Like the man could let his Captain lose his bird.
Fat chance.
Simon’s kept tabs on you since you and the team parted ways.
Good ones, at that.
“You sure about this?” Price finally asks, looking at his lieutenant. Instead of sorrow and exhaustion and guilt swimming in his eyes, Simon sees hope. For the first time in months.
Simon gives him a very slow nod, then rises to his feet and turns to the door.
He pauses with one hand on the doorknob.
“She needs you.”
Price stares at the coordinates as the door shuts behind Simon. His eyes are stinging but he refuses to blink - scared that the coordinates may be gone when he reopens his eyes.
Finally, for a fraction of a second, his top lashes meet his bottom ones and when they separate again the coordinates are still on the paper.
He lets out an incredulous little laugh and shoves himself to his feet.
The whiskey in his teacup is in the trash can beside his desk, and then he’s marching over to the coffee maker to start sobering up.
~*~
You trudge up the walkway to your safehouse with a scowl on your face.
It’s hot, blazingly so. You feel hot and sticky and sweaty and sore from physio and just plain miserable.
Summer is supposed to be fun. Full of days at the beach, pool parties, and backyard barbecues.
Instead, it feels like an endless march through the heat toward an unknown and, possibly worse, destination.
All your life consists of these days is therapy for your gunshot wound, and more therapy for what your gunshot wound did to your brain.
Not the most stimulating existence.
As you lock the door, goosebumps rise on your skin.
Something feels off.
You turn slowly, heart racing as you expect the worst.
Instead, there’s nothing.
You heave a sigh and push away from the door, freezing when you enter the kitchen.
There’s a bag on the table that does not belong.
Your heart is pounding in your ears as you sweep the house for hostiles.
For Makarov.
“Your new team isn’t nearly as good as your old one.”
You gasp, almost shriek, and grab your chest as Captain John Price steps into view.
“Captain,” you whisper, breathless and still a little afraid. “Are they here?”
The question breaks his heart a bit, and he curses the forces that brought the two of you to meet.
When he’s not thanking them profusely for dropping you in his path, he’s cursing them for the way they did it.
He shakes his head and takes a step toward you with his hands raised in surrender.
Only then do you really take a good look at him.
He’s not dressed in his usual military attire. No, he’s wearing dark jeans, a sweater, and a hat on top of his head.
His face looks tired and worn, and for a moment you find yourself remembering the ‘Grandpa’ comment from all that time ago.
He’s never looked older.
“You’re safe,” he whispers. “It’s just me.”
Your shoulders shrug as a sigh whooshes from your chest, and Price feels himself calm down a tiny bit when you visibly relax.
“What are you doing here?” You finally ask, wringing your hands together.
He opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then opens it one more time to let out a sigh.
“I… wasn’t going to,” he admits softly. “I didn’t know where you were. I… I tried not to know. I knew that if I knew where you were… who you were now… I wouldn’t be able to keep myself away.”
Your heart is in your stomach, and your stomach is in your ass as his words process in your mind.
“H-how did you find me?” You manage to whisper.
He’s quiet for a moment, eyes focused on you, watching you as intently as you’re watching him.
He’s reading you. Reading your body and taking you in after all this time.
He still has nightmares of your lifeless body on the cold, hard floor, blood pouring from your chest.
But here you are in front of him now, on your feet. Alive.
He’s missed you.
A lot.
A lot more than he realized, now that he’s with you again.
“You left quite an impression on us, Dove. S’not just me who missed you.”
One of the others, you realize. Likely Johnny or Kyle. Certainly not Simon. Right?
“Why are you here?” What does he want? Why is he here? What happens next?
“Because I don’t want to be anywhere without you anymore.”
“B-but what about…” you trail off and look around pointedly.
You can’t exactly just march out of here hand-in-hand without some sort of explanation to your handlers.
Price raises a brow at your lack of imagination. He has no intention of telling those squares a lick of what’s about to go down.
“Pack what you need. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
Price is pleasantly surprised to find out that you learned a thing or two during your time with him and Task Force 141. You’re back down the stairs with an emergency bag over your shoulder in just under two minutes.
“You’ve got all you need in there?” He asks. He knows you do, he just can’t believe this is really happening.
You nod up at him, smiling and a little breathless.
“Yup. I was just using the bathroom. I imagine we’ve got a long drive ahead of us?”
Price gives you a wicked grin and leads you to the back door.
“The drive isn’t too bad. It’s the flight that’ll be long.”
Whatever you thought was going to happen when you got home from physio, this is beyond that. This… it’s beyond even your wildest dreams.
Price leads you out the back door and down to the back lane where an old sedan with tinted windows is waiting.
He walks confidently without shame. He knows he has nothing to worry about.
The cameras have long since been deactivated, and Kyle already cleared him a straight path from the house to the chopper.
Now, the only thing he has to worry about is what music you’ll want to listen to in the car ride over.
~*~
(the) Price is right, the flight is long. Ridiculously so. But some hours or days later, after another car ride and a ferry, you’re standing outside of your new home.
It’s large, two storeys, and the exterior walls are composed of different light-coloured stones and bricks. It shines like a beacon of hope against the gloomy grey skies.
The feeling that bubbles up inside of you is bittersweet.
“You doin’ alright over there?” John asks, grabbing your bag from the car and coming up to stand beside you.
You nod at him and give him a teary smile.
This is it.
As if.
He leads you up toward the oak front door and holds it open for you like a true gentleman.
You take your shoes off at the front door and slowly make your way through the house.
The rooms are spacious and hold lots of potential, but are scarcely decorated and hardly furnished.
You’re not sure if you expected the man to have had Martha Stewart’s input when decorating his home or what, but the lack of warmth in his home fills you with excitement.
A project.
From painting the walls to adding some homey touches, you know his home - your home now, too - has more than enough potential.
“I’ve got two guest bedrooms here, if you’re needing your own space at all. They’re both down that hall, and there’s a bathroom on the other side as well. But this here is the master bedroom. Ensuit is just through there.”
You follow Price as he leads you into the bedroom, going in the direction of the master bathroom to have a look.
He trails after you, watching you with a soft smile on his face.
This feels good. This feels right.
Though the rest of the house may be open to opportunity and potential, the master bathroom is the one area that Price put the time and money into maximizing.
The shower is massive, with two waterfall showerheads raining down from the ceiling and another adjustable one against the wall.
As if the shower wasn’t enough, he’s got a lovely freestanding oval tub that almost looks like it was custom-built to accommodate his massive size.
After hours and hours and hours of travel, you could certainly get behind a hot shower or bath.
Especially if you have some help.
You’re suddenly reminded of the promise he made back in the bunker.
You’d be lying if you said you haven’t spent a night or two (or more) with your fingers between your folds, dreaming of him fulfilling his promise one day.
Today is that day. It has to be.
Tugging open the shower door, you turn the water on hot and watch in awe as warm water rains down.
Without saying a word, you begin to undress.
Price stands in the doorway of the bathroom, thick arms crossed over his chest as he watches you slowly get undressed.
His cock stirs in his trousers as you reveal inch after inch of gloriously naked skin to him.
Oh, how he’s only ever dreamed of being allowed to witness something so sacred.
You’re fully naked now, bare back toward him as you stick your toes under the spray to test the water.
He drinks in every inch of you with hungry eyes.
The curves, dimples, stretch marks, and scars.
Every perfect piece of you, bare for him to view.
And then you’re stepping into the shower and the water is cascading down your body and he swears his heart stops.
Michelangelo himself longs for such a muse.
You keep your back to him, almost like you’re pretending he’s not there, as you start to help the water familiarize itself with your body.
Price’s breath catches in his throat when you turn to the side, giving him just enough of a view of your front to have him drooling and ready to beg for more.
“Am I supposed to be doing this alone? Or are you coming to join me?” Your voice is silky smooth and carries on the steam across the bathroom over to where he stands in the doorway.
Or rather, where he stood.
As soon as your words reach his ears, his clothes are pooled on the floor and he’s stepping into the shower behind you.
You can’t help the little gasp that leaves you when you find your hips held in his hands and his hips pressed against your ass.
He says nothing, only pushes the two of you forward until you’re both under the full spray of the shower.
The water rains down on the two of you, hot and steamy and a little suffocating as he slowly rocks his hips against you.
A whimper tumbles past your lips and your eyes fall closed.
This is bliss.
This is home.
“If memory serves correctly,” he whispers, lips dusting over the shell of your ear. “I made you a promise.”
He sure did.
One of his hands leaves your hip and begins its slow and wet journey up your body.
Your breath hitches when his hand cups your breast, and he pauses there for a moment.
He tucks his chin onto your shoulder and watches as his own hand squeezes your supple breast.
“Fuckin look at you,” he whispers, pinching your hardened nipple between his thumb and forefinger. You whine at the touch and arch your back, pushing your chest further into his hand.
He chuckles, low and gravelly, and pulls on your nipple until you whimper.
“Such a desperate girl for me, aren’t you?”
You’re nodding before his words have fully registered in your brain, and that only makes him laugh again.
You frown at that and turn around to glare up at him, ignoring the water pouring down on your face.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
The gruff man before you smiles softly at your pout, index finger dragging against your bottom lip for a moment.
“Sorry, Dove. You make it hard, though.” He means that in more ways than one, and your eyes drop down to his crotch instinctively.
He watches as your eyes widen and your throat bobs with a gulp.
He wonders what it would feel like to have you swallow around him like that.
“What? What’s got you lookin’ so scared?” He asks, tauntingly. To punctuate his words, his cock jumps.
You shake your head and look back up at him, pupils blown.
“Please.” One word. Six letters.
He’ll give you anything you want.
In an instant, you find yourself bracing against the shower wall, wet fingers splayed against the tile as Price’s hand in your hair tugs your head back.
“You gonna trust me?” He asks, dragging his nose down the side of your throat.
You nod breathlessly, desperate to see what he’s going to do next. To feel what he’s going to do next.
He gives your hair a tug at the root, teeth grazing over your neck.
“I asked you a question.”
Oh.
Your legs wobble and your head gets a little airy.
“Y-yes,” you whisper.
You can feel his mouth pull into a smile before he sinks his teeth into your skin.
The sound that leaves you is half cry and half gasp, and John is quick to soothe his tongue over the spot.
“Sorry, honey,” he murmurs, pressing kiss after sweet kiss to your neck. “I need to taste you.”
Your knees grow even weaker.
The hand on your waist slowly slinks around to the front of your body, following the water droplets until he’s dipping his fingers beneath the waterfall at the apex of your thighs.
His fingers spread around your slit, avoiding your more sensitive areas, and instead, they engulf every other inch of you between your thighs.
He stuffs his big hand between your plush thighs and cups your mound gingerly, making sure to keep his warm fingers away from your aching core.
“You’ve been seein’ anyone? Hmm? Let anyone else touch this pussy?” His crass words make a gasp bubble out of you.
“N-no.”
He knows that already.
“Hmmm… should I see if you’re lying?”
You don’t say anything. You’re not sure what you’re supposed to say. But he doesn’t mind.
He waits until you spread your pretty thighs apart for him, and then he’s slowly dipping the tip of his middle finger into your sopping cunt.
He’s gentle.
Painfully so.
The rough pad of his finger just circles your dripping hole, never going beyond the tip. He can feel you clenching around nothing, desperate to be filled. It’s cute.
He plays with you like this for a moment, his mouth at your throat and his finger at your hole.
For a moment, you feel like a puppet, and he, your master.
Well, maybe for more than just a moment.
Finally, he ends your suffering and slides his digit in to the hilt.
You suck in a sharp breath and quickly sputter out the water.
“You alright?”
You nod quickly, rocking your hips into his hand desperately.
He starts a slow, steady pace. Thrusting his finger in and pulling it back out, thrusting - pulling. Until he stops to wiggle it against your gummy walls and your toes start to curl.
“O-oh!”
Price chuckles at your reaction.
“Honey, this is just the beginning. Need you to relax a bit if you expect to take my cock.”
You clamp down around his finger at his words, and he shakes his head in mock disappointment.
“Should I stop?”
“No!” Your voice echoes in the bathroom. “Please…”
He gives your neck another nip and kisses it better right after.
“You think you can handle another, then?”
You nod immediately, and then he’s sliding his middle finger out to slip it back in alongside his ring finger. The stretch is noticeable but not at all unpleasant, and you find yourself relaxing into his hold.
The hand in your hair moves down until it finds your breasts, and he gives them each a harsh squeeze. You sigh softly at the feeling, undulating your hips in rhythm with the thrusting of his fingers within you.
“You’re stunning,” he whispers, breath hot against your skin.
His fingers press against your walls firmly, intentionally stretching you out to get you ready to take his heavy, weeping cock.
Your cunt is tight and warm and soaking around his fingers. He’s not sure he’ll last more than a pump or two inside you, if he’s being completely honest.
He’s spent countless nights fisting his cock to the memory of you. Now that he gets to have you? Cardiac might come to arrest him!
“Oh!” Your hips arch back when his fingers hit a spot inside of you that makes you see stars.
“Right there? That the spot?”
You nod like an idiot and drop your mouth open to moan when he hits that spot again and again and again and again.
With every thrust of his fingers inside of you, the palm of his hand rubs against your clit. The combination of both has your head spinning in the hot shower air.
Your toes curl as the coil in your belly tightens, and your brows draw together as you chase the feeling.
“Please,” you whisper, leaning your head forward until it knocks against the shower wall.
“You close already?” The way he asks it makes you want to turn away in shame, but all you can do is nod pathetically and clench your hands into fists as he works you closer and closer to the edge.
This is everything he’s ever dreamed of and more.
Without warning, your walls clamp down around his fingers, and you pulse around him.
He stares at you in shock, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Huh. That was a lot easier than he was expecting.
He was prepared to spend all night nuzzled between your thighs until you came. Maybe now he’ll spend the night seeing how many times he can make you cum.
You breathe heavily through parted lips as he slows to a halt and withdraws his fingers from your body.
“That easy?” He asks, voice light and teasing in your ear. It still sends a shiver down your spine.
“I said I was close,” you defend weakly.
The sound of your voice, full of hunger and desire, sets something alight within him, and he pulls your body closer to his.
“I want you to take my cock, darling. Can you do that for me?”
How could you possibly say no to that?
“Do you think you can take me? Or is your poor little pussy too tired now?”
Oh. It’s not a matter of if you want to do it. He’s not sure if you can.
You’ll show him.
You slip one hand off the wall in front of you and slide it behind your back where his leaking cock is throbbing against you. You wrap your warm fingers around his thick shaft and pump once, twice, three whole times before he regains control of his mind and snatches your wrist up in an iron grip.
You’d been behaving so well so far. But really, he was a fool to think that the brattiness you’ve shown him would not resurface.
He pins your wrist to your lower back and takes your earlobe between his teeth, ignoring the sharp gasp that shakes your pretty tits.
“You really wanna misbehave? I planned on taking my time with you. Not sure if you deserve that now.”
You whine your disproval, shaking your head and wiggling your hips in something that’s half-apology, half-mockery.
But the way your ass feels against his cock is too good for him to be mad about anything.
He lets you grind on him for a moment longer, and then he’s withdrawing his hips just far enough to adjust himself, and then he’s pushing back between your legs and spearing through your pillowy pussy lips.
Every pass of his cock lathers his length with your slick, and each thrust bumps over your clit, making your hole gush.
He continues this for several long, torturous minutes. Each time he rubs the tip of his cock over your swollen clit, you let out a different sort of noise. Some of them border on pain, but all of them are dripping in pleasure.
Only once he’s deemed his cock wet enough does he stop thrusting, and that’s only to line himself up with your quivering cunt and fuck the tip in niiiiiiiice and slow.
Your eyes roll back in your head once you finally feel the warmth of him inside you.
The thick, bulbous tip stretches your poor little cunt to its limits, and you can do nothing but take it as he ruins your messy little hole.
Your wrist is suddenly free, but your hip is now held captive in his bruising grip. His other hand finds purchase on the wall, thick fingers clawing at the tile as he slowly starts to feed you more and more of his girthy cock.
Every roll of his hips forward forces another inch of dick inside of you, the walls of your pussy clinging to it every time he pulls back. He wishes he could watch, could see the way your sweet pussy stretches and clings to his heavy cock.
But what he can’t see, you can intimately feel.
Every added inch drags on your walls with each thrust, filling you up in a way you didn’t know you could be filled.
Every crevice, every cranny, every nook, is sowly being overtaken by him until finally, finally, his hips are flush against your ass and your cunt is stuffed full of him.
The hand on your hip moves up up up until he’s holding the back of your neck, and he gingerly guides you down down down until you’re bent over for him.
The new angle forces him impossibly deeper, and his heavy balls nestle against your aching pussy when he leans over you.
Forearm braced on the wall, his big body shields you from the stream of water above as he begins to roll his hips into your ass.
Your hands act as a barrier between your head and the tile wall, but Price has other plans.
“You said you could take it, yeah? So take it.”
He has your wrists bound in one big hand against the small of your back mere moments later, forcing your cheek to smush against the wall. Your chest is pressed against the wall soon after, and the contrast of the cool tiles against your burning skin only adds another layer of pleasure.
He fucks into you harder, fueled by each keening moan that leaves your pretty mouth.
You feel so fucking good around him.
Tight and wet and hot. Heat like he’s never felt is suckling his cock every single time he thrusts into you, and he’s not sure how long he’s going to last.
He wants to cum in you.
Wants to fill you up with his hot cum and watch your tummy swell with his children.
Those are the thoughts that plague him as he squeezes your wrists and fucks his seed deep into your womb.
His balls throb and his cock aches, but he doesn’t stop thrusting into you until he’s sure you’ve milked him of every last drop.
Only once the tremors have stopped and his cock has softened does he pull out of your puffy cunt, but your hole isn’t empty for long.
His long fingers are sliding through your messy folds from the back, smearing his cum over your swollen clit until you whine.
Then he’s got two fingers fucking your gaped hole, cum sloshing audibly. You push yourself up onto your arms again and your legs tremble. “F-fuck… I can’t…”
Price grins at the challenge.
“Yes, you can.”
You shake your head but your body obeys him, and in a matter of moments he has your pussy spasming again, sucking his cum deeper.
You collapse in his arms at the force of your second orgasm, eyes rolled back and mouth dropped open as wave after powerful wave of bliss washes over you.
He holds you, limp like a ragdoll, in his arms for several moments, before manuevering you to lean against him wiith your arms wrapped around his neck.
While you recover, he washes your body for you, being careful of the sensitive mess between your legs. He’s gentle with you. Soft. It makes your heart sing and your head spin.
Once you’re nice and clean, Price helps you out of the shower and wraps you up in his warmest towel, then ushers you into the bedroom.
Your eyes are glazed over and tired, and your body has a light airiness to it that feels like walking on a cloud.
Price dries you off and helps you climb into bed, sliding in on the other side and immediately pulling you into his arms.
You nuzzle into his chest and let your lids flutter closed, body still thrumming with the afterfeelings of your coupling. Your heart feels warm and full, and so does your pussy.
Price tucks his chin on top of your head and lets out the most satisfying breath he thinks he’s ever taken in his life.
He did it.
Albeit, a bit quicker than he’d imagined. But expecting a man to last long when he’s balls deep in a slice of heaven is too much to expect from John Price.
As if hearing his thoughts, your tired, fucked-out voice emerges from the tangle of limbs and love.
“That easy, hmm?”
Your entire body shakes with the force of laughter that bubbles out of John’s chest.
His Dove and her viper tongue.
“That’s the first time I’ve had sex in over a year, sweetheart. Apologies if I was a little… prompt.”
You can’t help but giggle at his archaic word choice, but then the weight of his words hits you.
The two of you crossed paths a little under a year ago, at this point.
He hasn’t slept with another woman since meeting you.
You open your mouth to ask about it, but he’s quicker.
“I’m sure I can make it up to you, if you’ll allow it.”
And just like that, any thoughts that aren’t all the ways he plans to make it up to you, fly out the window.
He can feel the shift in your mood and smiles, tugging back just enough to look at you.
His eyes are warm, happy. Full of so much love and joy and peace.
And you’re sure that your own eyes are a mirror of his.
YOURE RED AND IM BLUE NOW I SEE THE WORLD IN, PURPLE
Its not like its a bad hit; a frightened addict. Seeing you come in with an injection of antibiotics. A quick punch to the center of your face; a shove off your feet and a healthy hit to the back of your head.
You lay there, down on the Pitt floor; infront of all your coworkers and colleagues. Supervisors, friends. You’re stunned, sharply gasping for breath through a nose you know is broken- if not anything else, “ah shit- call Robby! And page ortho, shit sweetheart” you hear Dana talking above you, you can’t really open your eyes.
Thinking hurts; you’re struggling to breathe. Open mouthed gasps for air as you’re hoisted up by Dana and Princess. You spit the blood in your mouth out; blood dripping down your nose, down your mouth, “we’ve got Robby coming, and ortho. Took a good hit to that pretty face” Dana comments as she sits you down.
“Brendon’s coming?” You ask, slowly opening your eyes; closing them as soon as the bright florescent lights smack into your eyes
“First name basis?” Princess shares a look with Dana, who only shrugs, “Robby- she took a punch to the face, straight to the nose and eyes. And then pushed back onto her head”
You nod; like you’re analyzing your own case. Breathing hurts; thinking hurts. And Robby- fucking Robby, “Ow!” You hiss when he presses his thumbs against your nasal and lacrimal bones.
“Don’t touch Robbinavich” You hear Brendon boom from the entrance, gloves snapping on, “you dislodge a fracture and you’ll blind her”
Robby takes his hands away from your face as Brendon scoots in close on a stool, tilting your head back to look at you, “what happened to you sweetheart?”
Dana elbows princess before she can make a sound, “addict saw her come in to give him some antibiotics, punch to the face and a good shove to the ground” She recaps. Brendon gently touches the skin around your face; softening when he sees you hiss.
“CT, X-ray, she’s probably concussed. Tran, my fellow will have to take this case over as she is my fiancée” Brendon scoots back and you pout, “did you check her pupils?”
“Was about too, mind if I?”
Brendon steps back, Robby steps in. He flashes the light against your eyes; makes you follow his fingers with your eyes, “unequal, sluggish, and sensitive to light. You my friend, are going home and have a week off”
You sigh, “‘Kay… are you sure you’ll be fine without me?” You ask, “I think, maybe tomorrow I can come in?”
“No” Brendon says, “you’re not going anywhere until you’re clear. End of discussion, Dana and princess, will you make sure she is first for CT and x-ray? I will have my fellow here in five minutes” He doesn’t ask, just states. Not demanding, but demanding enough to make you soft. And grateful he’s here, and you really want a nap.
His fellow examines you, under his watchful eye. Just a broken nose, a concussion, although getting the bone put back into place.
“Well aren’t I glad we carpooled today” Brendon says as he helps you buckle into the car, your head is still throbbing. The base of your skull aches with the pain of a million hits to the head.
You groan, thinking hurts, everything hurts. Your body, your hands. Your face where bandages and a brace is placed over your nose. And you’re kicking yourself- because not even six months ago you’d finally gotten your deviated septum fixed. What. A. Waste.
“Im sorry baby, five more minutes. And I’ll get you a warm bath, and some soup” He rubs your thigh, and you grunt again. Awkwardly holding your head in your hands
He follows through; gently helping you out of your clothes, guiding your foot to gage if it’s warm enough. He helps you down into the warm water; avoiding the sweet bruise on your shoulder as he helps clean the smell of the hospital off your body, “ow” you breathe out, eyes closing as he tenderly washes your back, “can you..” you pause for a moment; waiting for the words to recognize into your mouth, “more warm water?”
“Yeah, I can do that”
The tub drains as it refills with steaming water before he plugs it again, you just sit there, steam rising against you, “will you wash my hair?”
Brendon moves wordlessly, “I’m gonna use a cup so you don’t tilt your head back” he washes your hair like he would a child; gently, using his hand to keep the water from splashing in your face. Gently massaging the conditioner into the ends of your hair.
“And you know the brush I like to detangle?” You ask, not bothering to look at him, “the purple one?”
“Yeah, I know” he gently works through the tangles of your hair, ends to mid section, to roots.
Brendon towel dries you off, patting your dripping hair and wrapping a towel around your body, you’re compliant as he lets you use his shoulders for stability to put your underwear back on.
“‘M so tired” you yawn, “I feel like I just worked a back to back shift”
“I know baby” He rubs your back as you slowly walk to the bedroom, “some Advil, and water”
You sip the water and take the Advil lovingly, “soup?”
He comes back with a little bowl of soup, a chicken stock with vegetables, on a tray. Brendon sits at the edge of the bed while you sip, careful to not spill- you know how much he hates eating in bed. Especially liquids.
“Im gonna let you sleep, but I’ll wake you up in two hours” He rubs your thigh gently when you finish the last of the soup, “is that okay?”
You nod, handing him the tray to bring back to the kitchen. And when he’s back he finds you nearly curled onto your side; pillow under your leg because Brendon says you’ll damage your hip if you don’t.
He sits on his side of the bed, room dim as he reads until his watch buzzes him to wake you up, “hey sweet girl, can you wake up for me” Brendon rubs your arm gently. You grunt and groan, “hey can you open your eyes?”
You rub your eye, grunting as you accidentally hit your nose with your knuckle, “I’m up.. it’s August second.. I don’t know what time it is.. um. We’re getting married in October in a vineyard in Napa.. and we’re going to.. Italy for our honeymoon”
Brendon smiles to himself, “my smart girl” He brushes the damp hair out of your face, kissing your cheek gently, “go back to bed, I love you”
You nod, “are you gonna go to bed soon?”
Brendon looks at you over his reading glasses, “yeah, in a minute”
He doesn’t actually sleep that night, stays up. Listening to the sounds of you breathing in the night; he looks over at you when you make a hiccuping sound- or when your breathing makes a funny sound when you roll over.
He doesn’t know why he can’t sleep; he wants too, but the image of you. Sat in the ER; soft tears coming down your face. Blood spurting from your nose, the way your hand is gently reaching to the back of your head.
It’s burned into his memory, the way you looked up at him through sorry and dazed eyes; the way you cried getting your nose set back into place.
The next few days are soft, limited screen time, light exercise, nothing complex, slow motion. Rest and recovery. It’s good that your future husband is a doctor, and that his specialty is bones. When you’ve just shattered your nose, you take slow walks around the neighborhood. In the morning before Brendon leaves for his shift.
When you’re back the onslaught of questions hits you like a truck, “you’re engaged?” Princess asks, “you told?”
You shake your head, “uh? HR? I’m a senior resident- he works in ortho I’m in ER there isn’t any overlap”
Dana smiles, “we’re happy for you kiddo, nose healed up nicely, didn’t you just get your septum fixed?”
You nod, “yeah. I’d like to fix it before the wedding again so” you shrug, “what have I missed?”
Santos looks up from where she’s charting, smiling like a Cheshire Cat, “so you’ve been together for?”
You purse your lips, “uh. Three ish years? Met on a dating app”
Santos slaps her hands down against her computer, “BOOYAH!” She shouts, “I won the pot!”
Princess and Perlah groan in annoyance, and you look at Dana for information, “a bet on how long you’ve been together, and how you met. Now the real kicker, where’s the wedding?”
You smile, “Napa California, beautiful vineyard, and then Italy for our honeymoon”
Dan nods, “congratulations sweetheart. Let’s get to work now”
You’ve had kids before. Three of them in fact. You know the routine. You know the way it changes your body.
But for some reason, you’re struggling this time.
It’s been three months since you’d given birth to your fourth baby. Your third little girl after your eldest boy. And she was tiny. The smallest baby you’d had, and the only one without a greater than 90% percentile head (Harry’s fault, obviously).
The smallest baby you’ve ever had, but the one that seems to have changed your body the most.
There’s a voice in the back of your head that’s telling you this is normal. Your body grew in order to create life. It needed extra space to be a home for your little girl. You know that.
And yet you hate the fact that that extra space seems to be sticking around this time.
Not only did your belly grow, but so did your arms, your hips, your legs. It’s like every part of your body decided it needed extra weight to accommodate the baby.
And then there’s your breasts. Sure, they’re feeding a fourth child, creating all the sustenance she needs to be healthy and strong. It’s a beautiful way to connect with her, and you’re grateful every day that you’re able to produce enough milk to keep your baby fed.
But did feeding your baby really have to change your breasts so much? They used to be so full, and perky, and your nipples were a normal size. Now they feel like partially deflated balloons half the time, and your nipples are huge. Genuinely you had no idea they could get so long.
And yet, that’s what feeding four humans does to a body.
You’re stepping out of the shower, the first shower you’ve had in three days, and you’ve caught sight of yourself in the full length mirror.
The first thing you notice is the sagging. Then the stretch marks. Then your hair, so thin and scraggly, clearly suffering from postpartum hair loss.
You can't help the tears that spring to your eyes, burning as they threaten to fall in hot steaks down your face.
It’s as your hands move to your side to feel the skin there that Harry walks in the room. Quickly you grab your robe, throwing it around your body to hide it from him.
He notices this. Of course he notices. He notices everything.
Which means he’s definitely noticed the changes to your body. This realization has the tears finally falling, and without hesitation Harry steps in to hold you.
But you don’t want him touching you. Not right now. Now when you feel this way.
His face clearly shows his concern as you step away from him. You never deny his affection, so he’s worried by this reaction.
“You okay?” He asks.
“I’m fine,” you lie.
“Honey, you can tell me what’s wrong.”
“I feel gross,” you confess.
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re not gross. You could never be gross.”
“But look at me! I’m nothing like I used to be! This isn’t the body you fell in love with.”
“Okay, first of all, I didn’t fall in love with a body, I fell in love with you. All of you. And second of all, this is the body that brought our four perfect children into the world. It’s the body that fed and nourished them when they were little. I don’t know what it is you see when you look at yourself, but I see a miracle. I see strength. I see beauty. I see my perfect wife, the woman I’ve loved for over a decade, who I’m so incredibly lucky to have by my side.”
His sweet words bring another wave of tears to your eyes, and this time when he opens his arms you go willingly.
“You really think that?” You ask, still feeling a bit unsure.
“I do. I truly think you are the most perfect woman in the world.”
He wipes the last of the tears from your face before he leans in for a kiss. It starts sweet, but he quickly deepens it, his tongue sliding languidly against yours.
“I can think of a few more words to describe you,” he murmurs.
“Oh yea? What would those be?”
“Hot. Stunning. Sexy.”
“You’re such a flirt,” you joke, leaning back in to kiss him some more.
But unsurprisingly when in a house with 4 children under 10, you get interrupted.
“Mama! Something's beeping in the kitchen!”
“Coming!” You call out, but you try to have just another minute with Harry.
Only to be cut off by crying coming from the baby monitor.
“I’ll see what she needs,” Harry replies. The two of you share one last peck then go off to tend to your children.
But once everything is settled and you finally have a moment to change from your robe back into regular clothes, you take a minute to look in the mirror to see yourself the way Harry does. And now all of those little imperfections don’t bother you quite so much. Because yes, your body has changed. But it also brought you your children, and you wouldn’t change that for the world.
Especially not when Harry continues to look at you like you’re the prettiest person on the planet, making you feel loved and desired every single day.
pairing – garrett graham x nursing student!reader
summary – after a head injury at clinical, garrett graham gets to be the one doing the looking after for once.
warnings – head injury, concussion, facial bruising, blood, medical care, patient aggression, emotional distress, caretaking, strong language
notes from me – we're getting somewhere my loves!!!! based on this ask, hope u enjoy! <3
word count – 11.9k
navigation – masterlist |
The car smells like hospital hand sanitiser and Maria’s vanilla air freshener and the coppery, unpleasant trace of blood she’s pretty sure is still stuck somewhere under her nose.
She sits very carefully in the passenger seat with her bag clutched in her lap and the discharge papers folded into the front pocket because Maria had put them there for safekeeping after watching her try to read the same paragraph three times and then ask, quietly and with genuine confusion, whether nausea was spelled with an o. The answer is no. Apparently. She knows that. Usually.
Her head throbs with every tiny vibration of the road, a dull, spreading pressure behind her eyes and across the bridge of her nose, pulsing in time with her heartbeat like her skull has decided to develop a second career as a bass drum. The split in her lip keeps reopening every time she moves her mouth too much, which is rude, considering she would very much like to continue pretending this is all fine and fine people generally require functional lips for lying.
There’s dried blood under her nose. She can feel it there, tight and flaky against her skin, the way she can feel the swelling beginning to gather beneath both eyes, heavy and hot and humiliating.
Her scrub top is folded in a plastic bag somewhere near her feet because the front of it’s torn and streaked with blood from the first few awful seconds before anyone could get to her, before security and Maria and Steph from triage had managed to pull her backwards by the waist while the patient screamed so loudly the whole department seemed to go airless around it.
It wasn’t his fault, not really. He was frightened and out of it and nobody expected him to come up that fast, one second curled tight on the bed with his voice climbing, the next swinging blind and hard enough that his elbow caught her straight across the face.
She remembers the crack of pain before she remembers making a sound. Then her own cry seemed to set him off worse, his hand catching a fistful of her scrub top before she could step back, the brutal pull forward, the bed rail coming up too fast.
Her nose had hit first. Or her mouth. Or her forehead. It’s all a little rearranged now, bright flashes and metal and Maria shouting her name and someone saying, “Security, now,” with enough force to make the whole bay move.
She knows it wasn’t anyone’s fault. She knows psych presentations can turn quickly, knows agitation isn’t always a straight line with warning signs and a polite little interval where everyone gets to reposition themselves safely.
She knows all the rational things. She also knows her face hurts badly enough that thinking in full sentences feels like pushing through wet cement, and she is, medically speaking, having a really fucking shit time.
Beside her, Maria drives like a woman who’s spent twenty years transporting compromised student nurses and actual glassware with equal care. One hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, her voice soft enough not to scrape against the inside of her skull when she says, “How’s the head, honey?”
She exhales through her nose and immediately regrets it because her nose doesn’t wish to be involved in breathing at this time. “Super normal. Love having one.”
Maria makes a small sound that could be a laugh if it wasn’t wrapped so tightly in concern. “Nausea?”
“Not worse.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She lets her head rest back against the seat and keeps her eyes on the blurred glow of streetlights sliding across the windscreen. The movement makes her stomach roll faintly, but not enough to tell Maria about, because Maria has already done enough.
Maria had stood in the consult room while Dr. Patel checked her pupils and her nose and the swelling around her cheekbones, one warm hand resting between her shoulder blades every time she tried to make a joke and ended up going quiet instead.
Maria had found her spare hoodie from the locker room and helped her into it when lifting her left arm made pain streak down through her shoulder. Maria had said, very gently, you’re not catching the bus after getting your bell rung in my department, like that settled the matter.
“A little,” she admits. “But I’m not going to vomit in your car.”
“Kind of you.”
“I’m very thoughtful.”
“You’re concussed.”
She sighs softly. “Also that.”
Maria’s eyes flick over her in the dim light, quick and practised. “You remember what Dr. Patel said?”
She does. Mostly. The words have been looping vaguely around the edges of her head since he handed her the paperwork. Mild concussion. No fracture. Neuro obs stable. X-ray clear. Rest. No driving. No placement until reviewed. Come back if vomiting, worsening headache, confusion, unusual drowsiness, changes in vision, weakness, seizure, or if anything feels wrong enough that you’re trying to talk yourself out of seeking help.
No being alone tonight.
That last one had landed harder than the rest, somehow. Maybe because the ED had been too bright and too busy and she had been sitting there with a wad of gauze under her nose, feeling like a leaking appliance. Maybe because the doctor had said it in that professional, non-negotiable way that made arguing feel childish. Maybe because the idea of someone watching her because her brain had been knocked around made her feel suddenly, horribly small.
“Wake me every few hours,” she says. “Check I’m not getting weirder.”
Maria’s mouth tips. “You said weirder.”
“That’s the clinical term.”
“It’s not.”
“It should be. Easier to spell than altered level of consciousness.”
Maria actually laughs that time, but it fades quickly. “You can’t be home alone.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not going to pretend you’re fine and sit in your dorm by yourself because you feel embarrassed?”
Her eyes drift shut for half a second, then open again when the darkness makes her head swim. “I’m not embarrassed.”
Maria’s silent.
She sinks a little lower in the seat. “Okay. Maybe a normal amount.”
“There is no normal amount of embarrassed after being assaulted by a patient at work.”
“It wasn’t assault.”
Maria sighs. “Honey.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she argues.
“That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt.”
Her mouth twitches before she remembers her lip is split. Pain snaps bright and sharp through the swollen skin. “Ow. Fuck.”
Maria’s hand lifts slightly off the wheel like she wants to reach over, then thinks better of it. “Don’t smile.”
“That’s bleak advice.”
“Currently medical advice.”
She presses her tongue carefully to the inside of her lip and tastes blood again. The whole evening keeps arriving in pieces. The patient’s arm. The bed rail. Maria’s face above hers, too close and too worried. Someone cutting away the torn edge of her scrub top.
Her own hands shaking in her lap while she tried to tell everyone, very reasonably, that she could finish the shift if they just gave her a second. As if she hadn’t been bleeding on her own shoes.
The thought makes heat rise under the bruising in her face, which is unfair because her face has already suffered enough. “God,” she mutters. “Everyone saw.”
Maria sighs, not impatient, but close to something sad. “Yes, everyone saw that you got hurt.”
“I’m the student.”
“Yes,” Maria nods.
“I’m supposed to be useful.”
“You were useful all day.”
“I ended the shift with a concussion and a bloody nose.”
“You ended the shift injured because an unpredictable situation escalated. That’s not a performance review.”
She knows that. She does. She would say that to anyone else. She would put her hand on another student’s shoulder and mean it completely. She would tell them they were in the wrong place at the wrong second and that sometimes you can do everything right and still get hurt because hospitals are not made of lesson plans and perfect outcomes.
Unfortunately, she’s not another student. She’s herself. And herself currently has blood in her hoodie sleeve because she keeps forgetting not to touch her face.
They hit a bump in the road, not even a large one, but it sends pain blooming through her skull with such immediate nastiness that she sucks in a breath through her teeth and grips the strap of her bag.
Maria notices. “Almost there.”
She opens her mouth to ask where there is, and then remembers campus, her dorm, her room, the bed with the old sweatshirt shoved under the pillow, the roommate who is not there. Her stomach drops so abruptly it makes the nausea worse. “Shit.”
Maria glances over. “What?”
“My roommate’s not home.”
“Tonight?”
“She’s at her sister’s. Like, hours away.” She closes her eyes, then opens them again because the inside of her head does not enjoy visual privacy right now. “Fuck. I forgot.”
“Okay.” Maria’s voice stays calm. That is possibly the worst part. “Do you have someone else? A friend you could stay with?”
She thinks of Lucy first, because that’s the correct answer. Lucy would absolutely let her stay. Lucy would probably panic and then overcorrect into a level of cheerfulness that could qualify as a secondary head injury. Monique would be better, quieter, but Monique has an exam tomorrow and lives across campus in a building where the lift is always broken, which feels like a personal attack under current conditions.
Then her brain, unhelpfully and immediately, supplies Garrett.
Garrett’s room with the lamp on. Garrett’s hand at the back of her neck. Garrett’s voice low in her ear telling her to stop studying and sleep. Garrett sitting on the edge of her bed taking off her shoes after a bad shift.
Garrett looking at her like competence is something he can be proud of even when she feels like she’s wearing it badly. Garrett, who has been hit in the head enough times that concussion protocol is probably written somewhere in his bones.
Garrett, who’s not technically her boyfriend, except the technicalities feel very stupid when her head is throbbing and her lip is bleeding and she wants him so badly it makes her chest ache worse than her shoulder.
“Yeah,” she says, and her voice comes out softer than she means it to. “Uh. Yeah. I have someone.”
Maria doesn’t look smug. That’s probably part of why she is a good preceptor. “Address?”
She gives her the hockey house. The words feel bigger in the car than they should. Maybe because saying his address out loud to Maria feels like she’s accidentally handed over evidence. Maybe because the last time Maria saw Garrett, he’d been standing in the ED hallway with panic sitting badly under his skin while Logan asked what day it was for the third time.
Maybe because Maria now knows exactly where to take the concussed student nurse with the split lip and the ruined scrubs, and that place is apparently Garrett Graham’s house.
Maria only nods and changes lanes.
The hockey house is lit up when they pull onto the street, every downstairs window glowing warm and yellow into the cold, the porch light flickering faintly over the steps. There are cars out front, some vaguely familiar. The sight of it loosens something in her chest. At least someone’s home. At least there’s a couch, and people who know what pupils are supposed to do, and Garrett somewhere inside if the universe has decided to be kind after all the other things it did tonight.
Maria puts the car in park and turns toward her. “Wait. I’ll help you.”
“I can walk.”
“I didn’t ask,” Maria responds.
She huffs, which hurts less than smiling. Maria gets out first and comes around, opening the passenger door before she can argue again. The cold hits her face and instantly makes her nose ache in a new and innovative way.
She climbs out slowly, one hand braced on the car door, shoulder protesting when she reaches for the strap of her bag. Maria takes it from her without comment.
“Rude,” she murmurs.
“Concussed.”
“Everyone keeps saying that like it explains everything.”
“It explains a lot.”
The walk up the path feels longer than it should. The porch steps require more concentration than she likes, which annoys her because she’s watched drunk freshmen navigate these steps while carrying open cups and zero dignity. Her sneakers scrape lightly over the boards.
Somewhere inside, someone yells something that might be, “You’re cheating,” followed by Dean’s voice saying, “It’s not cheating if the game lets me do it,” which feels like an argument that has existed in this house for generations.
She knocks once because lifting her hand twice seems excessive. There’s a crash inside. A hockey house crash. Male voices overlap, loud and irritated and completely unaware of the fact that sound is currently a weapon. She winces before she can stop herself, one hand coming up toward her temple and hovering there uselessly.
Maria’s mouth tightens. “You okay?”
“Yep.”
The door opens on Logan in sweats and a faded Briar shirt, hair a mess, controller in one hand, expression halfway to annoyed until he sees her. Everything drops out of his face.
He says her name once, startled and low, and then, “What the fuck happened?”
The room behind him seems to quiet in stages. Maybe because of his voice. Maybe because she’s standing on the porch looking like an ED discharge summary with legs.
She becomes suddenly, viciously aware of herself: the bruising already shadowing beneath her eyes, the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood dried under it despite Maria helping her clean up, the split lip, the hoodie zipped crooked because raising her shoulder hurts. She hadn’t thought much about how she looked in the car because looking required mirrors and mirrors required courage she didn’t currently possess.
Then Garrett appears behind Logan, and the whole night rearranges itself around the look on his face. He must have been in the living room. His hair’s damp at the edges like he showered not long ago, curls loose over his forehead, sweatpants low on his hips, a dark t-shirt pulled tight across his shoulders.
He steps into the doorway with his mouth already forming some question, probably a chirp, probably something warm and annoying about why she’s showing up with supervision. He sees her, and all the colour leaves his face, as if something has reached into him and taken it by the roots.
His eyes move over her once, too fast and not fast enough. Nose. Mouth. Bruises. Hoodie. The stiff way she’s holding her shoulder. Maria beside her with the bag and the paperwork. Back to her face, where his attention catches and stays.
She tries to smile. It’s a mistake immediately. Pain sparks through her lip, and she winces instead, which feels like the saddest possible version of flirting. “Hi,” she says.
Garrett doesn’t answer.
Logan steps back at once. “Jesus. Come in. Fuck. Come in.”
Warmth and sound and the smell of boys and pizza and laundry detergent roll over her as she steps into the house. The living room lights make her eyes sting. Dean and Tucker are on the couch, controllers in hand, the TV paused mid-game like they’ve both forgotten the concept of winning. Dean’s mouth opens. Tucker’s face changes quietly, which somehow feels worse.
“Holy fuck,” Dean half-yells.
The words hit too loud. She flinches before she can make herself not do it.
Tucker moves instantly. “Dean, get the lights, man.”
“What? Oh. Shit, yeah.” Dean scrambles for the lamp with the guilty urgency of a man who’s suddenly remembered inside voices exist. The room drops into a dimmer yellow, the overhead going off, the TV brightness turned down under Tucker’s quick hand. It changes the whole house at once, softens the edges, takes the blade out of the light.
Maria watches all of it with a look that would be approving if she weren’t still too professional to be obvious about it.
“She’s had a head injury,” she says, voice calm, eyes moving to Garrett because everyone’s eyes move to Garrett, because this is his house and not-his-girlfriend has arrived at his door concussed and bleeding. “Mild concussion. X-ray was clear, no nasal fracture, but she needs monitoring overnight. No alcohol, no driving, no being alone. Keep the lights low, noise down. She can sleep, but someone needs to check on her as per the discharge instructions. If she starts vomiting, gets more confused, can’t be woken, worsening headache, vision changes, weakness, anything that feels off, take her back in.”
Garrett nods slowly. He’s still staring at her.
Logan, maybe because Garrett looks like he’s briefly lost access to language, reaches out and takes the paperwork from Maria. “Yeah. We’ve got it.”
Maria turns back to her, and her face softens in that way that makes the back of her throat go tight. “I’ll see you in a couple days, honey. Not tomorrow. Rest tomorrow.”
She nods carefully. Even that tiny motion makes pressure throb through her skull. “Thanks for driving me.”
“Text me when you wake up.” Maria’s eyes flick toward Garrett again. “And listen to them for once.”
That almost makes her smile. She resists, heroically. “No promises.”
Maria gives her shoulder the gentlest squeeze, nowhere near the painful side, then lets herself out. Logan closes the door softly behind her, like the whole house has been put on medical quiet time.
For half a second, nobody moves. Then Dean says, much quieter this time, “Who the fuck did that?”
She lets out a breath that doesn’t quite make it to a laugh. “Hi to you too.”
Dean’s on his feet now, controller abandoned on the couch, all his usual lazy beauty sharpened into something pissed and bright. “I’m serious.”
“I know.” Her head’s beginning to pound harder now that she’s standing still. The adrenaline from getting out of the car, climbing the steps, seeing Garrett’s face, all of it drains down through her body and leaves her feeling oddly hollow.
Garrett notices, his hand comes to her elbow, barely touching at first like he’s afraid pressure might break something. The warmth of him lands through the hoodie and her body, traitorous and exhausted, turns toward it before her pride has any say.
She steps into him. She leans forward and presses her forehead against his chest because the angle is the only one that doesn’t put pressure on her nose, one hand curling weakly in the soft fabric of his shirt.
Garrett tenses under her for a fraction of a second, like seeing her had knocked him out of himself and her touching him is what pulls him back in wrong. Then his arms come around her.
Careful. So careful it almost makes her cry. One hand settles at the back of her head without pressing, fingers spread wide over her hair, the other around her waist, holding her there with a gentleness that feels nothing like the boy who body checks men into boards for sport and everything like the one who once took her UGGs off because outside shoes didn’t belong in bed.
She closes her eyes, just for a second. Garrett’s voice, when it finally comes, is rough enough that she feels it against her cheek. “Baby.”
“I’m okay,” she says into his shirt, because she’s decided to start lying as a hobby.
His hand flexes once at her waist. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m not actively dying.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
She manages a weak shrug. “Clinically significant distinction.”
Logan exhales behind them, shaky in a way he probably wishes nobody noticed. Tucker moves around them quietly, collecting controllers, turning the game off properly, lowering the TV volume until the room becomes mostly the hum of the refrigerator and distant campus noise through the windows. Dean’s still standing there looking like he needs something to hit and has, unfortunately for everyone, found only furniture.
Garrett pulls back enough to look at her, but not far enough that she loses him. His eyes scan her face again, slower now. It’s almost worse than the pain. The way his gaze catches on the swollen bridge of her nose, the blood at one nostril, the split in her lower lip. He looks wrecked by it. Offended, almost, like her body has done something behind his back.
“Come sit down,” he says.
She wants to make a joke about his captain voice. She really does. It’s right there, familiar and easy. Unfortunately, her brain loses the sentence halfway through assembling it, and by the time she finds a piece of it, Garrett’s already guiding her to the couch.
Dean moves a cushion out of the way. Tucker places another behind her back. Logan stands nearby with the paperwork in one hand, reading it with a frown so intense it looks like he’s preparing for finals in head trauma.
They all shift around her with this strange, quiet purpose that makes her chest feel too full and her face feel too sore to hold whatever expression she wants. Garrett crouches in front of her and reaches for her sneakers.
She blinks down at him. “What are you doing?”
His mouth barely moves. “Taking your shoes off.”
“I can take my shoes off.”
He looks up at her, and there is something in his face so taut and helpless that the argument falls apart in her lap. “Can you let me?”
Oh. That’s not fair. That’s wildly not fair.
She swallows and looks away first. “Yeah.”
Garrett unties her sneakers one at a time, slow with the laces, careful of the way moving her leg pulls faintly at her shoulder. He sets them neatly beside the coffee table. When her feet are free, she curls her legs up onto the couch without thinking, tucking herself sideways into the cushions because upright feels like an idea designed by people whose skulls are not currently full of angry bees.
Garrett’s hand hovers near her knee, then settles there. “Did you want water?”
She nods, then instantly regrets the movement. Pain washes across her forehead, hot and thick. Her eyes squeeze shut. “Ow. Fuck. Yes, please.”
Garrett rises. Her hand moves before she decides to move it, fingers catching the loose fabric of his sweatpants at the thigh, barely enough to stop him if he wanted to go. But he does stop. Immediately. She opens her eyes. Garrett’s looking down at her hand on him. Then he looks at Logan.
Logan’s already moving. “I’ve got it.”
Garrett sits beside her instead. He does it carefully, couch dipping with his weight, his thigh warm along the outside of her curled legs. He doesn’t crowd her face. Doesn’t pull her in too fast. Simply sits close enough that she can feel him there, his hand returning to her knee, thumb still because even his restless touching has gone cautious.
Dean hasn’t let the original point go. He sits on the edge of the coffee table across from her, elbows on his knees, all dramatic cheekbones and very real anger. “No, seriously. Who the fuck did this?”
She opens her mouth. The first answer is too long and falls apart before she can get to it. Her head gives one hard pulse. She shuts her eyes briefly, tries again. “A patient.”
Dean stares at her. “A patient did this to your face?”
“He was really agitated,” she explains as Logan comes back with water. He hands it to Garrett, not her, which would be annoying if her hands didn’t feel vaguely unreliable. “It escalated. He didn’t mean it.”
Dean’s expression says that this isn’t helping his blood pressure. “He didn’t mean it.”
“No.” She lets Garrett pass her the glass, taking it with both hands because one feels optimistic. The cold of it is nice against her palms. Her lip stings when she drinks, water catching briefly at the split, but her throat is dry enough that she keeps going anyway. “He was out of it. Psych presentation. It wasn’t– nobody did anything wrong.”
Tucker returns from the kitchen with an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel and offers it out with both hands like a peace treaty. “For your face. Or your shoulder. Or… wherever. I don’t know. I’m not the medical one.”
She takes it and immediately loves him a little for the towel. “Thanks, Tuck.”
Logan, reading from the discharge sheet now, says, “It says shoulder strain?”
“Logan.”
“What? It does.”
“Stop reading my lore out loud,” she huffs.
Dean gives her a look. “Your lore says shoulder strain and concussion.”
She lets her eyes close for a moment. “My lore is private.”
“Your lore showed up bleeding on our porch.”
She would like to laugh. She really would. Instead, the corner of her mouth twitches, pain bites through her lip, and her eyes water instantly. “Ow. God. That’s so annoying.”
Garrett’s hand comes up, stops short of her face. His fingers curl in midair before he lets them drop. “Your lip’s split and you’ve still got dried blood under your nose, baby.”
The baby does something terrible to her. It always does, but right now it’s worse because his voice is stripped down to the bone. He’s looking at her like he’s trying to keep himself from shaking by cataloguing every visible injury.
She shrugs with one shoulder and immediately regrets that too. Pain tugs from the side of her neck down into the joint, sharp enough that her breath catches.
Garrett sees it. His jaw flexes. “Don’t shrug.”
“I forgot.”
“How do you forget your shoulder hurts?”
“Concussion,” she says, because if everyone else gets to use it as an explanation, so does she. “It looks worse than it is. Promise. I’m just drained. And foggy. I keep losing my train of thought, which is the rudest symptom. Like, I was mid-sentence with Dr. Patel and just fully misplaced the rest of it.”
Tucker’s mouth softens. “That sounds scary.”
She looks down at the glass in her hands. The condensation has started to wet her fingers. “Mostly annoying.”
She lifts the ice pack toward her face, but her shoulder protests halfway up and makes the movement jerky. Garrett catches the pack before she can pretend she meant to do that.
Her eyes flick to him. “I can hold an ice pack.”
“I know.” His voice is quieter now. He shifts closer, one knee turning toward her on the couch, the wrapped ice pack careful in his hand. “But how many times have you looked after me, huh?”
She has no good answer for that. Too many. Not enough. In locker room hallways, in his bed, on this exact couch with bruises over his ribs while he tried to convince her hockey was a sufficient medical explanation for all bodily damage. She’s pressed ice to his cheek and taped his fingers and made him take painkillers and once threatened to call Maria for backup if he said manageable one more time.
Garrett’s mouth moves faintly, not a smile, but close enough to hurt. “Let me.”
She lets him. Garrett lifts the ice pack to her face with a care that makes her throat tighten, angling it over the bridge of her nose and the swelling beginning to spread under one eye without pressing too hard.
The cold hurts first, a bright, mean sting over bruised skin, then settles into something almost relieving. Her breath comes out shaky despite her best efforts.
“Too much?” he asks.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She shifts her gaze past him because his face is currently unmanageable. Dean and Tucker and Logan are all watching her with varying degrees of poorly concealed worry. Dean looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. Logan still has the discharge paper. Tucker has both hands shoved into the pocket of his hoodie like he doesn’t trust them not to hover. “What?”
Dean blinks. “What?”
“You guys look like this every week and I don’t stare at you.”
Logan snorts, but it comes out thin. “That’s because we’re hot when we’re bruised.”
She manages an eye roll, which is a win. “You’re concussed half the time and deeply irritating the other half.”
“Range,” Dean says automatically.
She points weakly toward the TV with the hand not holding her water. “Relax. Go back to your video games.”
Tucker’s brows pull together. “No, but– but it’s different.”
Her eyes move to him.
He looks briefly embarrassed, then pushes through it anyway. “It’s you.”
Her chest does that awful thing again, too soft and too sore at the same time. She looks down because taking that directly from Tucker feels unfairly intimate, like he’s handed her something warm without warning.
“I’m okay,” she says, and it’s not entirely true, but she tries to make it sound close enough. “Really. I was observed. I had neuro obs. I had scans. No fracture. Nothing’s broken. Just bruised and concussed and mildly tragic.”
“Mildly?” Dean asks.
“Moderately if you keep fucking yelling.”
His face changes instantly. “Sorry.”
The apology is so immediate that she almost smiles again and has to stop herself like a responsible person. “It’s okay.”
Garrett’s hand holding the ice pack is steady. His eyes have barely left her face, and the longer she sits there under that attention, the more she realises he still hasn’t really said anything. Not like Garrett. Not a joke, not an actual question, not one of the bossy little comments that usually lands him in trouble and somehow still gets her to drink water.
His silence has weight. It sits beside her on the couch, pressed into the careful line of his shoulders.
She turns her head just enough to look at him. “You’re being weird.”
His eyes flick to hers. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
His mouth presses together. For a second, he looks younger than he usually does. Less Briar captain, less untouchable campus landmark, more boy on a couch holding an ice pack to a girl’s swollen face with fear making a mess under his skin.
He swallows. “Do you want me to loosen your hair?”
The question is so small and practical that it nearly undoes her. Her hair is still claw-clipped from placement, half-fallen now, strands tugging at her scalp from where it got pulled in the scuffle and then shoved messily back while she was being assessed. She had forgotten about it until he said it, and now she can feel every tight little pull at the roots, all of it feeding into the headache sitting behind her eyes.
“Yes, please,” she says.
Garrett lowers the ice pack and hands it to Tucker without looking. Tucker takes it like an assistant in surgery. Garrett turns slightly toward her, one hand moving behind her head, not touching at first. “Tell me if it hurts.”
“It all hurts.”
His face does something awful.
She softens her voice. “I’ll tell you if it hurts more.”
“Okay.” His fingers find the clip carefully. He’s taken her hair down before, usually with far less medical purpose and far more smugness, but now every motion is slow, almost reverent. The clip gives, and the weight of her hair loosens down her back. The relief is immediate enough that her eyes flutter shut without permission.
Garrett catches that too. “Better?”
“Mhm.”
He combs the fallen strands away from the side of her face with his fingers, avoiding the swelling, avoiding the blood, avoiding every place that might make her flinch. His thumb brushes once near her temple, feather-light.
She opens her eyes and finds him looking at her. “I’m okay,” she says again, quieter this time. “Really.”
Garrett doesn’t argue. That might be worse. He only nods once and takes the ice pack back from Tucker, pressing it carefully to her face again.
For a while, the room adjusts around her. Dean sits back down, but he doesn’t pick up the controller. Tucker goes to the kitchen and returns with a straw for her water like a man who’s discovered a side quest and intends to complete it properly. Logan reads the discharge instructions twice, then starts setting alarms on his phone without announcing it, because subtlety, in this house, is sometimes just everyone pretending they cannot see love doing administrative tasks in sweatpants.
She drinks water through the straw because lifting the glass is annoying and because nobody makes a thing of it. Garrett keeps the ice pack steady. Every so often, he asks a question in a voice too even to be casual. Headache worse? Nausea? Vision okay? She answers as best she can. Same. Little bit. Yeah, mostly.
When Dean shifts too fast and the couch creaks, he freezes like he’s committed assault by upholstery. That makes her huff something dangerously close to a laugh, and Garrett immediately murmurs, “Careful,” like her face is now a team responsibility.
The fogginess comes in waves. Sometimes she’s fully in the room, tracking Dean’s quiet rage and Tucker’s gentle fussing and Logan’s forced calm. Sometimes the edges blur a little, slow, like her thoughts are moving through syrup. Garrett’s thigh is warm against her curled legs. His arm rests along the back of the couch behind her, a soft barrier between her and the world.
She leans into him by degrees until her shoulder touches his chest and her head tips carefully toward the place beneath his jaw that smells like soap and boy and safety.
She doesn’t mean to get sleepy. She has discharge instructions that say she can sleep, she knows that, but the idea of giving in with everyone watching feels embarrassing in a new, stupid direction. Still, her eyelids grow heavy. The headache spreads and dulls under the cold. The room is dim. The boys are quiet. Garrett is warm.
At some point, Dean says softly, “You want me to call Lucy or someone?”
She tries to answer. The name gets halfway through her head and then wanders off. “Tomorrow,” she murmurs.
“Okay,” Dean says, and for once there’s no joke attached.
Garrett shifts beside her. “Baby?”
She makes a small sound that could mean what or I’m alive or don’t make me move, depending on how generous he feels.
“You getting sleepy?”
“No.”
There’s a pause.
Logan says, very quietly, “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever heard.”
She opens one eye to glare at him, but the room tilts slightly with the effort, so she closes it again. “Your face is least convincing.”
“Strong comeback.”
“Thank you.”
Garrett’s lips brush her hair. It’s quick, maybe accidental, except nothing Garrett does with her feels accidental anymore, no matter how hard both of them have tried to label it otherwise. “I’m gonna take you upstairs, okay?”
Her eyes open properly at that, or as properly as they can. “I can walk.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that and then doing the thing for me anyway.”
His mouth curves faintly for the first time all night. It’s tiny and tired and painfully Garrett. “Yeah.”
She should argue. She’s built a respectable portion of this entire situationship on arguing with Garrett Graham while letting him do exactly what she wants him to do. But her shoulder aches, her face throbs, and her legs feel like they belong to somebody who’s spent the day being chased by weather.
More than that, she wants him. She wants his hands steady under her thighs, his chest close, his room dark and warm around them. She wants to stop being the student who got hurt and start being the girl Garrett carries upstairs because the floor feels too far away.
“Okay,” she whispers.
Dean looks at the TV like he’s never been interested in anything more. Tucker suddenly finds the water glass fascinating. Logan folds the discharge papers with great concentration. Nobody says a word.
Garrett slides one arm behind her back and the other beneath her knees with the same careful strength he uses for everything he takes seriously. “Shoulder?”
“Fine.”
His eyes flick to hers.
“Not worse,” she corrects.
He nods once and lifts her.
It does hurt, a little. Her shoulder pulls, her head pulses, and the movement makes nausea roll faintly through her stomach. But Garrett holds her so close and so steadily that the discomfort never gets sharp enough to scare her. Her hand curls in the front of his shirt, her face turning carefully toward his neck because pressing into his chest would bump her nose and she’s learned at least one thing tonight.
Dean’s voice follows them, low and rough from the couch. “G.”
Garrett stops at the foot of the stairs but doesn’t turn fully, like turning her too much might hurt.
Dean’s eyes move over her once, then to Garrett. Whatever he’d been about to say gets swallowed down and changed into something smaller. “We’re downstairs if you need anything.”
Garrett’s hold tightens by a fraction. “Yeah.”
Tucker adds, “I’ll bring up more ice in a bit.”
“And meds when she’s due,” Logan says, lifting the papers slightly.
She wants to tell them they’re all being ridiculous. She wants to say she’s fine, to make some joke about the Briar hockey team turning into a poorly licensed urgent care clinic. But her throat feels thick, and her eyes sting in a way that has nothing to do with the swelling, and for once the joke doesn’t come quickly enough to save her from feeling it.
So she only says, “Thanks, guys.”
Dean nods, jaw tight. Tucker gives her a small, worried smile. Logan says, “Anytime,” like he means it and hates that there’s a reason to.
Garrett carries her upstairs slowly. The stairwell is dim, the house clutter softened into shadows: a hoodie over the railing, someone’s shoes kicked near the landing, a dent in the wall nobody has confessed to making.
His breathing is steady beneath her ear. His arms don’t shift, don’t tremble, don’t let her feel for one second like she’s heavy or inconvenient or anything other than something he’s decided belongs safely against him.
Halfway up, she murmurs, “Garrett?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re still being weird.”
This time, his breath leaves him in something almost like a laugh. It brushes warm over her hair. “Yeah, baby,” he says, voice low enough that it belongs only to the stairs and the dark and the careful space between them. “I know.”
His room is already dim when he gets there, like he’d been in it before everything happened and left the lamp on low beside the bed, the shade turning the walls a warm, soft yellow that doesn’t stab behind her eyes.
The window is cracked just enough to let in a thin line of cold air, shifting the edge of the curtain and carrying in the far-off sound of campus on a weeknight, car doors and laughter and somebody shouting down the street like the world has not personally offended her face.
Garrett nudges the door open with his shoulder and steps inside carefully, like the room might have developed hazards in the ten minutes since he last saw it. One of his hoodies is thrown over the desk chair. There’s a textbook facedown on the bed that he must have been pretending to read earlier, a roll of hockey tape on the nightstand, his phone charger twisted into a knot on the floor.
The ordinary mess of him sits around them so gently that it makes something behind her ribs go weak. His room. His bed. His detergent and the clean soap smell of his skin under the faint cold of the hallway.
For the first time since the bay, since the rail, since the white burst of pain and Maria’s hand firm between her shoulder blades, her body seems to understand that it’s stopped moving.
Garrett lowers her onto the edge of the mattress with so much care it almost becomes annoying. One arm stays behind her back until she’s properly sitting, the other at her knees, and even after he lets go he keeps his hands there for a second, hovering near her like he’s not fully convinced gravity has been handled.
She blinks down at him because he’s crouched in front of her now, broad shoulders between her knees, face tipped up, eyes moving over her again with that same awful, quiet attention.
She can feel what he’s seeing before he says anything. The blood dried tight beneath her nose. The swelling already darkening around the bridge of it. The split in her lip, tacky and sore. Mascara smudged under both eyes from the crying she doesn’t remember allowing herself to do properly, only the wetness and the sting and Maria saying, breathe for me, honey, nice and slow.
Garrett swallows. His hands rest lightly on her calves, thumbs still. “Did you want to wipe your face?” he asks, voice careful. “You’ve got, uh…” His eyes flick down, then back up, and his mouth tightens around something he doesn’t let out. “Some mascara under your eyes. And some blood still.”
She knows he’s trying very hard not to sound like the sight of it is putting his organs in the wrong order. She loves him a little for the effort, which is a thought she cannot touch right now because her brain is concussed and reckless and clearly looking for loaded weapons.
She nods once, then immediately remembers that nodding is no longer a neutral activity. The headache flares behind her eyes, thick and punishing. “Ow,” she says, small and irritated.
Garrett’s hands tighten on her legs. “Hey.”
“I’m good.” Her tongue touches the split in her lip and she tastes metal again. “Can you?”
His face changes. Barely. A little fracture through the tight worry, something softer underneath it. “Course.”
He stands, and the second his hands leave her, her body reacts before her mind catches up. Her fingers snag in the hem of his t-shirt, clumsy and sudden, and the movement pulls through her bad shoulder so sharply that a soft, wounded sound slips out of her before she can bite it down.
Garrett freezes instantly. Entire body going still. “Hey. Hey, you’re good.” He turns back toward her, one hand coming carefully to her wrist, covering her fingers where they’re twisted in his shirt. “I’m just going to the hallway, yeah? Bathroom’s right there. Two seconds.”
She knows that. Obviously she knows that. She’s been in this house enough times to know the bathroom is six steps from his door and usually contains at least one towel on the floor and Dean’s body wash in a place where it doesn’t belong. She knows Garrett’s not leaving. She knows the door is open, the house is full, Logan’s downstairs reading concussion instructions like the exam is tomorrow.
Still, her fingers don’t let go right away.
Her head hurts. Her mouth hurts. Her shoulder is a hot, sharp line down one side of her body. And the small, rational part of her brain that usually handles dignity and sarcasm is sitting in a dark room somewhere with a blanket over its head, because all she can think is that she wants him where she can reach him.
Garrett’s thumb moves once over her knuckles. “I’ll keep the door open.”
She nods more carefully this time. “Okay.”
He waits until her fingers loosen, then steps backward instead of turning right away, eyes on her the whole time. It would be funny, maybe, if it didn’t work. If she didn’t feel her ribs unclench slightly because she can still see him, because he backs into the hallway like she’s a wild animal he’s trying not to spook and not a nursing student with blood under her nose and one of his sleeves somewhere in her fist.
He disappears only when he reaches the bathroom, and even then he keeps talking. “Still here,” he says, and the water starts a second later, soft against porcelain. “Just getting a washcloth.”
“I know,” she calls back, then winces because even her own voice feels too loud inside her skull.
Garrett comes back with the washcloth damp and folded in one hand. His other hand shuts the door halfway, enough to soften the rest of the house into a distant murmur. The mattress dips when he sits beside her, turned toward her with one knee bent on the bed.
He smells like clean skin and laundry and something faintly sweet from the kitchen downstairs, and she has to swallow around the childish, humiliating urge to press her face into his chest and stay there until her body stops feeling like it has been borrowed from a car crash.
“Here we go,” he says.
The cloth touches just beneath her eye first.
She stiffens on instinct, because everything has hurt tonight and her body is no longer trusting innocent objects, but Garrett pauses immediately. “Too cold?”
“No.” Her voice comes out thinner than she likes. “Just surprised.”
“Okay.” His face stays close, intent in a way that would normally make her flustered for more interesting reasons. “I’ll go slow.”
He does. He wipes the smudged mascara from beneath one eye with feather-light strokes, the washcloth barely dragging over skin, then folds it to a clean corner and does the other side. He works like he has been given something fragile and a little dangerous. Like every movement is being negotiated with the injuries on her face and the dull heaviness behind her eyes.
His jaw flexes when the cloth comes away grey-black with makeup and faintly pink with old blood, but he doesn’t comment. He only turns it again and brings it to the place under her nose.
“That might hurt,” he murmurs.
“It already hurts.”
His eyes lift to hers. “Yeah.”
She looks down at his wrist, at the veins there, at the old tape mark near his thumb, at the little scrape over one knuckle from practice or a game or some Garrett-related misuse of his own body. Usually she would notice and ask. Usually she would press her thumb near it and say, what’s this? and he would say, nothing, and she would call him annoying and make him let her look anyway.
Tonight she just watches his hand hold the cloth and lets him clean the blood away. The dried parts tug where they have hardened on her skin, and she sucks in a breath through her mouth when the washcloth brushes too close to the swelling at the bridge of her nose.
Garrett stops every time, waits for the little movement of her fingers in his shirt to settle, then continues. He wipes around the split in her lip last, his mouth flattening when fresh blood beads at the edge.
“You’re gonna bruise like hell,” he says, almost to himself.
She tries not to smile. It becomes a tiny, crooked thing anyway and immediately hurts. “Hot.”
His eyes flick back to hers, and for the first time since she arrived, something almost like Garrett moves across his face. Small. Tired. There and gone. “Yeah, baby. Real intimidating.”
“Good. I’ve always wanted to look tough.”
“You already look tough.”
“That’s because you have questionable standards.”
“No,” he says, and the softness in it makes her look away first. “I don’t.”
The room goes quiet except for the dull throb of the house underneath them, the creak of something downstairs, Logan or Dean moving around, the low murmur of the boys trying and failing not to sound worried through the floor. Garrett folds the washcloth over itself and sets it on the nightstand, then looks down at the rest of her.
The hoodie Maria put on her is zipped to her collarbone, dark fabric stained rusty near the cuff where she must have touched her face. Her scrub pants are still on, wrinkled and creased from the shift, one knee smudged faintly with something she refuses to identify. There is a hospital sticker on her shoe that nobody noticed until now, bright and stupid and stuck to the edge of the sole.
Garrett’s gaze catches on the blood at her sleeve. “You want out of these scrub pants?” he asks quietly. “And your hoodie has blood on it, baby.”
She looks down, as if this is new information. Her brain takes a second to make sense of the stain. “Oh.”
“It’s okay.”
“Yeah,” she says after a moment. Then, because the word seems to have scraped something loose on the way out, she adds, “Sorry.”
Garrett’s head lifts. “Why the fuck are you sorry?”
The sharpness of it makes her blink. He says it too quietly, all the force held under his tongue. But it lands somewhere tender anyway. She presses her lips together and immediately regrets that too. “Ow.”
Garrett’s expression softens, but his eyes stay fixed on her. Waiting.
She sighs, and it comes out shaky enough that she would like to file a formal complaint with her nervous system. “Because you…” The thought keeps slipping. She can see it, vaguely, but reaching for it makes her head pulse harder. “You didn’t sign up for this. I should’ve gotten Lucy or Monique. Or stayed with Maria, or– I don’t know.”
“No.” Garrett shakes his head once, and then stops himself, like maybe he’s remembered that head movement isn’t anyone’s friend right now. His hand comes to the side of her face, careful of the bruising, thumb brushing just below her temple where the skin is untouched. “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re apologising for coming here.”
Her throat tightens. She looks at his shoulder because his face is too close and too much and still not close enough. “I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to.”
“Had to what?”
“Look after me.”
For a second, he only stares at her. Then he exhales through his nose, rough and almost disbelieving, and his fingers slide into her hair at the side of her head, holding it back from her face like the gesture can stand in for all the things he’s trying not to say too fast or wrong. “You think I’m sitting here because I feel obligated?”
She has the very strong, very pathetic urge to cry, which is inconvenient because crying would involve her face. “I don’t know.”
“Baby.”
She closes her eyes.
“Hey.” His thumb moves once. “Look at me.”
She does, reluctantly, because Garrett’s voice has gone into that low place that usually gets him what he wants and because her resistance is currently running on fumes.
His face is steadier now. Still pale underneath the warm lamplight, still tight around the edges, but steady in the places he’s offering to her. “I want you here.”
Her breath catches around something that hurts in a completely separate way from her nose. “Are we…” She stops, partly because the sentence is embarrassing and partly because she loses the middle of it for a second. The fog rolls in, cottony and irritating. She blinks, and Garrett waits. He doesn’t hurry her. Doesn’t fill the gap with a joke. Just keeps his hand at her face until she finds the rest. “Are we okay?”
His expression breaks so gently it makes her chest ache. “Course we are.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He brushes her hair back again, knuckles barely grazing the side of her neck. “We’re okay.”
She nods carefully. A tiny movement. “Good.”
Garrett’s mouth lifts at one corner, soft and sad and warm all at once. “Good?”
“Yeah.” Her fingers curl in his shirt again. This time, she doesn’t pull. “Because I really…” She swallows. Her throat is dry. Her head is thick. The truth comes out before she can dress it up in something safer. “I just wanted you.”
Something in him goes still. A held breath somewhere in the centre of him, then he nods, and the smile that comes with it is small enough that it feels private, even with the door half open and the boys downstairs and the whole house softly rearranged around her injury. “I know the feeling.”
She sniffs, because her body is committed to making the worst possible choices, and pain snaps up through her nose so sharply her eyes water. “Ow. Fuck.” She presses two fingers near the side of her face. “You do?”
Garrett’s smile shifts. “You want me to say it again while you look like you’re about to sneeze blood?”
“Maybe.”
“I know the feeling,” he says, and this time he doesn’t look away. “Because who better to nurse me back to health than you, huh?”
The laugh that escapes her is tiny and breathless and immediately followed by a wince, but it’s real. “I’m not even good at it today.”
“That’s okay.” He leans in and kisses the top of her head, nowhere near the bruising, lips warm against her hair. “I’ll cover this one.”
He gets up slowly this time, one hand staying in hers until the last possible second, then moves to his dresser. She watches him pull open drawers.
He finds a pair of grey sweatpants first, soft and old and definitely his, then a zip-up hoodie because it will not need to go over her head. She can see the moment he chooses it for that reason. The little pause, the glance back at her shoulder, the jaw tight enough to tell on him.
When he comes back, the clothes folded over his arm, he crouches in front of her again. “Alright. We’ll do this slow, okay?”
She nods, then corrects it into a verbal answer before her head can punish her. “Okay.”
“Pants first.”
“Romantic.”
His mouth twitches. “I’m known for it.”
He helps her stand only as much as she needs, one hand at her good elbow, the other at her waist. The room sways faintly when she gets upright, unpleasantly loose at the edges, and Garrett’s hand firms at once. “Dizzy?”
“Little bit.”
“Sit?”
“No, I’m good. Just…” She looks down at the drawstring of her scrub pants, then at him. “This is a very low dignity moment for me.”
Garrett’s gaze flicks up, and there it is again, the smallest spark of him through the worry. “Baby, you’ve fallen asleep drooling on my chest after telling me I had slutty veins.”
She frowns. “I said that?”
“You did.”
“That does sound like me,” she accepts.
“Exactly. Dignity’s been dead.”
She huffs, almost laughing, and he helps ease the scrub pants down her legs without making a production of it. Nothing in his face changes in the way that would make her feel watched, despite the fact that he’s, technically, undressing her in his bedroom.
His touch stays practical, warm, almost painfully respectful. He holds the sweatpants open for her one leg at a time, keeps a hand at her hip while she steps in, then draws them up slowly over her thighs.
They’re too big, of course. They sit low on her hips and pool at her ankles in a way that would be funny if everything didn’t hurt. Garrett ties the drawstring in a loose knot and pats it once.
“There,” he says. “Very fashionable.”
“Shut up. I’m concussed.”
“I know. That’s why I’m letting you get away with that tone.”
Her mouth threatens a smile, so she bites it back and looks down at herself instead. The hoodie is next. Garrett reaches for the zipper, then stops. “Where’s the top?”
She blinks at him. “What?”
“Your scrub top.” His voice stays even, but not naturally.
Her mind searches the department and comes back with torn fabric, scissors, someone’s gloved hands. “Um.” She rubs her fingers against the seam of his sweatpants, trying to make the thought stay still long enough to look at it. “Um. Bag. Maybe. They had to cut it off, I think.”
Garrett’s jaw tenses. It’s quick. A muscle jumping once, his mouth going flat, his eyes dropping away from her face for half a second like he needs to put the reaction somewhere she can’t see it. But she sees it anyway. She’s concussed, not blind.
When he looks back up, he’s forced something lighter onto his face. It’s not quite convincing, but the attempt is so Garrett it makes her ache.
“Damn,” he says. “Liked that pair.”
She stares at him. “Pair?”
“Set. Outfit. Whatever.” He lifts one shoulder, careful to keep his voice mild. “Made your ass look great.”
The giggle escapes before she can stop it. Immediately, pain blooms across her lip and nose, and she presses her fingers to her mouth with a muffled, “Ow. Don’t flirt with the concussed.”
Garrett’s smile is barely there, but warmer this time. “Can’t help it.”
“You should try.”
“I’ve been trying for months. Terrible at it.”
That one sits in the room longer than it should. Her eyes lift to his, and for a second, neither of them moves. Then Garrett clears his throat softly and reaches for the zipper of her hoodie.
“This one’s gonna suck,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
That’s somehow worse than if he had lied. “Okay.”
He unzips the bloodstained hoodie slowly, easing one side down her good arm first. That part is fine, or close enough. The bad shoulder is different. Even with the zip-up, even with him going painfully slowly, the fabric drags over the sore joint and catches near her elbow, and the strain of lifting even a fraction sends pain snapping hot and deep through her shoulder and up the side of her neck.
She makes a sound she hates. Small and broken enough that Garrett’s whole face changes.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he murmurs immediately. His hands freeze, one holding the fabric, the other at her waist. “I’ve got it. You’re okay. Don’t move.”
Her eyes burn fast. Too fast. The pain isn’t even the worst she has felt tonight, which somehow makes crying more insulting, like her body has chosen this as the point to become unreasonable. A few tears slip out anyway, hot and humiliating over her swollen cheeks.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
Garrett’s eyes flash. “Do not.”
“I know. I know, I’m just–” Her breath catches in that horrible little pre-sob way, and her face hurts too much to do anything with it. “It hurts.”
“I know.” His voice drops, low and steady. He shifts closer, bracing her gently with his own body while he works the sleeve down by tiny increments. “I know. I’m sorry. Almost done. There you go. Good girl. That’s it.”
The praise lands somewhere stupid and warm under all the pain, and she would make fun of him for weaponising it if she were not currently trying not to cry into his shirt. The hoodie finally comes free, and Garrett gets his zip-up around her without making her lift her arm higher than necessary, guiding the sore side in first, then the other, then drawing the soft fabric closed around her body. It smells like him immediately. Clean laundry, cold rink air, skin.
The relief of being out of the hospital clothes hits harder than she expects. She folds forward into him.
Garrett catches her like he has been waiting for it, one arm firm around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head before she can tip into the wrong angle. “There we go,” he murmurs into her hair. “Got you.”
She nods against him, but it’s barely a movement. “Hurts.”
“I know, baby.”
“I’m being a baby.”
“No.” His hand spreads over her back, broad and warm through the hoodie. “You’re being concussed with a fucked-up shoulder.”
She breathes against him for another minute, letting the warmth of him settle over the sharper edges. His heart is steady under her cheek. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe that’s just what she needs it to be. Either way, his arms stay around her until her breathing evens out, until the tears stop sliding hot under her eyes, until she can pull back without feeling like she might tip sideways into the nightstand.
Garrett helps her lie down against his pillows. He has her on her back at first, then adjusts when she makes a face, turning her slightly onto her good side with slow hands and a pillow tucked near her shoulder so it isn’t pulling strangely. He moves like he’s learning her injury as he goes, like the map of her pain matters enough to memorise. It makes something soft and sore press up behind her ribs.
When he climbs in beside her, he doesn’t pull her in immediately. He waits, lying on his side facing her, one arm bent under his head, the other resting near the blanket between them. Giving her space to decide how much contact feels possible. Which is very considerate of him and also deeply annoying because she has no interest in space.
She curls into him as best she can, awkwardly, her bad shoulder protected between them, her forehead carefully finding the safe hollow below his collarbone. Garrett lets out a breath that sounds like he has been holding it since the front door.
“There,” he says softly. “That okay?”
“Mhm.”
His hand comes to her hair again. Fingers sliding slowly from her temple back over her scalp, loosening what the clip and the shift and the panic left behind. The motion sends a dull, pleasant ache through her, somewhere under the headache, a different kind of heaviness.
She sighs before she can stop herself. “Feels nice.”
Garrett’s thumb moves near her hairline. “I’ll keep doing it then.”
She lets her eyes close.
For a while, the room stays still around them. The lamp glows behind her eyelids. The house below makes small, careful sounds, a cabinet closing softly, footsteps pausing in the hallway and then retreating, the quiet evidence of three hockey players trying very hard to be normal about the girl in Garrett’s bed with a concussion.
Her head throbs anyway, steady and deep. Her lip pulses. Her shoulder aches in its own miserable rhythm. But Garrett’s hand keeps moving through her hair, slow enough that her breathing starts to follow it.
She’s almost asleep, or something near it, when Garrett speaks. “What happened?”
His voice is quiet. He asks like he’s been holding the question in both hands for too long and needs to set it somewhere.
She opens her eyes to the dark cotton of his shirt. Her brain takes a few seconds to come back online. She breathes out slowly through her mouth because her nose is still a disaster.
The memory is there at once, too close and too bright around the edges, and her body reacts to it before the words arrive. Fingers curling lightly in the front of his shirt. Shoulder tightening, then complaining. The ghost of the rail coming up fast.
Garrett’s hand pauses in her hair. “You don’t have to.”
“No.” Her voice is quiet. “It’s okay.”
He starts moving his hand again, slower now.
“It was a psych patient,” she says. “He was really agitated. Not like… violent, at first. Just scared, I think. Curled in on himself, wouldn’t really let anyone near him. Maria was with me. We were trying to keep the room calm, but the ED was so busy and loud and everyone was stretched thin, and he just…” She stops, trying to find the order of it. Everything feels slippery when she looks too directly. “He lashed out. His elbow got me in the face. Accidentally, I think.”
Garrett’s chest goes very still under her cheek.
“And I cried out,” she continues. “I don’t know. It just hurt and it surprised me, and I think that freaked him out more. Or the noise did. Or maybe he just didn’t know what was happening.” She swallows. Her throat feels raw. “He grabbed my scrub top before I could move back. Pulled me forward. My nose hit the bed rail. Or my mouth did. I’m not sure. It happened really fast.”
Garrett’s arm tightens around her, then loosens immediately like he’s afraid of hurting her. His hand remains in her hair, but the fingers have gone still.
“Security came in,” she says. “Another nurse pulled me back. Steph, I think. Or maybe Maria. Both, maybe. I don’t know. I remember Maria saying my name a lot.” She looks down between them, though there is nothing to see but the dark fold of his shirt and the edge of his hoodie on her body. “He didn’t mean it.”
Garrett is quiet for long enough that she starts to wonder if he has stopped breathing.
Then he says, “You keep saying that.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know.” His voice is rough, scraped thin at the edges. “I know he didn’t, baby. I just…” He takes a breath. It moves carefully through his chest. “You got hurt anyway.”
The words land with the same awful simplicity as Maria’s had in the car. That doesn’t mean you didn’t get hurt. She closes her eyes, because everyone has decided to be kind in the exact way she cannot defend against.
“I know,” she whispers.
Garrett’s hand finally moves again, fingers sliding over her scalp, then down to the nape of her neck where he can touch without brushing bruised skin. “Is this how you feel?”
She opens her eyes. “What?”
“When I come home after a game all bruised and shit.” He shifts just enough that she can feel him looking down at her, though she doesn’t lift her head to meet it yet. “Is this what it feels like?”
A tiny breath leaves her. Not quite a laugh. More tired than that. “You mean do I also go weird and silent and look like I might throw up?”
“Yeah.”
“Then yeah.” Her fingers smooth over the fabric of his shirt because she needs something small to do. “Kind of, I guess.”
Garrett doesn’t answer.
She turns her face slightly, enough to look at the line of his jaw in the low light. He’s staring at the wall beyond her head, mouth set, brows drawn, hair falling messily over his forehead. He looks angry and young and helpless, which is such a strange combination on him that it makes her chest ache.
“It’s different,” she says softly. “You’re playing a game you love. You know the risks. I know that. And you guys are all… insane about pain, which I’ve accepted against my will.”
His mouth twitches without humour.
“But I don’t enjoy seeing you hurt.” Her voice goes quieter around the admission. “Even when it’s normal hockey hurt. Even when you’re smug about it and standing in the kitchen telling me it’s fine while your ribs look like someone used you as a doorstop. It still makes my stomach feel weird.”
Garrett’s eyes come down to her then. She tries to hold the look for a second and manages maybe half. His attention is too raw tonight. Too stripped of the things he usually wears over it.
“I know you’re tough,” she says, looking at his collar instead. “I know you can take it. I know half the time you think me worrying is funny or hot or both, because you have a very damaged sense of romance.”
“That’s fair.”
“But I still…” She frowns slightly, the thought losing shape, then finding it again. “I still hate it. Not because I think you’re weak. Because you’re not. Obviously. It’s just your body, you know? And I like your body.”
Garrett’s eyebrows lift faintly.
She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to become insufferable.”
“Maybe a little.”
“I have a concussion. Be kind.”
His face softens again, the almost-tease folding back into something warmer. “I’m being so kind.”
“You’re doing okay.”
“Glowing review.”
She breathes out through her mouth, and for a moment the room feels almost normal. Almost. Garrett’s hand in her hair. His chest under her cheek. The two of them managing to find the familiar shape of each other even through the bruising and the blood and the fear still sitting somewhere near the foot of the bed.
Then Garrett’s thumb brushes the side of her head again, light and careful, and his voice drops. “I hated seeing you like that.”
She looks at him this time.
He doesn’t look away. His eyes are dark in the low light, all the usual teasing stripped out of them. “At the door,” he says. “I hated it.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” His mouth tightens, then releases. “You were standing there with blood on your face and Maria next to you and you looked at me like you were sorry. Like I was gonna be upset that you came here.”
Her throat works. “I didn’t want to be too much.”
Garrett makes a sound under his breath, small and rough. “You got hurt.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re allowed to be too much.”
The sentence is so simple it feels dangerous. Her eyes sting again, and she presses her face carefully into his chest before the tears can do anything stupid to her already stupid face.
Garrett’s arm comes around her, careful of her shoulder, his hand settling between her shoulder blades where he can hold without hurting. “Especially here,” he murmurs into her hair. “Especially with me.”
She doesn’t answer. She can’t, really. Not without crying, and crying hurts, and she’s tired of things hurting. So she only curls her fingers more tightly in his shirt and lets him keep his hand in her hair.
After a while, she says, very quietly, “I’m really tired.”
“I know.” Garrett kisses the top of her head. “You can sleep.”
“Logan set alarms.”
“Of course Logan set alarms.”
She manages the faintest smile. “He looked very serious.”
“He loves a protocol.”
“He does have the head injury experience.”
Garrett huffs a soft laugh against her hair, the sound loosening something in the dark. “Unfortunately.”
She lets her eyes close again. The headache is still there. The bruising is still swelling around her nose, hot and heavy. Her shoulder still aches beneath his hoodie. None of it has gone away.
But Garrett’s fingers keep moving through her hair, and his body is warm where hers has gone cold and wrung out, and downstairs the boys are quiet in a way that makes the whole house feel like it is holding its breath around her.
“Garrett?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“If I say something weird, it’s the concussion.”
His hand pauses for half a second. “Okay.”
“And if I say something nice.”
His mouth brushes her hair. “Also concussion?”
“Probably.”
“Got it.”
She’s quiet long enough that he likely thinks she’s drifted off. Maybe she has, a little. The edge of sleep is soft and close, pulling at the corners of the room, blurring the pain into something thick and manageable. Then she murmurs, “You’re good at this.”
Garrett’s chest rises slowly beneath her cheek. “At what?”
“Looking after me.”
His fingers resume their movement through her hair, slower than before. “Yeah?”
“Mm.”
His voice, when it comes, is barely more than warmth in the dark. “Only because you taught me how.”
to be notified when i post new fics, follow @kooksandpearls-library and turn on notifications! i no longer use a taglist for garrett fics.
summary - you cancel your first date with garrett, because you get in your own head & believe you aren’t worth his time
pairing - garrett graham x reader
word count - +3.2k
a/n - lowkey just wrote this one for me & all my pmos girlies :((
It was hard to believe that you were going on a date with Garrett Graham.
Like THE Garrett Graham, who notoriously doesn’t do girlfriends, had asked you out after (apparently) secretly pining for you for months.
You can’t even remember when your friendship had started with him, but now you couldn’t imagine a life without him in it. He made you feel safe and comfortable, whilst also being able to have a good laugh and make-fun of each other.
Garrett was someone who had bettered your life.
Which is why you felt awful, sitting on the edge of your bed, phone clutched tight in your hands, drafting a message for a rain-check. An eternal rain-check.
Laughter came from just outside your dorm window.
You got up off your bed to peak past the blinds, watching a group of girls walk past in gorgeous skirts and dresses. They were the kind of girls that had legs for days, hair that just sat right with no amount of effort and the best skin you’d ever seen. The kind of girls with no blemishes.
You stepped away from the blinds and walked to stand in front of your mirror.
You’d gotten dressed in your nicest pair of jeans, a plain top and a cardigan over the top.
The anxiety in your chest built up when you really looked at yourself.
You thought back to the girls outside and compared yourself to them.
This was ridiculous. You weren’t dressed to go on a first date with Garrett Graham, and yet this was the nicest outfit in your wardrobe that you felt comfortable wearing.
You stepped closer to the mirror, taking note of all the small blemishes - the most obvious to you being the small hairs that lined your chin and your upper lip. Cursed PMOS.
Your gaze dropped down to the cropped top, noticing the gap between your jeans and top showing a small slither of skin. You pulled the top a little bit up to reveal the dark, coarse, hair that travelled down from your belly button, before sharply pulling the top back down.
What were you doing?
You couldn’t go on a date with Garrett Graham. You couldn’t go on a date, full stop.
You pulled up your phone and sent the text that you’d been drafting and re-drafting all night.
To Garrett: hey! so sorry this is on such short notice, but i don’t think i’m going to be able to make it tonight. hope that it doesn’t cause you any inconvenience?
The second after you sent it you threw your phone to the bed and immediately started undressing, all the while thinking about how excited you’d been when Garrett had asked you out.
You and Garrett were walking through campus after class.
“But if you really think about it, I should still be able to still pass the class—.” You stopped talking when you realised Garrett was no longer walking next to you.
He stood only a couple feet away, hands tucked into his pockets looking… Shy?
“You okay?” You walked up to him, looking up at him with worry in your eyes.
He smiled and nodded his head slightly. His movements were slow and soft.
“You sure?”
“I’m just thinking.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets to lock his arms across his chest.
“Oh nooo… That’s never good.”
Garrett smiled, looking away from you to try and compose himself.
He looked back at you with a nervous smile, “I have a question.”
“Okay.” You nodded encouragingly.
“I..” He let out a nervous laugh, “Would… Fuck.”
“Hey. You don’t have to ask or tell me anything you’re not ready to.” You put your hand on his arm so you could give it a reassuring squeeze.
You could see the nerves disappear from Garrett then. In fact, his whole body relaxed. He caught your hand with his before you could remove yours, holding it tight like an anchor.
“I wanted to know whether I could ask you out?”
His nervous smile returned briefly, before softening again when he watched your entire disposition light up.
There was no way this was happening.
“On a date?” You asked quietly.
“Yeah.” He chuckled.
“You’d like to take me out on a date?”
Garrett found it endearing that you felt the need to check again, but in your defence the question had literally appeared out of nowhere.
“Yes. Please.”
“Okay.”
It had been such an easy decision in agreeing to go on a date with him.
Now it just felt like the most stupid thing.
You stood in front of the mirror again, this time in only your underwear, trying not to cry.
Your hands smoothed over your stomach and your hips.
You looked over every inch of your body, from your thighs to your hips, belly to your chest, and all the way up to your face.
It was only when you got to looking at your face that you noticed the tears beginning to fall.
“Fuck.” You swore to yourself, feeling both insecure and pathetic.
Enough was enough.
You didn’t want to be that girl that stared in the mirror and hated what you saw, but some days it was just all too much.
Your mind was such a frustrating place to be.
The wardrobe door rattled as you roughly opened it, pulling out a large Briar U shirt that you knew would hide everything you were too ashamed to look at today.
The next time you looked in the mirror your body was now shapeless - hidden by all the oversized clothing you’d thrown on.
You took a deep breath.
You were okay. It was just a bad day.
Half an hour later, sitting in bed and twenty minutes into your comfort movie, there was an urgent knock at your door.
You hesitated at first, considering no one ever came knocking, but when the knocking continued you padded out of bed to see the commotion.
“Garrett…” Your face probably was probably showing the same level of shock as your voice.
“Are you okay?” He asked urgently.
“Am… Are you panting?”
Garrett’s hair looked wet and tousled no doubt from a shower. Don’t think about Garrett Graham in the shower.
He was slightly out of breath and had a crazed look to his eyes, like he was a man on the run.
“I tried calling and texting.”
“My phone was off.”
Garrett stepped forwards, his hands reaching out to maybe cup your cheeks but stopped when you stepped back. You looked down at the distance between your feet, having lost all bravery to look at him directly.
“Y/N…”
“Please don’t,” You sniffled and held up your hand, “I’m going to cry if you come any closer.”
Garrett quietly crossed the threshold of your dorm and shut the door behind him. Clearly this was a conversation meant for just the two of you, and he knew there were a bunch of busybodies in your dorm corridor.
“Garrett, please.” You walked away, blowing out a deep breath through your mouth.
“If I’ve done anything…”
“You haven’t.” You quickly shut that thought down for him.
Garrett wasn’t an insecure guy, but he did have a more tender heart than people realised. You were lucky enough to know that his compassion for others stemmed from his dad, which is why you were so eager to shut down any bad thoughts he had about himself.
Even with your back turned, you could tell he hadn’t moved from the spot in front of your door.
That was Garrett all over.
He was always respectful with you. Always letting you lead and giving you anything you needed first.
“Garrett… I-I can’t do this.” Your voice didn’t sound confident.
“Do what?”
“This. Us. I…” Your breathing started getting heavier and out of sync as you tried to find a reason. Your mind felt like soup and nothing was processing like you wanted it to. “Sorry.”
“Hey, no. C’mon.” His shoes were heavy on the floor as he closed the distance between you, “Can I give you a hug?”
You nodded and his arms were instantly around you.
He spun you around in the hug so your face could bury itself into his chest. His arms were strong, like pillars holding you up.
The comfort of being held by him was enough for you to break down. Your body wracked with sobs as he held you close, your hands fisting his sweatshirt like a lifeline.
“I’ve got you.” He whispered.
Your body felt heavy. The emotional weight of the evening had taken its toll on you, and if Garrett weren’t here you didn’t know how you’d keep yourself afloat.
“I-I c-an’t…”
“Just breathe.”
Garrett continued to speak in soft tones to you as he tried to calm you down.
His hand rubbed small circles over your back. The motion was calming enough, alongside his talking, to bring your breathing back to normal. A few hiccup tears slipped out, but after a few minutes of letting it all out you felt like you had nothing left to give.
Your head wriggled out of the depths of Garrett’s chest. Garrett moved his head so you could, already looking down to check on you.
“God, this is so embarrassing.” You laughed through an empty sob.
Garrett shook his head, “No it’s not.”
“You have snot on your sweatshirt.”
“Thank you.” He said proudly, earning a smile from you. That felt like the biggest achievement of Garrett’s day. Now the job was to keep you smiling.
You moved completely out of Garrett’s hold so you could slip down onto the floor back against your bed. Your legs bunched close to your chest and your arms wrapped around them to contain yourself.
Garrett didn’t hesitate in sinking down next to you.
He kept his hands to himself, even though you could tell he was twitching to hold onto some part of you.
Garrett felt like he won the moment you tilted your head onto his shoulder. His head tilted down to lean on top of yours.
“Is that a picture of Dean dressed as a ballerina?” Garrett asked, staring at the corkboard hanging over your desk.
You laughed, your throat still a little broken from crying, “Yeah.”
“When was that? And why wasn’t I there?”
“I don’t even know. He gifted it to me once and told me I had to hang in pride of place.”
“He’s so weird.” Garrett laughed and you laughed with him.
The next couple of minutes were quiet.
Garrett was no doubt looking at your endless amounts of trinkets and photos in your room, that had probably all changed since the last time he’d been here.
“You’re not pushing me to talk.” You said.
“No.”
“Why?”
“You’ll talk to me when you’re ready.”
You bit your lip to contain a new round of tears. “Thank you.”
A loud ping echoed through the room. “Excuse me.”
Garrett took out his phone, not hiding it from you. You watched on as his phone lit up.
The photo on his lockscreen was one he had taken of you skating away from him in his ice hockey jersey. It was taken moments before your legs decided to stop working, and Garrett had to quickly skate over to you to keep you upright. You smiled at the memory.
There was a notification on his screen from Logan.
Logan: Is Y/N okay?
“I might have panicked.” Garrett said before you could ask what Logan meant.
“How so?”
“When you texted saying we weren’t doing our date, I thought the worst. I was worried that you might’ve been sick and then I started thinking about you maybe getting cold feet. Logan caught be pacing about it. Instead of panicking with me, he hit me over the head with a tea towel and told me to get over here.”
You laughed, unwrapping your arms from around your legs to wrap around Garrett’s closest arm to you. Your head stayed resting on his shoulder.
“A tea towel?”
“It fucking hurt.” Garrett laughed.
“It’s sweet how you guys have got each other’s backs.”
“Yeah. I’m lucky to have them.”
Garrett closed the notification after responding with a quick ‘yes’. Even though both of you weren’t sure if that were true, at least it wouldn’t keep Logan guessing.
He switched his phone off and put it on the floor, his hand then coming up to settle on top of yours.
You couldn’t help the small smile slip onto your face when his skin touched yours. It felt stupid to say there was a spark when his fingers wrapped over yours, but that’s genuinely how it felt.
“Me cancelling this evening had nothing to do with you. I just freaked myself out, because I don’t really understand why you asked me out.”
“Because I like you.” Garrett said without hesitation.
“No, but…”
“There’s no buts, Y/N. None.” Garrett sat up, your head losing the cushion of his shoulder. His hands stayed enclosed on yours, but he made sure that he could see you.
“Garrett, just… Listen a minute, please?”
“Okay.” He nodded.
You twisted your body to sit facing him.
This conversation was best to have like ripping off a bandaid. There was nothing good about leaving it to sit and fester. It wouldn’t do you any good to shoulder this alone forever, and if there was one person you trusted enough to let in it was Garrett.
“I don’t really like the way I look.” Garrett shifted, his entire body readying to launch. Before he could say anything you shook your head, “Just listen.”
“Okay.”
“I.. I have PMOS. It’s a reproductive health condition which impacts my entire metabolic system and it sucks. It means irregular periods. It means weight gain that I can’t control. And,” You blew out a shaky breath, “It means I get an increase in hair growth across my body. So, my face, my stomach, my legs and inner thighs… You get it. Every time I look at myself I hate myself a little more. A-and this evening, I looked in the mirror and couldn’t see myself as someone worthy of dating you.”
You expected Garrett to not know what to say - maybe even say nothing. It was a lot to dump on someone and expect them to know exactly what to say.
So he surprised you when he spoke immediately after letting you finish, like he’d been waiting for the opportunity all.
“You know what I was worried about tonight?” He moved closer to you, closing the already small space between you.
“What?”
“That you’d realise dating me was a mistake.” He let out a self-deprecating laugh, “And yet here you are thinking exactly the same thing.”
“How could you possibly think—.”
“Well exactly, baby. I don’t understand how you could possibly not realise how much I like you. I’m constantly thinking about the next time I get to see you. In my head you’re already my girlfriend! Not one thing you just told me makes me like you less. I look at you and get nervous, because I’m so scared of screwing something up and fumbling the best person in my life.”
Your breathing laboured as you took in everything he had just said.
Garrett hadn't laughed. He hadn't looked uncomfortable. He hadn't tried to tell you that you were being ridiculous. He had listened and looked at you like nothing you’d said had changed the way he felt about you.
Sometimes it felt like you were being far too superficial about your appearance and then other times looking at yourself was the worst thing in the world. So hearing Garrett tell you he likes you regardless of everything was overwhelming.
You scrambled to detach yourself from him, moving to cup his cheeks instead.
Somehow you found the bravery to pull him close enough for a kiss, all for that to stop the moment his lips came within an inch of yours. You hesitated.
Were you allowed to kiss him? Is that something he wanted?
You got your answer seconds later when Garrett closed the rest of the distance between you, kissing you like he’d been waiting a long time to do it.
His hands rested on the back of your neck, keeping you close to him.
Your belly was uncontrollable with nerves as he continued to kiss you. And fuck was he a good kisser. His lips were wet and warm against yours.
The room had gotten hotter and your world had gotten smaller - the only thing worth focusing on being Garrett.
He pulled back to give you a chance to breathe, your lips making a soft smacking noise as he did. You didn’t like the distance he created, so you pulled him back again for another soft kiss. Garrett quickly took control, tilting his head to kiss you deeper.
The feeling in your belly changed to something hot and buzzing instead. The more he kissed you, the more confident you became and the nerves disappeared.
When he pulled back again, you didn’t immediately kiss him again. Garrett licked his lips, looking between yours and your eyes like he couldn’t decide what was more important to focus on.
“I like you a lot, in case that wasn’t clear.” Garrett said.
You let out a small laugh, “I like you too.”
“Good.” He kissed you once more, “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
You watched as Garrett stood up, holding out a hand for you to follow him up. You took his hand, holding back any swooning as he pulled you up easily.
“Date night.”
“Garrett…” You sighed.
“We’re not cancelling. We’re just moving it.”
“Where?”
A little while later, you were sitting on a blanket on your bedroom floor, a large pizza and cans of soda between you both.
Garrett had ordered the pizzas online and then had grabbed a bunch of rubbish chocolate from a nearby vending machine for dessert. It was kind of perfect.
It reminded you of your favourite scene from High School Musical 3 with Troy and Gabriella.
Garrett was reclined horizontally, propped up on his bicep, whilst you sat cross legged opposite him.
“You want the last slice?” Garrett asked.
You shook your head, “No thank you. Plus, I’ve seen the amount you eat daily… You need it more than me.”
“Agreed. I was just being a gentleman.”
“How noble of you.”
He grabbed the last slice of pizza and devoured it so fast it actually made your stomach hurt. Athletes and their food. You took a sip of your soda whilst he finished eating.
“So…”
“So…”
“Next date.” He raised an eyebrow, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“Mhm.” You brought your legs up to rest your chin on your knees.
“Tell me what you’d like it to be.”
“Not ice skating, that’s for sure.” You tried to bury your face in your knees as you watched the offence slide across Garrett’s expression. “I’m just not good! I’ll end up in A&E.”
“Not if I hold your hand.” Garrett protested.
“Maybe five dates down the line, then.”
“Okay, deal.” Garrett smirked, no doubt excited by the prospect of getting to go on four more dates with you before then. “Next date though?”
“I don’t know. This one is pretty perfect.” You shrugged.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. All it’s missing is a sunset.”
“Okay, I can work with that.” He sat up and dusted the last of the crumbs off his fingers. “Sunset and pizzas.”
“And chocolate coated strawberries.”
“Done.” Garrett smiled at you, loving seeing you happy. He felt like the luckiest guy on campus, sitting here with you. And he knew you well enough to know that you were thinking the exact same thing.
synopsis: you fucked up and got hurt on a mission trying to save jason, but he was too busy fuming that it went wrong to notice how you were bleeding out.
a/n: this is my first jason fic :p
walking back to the batcave felt like utter agony.
the sides of your ribs pulsating and the gash under the bottom right rib was burning. but you almost forgot about it with how loud jason was screaming at you.
almost.
jason tosses his mask onto the couch unceremoniously and continues his rant that had been going on for half an hour now, “do you have any fucking idea how royally you just fucked up?!”
now that you were in the batcave, you just felt tired. exhausted and in need of sleep. maybe, even a trip to bruce’s liquor stash.
you blink at him, shifting closer toward the couch, itching to sit down, “i know i fucked up-” but he’s not having it.
jason’s voice gets even louder, stampeding over yours, “you know?! well then why the hell did you do it?!”
“i-i don’t know i just did it okay,” you huff, voice trembling slightly.
trying to stifle any sound that you were in pain from rising. you knew damn well why you let it happen and let those loser goons spot you.
you and jason were out on patrol and happened to stumble upon the group of goons running the cocaine batman had been looking for months for. you had them cornered until they had the shot of jason from the building directly behind him and they threatened to take the shot if you didn’t let them take the drugs.
it’s not like you’d let those fuckers have the drugs and resell them throughout gotham. no. but you weren’t gonna let them shoot jason either and that’s what got you hurt. after he shifted from behind jason to grab the duffle bags of cocaine being exchanged, you lunged back towards him, slicing through the bag. and in anger, he sliced through you. that was enough for the rest of them to chase after you while you shouted for jason to, “fucking run todd!”
he hasn’t shut up about it since then.
his jaw clenches as he steps closer to where you hovered over the couch armrest, “you lead those assholes right to us, i need to know why,”
you slip onto the couch, keeping a firm hand to the stab wound, “i didn’t mean for them to follow us, they just did!”
“for a smart girl, jesus, you do some idiotic things sometimes!” he moves even closer, towering over you now. you nod as you sink into the couch.
at this point you were hardly listening, just trying to keep yourself upright and awake. you were a little surprised to how he didn’t notice you holding your side, but maybe it was your black and red suit masking the blood seeping through it or maybe jason was just to mad to care. either way way, you keep nodding at him, trying to get rid of him so you could lay down.
he furrows his brows, “what the fuck are you nodding at me for?” to which you didn’t have an answer.
he shifts closer, “you’re really gonna mess up patrol, nearly have us killed, and then lay on the couch? like you did nothing?”
biting back a seething wince, you retort, “what do you want me to say jason… i know i messed up, i’m sorry, can we move on?” leaning your head back on the couch, letting it rest on the edge of the headrest. you let out a soft groan from the stretch but he doesn’t notice, still too angry to realize.
you knew you were being stubborn by not telling him, but jason was being a complete ass too. you also knew him well enough that he would be even more pissed at you for not telling him what happened in the first place.
it was like a cycle at this point, and you’d recognized how he could filter through them and ultimately end on self depreciation. first he’d get mad, then he’d get sad, finally he’d reach his crescendo of brooding that made you question if you should make him finally see a therapist. of course he wouldn’t let you though, he was convinced reading something on psychology would probably be better. because, he was just as stubborn as you after all.
and honestly, at this point, you were damn exhausted and wanted him to shut up so you could lay down.
but alas, he’s standing over you now, finger in your face.
“why the hell did you do it then hmm? you led those dickheads right to us! they fucked with my damn bike!” he pouts slightly.
you can’t help but huff out a laugh, biting the inside of your cheek when it rumbles your stomach, “you care more for the bike then? don’t worry toddy, i’ll get you a new one.” your head lolling back again.
“just give me a minute would you? you can use mine for now.” you vaguely gesture to the key in your pocket but are too lazy to pull it out.
thinking you were just being cheeky, he moves closer, grabbing your chin. his grip was not hard. it was just enough to make you face him.
“ah ow, fuck jason!” you exclaim, pushing at his grip but it tightens.
he brings his face close to yours, “the next time you pull that shit on patrol, it will be your last,” his eyes briefly flicker to your lips, where you were biting hard enough to draw blood.
your hand slips from your wound before pressing back in and hissing at him, just enough for it to be mistaken for just a sneer at his attitude.
the hot headed idiot still doesn’t notice.
“you’re not even sorry are you? we blew the operation and you’re still,” he eyes you shamelessly and scoffs, “smug as ever.”
you pull your chin from his grip. his hand lingers there, following your movement and gently grazing your face. his thumb swiping away the drop of blood you’d drawn from biting your lip too hard. as if taking in your appearance for the first time, his eyes flicker to your lips again.
“why’re you…” he trails off looking you up and down, “are you okay?” his demeanour completely shifting.
his eyes shift up to yours and he looks at you with less anger.
was it concern?
“what happened?” he deadpans.
“nothing,” you shift uncomfortably, not used to the proximity with him.
his hand near your face stays in the air, hovering. he narrows his eyes and stares for a moment. then, suddenly he’s sitting next to you and touching up and down your arms trying to feel for something wrong with you. you don’t answer him, he sighs.
“why won’t you ever just give me a straight answer?”
“oh god, please just spare me the fake caring act alright? i’m here because i want the black mask gone as much as bruce does,” you say with a bitter tone.
you and jason had never really gotten along. he was always reserved and didn’t have patience, rushing into things without thinking them through first. jason would head into a gunfight with nothing but his fists just to feel something.
but so would you. and maybe that’s why he scared you so much.
he reminded you of yourself.
he scoffs at you, anger seething from his tone, “what makes you think i don’t care huh?”
you blink at him, knitting your brows together. fingers still pressing into the wound that’s sending white hot flashes up your body, “i know you don’t care let alone like me todd, so just save that shit for someone who’d believe you.”
he shifts roughly on the couch, causing it to dip slightly and you groan softly as it makes you move too.
he notices this time.
“you’re hurt,” he states rather than asks you.
you do your best to glare at him, “i’m fine,” he immediately interrupts, “like hell you are.”
“don’t change the subject jason.”
“me? you’re the one trying to confuse me!” he throws his hands up exasperated, “look okay, i do care. more than you know.”
“you sure have a funny way of showing it,” you mutter and he brings his ear closer to your lips.
“what was that? you’re mumbling sweetheart, say it with your chest,” he’s practically pressing his ear to your face.
you knew what he was trying to do, cause it’s what he always does to get you to stop ignoring him. he’s trying to annoy you. trying to get a reaction out of you.
typical of someone with brothers.
you shove him away from you with your gloved hand, weaker than usual so it hardly moves him.
“i said you treat me like shit. so excuse me for thinking you don’t care about me,” you say staring right at him, faces far enough to see every feature but close enough to feel his breath against your cheek.
“and you’re a cunt,” you say finally, just wanting to get that bit out.
he barks out a laugh and rests his hand on your thigh. the action sending shivers down your spine. almost distracting you from the pain.
almost.
until jason moves abruptly again.
his hand wraps around your shoulders as he pulls you into a side hug, the movement pulling on the muscles and the skin of your wound. it felt like a dagger was being dragged down your ribs and salt was poured directly inside. a metallic taste floods your mouth immediately. but you show no indication of your suffering. not yet.
“things like this aren’t easy for me okay,” he admits and you freeze.
was jason talking about his feelings?
“g—go on,” you prompt him, not feeling confident enough to speak right now and also wanting him to open up to you more.
he sighs, “i care… okay? i care a lot more than i’d like to admit.”
you keep staring at him, partially because you’re worried if you say something, you might make him stop. also because you didn’t know if it would come out as a pained groan.
he takes your silence as an invitation to keep speaking because jason doesn’t like awkward air hanging between them. he lets go of you and runs his hand through his hair.
“i didn’t mean to get mad at you, you just—you just frustrate me okay!”
you nod again as if you were understanding and he continues.
“you question me and push my buttons, and try to take shots for me like i’m not a grown man who’s literally come back from the dead!” he says his voice growing a little louder, “and today you did it again! you blew our cover and you don’t even have the decency to tell me why, so i’m forced to assume you’re just fucking with me again.” his voice softens at the end.
“jason, i swear, i only blew it cause i knew it was gonna end badly alright,” you say and sit up straighter, the feeling of sharp pain being pushed up your side and down your spine, you settled back down, “you have to believe me.” you say through partially gritted teeth.
he looks at you like he’s pleading with you now, “i’m trying to, but you’re still lying to me. i know it.” his irises blown wide, “it’s not easy for me… to trust i mean.”
your gaze softens at the sight of him.
his vulnerability was rare.
“okay, f—fine,” you say forcing yourself to sit completely upright with the support of your free hand, the one clutched to your wound on the opposite side to him, “they were gonna kill you. alright?”
he laughs humourlessly, “kill me? yeah, i’m sure, they could try though. i’d like to see it,” you roll your eyes at his confident demeanour.
“no asshole, they had a gun. on you. you just didn’t see it cause you were too busy watching me,” you finally admit, letting the reality sink in for him.
he thinks on it, you swear you can see the gears turning in his head.
“that’s why you ran at me? why there was powder on your knuckles?” he says softly.
when you nod, his eyes soften, “you didn’t want them to have the drugs either so you cut through their coke supply didn’t you?” you nod again.
he runs a hand through his hair, the white streak bouncing back forward onto his forehead.
“i guess you want me to thank you now huh? for saving me?” he says reluctantly. he was used to people doing things only as favours for him. always wanting something in return.
he was used to being used. his interactions before you were mostly transactional.
you shake your head, “no, i just want you to understand. i’m sorry i blew our cover but i’m not sorry for how i did it.”
he blinks at you and then purses his lips. letting the truth sink in and tangle with his reality.
you saved him.
you care too.
he smiles to himself then to back up at you, taking your hand in his. slowly, he brings your hand up to his lips, pressing the soft plump skin of his lips to the gloved leather of your hand.
“thank you, princess.”
the action makes your breath hitch, butterflies fluttering in your stomach. his irises blown out in adoration.
you push that feeling down and ignore the blood rushing to your core.
you abruptly stand and clear your throat, “you’re uh, you’re welcome. i’m gonna go change.” and you leave him there as quickly as you could.
your body protesting as you stride hard away, ignoring the burning in your stomach and the feeling of jason’s lips having touched your skin.
jason stays there, watching you walk toward the bathroom, dumbfounded. you’re already down the hall and closing the door when he quietly murmurs.
“and i’m sorry.”
the cut wasn’t too deep and the bleeding had stopped. at least.
you’re sitting on the floor of the bathroom, your black suit already pushed down to your hips as you bite off a piece of thread.
you’d been struggling to thread the needle for almost 20 minutes now, groaning quietly to yourself when it would miss again. your fingers were trembling at this point and stained as your gloves laid on the tiled floor.
with shakily hands, you finally give up on threading it and opt for stapled stitches.
whatever right? same shit?
you pull out bruce’s first aid kit from the cabinet and rummage through it. you know he has it, you’ve seen alfred use it on him before. but even bruce winced when alfred stapled his wounds shut and you knew that if he was wincing, you might as well be screaming.
your fingers dance over the plastic holding the metal stapler. you unwrap it. blooding covering everything you touch, but you weren’t worried about that now, you can clean it up after.
you pick up the leathered glove and stuff it in your mouth, biting down to muffle your sounds.
hands still trembling, you slowly pull the skin taut and groan into the glove. you press the metal to the skin and close your eyes, knowing it’s probably not a good idea to close them now but you know it’s about to hurt. then take a deep breath, clicking the staple down quickly. sharp steering pain shoots up your body, lingering through your fingers.
you did not know what you were doing at all.
you can’t help the yelp you make as the first staple closes down and the glove slips from your teeth. the whimpers that leave your throat were quiet. soft and barely audible.
but jason still heard them.
jason is on the couch, staring at his red mask he’d thrown there earlier.
he was beating himself up for being mean to you when you’d been trying to help him. he was also trying (and failing) to not think about how you’d basically just shut him down.
he bites the inside of his cheek.
a sound in the bathroom distracts him from his thoughts. he turns his head immediately when he hears a whimper.
soft and muffled, but he hears it.
he’s on his feet, stealthily moving towards the door. he knocks when he hears another muffled sound.
he calls out your name, “you okay?”
you call back from behind the door, “f—fine,” your voice shaky enough for red flags to raise in his mind. he presses a hand to the door. thoughts racing. he asks the first question on his mind.
“you on your period?” he scratches his head with his other hand.
you snicker despite the pain, “no…”
“taking a shit?”
you laugh again. this time ending it with a wince.
he furrows his brows, knowing you’re hiding something, “fuck it, i’m coming in regardless.”
you panic, the room was not nearly clean enough for him to come in without suspecting a thing.
you yell out before he can twist the knob, “no—yes, i am. i’m on my period and i—i’m taking a dump jason, stay out there—”
but it’s no use.
you forgot to lock the door and he pushed it open.
his eyes land on you and they immediately drop to the sight on your torso. his mouth gaping at you as you sit on ground, a bloodied metal stapler in your hands. fingerprints of blood across the white tiles and staining your hands.
it looked like a fucking crime scene.
“jesus, why didn’t you say something?” he kneels next to you, taking the stapler from your shaky hands. he’s being extra gentle. careful not to move you.
“i didn’t wanna worry you,” you breathe out, brows knitting together at his genuine concern. your hand rests on your leg now that he took the stapler.
“and this? why are you using this? i could’ve stitched you up properly,” he shakes his head head, stammering, “fuck, did this happen because of me?”
when you don’t answer he sucks in a breath, already knowing the answer and shifts closer to you. he gently touches the skin around the wound and winces as if it hurt him too.
you huff out a weak laugh, “sorry, i’m making a lot of mistakes today.”
he shakes his head and shifts even closer to you, “shut up.” his hands move, one under your knees and one to your back, lifting you off the ground. keeping you close to his chest, he stands.
he walks out of the bathroom door and further down the hall, reaching his bedroom. he gently places you on his bed. a fuzzy grey blanket greets your aching skin as you settle on something soft rather than the hard cold floor. he’s careful not to agitate your wound.
“don’t move,” he warns before giving you one last look, disappearing in his closet. you weren’t about to protest. you drop your head back on his pillow, breathing in the scent of him lingering from the comforter. the faint scent of him lingers in the room and greets your nostrils, you can’t help but revel in it.
he returns a moment later with supplies in his hands, his suit pushed down to his hips. a black compression shirt peeking out.
“i’m gonna stitch this up properly alright?” you nod and he starts working.
leaning over you and moving with practiced precision, he stitches you up like he knew exactly what to do. he takes the single staple you had put in out with a tool you didn’t quite understand. telling you to squeeze his hand when it hurts too much but he takes your hand without you having to. he had been taking care of his own wounds for years, so he really did know what he was doing. and he was much gentler than you were being to yourself earlier.
he looks up to make sure he wasn’t hurting you every few seconds. eyes threatening to water at the sight of you getting hurt, for him. he works quickly stitching you up, trying not to prolong it for you. he knew you’d been in pain and covering it up for him and you knew how in his head he could get.
gently removing the dried blood around the wound, he pulls out a piece of gauze and a bandage, carefully wrapping the wound.
“there. all done.” his hand lingers on your hip a moment too long before straightening himself upward.
he moves to get off the bed.
“wait, jay,” the nickname makes him freeze and turns toward you, “i’m sorry.”
he seats himself back down fully, still on the edge of the bed, “what do you have to apologize for? i was a dick to you and here you were, taking a knife to the rib for me.” his words laced with malice toward himself.
you huff, “i did that, not you. you didn’t know,” he says nothing so you continue, “and i meant for earlier, when you were being vulnerable with me.”
he gulps at your words.
“pfft, its fine. don’t worry,” he starts, trying to downplay it but you’re not having it.
“no, dammit, it’s not fine. you were being honest and i was just avoiding it,” you admit, stepping out of the your avoidant tendencies you both had.
he raises a brow, “and what were you avoiding exactly?”
“that i care too jay. maybe a little too much.”
he stares at you for a moment, contemplating. then his hand moves to take yours, squeezing gently when he laces his fingers with it.
“what’s wrong with caring about eachother?”
you blink at him sitting up against the headboard right now. both your hands still clutched together, “i dunno, i guess i just thought you hated me before.”
he shakes his head, shifting himself closer to you, knees brushing against yours, “i could never hate you princess.”
“you don’t hate me?”
he shakes his head in response.
“i thought—i thought you didn’t like me or maybe cassandra had a problem with me since we always have missions—” he cuts you off.
“what does cassandra have to do with any of this?” he says coldly.
“aren’t you guys like… a thing?” you genuinely ask. you’d been suspecting them together for months, and they definitely seemed comfortable.
his response is immediate, “fuck no. what? what would give you that impression… i don’t like her at all.” exaggerating with his faked scoffs.
“well don’t go belittling her now… i just thought you were together.” you sigh, feeling embarrassed for suspecting them together.
he presses his lips together before giving you a stern look staring like he was reading your mind. he knew you too well, maybe better than you knew yourself.
he shifts one of your legs to the side, maneuvering you gently by your knee, before settling himself between them. you gasp softly but don’t stop him. his hands shift from yours to your hips, making mindless circles as his eyes bore into yours.
you could see them softening at the sight of you.
you could feel his demeanour shifting at your proximity.
“it’s always been you.” his irises blown out just like before when he was watching you.
“m-me?” stammering your words and he confirms it with a nod, trailing his hands up to your waist.
holding you there.
“yeah, you. it’s always been you,” a soft kiss to your cheek sends a shiver down your spine.
then works his way down.
his lips trail down your jaw then to your neck, pulling out a soft moan.
“jason,” the heat pooling between the two of you. he smiles against your neck and you can visualize his expression without even seeing his face.
“tell me you don’t want me. tell me to stop. i’ll stop right now.”
then he looks back up at you and you bite you lip. jason looked so beautiful, his skin flushed slightly, voice dripping with desire. he smiled at you and you felt your heart skip a beat.
it was rare.
and god it was a beautiful sight.
“i want you,” the breathless words come out effortlessly, even though he’d barely touched you.
like a moth to a flame, he wastes no time crashing his lips into yours. he breathes you in deeply and moans into your mouth. rough calloused hands work gently as they trail up to hold your head in place. the gasp that escapes you is utilized as an invitation to put his tongue inside, slipping against yours as his fingers lace through your hair and tug to open you up more. he’s slowly getting more aggressive with his kisses, like a man starved. you could feel him shaking with the anticipation, or maybe it was him holding back. you couldn’t tell and you didn’t care right now. the only thing on your mind was him.
he lays you back down on the mattress and you drag him down with you by the neckline of his shirt. he stays between your legs, careful not to put his weight on you, momentarily parting from you but you pull him back down harder, biting his bottom lip between your teeth. like a promise.
he groans so beautifully.
finally, he pulls back. heavy panting and lips swollen.
“fuck baby,” his pink lips stayed parted as he took sharp gulps of air. you’d made him breathless.
you stare back up at him. with his cheeks slightly reddened and his lips swollen from kissing you too hard. you can’t help but bite your lip. he groans again at the sight.
“don’t do that,” he almost whines, “not when i can’t really have you right now.”
“who says you can’t have me?” you retort, your hand moving up to the nape of his head, holding him there.
he hisses at the feeling, “me, i do. i’m not risking hurting you.”
this time you groan and let go of his hair, “i’m a grown woman jason, i will be fine. i’m telling you that i want you.”
he stares down at you, his hair draping over his forehead as he leans over you, “i’m not fucking you like this. not until you’re healed.”
you’re about to protest again when he shifts down to the balls of his feet, hands grazing over your thighs.
“but i never said i couldn’t make you feel good.”
you feel heat rise to your cheeks as he pulls his black shirt off and reveals his toned abs. mouth watering at the sight.
you have seen him shirtless before, but not like this.
your eyes follow the faint lines of his autopsy scars.
you snap back to what he’s about to do when he hooks his fingers into the fabric of your suit. he tugs the fabric at your hips and starts dragging it down.
“jason, you really don’t have to,” you start, watching him pull the suit completely off your legs and tossing it to the floor. it falls on top of his black shirt.
“i want to.”
he immediately presses kisses to the inside of your knee, “i’ve wanted to for a long, long time.” his lips dragging up your inner thighs.
you let out a soft whimper when he reaches a sensitive spot. he purposefully sucks the skin there, leaving a love bite. you arch off the bed and his hands drag up your body, gripping at your hips to keep you from moving too far.
“you’re so beautiful,” he breathes against your skin, moving his lips to your bare stomach, “so gorgeous.” he licks down to the trim of your panties.
his fingers hook themselves with your panties and pull them down slowly. he sucks in air with every new inch of you he can see. his tongue darts out and wets his lips. once he finally pulls them off, he tucks them in his back pocket.
“fuck, you’re hot,” he says staring down at you laid out for him.
you giggle and his eyes flicker back up to yours, coming up to kiss you again. more passion and desire evident in his kisses now, before he moves to settle back down on his knees for you.
he pushes your legs apart again, ghosting his breath over your core. his stomach nearly flat on the bed while he’s looking up through his lashes, “you can still tell me to stop okay? at any point.”
you run a hand down your stomach and up through his hair, he leans into it, “jason, i’m not running away.”
you make sure he’s looking at you when you speak, “i want you.”
eyes full of desire and heat. he gives you a grin and kisses the skin on your lower stomach.
“good,” and he licks a stripe up your core and you jolt up.
“f—fuck,” you gasp out as he continues, groaning into you. he licks up again, eyes never shifting from yours.
he wants to drink in every reaction, every gasp, every moan.
he doesn’t wanna miss any of it.
“you taste so fucking good,” he moans into you as you arch your back again, gripping his hair tighter. he’s groaning into you and lapping at you with a purpose, like this was more for him than for you.
“t—this isn’t fair,” you whine.
he chuckles, the sound rumbling and vibrating through your core.
“what’s not fair?” he stops moving his mouth on you and suddenly bites your inner thigh. you gasp again, “hmm? tell me? cause i can tell you what’s not fair.”
he dives back in, eating you out like he’s starved.
writhing beneath him, one of his palms flat on your stomach to keep you from running away.
he speaks between licks, grinning up at you like this was his new favourite task, “you shouldn’t be taking hits for me, that’s what’s not fair.” his hands cup your ass and pull you in closer to him like he couldn’t possibly get enough, “you’ve been holding this out from me, and that’s really not fair.”
moaning out, both of your hands now reach down for his hair. begging at this point, “jay, oh god, please.”
he hums appreciatively into you as you whimper at how the vibrations feel against you.
“yeah?” he parts again for a moment. “please what, princess?” you look down to see the devilish grin on his face, his chin glistening with the essence of you. he looked so good you could’ve came right there.
oh my god, he’s gonna be the death of me.
“please don’t stop,” you breathe out staring down at him through glossy eyes. he already had you where he wanted you.
“you don’t have to worry about that, pretty girl. i’m not going to stop,” he turns his head and places gentle kisses to your palm that juxtapose to when he leans back in, sucking at that bundle of nerves that make you cry out.
he softly takes it between his teeth, still staring up at you with his pretty eyes. he tugs and watches you squirm, sucking it in again and groaning, knowing its effect on you.
letting go with a little pop, he shifts back down to where you wanted him the most. a breathy moan escapes you again, panting out soft calls of his name as he works you. his palms rub at your backside as he works his muscle into you.
then without warning, he slips a finger in and your head drops back into the mattress, unable to watch him anymore. he’s like a man on a mission, trying to get you there like he would die if he couldn’t. one of his hands snake between you and he runs circles around your clit. the reaction is immediate, you grip his hair so tight, you thought you might rip his hair out. but you didn’t care and neither did he. he moans into you, rutting himself into the mattress. another finger slips in effortlessly and you moan obscenely.
the pressure was building fast. he was lapping at you as if it was the only meal on earth and he had been starving. his eyes remains on yours as his thumb rubbed faster.
and faster.
“come on, give it to me,” he pants into you, not stopping his ministrations.
he kept grinding into the mattress as he worked you harder, chasing his own high. but you were already there, tears forming and your body convulsing. pushing his head further down on you as he worked you through the high.
he was relentless, not stopping until you finally came just like he wanted. he moans against you again and his hips falter, stopping their movements.
his mouth didn’t stop though, kittening licking at you until you were practically crying at the stimulation and pushing his head away. finally he pulls from you, with a few wet kisses up to your lower stomach before he looks back up to you.
you waste no time pulling him up into a kiss, not caring for the taste of you on his lips. the kiss was slower, like he was trying to memorize the feeling of you.
when you parted, you finally took in how flushed he was, how worked up you made him.
you reach down for him and his hand stops you immediately.
“no, tonight was about you,” he says still breathless, a satisfied smile lingering on his handsome face.
“but what about you?” you protest, trying to reach again but he doesn’t let you.
his fingers lace with yours again.
“oh trust me, i’m okay,” he gestures sheepishly to the wet stain on his crotch. your eyes widen in realization.
he got off on getting you off.
you smile so wide, it might look like it hurts. then you pull him back down into a sweet kiss. he returns it, deepening the kiss impossibly before you pull back to speak.
I beg of you please write us Bucky reader and our son in a heatwave🙏🙏🙏🙏
Bucky’s Beach Day
WC 1.5k
TW established relationship, Husband!Bucky x Wife!reader, you and Bucky have a son called Jamie, fluff!!
Could be read as a one-shot, but you can read more stories in this universe here!
The cooling function in Bucky’s arm had been designed for missions. That was what Shuri had said to him when she installed the upgrade.
It was intended for harsh desert operations, or long exposures to tropical heat. It could save someone’s life in a life or death heat stroke situation. The section she had it in was called Tactical Temperature Regulation. It was brilliant and sleek, and Bucky nodded very seriously while pretending he understood half of the science she was explaining to him.
It was not, technically, made so his wife could cling to it on a beach towel because she was “literally going to perish without it.”
But Bucky knew better than to argue with you. Especially when you were sprawled under the umbrella in your swimsuit, sunglasses slipping down your nose, one hand thrown over your forehead like a woman in a tragic period drama.
“Buckyyy,” you said weakly.
He looked over from where he was helping Jamie dig a sandcastle with the yellow shovel. “Yeah, sweetheart?”
“I’m dying.”
Jamie gasped. “Mommy?”
“She’s not dying,” Bucky said calmly.
“I am,” you insisted with a sigh, beads of sweat rolling down your skin that Bucky was really trying not to pay attention to, not while he was building sandcastles with your son. “The sun has chosen me as tribute.”
“Mmm,” Bucky’s mouth twitched into a small smile. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” you frowned, “I need your arm.”
He glanced down at the vibranium arm, then back at you.
Jamie looked between the two of you, very interested. “Daddy’s cold arm?”
“Daddy’s cold arm,” you confirmed. Jamie knew because when he sprained his ankle last month, Bucky used his arm to “ice” the bruise.
Bucky huffed a laugh.
Then, without making a big deal out of it, he reached up and detached the arm.
Your eyes widened behind your sunglasses. “Wait. I was joking.”
“No, you weren’t.”
You considered you answer for a second. “I was joking a little.”
“No, you weren’t,” he repeated, because apparently being the love of your life meant that he knew you better than you knew yourself.
He walked over and gently set the vibranium arm beside you on the towel, cooling function already humming faintly through the vibranium.
You immediately wrapped your arm around it.
“Oh my God,” you sighed, pressing your cheek against the cool surface. “I love you.”
Bucky arched an eyebrow and chuckled. “Me or the arm?”
“At this exact moment,” You tilted your head, “I need you to be emotionally secure enough not to ask that.”
Jamie toddled over and patted the arm with both little hands. His eyes went huge. “Cold!”
“Very cold,” you said reverently at his adorable little face, blue eyes not unlike Bucky’s own.
Jamie turned to Bucky, delighted. “Daddy, mommy has your arm.”
“I know, buddy.”
“You only have one hand now.”
Bucky looked down at himself, then at Jamie. “Yeah. Looks like I’m gonna need help with the castle.”
Oh. Daddy needs me! He seemed to think.
Jamie straightened like he had just been promoted to general.
You watched the exact second your six-year-old became the most important construction worker on the beach.
“I can help,” Jamie said, very solemnly.
“I was hoping you would.”
Bucky went back to the sandcastle one-handed. To be fair, he could still do most things better than most people with one hand.
He packed sand with his right palm, dragged the shovel toward him, smoothed down walls with his fingers. But every time one of Jamie’s little structures needed steadying, every time a bucket had to be tipped or a shell had to be placed or the moat needed “more water but not too much water,” he looked to Jamie.
“Can you hold this side for me?”
Jamie rushed in. “I got it, daddy!”
“Good job,” he smiled, “Don’t let it fall.”
Jamie’s little face went slightly pink with concentration. “I won’t.”
You hugged the cold arm closer, your heart melting for an entirely different reason.
Bucky could have done it faster on his own. You knew that. He knew that. But Jamie absolutely did not know that.
To Jamie, his father needed him.
To Jamie, he was not just watching the castle happen. He was making it happen.
He held the bucket while Bucky packed wet sand inside. He pressed both hands against one crooked wall while Bucky reinforced the other side. He selected shells with the concentration of a professional jeweller. He added one piece of seaweed to the top and declared it a flag.
Bucky squinted at it. “Looks like kelp.”
Jamie gave him a look.
“I mean,” Bucky corrected himself immediately. “Strong flag, buddy.”
Jamie nodded. “It means no bad guys.”
“Good rule.”
“And no stepping on mommy.”
Bucky’s eyes flicked to you, curled shamelessly around his detached arm like a sun-drunk cat. “Definitely no stepping on your mom.”
You lifted one hand lazily. “This kingdom has great laws, baby.”
Jamie beamed.
The castle got bigger. As it got bigger, it got stranger. Then, Jamie insisted it had a garage, because Jamie insisted all castles needed garages, and Bucky, being a better father than anyone had any right to be, didn’t argue with the logic.
“For what kind of car?” Bucky asked.
Jamie frowned like the answer was obvious. “A fast one.”
“Right. Of course.”
“A blue one.”
“Blue fast car. Got it.”
“And it flies.”
Bucky paused. “A flying car?”
Jamie nodded.
So Bucky built the garage one handed.
The left side collapsed twice, and Jamie gasped both times like there had been casualties.
“I need you,” Bucky said seriously. “This wall’s no good without you.”
Jamie dropped to his knees beside him. “I fix it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You hold it, Daddy.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bucky held the wall while Jamie patted wet sand onto the side with tiny, clumsy, determined hands. Half of it stuck, and half of it slid down. But none of it mattered, because Bucky looked at your son like he had just watched him solve cold fusion.
“There,” Jamie said, sitting back on his heels. “I did it!”
Bucky smiled proudly. “You did.”
Jamie looked down at the castle, then back at him. “You needed me.”
Bucky went very still.
It was brief, but you saw that little pause he got sometimes when love hit a wound he forgot he still had.
Then he reached out and brushed sand from Jamie’s cheek with his thumb.
“Yeah,” Bucky said quietly. “I did.”
Jamie accepted that like it was simple. Because to him, it was.
His daddy needed help. He helped. Because of both their efforts, the castle stood.
The world was very easy at six years old.
By the time the tide started creeping closer, the castle had three towers, a moat, one flying-car garage, sixteen shells, a kelp flag, and Jamie’s full emotional investment.
When the first little wave reached the edge of the moat, Jamie gasped. “No!”
Bucky turned immediately. “You want me to move it?”
You lifted your head. “Bucky, you cannot move a sandcastle.”
He looked at you. You looked at him.
He looked back at the castle like he was genuinely considering whether he could get a big enough shovel to move a sandcastle.
“Don’t,” you warned.
Jamie, thankfully, solved the crisis by flinging himself into Bucky’s side.
“It’s okay,” he said, though he sounded heartbroken. “Ocean can have it.”
Bucky wrapped his one arm around him and pulled him close. “That’s generous.”
Jamie sniffed. “But not the garage.”
“No,” Bucky agreed. “That part’s between us and the ocean.”
You laughed into the vibranium arm.
Bucky glanced back at you, sun-flushed, hair messy from the wind, one arm missing and the other full of your son.
He looked perfect.
Eventually Jamie wore himself out completely. He crawled into Bucky’s lap, sandy and buzzing with sleep, mumbling something about blue flying cars against his father’s chest.
Bucky sat under the umbrella with him, broad shoulder curved protectively around Jamie’s small one.
You scooted closer, still holding the detached arm. “Do you want this back?” you asked.
Bucky looked at you, then at Jamie asleep against him, then at the arm tucked against your cheek.
“Keep it,” he said softly.
You chuckled and kissed his cheek, “It was made for dangerous missions.”
“It’s on one.”
You smiled. “Taking care of me is a dangerous mission?”
“Keeping you comfortable is my life’s work.”
You laughed, and he only smiled wider. Jamie shifted in his sleep, one small hand fisting in Bucky’s sleeveless shirt.
Bucky looked down at him, and there it was again. That disbelief and gratitude all the same.
He had been made into a weapon once.
Now his metal arm was keeping his wife cool, his only hand was holding his sleeping son, and a crooked sandcastle with a flying-car garage was being swallowed by the sea in front of him.
Shuri’s desert-grade cooling system had probably not been built for this.
But it was hard to imagine a better use.
—
Note: please send me more blurb/short story ideas of this little family! I adore writing for them sm 😭
the one YN accidentally gets engaged to her boss, the CEO of Pleasing Industries.
author's note: omg hi everyone!! long time no speak but I'm back!! this is something I've been working on for a few weeks and after my harry show a few days ago I finally finished it!! it is a two parter so watch out for the next part next week!
word count: 12.6k of sexy ceo!harry and lawyer!yn (finally putting my degree to some use)
WARNINGS: strong language, contracts (boo), a nosy PR team and a spiteful ex.
let me know what you think of terms & conditions here! mwah <3
Working at Pleasing Industries was a dream come true for YN.
Every day during her law degree she dreamt of the day she was fully qualified, and working as a ‘big-girl lawyer’ as she used to call it. Throughout law school she didn’t exactly know what she wanted to specialise in, but being an in-house solicitor for a large corporation such as Pleasing Industries was a dream come true.
That isn’t to say that the work isn’t hard, because it is. It’s like any job — there are good days and bad ones. But, YN loves it so the good ones outweigh the bad.
YN walked into the Pleasing Industries office feeling ready for the week. Monday mornings were always a little hectic, but YN thrived in the chaos.
The reception was usually noisy, with people chatting on phones and coworkers catching up, but today it was extremely noisy. Everyone seemed to be staring at phone screens. YN walked through and headed for the lift, not really paying too much attention.
It was only when the doors opened on the legal department that she realised something was fundamentally wrong.
The coffee machine, which at this time normally had a queue for it was completely deserted. The interns were all crowded around one of the computers, going silent when YN walked past. That confused her even more.
Just before her office, two of the reps from the HR department rushed past her. Something had happened, she was certain of it now.
She didn’t know what quite yet but she knew that it was enough to send their two-billion company into panic like this.
When she got to her office, she saw her assistant Melody staring at her phone with more intent than she’d ever seen the girl have for her actual work.
YN dropped her bag on her desk before walking out of her office and towards Melody’s desk.
“Did we lose a client or start a war?” YN questioned, leaning against the divider of Melody’s desk.
“Worse.”
“What?” YN freezes.
“Mr Styles’ ex gave an interview,” Melody responds.
YN lets out the breath she’d been holding, “Oh… I thought someone had actually died or something.”
“It’s worse than that,” Melody retorts.
“Come on,” YN shrugs, “What could she have said that’s so bad?”
“Oh, I don’t know… maybe that our boss is… ‘Completely unable to form personal relationships and only cares about two things… himself and how much money he’s making.”
YN stills once again. Oh. That was bad.
YN turns and walks back into her office, immediately pulling her phone out of her bag and searching up Mr Styles’ name in Google. Every single outlet she could imagine was running the story.
She clicks on the first article. The headline itself causes her eyes to widen. The moment YN saw it she knew that Mr Styles would have already been aware of it. By now he was probably already speaking to PR, investors, the board, management. YN almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
HARRY STYLES’ EX TELLS ALL: “HE ONLY CARES ABOUT HIMSELF.”
YN skims the article quickly, a skill she’s learnt from years of having to consume legal documents at a pace that no human should. It doesn’t necessarily accuse Mr Styles of any crimes (good for her) but it doesn’t exactly paint him in the best light (bad for the company).
Rebecca Cooper describes him multiple times as cold and selfish. Manipulative comes up a few times. Emotionally unavailable and obsessed with his image. YN hasn’t spoken to Mr Styles at all in her life outside of the professional setting, but she just couldn’t believe that he was like this at all.
The more she reads, and the more she consumes of Rebecca’s words, she realises that this article is nothing.
“Every relationship was about what benefitted him.” He’s one of the most wealthy men in the country, he wouldn’t be wasting his time.
“People think he’s kind. They don’t know him.” All opinion, hard to prove in any circumstance at all.
“The version that the public sees isn’t real.” A man is entitled to his privacy.
The statements are so vague, and each is laced with opinion that even if they were to be used legally they wouldn’t get anywhere.
If the interview had contained solid facts, backed with evidence — they could fight it. Feelings and opinions were hard to prove, and were hard to get through the court of public opinion.
The problem wasn’t what Rebecca was saying. The problem was that people wanted to believe it. One headline could undo years of carefully built goodwill.
Just as YN finishes her skim read of the article, an email sent with high importance flashes through on her desktop. She logs in and opens it up.
YN doesn’t hesitate. Closing her desktop, she grabs her laptop out of her bag and makes her way upstairs. She assumed that heads of department, or at least semi-important people like herself had been summoned.
That was made clear when she walked into the boardroom. The large glass conference room was already full to the brim. Executives, some that YN hadn’t ever seen before were in attendance, all talking over each other whilst they waited for the meeting to start. The PR team were stood at the front of the room, phones attached to their ears and iPads in their hands, obviously trying to come up with a plan for some kind of damage control.
YN takes a seat in the middle of the table. From first glance, it looked like the only other person there from the Legal Department was Craig, who was in charge of all financial contracts.
Mr Styles walked in a few minutes later, immediately heading to his seat at the head of the table. To YN, he looked tired. His eyes were heavy, and his hair was slightly dishevelled as though his hand had been run through it constantly. He didn’t look messy, he never did — just exhausted in a way his fancy tailoring couldn’t hide.
He looks calm though, to say that a fire was spreading around them.
“Thank you all for coming,” Kelly, the company’s PR Director speaks, “Obviously, as you’re all aware the article and subsequent video interview aired at eight a.m. this morning. The story is now everywhere.”
Charles, a board member spoke up next, “Investors are asking us questions, and we need answers now.”
“Financially we’re stable,” Craig said, “But investors hate uncertainty.”
“Our charity partners are asking questions too,” Another executive added.
Then, Mr Styles spoke, “Questions about an ex-girlfriend saying I was a bad boyfriend?”
The whole room drops silent.
Kelly, seemingly ignoring Mr Styles’ comment clears her throat and turns and looks directly at YN, “Can we sue?”
YN wants to pull a face but she doesn’t. Always, no matter what the circumstance was, people always assumed that the first thing to do in times of difficulty is to sue. News flash — it isn’t.
Even though the question was directed at YN, Charles answers, “Potentially.”
This makes YN speak up, “Not successfully.”
All of the room turns to her, including Mr Styles. There’s a lull where YN realises that they’re waiting for her to expand on what she means.
She clears her throat, “She’s speaking about personal experience… therefore most of the article is opinion. Opinion isn’t defamation and even if we did file, it would end up keeping the story alive for months instead of letting it die down.”
Everyone is listening to her, even Mr Styles. His elbow is leant on the arm of his chair, his finger absentmindedly rubbing across his lip as he listens.
The entire room is trying to defend this emotionally, but YN is trying to explain the facts to them — that this doesn’t contain facts and would go nowhere legally.
“So,” Mr Styles starts, moving slightly in his seat, “Your professional advice is to sit here and enjoy it?”
“My professional advice is to not hand them six more months of headlines.”
The room falls silent, and YN swears she can see the hint of a smile across Mr Styles’ features.
His gaze settled on her for a second longer than necessary. Most people in the room had spent the morning telling him what he wanted to hear. She was the first person who hadn’t.
Kelly breaks the silence, “Fine — legal can’t do anything. This isn’t a legal problem anymore. It’s a public perception problem. The problem isn’t whether she’s telling the truth.”
“Then what is the issue?” Another executive speaks up.
“That people believe her.”
Ideas start to get hauled across the room. Charity appearances. Interviews. Public statements. Social Media campaigns. Each of them Kelly bats away.
Charity work? Too performative.
Interviews? People will assume they’re managing the narrative.
Absolutely nothing works and no matter what these people come up with — Kelly isn’t going to like it. This isn’t the first time a famous CEO has had their name dragged under the mud, and YN assumed that Kelly was working with years of experience to know what is actually going to help to clear Mr Styles’ name.
The room starts to become more tense the more that they realise they have nowhere to turn. They are all talking about him without including him, and from the way Mr Styles’ jaw is tense she can tell he’s becoming more and more annoyed.
They’re talking about him like he’s a product that they’re trying to sell, and not like a man who singlehandedly has given them their careers.
He finally snaps, “I don’t need people to think I’m perfect.”
YN watches as something finally clicks within Kelly’s brain.
“No, you don’t…”
“Then what exactly do you think I need?”
The room falls silent as they watch Kelly ponder Mr Styles’ question. She’s thinking hard, and YN knows that by the lines that have appeared between her eyebrows.
“We don’t just need people to think you’re kind.”
YN watches as Mr Styles sighs.
She continues, “We need people to know that you love someone.”
Faces within the room furrow, including YN’s and Mr Styles’. Everyone is confused. It’s almost as though Kelly’s thinking out loud without making sure what she’s saying make sense.
“Right?” Mr Styles speaks, almost like a question.
“Long term. Someone stable. Someone believable.”
Before anyone says anything else, YN glances up from where she had been face down looking at her laptop, trying to do anything but be a part of this conversation. Mr Styles is looking directly at her. His eyes land directly on hers, just for a second but long enough to send a shiver all the way down YN’s spine.
For the first time that morning, YN had the distinct feeling that whatever happened next was going to become her problem.
The meeting ends after Kelly’s bombshell. People chat idly about the ‘real love’ comment amongst themselves, but YN ignores it.
She closes her laptop, and stands up to leave — assuming that her job was done for the day. The problem was — everyone knows what happens when you assume.
“YN, could you stay behind for a moment?”
It’s Kelly that talks, and YN freezes at the mention of her name. She wants to come up with an excuse, something about too much work piling up but when she notices that Mr Styles is still sitting there — she decides that’s probably not the best impression to make for her boss.
“Is there another contract you’d like me to look over?”
Kelly shares a look with Dana, HR team manager that also lingered. They always spoke their own language with each other, and sometimes it seems they didn’t even have to speak at all.
“Something like that,” Kelly shrugs.
YN’s eyebrows immediately furrow.
Once the room had fully cleared, the atmosphere in the room completely changed. What was once a room filled with panic, became quieter and more uncomfortable. Mr Styles stays still in his seat, his face set.
Turns out she’s not the only one uncomfortable in this situation.
His jaw is tight, completely still. His hands are clasped in front of him and looks as though he hates every second of this.
YN drops back down into her seat.
For some reason she felt like her presence in this meeting had changed from legal necessity to something else entirely.
“A dating rumour’s not going to be enough for this,” Kelly starts, sitting down on the seat across the table from YN. Nerves rushed through her entire body, “We need to make sure that we decide on someone serious, stable and believable.”
“Ok…” YN eyebrows knit together, unsure as to why she was being included in this conversation.
“We need to make Harry look committed, loyal and capable of caring deeply for one person.” Kelly continues, and then the penny drops.
“A girlfriend looks temporary,” Kelly says, “A fiancée looks intentional.”
YN frowns, unable to keep her features professional now, “You’re joking.”
“No,” Kelly shakes her head, “We’re trying to stop the damage before it becomes permanent.”
Mr Styles shakes his head, “It sounds ridiculous because it is.”
YN cannot believe what she is hearing. This team is going to enlist the help of some poor celebrity or influencer whose job is going to be portraying the role of a trophy wife.
Kelly shakes off Mr Styles’ comment, “This person has to be respectable and private — they can’t already have an online profile because it wouldn’t make sense why the public haven’t seen the relationship before. There can’t be a messy dating history. They… they have to work within the company, already seen in the same building but a reason why they haven’t been showing their relationship until now.”
YN stills. From that, she now thinks that they aren’t going to enlist the help of some poor celebrity or influencer anymore.
“Why do I feel like this conversation is about to become my problem?” She mutters with a shake of her head.
“Because you fit the profile perfectly,” Kelly responds.
YN actually laughs. Nobody joins in. The laugh dies almost immediately.
“Oh my God. You’re serious,” YN crosses her arms over her chest, “Absolutely not.”
“Just…” Dana starts, lifting a hand up, “Just hear us out.”
“No!” YN’s voice raises slightly, “I think I heard enough somewhere around fake fiancée!”
YN is horrified. She opens her mouth and nothing comes out, not until all of her thoughts had been properly organised in her head. If there’s anything YN was good at in this life — it was giving arguments strongly.
“It is just completely unethical!” YN starts, leaning forward in her seat slightly, “It creates a power imbalance that could ruin this company! Mr Styles is my boss — everyone’s boss. It could affect my career, damage the reputation I’ve worked so hard to build, and undermine the entire company!”
The room is silent, and even though she knows she couldn’t continue — YN can’t help it.
“You cannot seriously be asking an employee to pretend to be engaged to the CEO.”
“It would be temporary,” Kelly adds, as though that changes everything.
“That makes it worse!”
Dana places her hand on the table, YN assumes to be comforting, “There would be protections.”
YN shakes her head, crossing her arms over her chest, “There would need to be divine intervention.”
“We would plan it logistically, make sure every eventuality is covered—”
Before Kelly can continue, Mr Styles interrupts, “Enough. She said no.”
Kelly turns to him, “Harry—”
“No!” It was his turn to raise his voice slightly, “She works here… that doesn’t mean she owes me her life for three months.”
YN turns to him, her lips parted slightly. She hadn’t expected that from him. In fact, in her stress she had completely forgot that he probably wasn’t onboard with this just like her.
Ignoring Kelly, Mr Styles turns and looks directly at YN, “You can walk out right now. No consequences. I’ll make sure of it.”
Rebecca described him as selfish, but in YN’s opinion — this was one of the least selfish things that he could do.
YN doesn’t move, mainly because she’s still in shock. Kelly and Dana obviously take this as a reason to continue their explanation.
“YN, you would stop reporting directly to Harry and we would formally approve everything. Everything would be under contract,” Dana explained, “It will be written and reviewed. You would be compensated for the change in role and it would only last three months at most… just until the public move onto the next rumour.”
“We wouldn’t expect intimacy… and all appearances would be public,” Kelly adds, nodding along with Dana.
“Either party can terminate the contract under certain conditions at any time,” Dana adds, her voice lowering slightly, “And your job would be protected afterwards — we do not want to lose your skills in our legal department because of this.”
YN contemplates their words, “This all seems very convenient.”
“Necessary, more than anything,” Dana responds.
“Three months. Public appearances. A ring. A story. Nothing more.” Kelly adds.
YN shakes her head, unable to stop the chuckle that leaves her lips, “You say that like pretending to marry my boss is a normal Monday.”
“We will have the protections in place,” Dana reiterates, and that annoys YN yet again.
So, with her elbows on the table and her hands clasped together she leans forward.
“You seem to have a lot of this planned out, hmm? So you don’t mind if I ask some questions about the details do you?” She leans back in her chair, “Who exactly is going to know about this?”
“The people who need to,” Kelly responds.
“Cop out answer,” YN shrugs, “What happens if the press finds out?”
“We find a way to change their minds,” Kelly shrugs, staying completely professional, “More public appearances, posts, to change the opinion yet again.”
“What happens after the three months?”
“Sources tell tabloids that the two of you have split amicably,” YN just hums as Kelly’s response.
“What exactly counts as public affection? Who is going to control the narrative?”
Kelly responds with only a sigh, obviously frustrated with YN’s questioning.
YN turns away from Kelly and turns to Mr Styles this time, wanting to ask him and only him this question.
“What happens if this ruins my career?”
“It won’t,” His answer is immediate.
“That’s not a legal answer,” YN retorts.
“Then put it in a contract.”
YN goes silent.
This was completely and utterly absurd. This was not in the contract she signed a few years ago when she got this job. But… this job might not be there if something isn’t done.
“Look, YN,” Kelly sighs, “We understand your hesitancy and your frustration — this isn’t normal. But if this scandal grows, and investors start to panic. All new projects could freeze. And everyone’s jobs could be affected.”
YN sighs. She hates that Kelly might be right. YN hated that she understood the logic. And she hated even more that part of her agreed with it.
“Kelly, Dana,” Mr Styles finally speaks up, “Can I have a moment alone with YN?”
They both open their mouths as though they were going to protest but then they nod, gathering their belongings and slipping out of the room. That leaves just YN and Mr Styles, sitting in silence in the long boardroom.
“Look,” Mr Styles sighs, running a hand over his face, “I don’t want you doing this because they scared you.”
“That’s funny,” YN laughs, “I thought that was their entire strategy.”
“I mean it.”
YN looks in his eyes, and she believes him. She’s found a career around reading people, and she thinks she’s quite good at it.
“Do you want me to say yes?” YN questions.
Mr Styles pauses slightly, as though he’s thinking.
“I want this to go away,” He admits, “But not at your expense.”
“Wow,” YN can’t help but smile, “That almost sounded noble.”
A laugh escapes his lips as well, “Careful. You’ll ruin my reputation.”
YN hesitates, weighing everything she had just been told. She closes her eyes briefly, already knowing that she’s lost.
“If I say yes, I have conditions.”
“I assumed you would.”
“Would you like to hear them?”
He gives her a smile, “I would like nothing more.”
YN clears her throat, counting each of her conditions on her fingers as she rattles them off, “I get to keep my flat, I’m not moving anywhere. I don’t have to do any surprise appearances, I want to know everything in advance. There’s no touching unless absolutely necessary or I agree to it beforehand. None of my personal life is used without my permission. I get to review the final contract, nobody else — me. You do not get to interfere with my career. If I want to end this, I can.”
“Wow,” Mr Styles shakes his head, “I’m impressed.”
“Well then…” YN sighs, tapping her nails on the desk a few times.
“I suppose congratulations are in order.”
“Don’t push it.” Mr Styles just laughs.
And just like that, YN became engaged to a man she barely knew, for a relationship neither of them wanted, under terms and conditions she was yet to read.
Kelly had told her that they could get one of the other lawyers to look over the contract but YN was having none of it.
So here she was, sitting at her desk, surrounded by paperwork and drafting her very own fake relationship agreement. She would have to let one of the other lawyers look over it, but she didn’t care she just wanted to get it done.
The sound of her typing filled the room. With every word, she just couldn’t believe that she had said yes. That this was happening. Sighing, she continued to make sure that she remained professional and controlled as she continued typing.
She had named the document: Temporary Engagement Agreement.
And, for some reason, seeing that written down made the whole experience worse.
The more YN wrote, the more that she realised she had absolutely no experience in writing temporary engagement contracts, and therefore trying to word some of the clauses caused her head to spin.
She included the important things, including making sure that each party is able to terminate the contract if feelings become “professionally inconvenient.” She adds a clause making sure that her work is protected, and that Mr Styles cannot make any decisions for her.
She realised that drafting this contract was balancing protecting her job and protecting her feelings, whilst also making sure that she could cover every eventuality.
Some of the clauses she was drafting could make anyone laugh, including YN as she was typing it.
Clause 4.2: No party shall use pet names including, but not limited to, baby, sweetheart, darling, angel, lovebug, or any other nickname that may cause nausea.
YN continues typing and editing and changing until she was happy enough to send it for its checks. It came back quicker than anything YN had ever sent before, and then she was printing it off.
Just as she was finishing binding the document, she heard a knock on the door. She looked up to see Mr Styles peering at her through the small window in her door. Rolling her eyes, she waved him in.
“Working hard or hardly working?” He asked, a smile on his face as he sat down on the empty seat across from her.
“It’s so nice to see you too, Mr Styles.”
“Harry.” His eyes fell to the document in her hand, and he pointed to it, “Is that all for me?”
“It’s for us,” YN said with a light shrug, “Unfortunately.”
His mouth twitched, “How romantic of you.”
“Correction, contractual.”
Leaning over, he takes the document out of her hand and starts flicking through it whilst YN watches.
A few pages in, Harry’s eyebrows lifted, “No ridiculous pet names unless at a scheduled event.”
“Correct.”
“What counts as ridiculous?” He asks with a raise of his eyebrows.
“Anything that may make me cringe.”
Harry purses his lips slightly, “I feel like that may be difficult to govern in a legal document.”
“Doesn’t matter, it’s staying in,” YN taps her pen on the desk, pretending its a gavel and that her word is final.
Harry continued reading, and YN can’t help but watch how intently he’s focusing. She can imagine that the amount of documents he reads might actually combat the amount she does, but it’s still odd to see someone reading something she’s written with the same amount of detail she would.
“No real kissing unless necessary,” Harry read, leaning back in his seat and crossing his legs, “Two queries… what is ‘real’ kissing and who decides its necessity?”
“You know what real kissing is,” YN responds with a roll of her eyes, “And me. I decide.”
“That feels slightly biased,” He shrugs, “What if I decide its necessity.”
“You cannot.”
Harry just hums in response.
He continues reading, and doesn’t stop until he’s finished the entire document. The room is silent, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. In fact, its nice. Once he has finished, he drops the document down on the desk and sighs.
YN watches as his hand runs through his hair.
“You know you can still say no,” Harry said quietly.
YN’s slightly taken a back, she hadn’t anticipated that they would be circling back around to this today.
YN looked at him, “We already covered this.”
“I know,” He nods, “I’m asking again anyway.”
“I’m not being forced,” YN shrugs, “I have agreed all on my own.”
“Good,” Harry nods, “Because I don’t want this if you feel like you are.”
The air in the room suddenly feels heavy, but YN shakes it off and pulls the document towards her instead.
“Okay,” She pulls a pen from the pot on her desk, “Let’s get this over with.”
The pen she chose is the one she saves for special occasions. She’d purchased it for herself when she’d finished her degree. One of those fancy pens, green in colour that she had to order the ink for online. She tapped the lid off and opened to the last page, which waited empty for their signatures.
She hovered her pen over the page for a second, before she dropped it down to the paper.
“Last chance to run?” he asked.
“You’re the scandal, not me.”
He just laughed. That didn’t stop YN from signing her name with a little more pressure than she normally would.
She turned the page and slid it towards him, and in an act of goodwill she passed him the pen. Then, she watched as without any hesitation he signed his name. The now fully completed contract sat in between them on YN’s desk.
Jesus. That was it. Three hours ago this had been a ridiculous idea discussed in meeting rooms and HR offices. Now there were signatures on paper. A contract. A fake engagement that suddenly felt far too real.
“Congratulations,” Harry said, picking up her pen lid and slipping it on her pen.
“On what?”
“On our legally binding fake engagement,” He sighed dreamily, “Our parents must be so proud.”
“Please never say that again.”
Within the space of an hour, the contract had been sent to HR and PR and a meeting had been called in Kelly’s office. The only attendees were Kelly, Dana, Harry and YN.
YN sat with her arms crossed, watching as Kelly and Dana chatted amongst themselves whilst they waited for Harry to arrive. The two women in front of her she had always appreciated as professionals in the workplace, but there was something nagging YN about the two of them.
Probably that they were the ones who got her in this situation.
Harry arrived a few minutes later, dropping down in the seat next to YN, “I’ve got a meeting in twenty so if this can be quick I’d really appreciate it.”
“Lovely to see you too fiancé,” YN smiled.
Kelly rolled her eyes, “Enough of that. So, tonight the public will see you together for the first time.”
YN blinked, shocked, “Tonight?”
“We need to move quickly,” Dana explains, “It has to be tonight.”
“God, I thought I was going to be able to drown my stress with a bottle of wine before we started.”
Kelly ignored her and carried on, “We’ve made you reservations at La Cantina tonight at eight. You’ll eat and then you’ll leave the restaurant together. We’ve made an anonymous tip so a photographer will just ‘happen’ to be nearby.”
“What a crazy coincidence,” YN mutters.
Even though she wouldn’t say that she was watching him, YN did see the corners of Harry’s lips turn up.
“It’s not an announcement yet, but just enough to start the rumour mill going.”
YN overthought everything from that conversation. What she was going to wear, what they were going to talk about and whether or not she needed to take out a loan to be able to afford her meal.
By the time she got home and stood staring at her wardrobe, her nerves hadn’t dissipated at all. She tried on three dresses and an insane amount of skirts before she settled on something she felt confident in it. It was a long sleeved black tight shirt, paired with a wine coloured satin skirt and some boots.
Out of everything in her wardrobe, she believed that this screamed ‘CEO’s Fiancée’. She knew it was fake, but still it was a strange thought to have.
She’d come back to her desk earlier in the day after the meeting with Kelly to a box rested on her desk. It was small, and completely enticing. YN opened it up and a ring sat on the inside. It was a gold band (YN wore gold jewellery) with a diamond and an emerald sitting next to each other (her two favourites). YN would be lying if she said she hadn’t scrolled through rings before, and stopped on this exact one but she never thought she would own it — especially at the price it was.
Harry had picked her up from her flat, and if he had noticed the ring on her finger he hadn’t said anything.
Not until they were part way through the journey.
He glanced at her hand and nodded, “The ring fits.”
YN immediately looked down, trying not to swoon.
“Apparently.”
“Do you like it?”
“That’s… irrelevant.”
“So…” He turns to look at her, the corners of his lips lifting, “That’s a yes.”
“Eyes on the road.”
They didn’t notice any cameras when they arrived, but by the time their starters arrived YN had spotted one outside the door. YN felt hot, and she tried to pull the neck of her shirt away to give her some more air but it didn’t work.
“How’s the food?” Harry asked, watching YN push her sleeves up.
“It’s good. Delicious,” YN responds, continuing to take small bites of her bruschetta between being distracted.
YN twisted her napkin beneath the table. Her water glass was nearly empty from nervous sips alone.
“You always this tense at dinner?” Harry asked, taking a sip of his wine.
YN’s lips curled, “Only when I’m being watched and not only by my date.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” He responds with a smile.
“And also when my date is my fake fiancé who is also the CEO of the company I work for.”
“Also fair.”
Whilst YN’s eyes are constantly darting around, his remain on hers. It’s as though he doesn’t care at all that there’s people waiting for them to leave. It’s like she can’t enjoy her meal for fear of what’s to come.
By the time they’ve finished, and Harry paid for the bill (no loan from YN needed) they’re ready to leave.
“Hey,” Harry makes her look at him before they leave, “I’ve got you.”
YN just nods. Even though she knows what to expect, the second she sees the flashes she’s completely overwhelmed. Her body stills.
Without even hesitating, Harry steps in front of her. He grabs her hand and makes sure that he’s in between the photographers and her.
“Harry! Who’s the special lady? Look this way!”
YN’s stomach dropped but Harry just stepped closer to her, blocking most of the flash with his shoulder and ignoring everything that was being shouted at them.
“You alright?” He murmured, his eyes finding hers quickly.
YN laughs lightly, “This is horrible.”
“I know. Keep walking. I’ve still got you.”
Harry’s grip tightened around her hand, not enough to hurt but just enough to remind her that he was there. Every time a flash went off, he shifted slightly, blocking as much of it as he could.
YN realised he wasn’t performing for the cameras at all. Nobody would have noticed if he’d walked ahead and left her to deal with it alone.
But he didn’t.
By the time that they’ve made it to the car, YN’s exhausted and traumatised and never wants to do that again. Unfortunately, she’s got another three months of this.
The headlines had already dropped as YN stepped into her flat.
HARRY STYLES ENGAGED? MYSTERY WOMAN IDENTIFIED AS COMPANY LAWYER
YN shuddered. Now they knew who she was. She knew it was going to happen, but it still shocked her. YN couldn’t stop staring at the article, horrified that her private life has already become public.
Her eyes skimmed the article quickly:
Sources close to the couple suggest that the relationship has been ongoing for just under a year.
Witnesses described the pair as “comfortable and affectionate” during a private dinner in London.
YN almost audibly laughed. Affectionate? She had spent half of the evening trying not to choke on bruschetta or drop wine down herself.
Her phone pings a few minutes later.
Harry: For what it’s worth, the photos look good.
YN: You think that’s good?
Harry: Compared to my first pap photos.
Harry: Yes.
YN: I look petrified.
YN continued to stare at the photos and realised that this had all happened in less than twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours and her life had changed in an inexplicable way.
It’s been a week.
A week of what YN could only describe as actual hell. Before this little adventure at Pleasing Industries she could mosey on about her day without much hassle, only really interacting with the people she needed to — with this rock on her finger, she couldn’t do that anymore.
Melody had been the first one to say something.
She had cornered YN in her office the day after the headlines dropped and practically forced YN to tell her everything.
“I’ve never even seen you talk to him outside of a professional setting!” She had exclaimed.
YN nearly froze, but then she remembered she was supposed to be playing the loved up fiancée and un-froze herself.
“We hadn’t told HR at that point… we didn’t want to tell anyone until we knew it was serious,” YN shrugged, “When the headline dropped yesterday about Rebecca… Kelly and Dana thought announcing it would be useful.”
Melody gaped at her, “YN… I think an engagement is pretty fucking serious.”
YN’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach, “It is.”
“I just wish you’d told me,” the girl whined.
“I know, I wanted to.” YN nodded.
After Melody had finally put her line of questioning to rest, YN carried on with her day. That was until Kelly barged into her room with a handful of dress bags in tow.
“They’re for the event tomorrow,” Kelly explained, “We’ve picked out the ones that will best match with Harry’s suit.”
YN zipped open some of the bags, just to see the array of dresses that had been selected. All of them were gorgeous, way too expensive and way too nice for YN to ever pull off.
“Is this all really necessary?” YN asked, pulling at the long sleeve of one of the dresses.
Kelly gave her a look over her a glasses, “You’re Harry Styles’ fiancée now… unfortunately yes.”
“I’m his temporary fiancée,” YN corrected.
“Not tonight you’re not,” and with that Kelly left her all alone with a sea of dresses.
That led YN to now, standing in her small flat with dresses that probably cost a couple of months’ rent. With just her underwear on, she stared at them and out her hands on her hips. She’d done her hair and makeup — light and simple makeup, and a sleek up-do to compliment the necklines on the dresses.
The one that YN just couldn’t tear her eyes away from was a navy blue piece. It was a strapless satin dress that went all the way down to the floor, but her favourite aspect was the matching satin cape-scarf that went around her neck in the same fabric.
YN would never be able to pull it off, would she?
Deciding that she had at least enough time to try it on, she swapped her bra for a strapless one and slipped the garment over her head. It was exquisite. It hugged all of her curves in just the right places, fit like a glove and the added detail of the scarf just gave such an elegance to the dress.
Spotting a pair of gold heels in the corner of her wardrobe, she decided to try them on with it as well. And, that was the final thing that drew the entire look together.
Part of YN’s brain thought she looked ridiculous and should change immediately — who did she think she was? But then the other part of her brain told her that she was supposed to be playing the role of a CEO’s fiancée and this hit the brief spectacularly.
She decided to keep the dress on — what’s one more thing out of her comfort zone?
A car had been sent to collect her and take her to the venue. A part of her wished that Harry was picking her up but he’d sent her a message saying that something had come up so he’d meet her there.
The entire drive she felt uncomfortably warm. All of her nerves had tripled and she felt as though she was going to throw up.
The car pulled up at the venue, a museum in the centre of London and she wished nothing more that Harry was here to help her get out of the car. What if she tripped? What if she fell flat on her face?
She didn’t have to worry about that for long because just as she was about to open the door, it opened for her.
“Sorry I’m late,” It was Harry, standing there in a navy suit, smiling as he held his hand out for her.
“You’re not,” YN slipped her hand into his, enjoying the warmth it gave her, “In fact I think you’re perfectly on time.”
She used his hand to steady herself as she climbed out of the car, and she didn’t trip or fall flat on her face. Once she was standing, Harry shut the door behind her whilst she smoothed out her dress.
She turned to look at him and caught him looking her up and down. Nerves swirled in the pit of her stomach.
“Will…” Her voice caught in her throat, “Will I suffice?”
“You look gorgeous, YN.”
His words landed harder than they should have. For a second YN forgot about the event and the cameras, she forgot about the contract. She forgot everything but the way that he was looking at her.
He offered her his arm and they started to walk together towards the entrance. YN gripped onto him for dear life, and she assumed that he could feel it.
“You look nervous,” Harry muttered, leaning down so only she could hear him.
“I’m a lawyer walking into a room of cameras… Nervous seems reasonable,” She countered.
“Don’t focus on them,” Harry rested his hand over hers, “Focus on me.”
“They’re literally here to focus on you and me.”
“Exactly,” He shrugged, “Let them do the work… they’re taking photos anyway.”
“I feel like that’s easier said than done,” YN retorted.
She watched as Harry laughed, leading her towards the carpet that went to the entrance.
“We’re just going to pose and then go inside and enjoy our evening,” He murmured, moving one of his hands so it rested on the small of YN’s back.
He let her walk up the stairs first, with him following behind her.
“That’s easier said than done,” YN responded as they reached the top of the stairs.
“Just… when we get there stand slightly turned towards me,” Harry spoke, moving so they were in open space in front of all the cameras.
“So they get my good side?” YN raised an eyebrow, but did what he said.
Harry smiled again, shaking his head. He leant down to whisper in her ear, “You don’t have a bad side… but no, it’s so they actually believe we like each other.”
YN pulled back, a smile on her face mirroring his, “What a terrifying concept.”
“If they get too much just look at me, remember that.”
YN blinked, “That’s your advice?”
“Yes,” he shrugged, “That’s all I’ve got.”
It was overwhelming from the get-go. The flashes were worse than the ones after dinner, they were bigger and brighter. They immediately started shouting Harry’s name, and then some of them start shouting YN’s as well. It’s off putting to say the least.
Harry’s arm moves around her waist, resting just on her hip. Whilst being in this situation with your boss wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world — she found comfort in this.
“Harry! Over here!”
The shouts were constant, but they didn’t seem to affect Harry as much as they were her. But she supposed he was used to it.
“YN! Show us the ring!”
Another photographer pushed forward, and sensing her nerves Harry immediately shifted closer. His hand tightened on her waist. It was subtle and protective, and it created that barrier between her and the crowd.
After that she hesitated, but in a confident move she placed her left hand on Harry’s chest (showing them the ring just like they wanted to.)
Harry leant his head down, just so his mouth was hovering over YN’s ear, “Nice move.”
“I’m a quick learner.”
They continued posing, moving so different cameras could capture different angles.
“YN! Harry! This engagement real or what?”
That one caused YN to freeze, and Harry felt it immediately.
Harry leans back down, “Breathe.”
“I am breathing.” YN responds, slightly deadpan.
“You just stopped.”
“I hate this,” YN finally admitted, pulling away so she could look directly at him.
“I know.” He spoke, the corners of his lips curling upwards.
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because if I stop they’ll think we’re arguing.”
YN was then shot back into the reality that all eyes were on them.
“Harry is there any truth to what your ex said? Are you really as selfish as she claimed?”
That made both of them freeze. Completely unexpected. YN watches as Harry’s smile falters for the first time, and it almost looks as though he’s about to answer it.
Instead, YN turns and offers a smile.
“Well… I think people are more complicated than headlines,” YN tells the reporter with a smile, “And I think it’s unfair to reduce anyone to someone else’s worst version of them.”
Harry is watching her as she speaks, but she focuses all of her attention on the reporter who’s scribbling things down as she speaks.
“So you don’t believe the interview?”
YN gave him another polite smile, although she wanted to give him anything else, “I believe that people should be allowed to be more than a headline.”
And with that, YN pulls away from Harry and grabs his hand, walking them towards the entrance of the museum without another glance behind them.
Harry couldn’t stop staring at her. The entire walk to the museum he stared, and it wasn’t until they were safely inside that he stopped.
Once the doors were shut behind them, they finally let out the breath that they had both been holding.
Under his breath, Harry said, “You didn’t have to do that.”
For a moment, Harry just stared at her. The easy confidence he’d worn outside was gone. He almost looked surprised, as though nobody had defended him in a very long time.
YN just smiled at him and shrugged, “I know.”
“Thank you,” Harry said, after a few moments.
With that same small smile across her face she turned to him, “For what?”
“For making me sound human,” He clarified.
YN’s features dropped slightly, “You are Human, Harry.”
“Not according to Twitter,” He shrugged, running a hand through his hair.
“Twitter isn’t admissible evidence, lucky for you,” She smiles, holding her hand out for him to grab as they walk further into the event.
Harry laughs and slips his hand into hers. YN shudders slightly as his warm hand grips hers, but she shakes it off and just carries on moving.
Inside the event, YN feels completely out of place.
Her idea of a fun Friday night is sitting in her apartment with shitty reality TV on the screen and a takeaway pizza on her lap. This was completely out of her depth.
The museum had been transformed, lights sparkling and tables covered in white clothes holding small plates of food that YN had never heard of before in her life.
Harry doesn’t let go of her hand, and even when he does his hand just moves to another part of her — her waist, or her back or lightly on her shoulder.
“Harry!” They’d only just grabbed two glasses of champagne when someone called him.
It was an older man, probably in his late fifties, standing next to one of the most glamorous women YN had even seen in her life. She was staring, and completely unapologetically so.
“William,” Harry responded politely, accepting the older man’s extended hand for a handshake.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” William’s attention slightly turned towards YN, “And I now think I understand why.”
“This is YN,” Harry said with a small smile on his face, his hand resting lightly at her back.
“It’s lovely to meet you, YN,” William nodded, “This is my wife, Jillian.”
“It’s lovely to meet the both of you,” YN responded politely.
“What is it you do, YN?” William asked after taking a large gulp of his drink, “It must be something special to catch Harry’s eye.”
YN hesitated, panicking slightly. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“She’s a solicitor, so she’s much more useful than most of us,” Harry responded for her, not intruding just helping.
“Impressive,” William nodded, “Well, enjoy your evening the two of you.”
YN and Harry gave the well wishes back. Once they were alone, YN turned to him and shook her head.
“Compliments weren’t in the contract you know.”
“Don’t worry,” He responded with a smile, “I’ll have legal review it.”
“I am legal,” YN deadpanned.
“Uh,” Harry shrugged slightly, “How convenient.”
Their silence only lasted a few minutes before Kelly found them. Why she was even at this event? YN would never know but she assumed that it was just a ploy to make her life a living hell.
“We just need to take some photos for the museum,” Kelly walks them over to a wall covered in advertising for the museum.
“Do we have to?” Harry all but whines.
“Yes you have to,” Kelly responds back, “We’re trying to get your reputation back on track, right?”
They stand in front of the camera and pose like they had before. It wasn’t as bad, because there was only two photographers inside but YN still didn’t feel completely comfortable with the entire thing.
“Okay…” The photographer says, thinking for a second, “Give her a kiss, Harry.”
Both Harry and YN freeze, as though both of them were toying with their options.
Harry leaned closer to her ear, “Is this okay?”
YN swallowed but nodded, “Clause four says only if necessary.”
Harry’s mouth twitched slightly, “How very professional of you.”
YN rolled her eyes, “Get it over with.”
YN didn’t have time to think anything else before Harry’s lips were on hers.
His lips were soft, and the kiss itself is gentle. Harry’s hand rests on her waist, whilst YN’s rests on his chest. The cameras flash around them, and this entire thing should feel staged but it just… doesn’t.
It was supposed to be quick. A performance. A neat little full stop to the end of a very public sentence.
But Harry paused for half a second too long. Or maybe YN did.
Either way, when they pulled apart, neither of them looked directly at the other.
They walk away from the cameras still not looking at each other. YN all but downs her glass of champagne the second its back in her hand.
She also suddenly became very interested in the pattern of the carpet. Harry seemed equally fascinated by absolutely anything except her. Which would have been comforting it wasn’t so obvious.
“Well,” YN said, smoothing her dress at her sides, “That was… contractually compliant.”
Harry cleared his throat, “Glad to hear it.”
YN rolled her eyes when she saw a boyish glint in his, “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.” YN retorted.
Harry just shrugged, “I’m professional.”
“That’s my line.”
The evening trickles on, Harry makes a donation that makes YN’s eyes widen in shock and surprised and something else that she couldn’t quite understand.
In the car on the ride home, YN finally pulls her phone out.
It’s there immediately.
Harry Styles and Fiancée Share First Public Kiss After Defending Him on Red Carpet.
Harry sees her looking down at her phone, “You were good tonight, you know.”
YN continued scrolling, “I was acting.”
Harry’s voice softened, “Were you?”
YN looked up from her phone and the questioned lingered between them. It was dangerous and it was unanswered. The driver then announced that they had arrived.
For the first time all evening, YN was disappointed by the interruption.
For the first time since agreeing to the arrangement, YN had an entire weekend free of her fake fiancé. She kept herself holed up in her apartment and didn’t even dare to venture outside.
She spent the majority of her time scrolling through twitter, reading everyone’s opinions of the engagement. People were believing it. Maybe YN was a better actress than she thought she was.
By the time Monday morning rolled around, YN wasn’t quite ready to leave the safe haven of her apartment but she knew she had to. She had dragged herself out of bed, got ready for the day and left with the sinking feeling that she might not be as productive as she was for the foreseeable.
Melody was already there when she arrived, sitting at her desk. To YN, it almost looked as if the girl had been waiting for her.
“How was your weekend, Mrs Styles?” Melody asked, a smile glinting across her face.
“Shush you,” YN dropped her bag down, “It was fine, thank you.”
“What? That’s all I get?” Melody pouted her lips slightly, “I thought you’d be struggling to walk today.”
YN’s mouth immediately dried up, “Sorry, what?”
“C’mon,” Melody sighed, “I’m having to live vicariously through you and that man looked like he wanted to eat you up at that event — I thought you’d barely be able to walk.”
“Well,” YN sighed slightly, “You thought wrong… I am fully in control of all of my limbs.”
“How disappointing,” Melody turned back to her computer before turning back to YN, “Oh! Kelly’s sent you a meeting invite. It’s for the PR conference room in about half an hour — no idea what it’s about though.”
“No worries!” YN’s voice went up a few octaves even without her meaning to.
It didn’t take long for the half an hour to pass and for YN to find herself sitting at the conference room with Harry sitting next to her, Kelly stood staring at them just as she always did.
“Event was good, you guys did great,” Kelly nods, “But we need to make it seem like YN’s more than just the eye candy you take to fancy events.”
“That is literally my new job description, Kelly,” YN sighed, running a hand over her temple.
The corner’s of Harry’s lips tilted upwards, “And how are you proposing we do that Kelly?”
“Well… we need to show you spending more ‘natural’ time together, so that the engagement feels believable. We’ve already got some ideas for that.”
Both YN and Harry nodded. All YN could think was that this was probably going to interrupt her allotted rotting-in-bed time for the week.
“But first… people are going to be asking questions, and the two of you need to have the same answers,” Kelly explains, passing them a sheet of paper that had a list of prompts on it.
YN frowned, “So we’re revising our fake relationship now?”
Harry glanced at her, not even bothering to look at the sheet, “Apparently even lies need consistency.”
“Wonderful.” YN deadpanned, “My law degree prepared me perfectly for Romantic fraud.”
Harry laughs at that, and even YN chuckles lightly. Kelly doesn’t look impressed with either of them.
“We need you both to know the backstory inside out, we can’t have any gaps,” Kelly explains, losing her patience with the both of them, “How you met, your first date, the proposal story. What’s your favourite things about each other, who said I love you first. Things like that. I’ve penciled out this hour for the two of you. You’re not leaving until this is sorted.”
“God,” YN sighed, “I didn’t know this arrangement meant being locked in a room with you against my will.”
“Hey,” Harry retorts, “You signed the contract.”
“Get it sorted,” Kelly interrupts, and with that she leaves the room.
“You know,” YN speaks after the door shuts behind Kelly, “I don’t think she likes me very much.”
“She’s like that with everyone,” Harry sighs, running a hand through his hair, “She just cares, that’s all it is.”
YN just hummed and started to flick through the paper.
“They’ve suggested that we go for something polished and romantic, saying that I wooed you,” Harry reads from the paper.
YN immediately turns her nose up, “I would not be wooed by anyone.”
“Hey, nobody can resist these charms,” He did a light shimmy and YN rolled her eyes.
“The obvious story is that we met at work… I don’t think your investors would be happy to know you were wooing me on company time,” YN retorted.
“Maybe you challenged me in a meeting? I was impressed,” Harry offers.
YN pulls another face, “That sounds like a recruitment advert.”
“Fine,” Harry sighs, “You ignored me in the lift for six months and I found it refreshing.”
“Better,” YN nods, starting to like his thought process, “More believable.”
Harry places a hand on his chest, “You wound me.”
“You’ll recover.” YN nods.
YN found herself watching him more closely than she’d intended. Whenever he was thinking, his thumb brushed absently across his bottom lip, and every so often he’d wet his lips without seeming to notice. It was distracting.
“Who said I love you first?”
After YN asked the question, a silence settled across the room.
Then Harry responded, “Probably me.”
YN seemed slightly offended, “Why you?”
“Because you’d overthink it,” Harry stated with a smile.
He was unfortunately right — she would overthink it.
“What about the proposal, hmm?” Harry hums, leaning back in his seat, “What’s your opinions on that?”
“Cannot be a big thing,” YN shakes her head, “Has to be private, and intimate moment — I would’ve said no if you’d done it in public.”
“Perfect, just us… candlelit dinner, I drop down on one knee. Gotcha.”
YN smiles, he’s catching on fast.
Over the next few days, YN knows everything that a fiancée should. Small things that normal employees would never need to know. That he likes a black coffee in the morning, but prefers something sweet in the afternoon for a sugar boost.
That he goes for a run every morning at 5am. YN shudders at that. She couldn’t think of anything worse than getting out of bed before her alarm sounds at 7am.
He knows things about her too. That she can only fall asleep after reading some of her book and shutting her brain off. That she’s absolutely unbearably grumpy in the mornings before her coffee, with oat milk obviously because her stomach can’t handle anything else.
She didn’t think anything of it — just that they’d carry on as they were knowing this information until the one moment where they’d have to use it.
That’s why she was surprised when he showed up at her door with an iced caramel latte with oat milk the next day.
“Caramel, right?”
YN blinked at him, “You remembered?”
Harry just shrugged, “Felt like something a fiancé would do.”
“Oh, so it’s all for the act?” YN raised her eyebrows, accepting the cold drink.
“I prefer that I’m charmingly observant.”
YN shook her head, “Let’s not get carried away.”
It didn’t stop there.
YN was following him up to Kelly’s office to discuss their next move when she lost him.
One second he was next to her, and then he was gone. She did a full 360 turn before she spotted him leaning against one of the cubicles on the PR floor.
“How did Chris’ exam go?” YN’s eyebrows furrowed at his words.
“Oh it went fine, Harry, thank you for asking,” Carrie responded, a smile crossing her lips.
“I know you were worried about it last week.”
“Yeah, he was too. He said that it went well though, so fingers crossed.”
YN watched as he raised his crossed fingers up at her and then turned back to her. They carried on walking to Kelly’s office as though nothing had happened.
It didn’t stop there.
A day later YN was in Harry’s office going through a contract with him when his assistant, Kyle, opened the door with a large bouquet of flowers in his hand.
YN furrowed her eyebrows, “Are the flowers for another staged appearance?”
Harry’s expression shifted slightly, “No.”
“Sorry…” YN felt instantly guilty, “I didn’t mean—”
“One of our finance assistants lost her father. She’s been here nine years,” he explains.
YN feels even worse, “You know every employee that well?”
“No,” He admits, “But I like to know when they’re hurting.”
YN lets that ponder for a second, before she has to turn back to the contract before she says something stupid again.
The more time that she spent with Harry, the more she realised that maybe there was a reason they wanted to clear his name after the interview so strongly.
YN had spent days trying not to form an opinion about Harry Styles. It had seemed easier that way. But the man in the headlines and the man quietly sending condolence flowers from his office did not seem to be the same person.
That became way more apparent to YN late one evening, where it was just YN and Harry in his office finishing up a large sales contract that had to go out the next day.
They had been working in silence for a while, Harry sat at his desk whilst YN lounged on his couch with her laptop on her knee. The question had been swimming around in her head for a while, and she just thought fuck it — she might as well ask him.
“Can I ask you something?”
“That depends,” Harry responds, leaning back in his office chair, “Is it about this riveting contract? Or something else?”
“Something else,” YN admits.
“Go for it,” He moves slightly so he can see her between his desktop screen.
“Why haven’t you defended yourself?”
“What do you mean?” He asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
“Why don’t you say something?” YN pressed, “About what Rebecca said.”
Harry just shrugs, “Because people hear what they want to hear.”
“That’s not an answer,” YN retorts.
“It’s the only one I have.”
“Harry,” She responds, “Come on.”
He sighs and rubs a hand over his face, “She knew that it would hurt. That I worry I’m too distant. Too selfish. She didn’t need to invent the insecurity… she just needed to make it public.”
A silence falls between them. YN hadn’t been expecting that at all.
“Being afraid of being selfish doesn’t make you selfish,” She responds quietly.
“No?”
“No,” YN shakes her head, a small smile crossing her features, “Selfish people don’t worry about the damage they cause.”
Harry looks at her, properly looks. The expression on his face confuses YN, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Do you always talk like this?”
“Like what?” She asks, eyebrows furrowing.
He gave her a smile, “Like you’re trying to save someone with a closing argument.”
“Eh,” YN shrugged, “Occupational hazard.”
They continue working, way into the night. They should have gone home hours ago and yet they’re just happy in each other’s company in Harry’s office.
At one point, YN had completely abandoned her laptop and instead laid down on his couch with her eyes closed whilst she listened to Harry typing.
“Tea?” The sound of Harry’s voice scared YN out of her daydream.
“Is this a part of the engagement training?” YN opened one of her eyes to look at him.
“No,” He laughed, “This is part of you almost falling asleep on my sofa.”
“Then yes.”
Harry smiled and turned the kettle on, “You’re very agreeable when you’re tired.”
“Enjoy it, it won’t last,” YN responded, her eyes falling closed again, “I’ll be back to normal after some sleep.”
He let the tea stir before he passed it to her, and she was grateful. She had what her dad always described as a builders tea, and Harry made a good one.
“Thank you, for earlier,” He said as he passed her the mug.
“I didn’t do anything,” YN shrugged.
“You listened,” He responded, “That’s not nothing.”
Somewhere between the coffee in the morning, the flowers sent quietly without expectation of praise, and the cup of tea he’d made while pretending not to notice she’d nearly fallen asleep on his sofa, he’d stopped being Mr Styles.
He’d become Harry.
Just Harry.
And somehow that felt far more dangerous that pretending to be in love ever had.
YN was attending the Pleasing Industries annual Charity Gala tonight.
She had been before, obviously, but never on the arm of the CEO.
It was a fun night. There was an auction and Harry usually made a speech and YN usually kept a safe distance away from him sipping on fancy champagne and eating too many canapés.
Tonight would be different — because she was on his arm.
She’d been sent to a hotel near the venue after work under Kelly’s instructions, saying that there would be a team there waiting to help her. What that meant YN had no idea, but she wasn’t going to go and start asking Kelly — she was just going to listen.
What it actually meant was that a team of stylists, hairstylists and make up artists were all waiting in there for her. Her outfit, hair and makeup had already been chosen for her, and YN wasn’t complaining. If there was one thing she usually hated about these events was trying to dress her outside out of her usual loungewear/ workwear wardrobe.
The dress itself was gorgeous. It was a burgundy colour and went all the way down to the floor. It had a slit going up the front that landed just to her mid-thigh. The most gorgeous thing to YN was the neckline — it was square and thin triangular straps went over her shoulder. It was classy, and elegant and exactly what the fiancée of a CEO would wear to his charity gala.
The makeup was light, which YN was thankful for, but flawless. It didn’t cake her face, but instead highlighted her natural features. Her hair had been styled into a perfectly manicured up-do with pieces framing her face. She’d been given earrings, and rings and bracelets to match and they wanted to give her a necklace but she said no — saying that the neckline of the dress did all the necessary talking.
The entire time they worked she stayed pretty silent. She nodded along and answered their questions politely but in her head she just kept going through everything she had to remember — to smile, to stand next to Harry, to answer questions and most importantly don’t embarrass Harry or herself.
By the time she was ready, and the team had vacated the room she let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. It wasn’t for long, though, because a few minutes later a knock sounded at the door.
Harry was behind it. Wearing a perfectly tailored suit, black, but the thing that caught YN’s eye immediately was his tie — burgundy, a perfect match to her dress.
For a second, the two of them stood in the doorway of her hotel room not speaking, just staring at each other in silence.
After a while, Harry broke it, “… Wow.”
YN laughs awkwardly, shifting from side to side on her heels, “Please don’t say I look ridiculous.”
Harry immediately shakes his head, “Ridiculous wasn’t the word I had in mind.”
Harry hesitates for a second, a silence falling between them once more.
“You look…” He stops himself with another shake of his head, “… Beautiful.”
YN immediately looks away, already feeling her skin heating under his gaze.
“I feel like you’re contractually obligated to compliment me,” She responds, attempting to lighten the room.
Harry just smiles back, “I don’t think I remember that being one of the clauses.”
Another beat. He’s looking at her again. Then he lifts his arm up for her.
“Ready?”
YN nods, exhaling a deep breath, “As I’ll ever be.”
All the previous times YN had gone to the Charity Gala, the cameras hadn’t flashed for her. She’d been able to scuttle up the carpet to the entrance without them even batting an eyelid. It wasn’t the case this time.
The second her heel met the carpet, and her hand slipped into Harry’s — she was done for.
The cameras flashed, the reporters shouted and even though YN should be getting used to this — she wasn’t.
“Slow down,” Harry spoke through his smile as YN charged ahead along the carpet.
“I’m walking,” She responded, slowing down to his pace when Harry’s hand wrapped around her waist.
“You’re speed walking.”
“I’m panicking!”
“I noticed,” He gave her hip a light squeeze, “I’m here… slow down.”
There moment was interrupted by more flashes and more shouting.
“Harry! YN over here!” One of them shouts, so they follow, “How’s the wedding planning going?”
Harry glances at YN, who gives him a small nod before exhaling a breath and turning back to the reporter.
“Neither of us has a lot of free time,” She responded.
The reporters around them laugh, “Who’s the wedding planner?”
“Definitely not him,” YN motions to Harry who acts shocked in response.
The reporters laugh once more. Then after a quick thanks, they continue up the carpet to the entrance.
Harry reaches out his hand to help her up the stairs, holding her steady as she lifts her dress so that she doesn’t trip over it.
It’s just a small movement, but it means everything to her.
They’re being stopped before YN even has the opportunity to grab a cocktail.
There older board members, charity organisers and donors. People that YN has only even known by name, and never spoken to before.
People ask about her, and how the wedding planning is going and they respond every time almost in sync — they’re believable.
She also notices that Harry always has a question to ask in response — whether it’s about their daughter, or congratulating another on their retirement — he always has something to say.
It’s just another thing to add to YN’s list of contradictions YN’s creating to Rebecca’s claims.
YN started to realise that maybe people were always looking at the CEO, and never at the man.
After around half an hour of greetings, Harry is pulled away from her to do his speech. He leaves their table and gives her a light kiss on her cheek before he walks up to the stage. Even once he’s talking, YN can still feel Harry’s lips on her cheek.
He didn’t have notes in his hand as he spoke, it just seemingly came from his heart — but YN knew that he was probably nervous.
“Leadership isn’t measured in titles, or it never has for me. It’s measured by what people feel when they leave a conversation with you. Did you make someone day easier? Did you listen? Did you leave them better than you found them?” He clears his throat slightly, “This is the eighth annual charity gala for Pleasing Industries, and over those years we’ve helped thousands of people in need — let’s continue for another eight. Thank you.”
The crowd applauds, and so does YN. For some reason, something burned within her chest. A feeling of proudness, proud of Harry for standing there and acknowledging that despite what the tabloids say — he is and has always done good.
YN sits at the table, cocktail in her hand whilst she watches Harry be congratulated by people after his speech. There’s a smile on his face, and YN can’t help but smile too.
He’s pulled away by a donor, but he lifts up a finger to her saying he’ll only be a minute. YN shakes it off and tells him to go ahead.
Thirty seconds later, the chair next to her scrapes against the floor. She had assumed it would be Harry, but instead Rebecca sat down in the empty seat. She’s dressed to the nines, obviously, and from just looking at her YN knew she was here with an agenda.
“So…” Rebecca smiles, “You’re the famous fiancée.”
YN just smiles politely in response, “Nice to meet you.”
Rebecca laughs lightly, “Is it?”
YN doesn’t rise to it, “I believe so.”
Rebecca looks her up at down, but YN remains completely still under her gaze, “You’re pretty.”
YN shrugs, “He has good taste.”
“For now.”
YN can’t help but stiffen slightly, and she knows that Rebecca notices.
“Don’t worry,” Rebecca shakes her head lightly, a smile crossing her lips, “He’ll convince you you’re the most important person in the room… Then one day…” She shrugs, “You’ll realise you weren’t.”
YN attempts to keep her face straight, “You don’t know our relationship.”
“No,” Rebecca agrees, “But I know Harry.”
YN stays silent. They were together for three years, so it was obvious that Rebecca knew Harry. But then again, maybe she didn’t because that interview did not scream that she knows him.
“Just…” Rebecca starts again, “Just don’t build your whole life around someone who only knows how to build companies.”
And with that, she pushes herself up from the table and walks away, heels clicking with every step.
YN stares straight ahead, letting Rebecca’s words linger for longer than she probably should have.
Harry returned to the table a few minutes later, a smile still across his features. He takes one look at YN sitting there and his face drops.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” YN shakes off, resting her hand on his arm to usher him to sit down. He does, but he doesn’t look convinced.
“YN.”
“I’m fine,” She smiles.
“No you’re not,” He responds, “You’re lying.”
“Lawyers are very good at that, you know,” She offers, trying to believe her own words.
Then, YN sees him looking over her shoulder. YN turns just at the perfect opportunity to see Rebecca walking out of the gala.
Without a second thought, Harry stands up and extends his hand out to YN. She takes it.
He turns to the donors and board members to say, “Would you excuse us?” And then he walks them out of the venue.
YN was actually thankful to feel the cool night air on her skin. She hadn’t realised she was feeling clammy, but she definitely did now.
They lean against the railing, and don’t say anything for a while. Underneath the soft moonlight, she can see that Harry’s jaw still hasn’t unclenched.
After a few minutes he says, “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” YN responds, looking at him still even though he was facing straight ahead.
“I should have protected you.”
“From your ex?” YN almost laughs, “I think I can handle her.”
“From becoming part of this,” He shakes his head lightly.
He turns to her, and there’s genuine guilt sitting in his eyes, “You never asked for someone else’s mess. You don’t deserve to become my collateral damage.”
YN can’t help it. The more he speaks and the more he keeps apologising, the more frustrated she becomes.
“Stop apologising!” Harry just blinked at her, “I chose this!”
“YN—”
“No!” She exclaims, “Listen to me. I chose this! I signed that contract. I knew exactly what people might say. This isn’t something happening to me, this is something I agreed to!”
All of Harry’s features drop. Then quietly, he says, “You shouldn’t have to.”
YN laughs slightly, “Occupational hazard. Lawyers sign things all the time, I knew what I was doing.”
Harry actually laughs this time, and it’s almost music to her ears.
Harry turns to her, fully now. The distance between them is minimal and it’s all YN can think about.
A shiver spreads through her body and without even thinking Harry’s shrugging his blazer off and wrapping it around her shoulders.
“You’ll freeze,” She murmurs as the jacket engulfs her.
Harry just shrugs, “Worth the risk.”
There’s nobody around them. No watching eyes, no reporters — nobody. It’s just them. They shouldn’t be this close, and both of them know it.
Harry reaches up and brushes the strand of her hair that had fallen in her eyes off her face. YN takes a step closer to him, almost leaning into his touch. Harry mirrors it.
“Nobody’s watching,” She whispers.
Harry’s breathing catches slightly in his throat, “I know.”
Their lips are inches apart at this point and if either one of them moved even just an inch they’d be touching — but neither of them did.
Then Harry abruptly steps back, almost as though he’s having to physically pry himself away from her.
“That, uh, probably goes against all the clauses in the contract.”
YN tries to smile, but she can’t hide her disappointment, “Probably.”
Then they stand there, both of them in complete and utter silence, realising that everything has changed.
Their car arrives a few minutes later, and the silence continues. Harry opens the door for her, and they both slip in quietly. Neither of them can look directly at the other — they just can’t.
As they drive away, YN stares out of the window.
For the first time since signing the agreement, she isn't worried about pretending to be Harry's fiancée.
She's worried about what happens when she no longer has to pretend.
You became his sugar baby to survive, but Harry’s possessiveness soon turns into something softer. The black card pays the bills, but it’s the unexpected love that threatens to ruin you both.
Author's note: SUMMER BREAK IS HERE! Enjoying the freedom while it lasts, because I’ll be heading back to school on July 14th. Until then, let the writing marathon begin! Happy reading!
Rating: Explicit. 🔞 content. reader discretion is advised.
The townhouse was quiet, but it was no longer the screaming silence of a tomb. It was the soft, expectant quiet of a home waiting to be lived in.
Harry walked to the kitchen island. He flicked on the under-cabinet lights, bathing the marble in a warm, amber glow. He took off his jacket, looking exhausted, and draped it over the back of a bar stool.
He rolled up his sleeves, not with military precision, but with the weary relief of a man who was done being Harry Styles for the day.
"Wine?" he asked, opening the fridge. "I think the white is actually cold for once."
"Red is fine," Y/N said from the doorway.
He pulled out a bottle of Barolo. He poured two glasses and handed her one, clinking the rim against hers gently.
"To chaos," he murmured, a small, tired smile playing on his lips.
"To chaos," she agreed.
Harry took a long sip, closing his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he looked at the stove.
"I’m making carbonara," he said. "It’s... well, it’s the only thing I can make without a recipe. Is that okay?"
"It sounds perfect."
He washed his hands and got to work.
Y/N walked over to the island. In the old days, she would have sat on a stool and waited. Today, she hopped up onto the marble counter, letting her legs dangle.
Harry turned around to grab the cheese grater and paused. He looked at her perched on his expensive countertop.
"You know," he said, pausing with a block of Pecorino in his hand. "Strictly speaking, this is a health code violation. Putting your shoes against the cabinets."
"Is that a rule, Mr. Styles?" Y/N teased, taking a sip of her wine. "Are you going to write me up?"
Harry looked at her. He looked at her sneakers bumping against his cabinets. He looked at the hole in her sweatshirt. He realized he didn't care about the cabinets at all.
"No," he said softly. "I think I like it."
He stepped closer, not to intimidate, but just to be near her. He rested his forehead against her shoulder for a brief second, breathing her in.
"Just don't kick the wine glass," he mumbled into her sweatshirt.
"I make no promises."
Harry chuckled, a warm, rusty sound, and went back to cooking.
He wasn't surgical about it. He was focused, sure, but there was a domestic rhythm to it. He grated the cheese, a little bit flying onto the floor which he ignored. He threw the guanciale into the pan, wincing slightly when the oil popped.
"So," he said, stirring the pasta. "The job hunt."
Y/N stiffened slightly. "What about it?"
"I know the CEO of Bloomsbury," Harry said. He tried to sound casual, but Y/N could hear the 'fixer' in his voice trying to come out. "We play golf. I could make a call."
Y/N set her wine glass down.
"Harry."
He turned around, tongs in hand, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "It’s just a call. It’s efficient."
"No calls," she said firmly. "If I get a job, I want to know I got it. Not because of who I'm sleeping with."
Harry opened his mouth to argue, to explain leverage and networking, but he stopped. He looked at her stubborn face. He realized that trying to control this was exactly what drove her away last time.
He sighed, surrendering. "Okay. No calls."
"Thank you."
"But," he added, pointing the tongs at her. "If you run out of money and start eating instant noodles again, I’m buying you groceries. I can’t watch you starve, Y/N. That’s my line."
Y/N smiled. "Deal. Groceries are allowed."
Harry finished the pasta. He tossed the noodles in the sauce, checking the consistency with a frown of concentration.
"I think it's ready," he said, sounding a little unsure.
He plated it into two bowls and grabbed forks. He handed her a bowl and leaned against the counter next to her, holding his own.
"Tell me if it's rubbish," he said, watching her take the first bite. "I haven't made this in a while."
Y/N chewed. It was rich, salty, and perfect.
"It’s terrible," she deadpanned. "Worst thing I've ever eaten."
Harry’s face fell for a fraction of a second before he saw her grin.
"Brat," he laughed, nudging her shoulder with his own.
He took a bite of his own pasta, letting out a hum of satisfaction. He stood there, leaning against the counter in his socks and unbuttoned shirt, eating dinner with her.
It wasn't a power play. It wasn't a scene from a movie. It was just dinner. And for the first time in a long time, Harry looked like he was actually home.
5:30 AM.
Harry’s internal clock was a precision instrument. He didn't need an alarm. His eyes opened at exactly 5:30 AM, just as the sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was turning a bruised purple.
His body went into autopilot.
Step 1: Get up.
Step 2: Check Nikkei and Hang Seng markets.
Step 3: Espresso.
Step 4: Five-mile run.
He sat up, the duvet pooling at his waist. He reached for his phone on the nightstand, his thumb hovering over the email icon.
Then he felt the weight shift beside him.
He froze.
Slowly, Harry turned his head.
Y/N was asleep on the other side of the massive bed. She was buried under the white duvet, only a messy tangle of hair and one bare shoulder visible. She was breathing deeply, a soft, rhythmic sound that was completely foreign to this room.
For the last ten years, this room had been a functional space. It was where he slept to recharge for the next day of work. It was temperature-controlled, soundproofed, and efficient.
Now, it was warm. It was occupied.
Harry looked at his phone. 34 Unread Emails.
He looked at the girl sleeping in his bed.
He put the phone back down. Face down.
He slid out of bed carefully, his bare feet sinking into the carpet. He walked to the bathroom, not turning on the lights, moving by the muscle memory of living in this space for a decade. He brushed his teeth. He splashed cold water on his face.
He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked tired. But the tightness around his eyes, the tension that had been there for a month, was gone.
He walked out to the kitchen.
Usually, he drank a kale smoothie and a double shot of espresso while standing up, reading the Financial Times on his iPad.
Today, he made coffee.
He used the French press. It took longer. It required patience. He waited for the grounds to steep, watching the steam rise in the silent kitchen. He found two mugs. He poured the coffee, adding a splash of oat milk to one because he remembered she hated it black.
He walked back to the bedroom.
Y/N was still asleep, but she had moved. She was now sprawled diagonally across the bed, claiming the majority of the real estate.
Harry smiled. He walked over to the side of the bed and set the mugs down on the nightstand.
He sat down on the edge of the mattress. The dip caused Y/N to stir. She groaned, scrunching her nose up against the pillow.
"What time is it?" she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.
"Early," Harry whispered. "Go back to sleep."
"You're up," she accused blindly, one eye cracking open to squint at him. "You're going for a run."
"Not today."
Y/N shifted, rolling onto her back. She looked up at him. She looked at his bare chest, at the tattoos, at the mug of coffee steaming next to him.
"Is that for me?"
"Unless you want me to drink two."
She pushed herself up, the sheet falling to her waist. She reached for the mug, wrapping both hands around it.
"You're supposed to be running," she said, blowing on the steam. "Or conquering the stock market. Or yelling at people."
"I can yell if you want," Harry offered dryly. "Get off my lawn."
Y/N laughed, a sleepy, raspy sound that did something dangerous to Harry’s chest.
"Come back to bed," she said.
Harry hesitated. "I have a conference call at eight."
"That is two hours away." She patted the empty space beside her. "Come here. The coffee tastes better horizontal."
Harry looked at the window. The sun was starting to crest over the horizon, lighting up the city that was waking up below them. He thought about his schedule. He thought about the unread emails.
Then he looked at Y/N, hair messy, holding his mug, looking at him like he was the only thing in the world worth waking up for.
He climbed back into bed.
He didn't lie on his side of the mattress. He slid in close to her, propping himself up against the headboard. Y/N immediately shifted, resting her head on his chest, her legs tangling with his.
"You're warm," she murmured.
"You're stealing the covers," he countered, pulling the duvet up over her shoulder.
"Negotiation tactic," she mumbled, closing her eyes again.
Harry took a sip of his coffee. He balanced the mug on his stomach. He rested his other hand on her arm, his thumb tracing slow, idle circles on her skin.
He watched the sun come up. He didn't check the markets. He didn't plan the day.
"You have a conference call," Y/N whispered, her hand moving idly up his chest to trace the ink of the swallow on his clavicle.
"I know."
"You should get ready."
"I have time," Harry lied. He didn't have time. He had twenty minutes to shower, shave, and review a forty-page briefing.
But then Y/N shifted. Her leg slid over his, the friction of skin against skin sending a slow, lazy heat through him that had nothing to do with the coffee. She pressed a soft kiss to the side of his neck, right over his pulse point.
Harry set the mug down on the nightstand. Hard.
He turned to her, catching her lips in a slow, languid kiss that tasted of oat milk and sleep.
The morning light was pouring in now, bright and unforgiving, but neither of them cared to hide. This wasn't the frantic, desperate collision of the night before. This was slow. It was indulgent.
Harry moved over her, shielding her from the sun. The room filled with the soft sounds of tangled sheets and quiet sighs. He took his time, learning the new rhythm of her body in the daylight, memorizing the way she looked with her hair spread across his pillows and his name on her lips.
For thirty minutes, the world outside the townhouse ceased to exist. The stock markets opened, the emails piled up, and the city rushed to work.
But Harry, the man who never missed a meeting, simply didn't care.
When they finally lay back against the pillows, breathless and tangled together in the ruined sheets, Harry glanced at the clock.
8:05 AM.
He was late.
He smiled at the ceiling, pulled Y/N closer into his side, and closed his eyes.
"Worth it," he murmured.
It was 2:00 PM on Saturday when the peace of the townhouse was shattered.
The intercom buzzed.
"Delivery for Mr. Styles," the concierge announced, sounding slightly out of breath. "It... it barely fits, sir."
"Come in" Harry said.
He stood in the center of the living room. He was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, arms crossed, looking at the large, empty expanse of wall above the console table. It was the only wall in the house large enough to accommodate the monstrosity he had purchased.
Y/N was sitting on the sofa, eating an apple and trying to hide her grin.
"You don't have to do this," she said. "We can put it in storage. We can burn it. We can pretend it got lost in transit."
"No," Harry said stubbornly. "I bought it. I am hanging it."
"It’s four feet of black canvas, Harry. It’s going to look like a black hole opened up in your living room."
"It is a statement piece," Harry argued, though he didn't sound convinced. "It says... 'I appreciate the void'."
The front door open.
Two burly movers stumbled out. They were grappling with a massive square object wrapped in brown paper and bubble wrap. They looked sweaty.
"Careful with the corners!" Harry instructed, stepping forward. "That frame is vintage mahogany."
"Where do you want it, guv?" one of the movers wheezed.
Harry pointed to the pristine white wall. "Center. Eye level."
It took twenty minutes. There was a lot of grunting, a near-miss with a Ming vase, and several terrifying creaks from the plasterboard. But finally, the massive object was secured.
"Right," the mover said, wiping his forehead. "Sign here, please."
Harry signed the digital pad and tipped them fifty pounds each. They left quickly, eager to escape the intense gaze of the man in the sweatpants.
Harry stood before the wrapped painting.
"Ready?" he asked.
"I can't watch," Y/N said, peeking through her fingers.
Harry reached up and tore the brown paper. He pulled it away in large strips.
The bubble wrap fell to the floor.
And there it was.
The Void.
It was exactly as she remembered it from the gallery, only here, against Harry’s tastefully curated grey and white decor, it looked even more aggressive. It was a massive, pitch-black square. It had no texture. It had no depth. It absorbed the light from the windows like a physical threat.
It was aggressively, violently ugly.
Harry stared at it. He stood perfectly still, his hands on his hips.
The silence stretched on for ten seconds. Twenty seconds.
"It is..." Harry started. He stopped. He tilted his head to the left. "It absorbs the light."
"It cost fifty thousand pounds," Harry murmured, as if the price tag might suddenly make it beautiful.
"It looks like you forgot to finish painting the wall."
"It is conceptual," he defended weakly.
He walked closer to it. He inspected the brushwork or lack thereof. He looked at the way it clashed horribly with the soft grey of the sofa and the warm wood of the floor. It was a scar on the perfection of the room.
And that, he realized, was exactly the point.
He turned to look at Y/N. She was giggling, her legs tucked under her on his three-thousand-pound sofa, looking at the monstrosity he had brought into his home.
Y/N's phone buzzed on the coffee table.
She picked it up and glanced at the screen. A snort of laughter escaped her.
"What?" Harry asked, still eyeing the painting warily.
"It's Josh," she said, reading the message. "He says: 'Just so you know, the painting is gone. The wall looks huge now. Also, tell your boyfriend thanks for taking it. It looked like depression.'"
Harry let out a short, sharp laugh.
"He's not wrong," Harry admitted. "But it's our depression now."
He looked back at the painting.
He hated it. Aesthetically, it offended every cell in his body. It was loud, abrasive, and ruined the flow of the townhouse.
But looking at it reminded him of the gallery. It reminded him of walking through that crowd and claiming her. It reminded him that he had chosen the mess over the perfection.
"We are keeping it," Harry decided.
"Are you sure?" Y/N asked, standing up and walking over to stand beside him. "You have to look at it every day."
Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his side. He kissed the top of her head.
"I like it," he lied. "It adds character. And it covers the smudge on the wall."
"There was no smudge on the wall, Harry."
"There is now," he said, gesturing to the giant black square. "A fifty-thousand-pound smudge."
He squeezed her shoulder.
"Welcome home, Y/N."
Y/N leaned her head against his arm, looking at the black abyss.
"You're an idiot," she whispered affectionately.
"I know," Harry agreed. "But I'm rich. So it's called 'eccentric'."
Next monday morning arrived with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Harry was ready. He was standing by the kitchen island, fully armored in a navy three-piece suit. His tie was dimpled perfectly. His watch was set to Tokyo time. He was drinking an espresso and reading a briefing on his iPad.
Y/N was... not ready.
She was sitting opposite him, wearing pajamas that had seen better days. Her hair was in a messy bun that was slowly unraveling. Her laptop was open, surrounded by a fortress of sticky notes and half-empty mugs.
Click. Click. Sigh.
Harry looked up over the top of his iPad.
"That was a heavy sigh," he noted.
"It was a 'I hate the modern recruitment process' sigh," Y/N corrected. She rubbed her temples. "Why do I have to upload my CV and then manually type out my entire work history into the boxes? It’s redundant. It’s inefficient."
"It tests your patience," Harry said. "And your attention to detail."
"It tests my will to live."
She hit enter. A loading bar spun on the screen. Then, a small red box popped up.
Error: Session Timed Out. Please refresh and try again.
Y/N didn't scream. She just closed her eyes and lowered her forehead slowly until it hit the cool marble of the counter with a dull thud.
Harry winced sympathetically.
He set his iPad down. He walked around the island.
This was the hard part.
Every instinct in his body screamed at him to fix it. He wanted to pick up his phone. He wanted to call his head of HR and tell them to find her a position. He wanted to call the CEO of every publishing house in London and demand they interview her.
He could solve this problem in five minutes.
But he had promised.
He stopped behind her chair. He put his hands on her shoulders and began to massage the tension knotting at the base of her neck.
"Take a break," he murmured.
"I can't," Y/N mumbled into the countertop. "I have three more applications to finish before noon."
"You have been staring at that screen for two hours. Your brain is frying."
"My brain is fine. My future is frying."
Harry’s thumbs dug into the tight muscles. "You are being dramatic."
"I am being unemployed," she corrected, lifting her head to look at him. Her eyes were tired. "Do you know how many rejections I’ve had this week? Four. And one of them was an automated email that called me 'Dear Applicant'."
Harry looked at her. He saw the fear behind the frustration. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of relying on him.
"Let me look at your CV," Harry said.
Y/N stiffened. "Why?"
"Because I hire people for a living," he said reasonably. "I know what people look for. Maybe it just needs a formatting tweak. A punchier opening."
"I don't need you to rewrite it."
"I'm not rewriting it. I'm... consulting."
Y/N hesitated. Then she spun the laptop around.
Harry leaned over. He scanned the document. His eyes moved fast, dissecting the layout, the font choice, the phrasing.
"Here," he said, pointing to the second paragraph. "You’re burying the lede. You put your degree at the bottom. Move it to the top. It’s your strongest asset right now."
"But the template said—"
"Forget the template. The template is for average candidates. You want to stand out." He scrolled down. "And this part about the café? Condense it. Focus on the transferable skills. Customer management. Crisis resolution."
"Crisis resolution?" Y/N raised an eyebrow. "I made lattes, Harry."
"You dealt with caffeine-deprived Londoners at 8 AM," Harry said seriously. "That is crisis resolution."
He reached for the trackpad, his fingers flying. He didn't rewrite her history, but he sharpened it. He tightened the sentences. He made it look professional. Clinical. Efficient.
"There," he said, straightening up. "Try that."
Y/N looked at the screen. It did look better. It looked cleaner.
"Okay," she admitted. "That’s better."
"I am useful occasionally," Harry smirked. He checked his watch. "I have to go. I’m late."
He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
"Don't panic," he whispered against her hair. "You are brilliant. They will see it."
"Easy for you to say," she muttered. "You own the building."
"I started in the mailroom," Harry reminded her, a lie he liked to tell to sound grounded, though in reality, he started as a junior analyst at Goldman Sachs.
He walked to the elevator. He pressed the button.
As the doors slid open, he looked back. She was typing again, her posture a little straighter, attacking the form with renewed vigor.
Harry stepped into the elevator.
He took his phone out of his pocket. He opened his contacts. He scrolled to B. Bloomsbury CEO.
His thumb hovered over the call button.
He could just ask for a "favor." He wouldn't even have to tell her. He could just nudge her CV to the top of the pile...
He stared at the screen.
No walls. Real.
If he did it, and she found out, she would leave. And even if she didn't find out, he would know. He would know that he didn't trust her to handle her own life.
Harry closed his eyes. He let out a frustrated breath.
He locked the phone and shoved it back into his pocket.
He let the elevator take him down to the car, leaving her to fight her own battle. It was the hardest thing he had done all week.
By Saturday morning, the townhouse smelled of expensive coffee and the lingering scent of anxiety, mostly Y/N’s.
She was sitting on the floor of the living room—right under The Void—staring at her laptop, refreshing her email for the tenth time that hour.
Harry walked in. He looked offensively fresh.
He was wearing jeans. Not the stiff, dark indigo raw denim he wore on "casual Fridays" at the office, but actual, soft, light-wash vintage Levi’s. He had paired them with a white t-shirt and a beige cardigan. He looked soft. He looked approachable. He looked like a man who didn't have a net worth equivalent to a small country’s GDP.
"Get dressed," he said, nudging her foot with his toe.
"I am dressed," Y/N said, gesturing to her leggings.
"Properly dressed. We are going out."
Y/N looked up at him suspiciously. "Out? Out where? To the balcony?"
"To the flower market," Harry announced. "Columbia Road. I want hydrangeas. And you need Vitamin D. You’re starting to look like a vampire."
Y/N scrambled up. "Harry, Columbia Road on a Sunday? It’s a zoo. It’s loud, it’s crowded, and people shove you."
"I can handle a shove," Harry said dismissively.
"You fly private to avoid airport queues," she reminded him. "You hate crowds. You hate inefficiency."
"I am evolving," he stated calmly. He stepped closer, his hands finding her waist. "I want to buy flowers. I want to walk down the street with my girlfriend. And I want to get coffee that isn't served on a silver tray."
Y/N looked at him. He looked so hopeful. He wanted to do a normal Sunday thing. He wanted to play 'normal couple.'
She couldn't say no to him when he looked like that—soft and hopeful in his cardigan.
"Fine," she groaned. "But if someone steps on your Gucci loafers, don't look at me."
"And I'll risk it. Go put on shoes."
The car ride over was peaceful, but the moment the car pulled up to the curb near Shoreditch, the reality hit them.
It was chaos.
Columbia Road was a riot of color and sound. Street sellers were shouting out prices in heavy cockney accents—"Three bunches for a tenner! Get 'em while they're lovely!"—while throngs of people shuffled shoulder-to-shoulder down the narrow street. The air smelled of crushed stems, damp earth, roasting coffee, and frying bacon.
Harry opened the car door. He stepped out first.
He looked instantly out of place. With his perfect posture, his glowing skin, and his aura of extreme wealth, he looked like a visiting dignitary who had taken a wrong turn.
He didn't check the perimeter. He turned and offered his hand to Y/N.
She took it.
He pulled her out of the car and immediately interlaced their fingers. His grip was firm.
"Ready?" he asked close to her ear.
"Are you ready?" she countered. "That guy over there is selling succulents out of a pram."
"Innovative," Harry noted.
He led her into the crowd.
For the first five minutes, Y/N was tense. She kept waiting for Harry to snap. She waited for him to get annoyed by the slow walkers, or the people bumping into him, or the mud on the pavement.
But he didn't.
Harry moved with a surprising amount of ease. He seemed fascinated by the grit of it. He navigated the crush, pointing out different blooms.
"Ranunculus," he noted, nodding at a bucket of pink flowers. "Too frilly."
"I like them," Y/N argued.
"They die in two days," Harry dismissed. "Inefficient investment."
They stopped at a stall selling massive blue hydrangeas. Harry engaged the seller, a rough-looking man with a cigarette behind his ear, in a serious conversation about soil acidity. The seller called him "mate." Harry called him "sir." It was surreal.
Harry handed the man a twenty-pound note and accepted a giant armful of blue flowers. He turned back to Y/N, holding the bouquet in one arm and reaching for her hand with the other.
"Hydrangeas secured," he smiled. "Coffee next?"
"You're actually enjoying this," Y/N realized, letting him pull her back into the stream of people.
"I am," Harry said. "It's loud. It's messy. It's... real."
He squeezed her hand.
"And nobody is asking me about merger acquisitions," he added. "Which is a nice change of pace."
They walked toward a bakery. The queue snaked out the door.
"Queue," Harry noted.
"We can go somewhere else," Y/N offered quickly, knowing his patience limits.
"No," Harry said. He joined the back of the line, pulling her in front of him so her back was pressed against his chest. He wrapped his free arm (the one not holding the flowers) around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"We wait," he murmured. "Like normal people."
Y/N leaned back into him. She felt the solid warmth of his chest. She looked around at the students, the young families, the hipsters with their dogs. Nobody was looking at them. To this crowd, Harry wasn't a billionaire socialite. He was just a tall, handsome guy buying flowers for his girl.
It was the privacy she had missed. And it was the intimacy he had craved.
"I think they are running out of almond croissants." He pointed out.
They shuffled forward in the line. Y/N was leaning back against his chest and feeling safe in the anonymity of the crowd when a voice cut through the noise.
"Harry? Harry Styles?"
Y/N felt Harry stiffen against her back. It was not fear. It was the reflexive armor of a man who was used to being approached for money or favors.
He did not pull away from her though. He turned slowly and kept his arm firmly wrapped around her waist.
A man was standing near the entrance of the bakery. He looked to be about Harry’s age. He had silvering hair and wore a quilted Barbour jacket while holding a leash attached to a very expensive Vizsla. He looked like he belonged in a country club in Surrey rather than on a gritty pavement in Shoreditch.
"Charles," Harry said. His voice shifted instantly. The soft and playful tone he used with Y/N was gone. It was replaced by his smooth boardroom baritone. "I did not expect to see you this far east."
"I could say the same for you," Charles laughed. He stepped closer. He looked Harry up and down, taking in the vintage jeans and the armful of flowers. "Slumming it are we? Or just lost on the way to the club?"
"Just getting coffee," Harry said easily. "The blend here is superior to the club."
"Is it?" Charles looked skeptical. Then his gaze drifted down.
He looked at Y/N.
Y/N felt a sudden and sharp urge to pull away. She was wearing leggings and sneakers. She was twenty two. She was holding the hand of a billionaire who was currently chatting with a man who looked like he owned a bank. The disparity felt glaring. In her old life this was the moment Harry would have stepped away. He would have introduced her as an assistant or a friend or he would not have introduced her at all.
She tried to untangle her fingers from his to give him the space to be Harry Styles the respectable businessman.
Harry did not let her.
He tightened his grip on her hand. He crushed her fingers against his palm gently. He pulled her flush against his side leaving zero daylight between them.
"Charles," Harry said. His voice cut through the other man’s inspection. "This is Y/N."
Charles looked at her. He did the math instantly. His eyes flicked from her fresh makeup free face to Harry’s silvering temples. A small and knowing smirk touched his lips. It was the kind of look men gave each other when they saw an older friend with a much younger and beautiful girl. A look that said Well done old boy.
It made Y/N feel cheap.
"Pleasure," Charles said. He extended a hand. "Are you interning at the firm?"
It was a polite question but the insult was razor sharp.
Y/N opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to defend herself but Harry beat her to it.
"She is my partner," Harry said.
The word hung in the air. Not girlfriend. Not date. Partner. In Harry’s world, the world of equity and law, that word carried weight. It implied equality. It implied permanence.
Charles blinked. The smirk vanished and was replaced by a flicker of genuine surprise.
"Oh," Charles said. He cleared his throat and recalibrated quickly. "I see. My apologies. A pleasure to meet you Y/N."
"Nice to meet you," Y/N managed to say. Her voice was steady despite the rapid beating of her heart.
"We were just getting breakfast," Harry continued. His tone was polite but dismissive. He was signaling that the conversation was over. "Give my best to Eleanor."
"I will," Charles said. He looked a bit awkward now. "Good to see you Harry. Y/N."
He nodded and walked away, tugging his dog through the crowd.
Harry watched him go. He did not relax until Charles was swallowed by the sea of people.
"You did not have to do that," Y/N whispered as she looked up at him.
Harry looked down. The hard edge left his eyes and was replaced by that soft warmth he saved only for her.
"Do what?"
"Call me your partner. You could have just said friend. He was judging you. I saw his face."
Harry shrugged. He shifted the flowers so he could wrap his arm more securely around her shoulders.
"Charles judges everyone," Harry said. "He judges me for buying Japanese equities. He judges his wife for drinking Merlot. His opinion is irrelevant."
He leaned down and his lips brushed her ear.
"Besides," he murmured. "I am not hiding you Y/N. Not anymore. I do not care if you are twenty two or fifty two. You are mine. And I want everyone to know it."
Y/N felt a flush rise to her cheeks but this time it was not from embarrassment. She squeezed his hand.
"Partner," she repeated softly testing the word. "Does that mean I get equity in the firm?"
Harry laughed. It was a loud and genuine sound that made a few people in the queue turn and smile.
"Let us start with a doughnut," Harry said as he guided her toward the counter. "And if you manage not to get powdered sugar on my cardigan we can discuss stock options."
Wednesday evening was rainy. It was the kind of relentless London drizzle that turned the city into a grey smear against the windows.
Harry arrived home at 8:00 PM. He was tired. The merger with the German firm was proving difficult and he had spent six hours arguing about pension liabilities. He loosened his tie as he walked out of the private elevator. He was ready for silence. He was ready for a glass of whiskey and the view.
Instead he was greeted by a whirlwind.
"I got one," Y/N announced.
She was standing in the middle of the hallway. She was holding a wooden spoon in one hand and her phone in the other. She looked like she was vibrating.
Harry paused. He placed his briefcase on the console table under The Void.
"You got a cold?" he asked as he stepped out of his loafers.
"No," she laughed. "I got an interview."
Harry straightened up. The fatigue vanished from his face.
"Really?"
"Yes," she beamed. "It is for an editorial assistant position. They emailed me twenty minutes ago. They want to see me on Friday."
Harry walked over to her. He took the spoon out of her hand and placed it on the table. Then he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the floor.
"That is brilliant," he said as he spun her around once. "I told you. I told you the CV was solid."
"You did," she admitted as he set her down. "You were right. As always."
"Who is it with?" Harry asked as he walked toward the kitchen. "Bloomsbury? Penguin? Hachette?"
"It is called Ink & Bone," Y/N said.
Harry stopped pouring his water. He turned around.
"Ink & Bone," he repeated. "Is that a tattoo parlor?"
"No," Y/N rolled her eyes. "It is an independent press in Hackney. They publish experimental fiction and poetry. They are very cool Harry. They published that anthology I read to you last month."
Harry frowned. "Hackney? Is it... solvent?"
"It is not Vanguard Holdings," she said defensively. "They don't have glass elevators. But they have a mission statement I actually like."
Harry looked at her. He saw the excitement in her eyes. He had to suppress the instinct to check their credit rating on his phone.
"Then it sounds perfect," he lied smoothly. "Friday gives us two days to prepare."
"Prepare?"
"Yes," Harry said. He took a sip of water. His eyes narrowed slightly. He shifted from Boyfriend into Senior Partner. "Do you know their back catalog? Have you researched the founders? Do you have answers prepared for the standard behavioral questions?"
Y/N stared at him. "I was just going to read their latest release and wear my nice blazer."
"Insufficient," Harry declared. "If they are a small press they are looking for passion and specific knowledge. You need to walk in there knowing more about their company than they do."
He walked around the island. He picked up his iPad.
"Sit down," he instructed pointing to the stool. "We are doing a mock interview."
"Harry," she groaned. "I have dinner on the stove. It is stirring risotto."
"The risotto can wait. Your future cannot. Sit."
Y/N sat. She looked bemused.
Harry paced back and forth in front of the kitchen island. He looked terrifyingly competent even in his socks.
"Okay," he started. "I am the editor-in-chief of Ink & Bone. My name is... let us say, Sebastian. I wear corduroy and I take myself very seriously."
Y/N giggled.
"Focus," Harry snapped playfully. "So tell me Y/N. Why Ink & Bone? Why not a big corporate publisher where you could make actual money?"
Y/N straightened her spine. She cleared her throat.
"Well Sebastian," she started. "I admire the risk you take on new voices. The big publishers are chasing trends but you are chasing talent. I want to be part of finding the next great voice not just the next bestseller."
Harry stopped pacing. He looked at her. He blinked.
"That was... good," he admitted.
"I know," she smirked. "I practiced in the shower."
"Okay," Harry said stepping closer. "But what is your greatest weakness?"
"I care too much," Y/N said instantly.
"Cliché," Harry dismissed. "Try again. Give me a real weakness but frame it as a strength."
Y/N thought for a moment.
"I can be obsessive," she said slowly. "When I get stuck on a manuscript or a project I find it hard to switch off until it is perfect. I take the work home with me."
Harry smiled. It was a small and proud smile.
"Better," he noted. "Because it implies you will work unpaid overtime without complaining."
"Cynic," she muttered.
"Capitalist," he corrected.
He leaned across the island. He rested his elbows on the marble.
"One last question," Harry said. His voice dropped. He wasn't playing Sebastian anymore. He was just Harry. "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
Y/N looked at him.
Five years was a lifetime. Five years ago she was in school. Five years from now she would be twenty-seven. Harry would be fifty.
She looked at the man standing in the million-pound kitchen. The man who had bought an ugly painting because she liked it. The man who was spending his Wednesday night helping her prep for a job that paid peanuts.
"I want to be editing my own list," she said softy. "I want to be doing work that matters."
She paused.
"And," she added, reaching across the counter to touch his hand. "I want to be coming home to you."
Harry stared at her. His expression softened completely. The ruthless CEO mask dissolved.
He turned his hand over and interlaced his fingers with hers.
"Good answer," he whispered. "You are hired."
"Do I get a signing bonus?" she teased.
Harry rounded the island. He pulled her off the stool and into his arms.
"I think we can arrange a bonus," he murmured against her lips. "But first you have to stir the risotto. It is burning."
Thursday night was not peaceful.
The mock interview had gone well but the reality of the situation was setting in. Y/N was standing in the middle of the guest bedroom which she had temporarily designated as her "staging area." The bed was covered in clothes.
It looked like a Primark had exploded.
There were black trousers that were slightly too grey from over-washing. There were blouses that had mysterious wrinkles that no amount of ironing could remove. There were blazers that fit her shoulders but not her arms or her arms but not her waist.
Y/N stood in her underwear. She stared at the pile of polyester blends and felt a rising tide of panic.
"I have nothing," she whispered to the empty room. "I am going to go in there naked. That will be memorable."
She picked up a white button-down shirt. She held it up to the light. There was a faint coffee stain on the hem.
"Garbage," she muttered throwing it onto the floor.
She picked up a skirt. It was too short.
"Clubwear," she hissed tossing it aside.
Harry appeared in the doorway.
He was holding two mugs of tea. He leaned against the doorframe and watched her storm around the room in her underwear kicking piles of clothes.
"Is the fashion show over?" he asked mildy. "Or is this the avant-garde section?"
Y/N spun around. She did not even try to cover herself. She was too angry for modesty.
"It is a disaster H," she announced. "Look at this." She gestured wildly to the bed. "This is what I have. It is student clothes. It is fast fashion. If I wear this to a serious publisher they are going to think I am there to deliver a pizza."
Harry walked into the room. He set the tea down on the bedside table.
"You are spiraling," he noted.
"I am being realistic! Appearance matters. You know that. You spend three thousand pounds on a suit because it signals power. This..." She picked up a cardigan and let it drop limp from her hand. "This signals 'please give me a discount'."
Harry looked at the cardigan. He tilted his head.
"It is a bit... pillowy," he admitted.
"See!" Y/N threw her hands up. "I can't go. I am going to cancel. I will tell them I have cholera."
"You do not have cholera," Harry said calmly. "And you are not cancelling."
He walked over to her. He placed his hands on her bare shoulders. His palms were warm. He rubbed his thumbs over her collarbones grounding her.
"Listen to me," he said looking her in the eye. "Wear the black trousers. Wear the white t-shirt. Wear your own blazer. Clean lines. Simple. It shows you are practical."
"It shows I am broke," she whispered. "I feel small Harry. I feel like I am going to walk in there and apologize for existing."
Harry studied her face. He saw the genuine insecurity there. He knew that for her this wasn't just about fabric. It was about armor. She felt exposed and she wanted a shield.
"Okay," Harry said. He dropped his hands. "I can fix that."
He reached into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a sleek heavy piece of metal.
It was his black titanium American Express card.
He took her hand and pressed it into her palm curling her fingers over it.
"Harry," she started immediately trying to pull her hand away. "No. I do not need you to buy me clothes. I do not need charity. It is too late for that."
"It is not charity," Harry said, his voice serious. "It is strategy."
He squeezed her closed fist around the cold metal.
"I want you to take this tomorrow morning. Before the interview. I want you to go out and buy the outfit that makes you feel dangerous."
Y/N looked at him, wide-eyed. "Harry, I can't just go shopping with your black card. It’s too much."
"Why not?" Harry asked, tilting his head with a smirk. "I can give you orgasms, but I can't buy you an outfit for the most important day of your life?"
Y/N’s cheeks flushed pink, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to find a counter-argument.
"That... that is different," she stammered.
"Is it?" Harry stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low, teasing rumble. "I have seen you naked. I have heard you scream my name. But a pair of trousers is where you draw the moral line?"
He brushed a thumb over her cheekbone.
"That seems like a very arbitrary rule, Y/N. Let me dress you. Let me help you"
Y/N looked down at her hand. The metal was cool against her skin. It was heavy. And he was right—it was ridiculous to be intimate in every other way but stubborn about this.
"You really want me to do this?" she asked. "I could buy a boat."
"Please do not buy a boat," Harry smiled. "But buy the trousers. The good ones. And the bag."
Y/N let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She gripped the card tighter.
"Okay," she whispered. "I’ll buy an outfit."
"Alright" Harry said. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Now drink your tea. You have a big day tomorrow."
Friday morning was not a blur of panic. It was a fashion show.
Harry was driving. He had insisted on taking the Range Rover because, according to him, it had "superior climate control for preserving hair volume."
Y/N sat in the passenger seat. She was not wearing a stiff suit. She was wearing the outfit she had bought yesterday with the black card.
It was perfect.
She wore a fitted black long-sleeve top that showed off her collarbones and tucked seamlessly into a pair of charcoal grey wide-leg trousers. They were tailored but slouched just enough to look effortless. On her feet were retro sneakers. On her shoulder sat the massive Goyard tote bag that cost more than her first car.
She looked like an off-duty model who had just popped out for a matcha latte.
"You keep looking at me," she noted, catching Harry’s eye as they stopped at a red light in Shoreditch.
"I am admiring my investment," Harry grinned. He reached over and rested his hand on her thigh. "You look very... Hackney chic. Very 'I curate art but I also take the bus sometimes just to feel something'."
Y/N laughed, swatting his arm lightly.
"That is exactly the vibe I was going for. Rich but approachable. Pretending not to be rich."
"It is working," Harry said. He tapped the steering wheel. "Although that bag is a dead giveaway. You look like you are carrying gold bars in there."
"It is empty," Y/N admitted. "It literally just has my CV, a bottle of water, and a lip balm. But it makes me feel important."
"It makes you look like you are about to hostile takeover the publishing house," Harry teased. "Which, for the record, is always an option if the interview goes south. I can just buy the building and we can turn it into a private library."
"Please do not buy the building Harry."
"I am just saying. It is Plan B."
He turned the car onto the side street. The graffiti-covered warehouses loomed above them. It was gritty. It was cool. It was exactly where she wanted to be.
Harry put the car in park. He turned to her.
"Okay," he said. The joking tone dropped just a fraction, replaced by that warm, steady look that always made her knees weak. "Nervous?"
"A little," she admitted. "My hands are sweating. I hope I don't ruin the purse”.
"The handles will survive," Harry assured her. "And so will you."
He reached across the console. He didn't give her a lecture this time. He just took her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing her knuckles.
"You look stunning Y/N," he murmured against her skin. "If this guy doesn't hire you he is legally blind."
"And if he is rude?" she asked, a playful glint in her eye.
"Then you use the bag," Harry said solemnly. "Swing it at his head. It will do damage."
Y/N let out a loud laugh. The tension in her chest broke.
"Okay," she breathed. "Assault the interviewer. Got it. Great advice."
"I am a full service boyfriend," Harry winked. "Now go. Go be brilliant."
She leaned over and kissed him. It wasn't a quick peck. It was a lingering, grateful kiss that tasted of mint and coffee.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Anytime," Harry smiled. "Call me when you are done. If you are not out in an hour I am coming in with a rescue team."
"Bye Harry."
Y/N opened the door. She stepped out onto the pavement.
She adjusted the strap of her tote bag. She smoothed the front of her grey trousers. She felt the cool air on her face.
She didn't feel small. She didn't feel desperate. She felt like the girl in the reflection—capable, stylish, and backed by a man who would burn the city down if she asked him to.
She walked toward the steel door of Number 42 with a swing in her step.
The interview was a blur but a good one.
Julian, the editor, was younger than she expected. He was maybe mid thirties with messy hair and he was wearing a vintage band t-shirt under a blazer.
He looked up when she walked in. He took in the trousers and the sneakers and the bag.
"Nice bag," Julian said nodding at the Goyard as she sat down. "We usually get people coming in here wearing stiff suits. They look like they are going to a funeral."
Y/N smiled dropping her bag onto the floor with a casual thud.
"I figured I should dress for the job I want," she said smoothly. "Not the funeral I am planning."
Julian laughed.
"Good answer," he said leaning back. "You fit the vibe. Now tell me about the books."
They talked for forty minutes. They talked about fiction. They talked about the industry. She didn't feel out of place. She felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
When she walked out the rain had started to drizzle again.
She didn't care.
She pulled out her phone. She didn't call Harry. She knew he had a meeting.
She opened the Uber app. She typed in Vanguard Holdings.
She stood on the curb looking effortlessly cool in her sneakers and wide leg trousers waiting for her ride to take her to the skyscraper where her boyfriend ran the world.
She felt like she had already got the job.
The lobby of Vanguard Holdings was a cathedral of glass and silence. It was filled with men in navy suits and women in pencil skirts who walked with the terrifying speed of people who billed by the minute.
Y/N walked through the revolving doors.
She did not look like them. She moved with a relaxed swagger that the stiff suits in the lobby couldn't quite comprehend, breezing past the security desk with a confidence that said she belonged there.
The security guard, Ralph, looked up and nodded respectfully. "Afternoon, Miss."
"Hi Ralph," Y/N smiled, pressing the button for the top floor.
The elevator shot up fifty stories in seconds. The doors slid open to reveal the executive suite. It was quiet up here. The carpet was thicker. The art on the walls was real Rothko.
Harry’s executive assistant, a terrifyingly efficient woman named Andrea, looked up from her desk. She looked frazzled.
"Oh," Andrea said, blinking. "He is in a mood. The Tokyo markets opened down. He is eating everyone alive."
"I will take my chances," Y/N said coolly.
She walked past the desk and pushed open the heavy mahogany doors to Harry’s office without knocking.
Harry was pacing.
He had abandoned his jacket on the sofa. His sleeves were rolled up. His tie was loosened. He was muttering something about "yield curves" and looking like he wanted to throw his phone out the window.
He spun around when the door opened.
"Andrea, for the last time, I do not want the—"
He stopped.
His eyes landed on Y/N. He took in her relaxed posture, her wind-blown hair, and the way she was looking at him like he was the only thing in the room that mattered.
The stress didn't vanish, but his eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't smile immediately.
"You didn't call," he said, his voice low.
Y/N dropped her bag onto a leather armchair with a heavy thud. She walked toward him.
"Hello to you too," she teased.
"We had an agreement," Harry said, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked like the CEO now—stern and demanding. "You were supposed to call when you finished. I was five minutes away from sending a security team to Hackney to extract you."
"I wanted to surprise you," Y/N said, stopping right in front of him. She reached out and touched his arm. "And you looked like you needed a surprise. Andrea looks terrified."
Harry sighed, the tension finally leaving his shoulders as her touch registered. He couldn't stay mad.
"Andrea is terrified because Tokyo is a bloodbath," he admitted, uncrossing his arms to rest his hands on her hips. "And you are trouble. You made me worry."
"I am fine," she whispered. "I am better than fine. I missed you."
She kissed him.
It wasn't a sweet greeting. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his, hard. She tasted the coffee on his tongue. She felt the vibration of his groan against her lips.
Harry’s grip tightened on her hips, digging into the charcoal fabric. He pulled her flush against him, claiming her mouth with a sudden, starving intensity.
"You are a menace," he growled against her mouth, his teeth grazing her lower lip. "Walking in here looking like sin... making me want to lock the door and let the Tokyo market burn just so I can hear you scream my name."
"Is it working?" she whispered breathlessly.
"Unfortunately, yes."
She smirked. She grabbed his tie and tugged. She walked backward, pulling him with her around the massive oak desk.
"Sit down," she commanded, nodding at his high-backed leather executive chair.
Harry glanced at the chair. Then he glanced at the three massive monitors setup on his desk.
The center screen was active. A video conference window was open. The room on the other side—a boardroom in Singapore—was currently empty, just a view of a long mahogany table, but the connection was live.
Harry saw the little green light on his webcam staring back at him.
"I shouldn't," he said, resisting her pull slightly. "The link is already active. They are just waiting for the partners to sit down."
"Is the microphone on?" Y/N asked, glancing at the screen.
Harry looked. The icon was red with a slash through it.
"Muted," he muttered. "But the camera is live, Y/N."
"Sit," she repeated.
Harry let out a breath, but he sat. He sank into the leather seat, immediately checking his position in the self-view window on the screen. He was centered. Professional.
Y/N didn't climb into his lap. Instead, she sank down.
She dropped to her knees in the small space between his chair and the desk, completely disappearing from the camera’s view. She was in the blind spot.
Harry looked down at her. His hands gripped the armrests of his chair.
"Y/N," he whispered urgently, his eyes darting back to the empty boardroom on the screen. "We shouldn't."
"Why?" she asked innocently. She ran her palms up his thighs, feeling the muscles jump under the suit fabric. "Nobody is there yet."
"They could walk in at any second," Harry hissed. "The camera is on. I am literally broadcasting to Asia right now."
"You are broadcasting your face," Y/N corrected softly. "Not your lap."
She reached for his belt buckle.
"We shouldn't," Harry repeated, but his voice was straining. "It is reckless. If they join..."
"Then you better hope you have a poker face," she whispered.
The belt buckle clicked open. The sound was sharp in the quiet office.
Harry looked at the screen. The empty boardroom in Singapore stared back at him. The green light of the camera mocked him. And under the desk, the woman he loved was undoing his zipper.
"Y/N," he warned, his voice tight. "Seriousy. We shouldn't do this."
"You need to relax," she challenged softly,"Focus on the meeting Harry."
Harry looked down at her. He looked at the mischief in her eyes. He looked at the way she was kneeling there, hidden in the shadows of his desk, safe from the camera but dangerously close to ruining him.
Harry saw movement on the center screen. A door opened in the boardroom in Singapore. Two men in dark suits walked in and began setting up their laptops.
"They are here," he hissed, his hand flying to the mouse to check the mute icon for the tenth time.
He looked down at her. She was already waiting, her breath warm against him.
He let out a defeated, shaky exhale. He looked at the ceiling for one second, praying for strength, before forcing his gaze back to the camera to compose his face into a mask of corporate indifference.
"You are going to get me in trouble" he whispered, though his hand drifted down to tangle in her hair. "If I lose this deal because..."
"You won't," she assured him softly.
She reached for the waistband of his boxer briefs, her cool fingers brushing against the hot skin of his lower stomach. Harry’s hips bucked slightly, an involuntary jerk of anticipation, as she hooked her thumbs over the elastic and dragged the black cotton down his thighs.
He sprang free, heavy and imposing. He was beautifully hard, his length thick and straining towards her, the velvet head glistening with a clear bead of need. He was twitching, desperate for her touch, looking so starkly needy against the formal darkness of his suit trousers.
Y/N let out a soft, appreciative hum. She wrapped her hand around him, feeling the heat radiate into her palm, squeezing the solid weight of him. He was perfect.
She didn't wait for another protest. She didn't wait for the men in Singapore to adjust their microphones.
She took him into her mouth.
Harry’s entire body went rigid. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second, the shock of the warmth, the wetness, and the sudden suction hitting him like a physical blow.
He clamped his jaw shut, forcing his face to remain impassive, even as his hips instinctively tried to snap upward against the restriction of the desk.
On the screen, one of the partners—Mr. Tan—leaned into his microphone.
"Good morning, Mr. Styles. Or rather, good afternoon to you."
Harry had to speak. He had to unmute.
He reached for the mouse. His hand was shaking. He clicked the icon.
"Good morning, gentlemen," Harry said. His voice was a little rough, a little deeper than usual, but steady.
Under the desk, Y/N hummed against him, the vibration traveling straight up his spine. She swirled her tongue, slow and deliberate, coating him completely before beginning to bob her head.
Harry’s fingers dug into the leather armrests so hard he thought he might puncture the material. He didn't look down. He couldn't. If he looked down, he was dead.
"I trust you have had a chance to review the proposal?" Mr. Tan asked, shuffling papers.
Y/N took him deeper, her rhythm picking up, sucking him harder with every stroke.
Harry swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing visible on the high-definition feed. He forced a stiff, professional nod at the camera.
"I have," Harry managed, the words clipped and strained. "I have... the numbers right here."
He wasn't looking at the numbers. He was staring at the webcam lens, praying to a God he didn't believe in that he wouldn't groan into the microphone as his girlfriend swallowed him whole.
“The projections regarding the... the yield curves," Harry started, but the sentence fractured in the middle.
Y/N had tightened her lips. She wasn't just bobbing now; she was suctioning him, her cheeks hollowing as she dragged him deep into the wet heat of her throat, then pulling back slowly to swirl her tongue around the sensitive ridge of the glans.
Harry’s eyes lost focus. He blinked rapidly, his pupils blown wide. He saw the pixelated face of Mr. Tan looking at him expectantly, but all he could feel was the drag of her tongue and the maddening pressure of her throat.
He cleared his throat, a harsh, guttural sound.
"Excuse me," Harry managed, his voice dropping another octave. "The air conditioning in here is... quite dry."
"Understood," Mr. Tan nodded solemnly on the screen. "As I was saying, our primary concern is the volatility in the tech sector. We feel the exposure is too high."
Harry nodded. He needed to say 'We can hedge against that.' It was a simple sentence. He had said it a thousand times.
But just as he opened his mouth, Y/N released him from her mouth only to immediately take him back in, this time humming against the head of his cock. The vibration rattled through his entire nervous system.
Harry’s foot spasmed under the desk, kicking out and hitting the wood with a dull thud.
"Mr. Styles?" Mr. Tan asked, frowning slightly. "Are you with us?"
Harry grabbed the mouse and clicked Mute.
"Fuck," he exhaled, his head falling slightly back against the leather for one precious second, his face twisting in a mask of pure, agony-laced pleasure. "Jesus Christ, Y/N..."
He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to grab her hair and fuck her throat properly. He couldn't. He had to be the CEO.
He forced his head up. He composed his features. He clicked Unmute.
"Apologies," Harry said, his voice a mask of stone, though a bead of sweat was now tracking down his temple. "There was a lag on the audio feed. I lost you for a second."
It was the perfect lie. Boring. Technical. Plausible.
"Ah, the connection," Mr. Tan nodded sympathetically on the screen. "Is it stable now?
Under the desk, Y/N smirked around his length. She knew he was lying. She reached down with one hand to cup his heavy balls, massaging them gently, while her other hand wrapped around the base of his shaft to pump him in rhythm with her mouth.
The sensation was overwhelming. He was being assaulted from every angle.
"It appears stable," Harry gritted out, speaking too fast, desperate to get the words out before she made him stutter. "Please... proceed.”
Y/N swirled her tongue right over the slit at the tip, flicking it mercilessly.
Harry stopped breathing. His eyes bulged slightly. He stared dead into the camera, his expression freezing in a look of intense, pained concentration that probably looked like he was doing complex mental math.
In reality, he was trying not to scream.
"We were discussing the timeline," Mr. Tan said. "Regarding the tech exposure.”
Harry nodded stiffly.
"We can hedge," Harry managed, his voice strained. "I can have Andrea draw up the... the..."
Y/N took him deeper, swallowing him so thoroughly that the back of her throat massaged the sensitive head of his cock.
Harry’s vision blurred.
"...the derivatives," Harry finished on a breathless exhale.
"Excellent," Mr. Tan smiled. "And what is your timeline for execution?"
Harry looked at the time on the screen. Y/N had sped up. She was bobbing faster now, her messy hair brushing against his thighs, the wet, sloppy sounds of her work echoing in the small space under the desk.
Harry prayed the noise cancellation software on his microphone was as expensive as the IT department claimed it was.
"Timeline," Harry repeated. He gripped the desk so hard his knuckles popped. "As soon as possible. Immediately. Today."
He wasn't talking about the trade.
"Very aggressive," Mr. Tan noted, looking impressed. "We like that energy, Harry."
Harry let out a short, hysterical laugh that he quickly disguised as a throat clearing.
"I am feeling... very aggressive today," Harry choked out, his toes curling inside his leather loafers as Y/N took him so deep her nose brushed his pubic hair. "Very... motivated."
Summary: A collection of moments from the life Harry Styles and Nora Elwood created together — messy, beautiful, and full of love. Through the highs, the lows, and everything in between, they navigate marriage, parenthood, and the moment that shape them as a family.
Warning: Some of these one-shots contain themes of pregnancy complications, pregnancy loss, hospitalisation, medical distress, mentions of death, and depression. Please read with care.
Status: Ongoing
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Halfway Here
Summary: Before Harry and Nora built their little family, they almost fell apart. Nora was tired of getting only the scraps of him left over after the world had taken its share, and when he missed one of her biggest milestones, it felt like the final straw. This is the story of the near-ending that forced Harry to decide what, and who, he would truly show up for.
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Father's Day and Every Day
Summary: This one-shot follows Harry and Nora through moments around Father's Day — from family life and milestones, to unexpected news and quiet reflections. It's about what it means to be family.
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The Many Firsts
Summary: A collection of heartwarming and chaotic firsts as Harry and Nora navigate new parenthood with their spirited daughter, Remy —from the first night away to surprise family portraits. Through laughter, tears, and sleepless nights, they’re learning that love grows in all the in-between moments.
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Colour Song
Summary: When Nora experiences sudden complications during her pregnancy, a quiet morning turns into an emotional fight to stay calm—for her daughter, her baby, and herself. As Harry rushes to be by her side, the family leans on love, softness, and small moments of comfort to get through a frightening few days.
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The Walls That Held Us
Summary: When Nora’s pregnancy takes a dangerous turn, she and Harry are forced to navigate hospital stays, fear, and the fragility of what they love most. In the quiet moments between uncertainty and joy, they discover how deeply the walls they’ve built together can hold them.
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After The Fog
Set in the aftermath of The Walls That Held Us, this one-shot follows Nora as she faces the quiet, unseen ache of postpartum depression. The baby she fought so hard to bring into the world now feels like a stranger in her arms, and as Harry steps in Nora wrestles with what it means to be loved through the hardest parts of herself.
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The Ground Beneath Us
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Summary: Nora and Harry have always been a solid team, built on love and choosing each other. When the question of a third child exposes old fears, the foundation they’ve built begins to show hardline fractures. This is a story about what happens when love is strong but not unshakeable, and how a family learns whether cracks mean collapse… or reinforcement.
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Mother's Day and Every Day
Summary: A celebration of Nora as a mother, the family she and Harry built, and the reminder that while Mother's Day comes once a year, the love and work behind it happens every single day.
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Counting Sleeps
Summary: When Nora goes to New York for five days, Remy has to learn that Dad can be her safe place too. A soft story about missing someone, parenting, and love and ordinary days.
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One Night Only in Manchester (Non-canon)
Summary: Just a soft "what if" moment in Harry and Nora's life – inspired by One Night Only in Manchester. A backstage story about nerves, family, dancing side-stage, and the people Harry looks for in the crowd when the lights go up.
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Before The Tour Begins (Non-canon)
Summary: As Harry prepares to tour again, he and Nora have to figure out what it means for their family this time. Between rehearsals, big conversations, and Remy insisting she’s part of the show, they navigate change, fear, and growing together. A soft, honest story about balancing work, home, and everything in between.
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Remy Can't Dance No More, Dad Said (Non-canon)
Summary: Just a little non-canon one shot because we’ve all seen the Dance No More music video… and obviously I had to imagine Nora experiencing it in real time 😭
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Room For One More
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Harry and Nora find themselves revisiting the idea of a third child after heartbreak, trauma, and a miscarriage nearly convinced them they were done growing their family. As Nora works through fears she never fully unpacked, she and Harry slowly learn how to talk about it honestly instead of fearfully. Between late-night hospital visits, therapy sessions, sleepy cuddles with their children, and deeply emotional conversations, they begin finding their way back to hope… and back to each other.
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Amsterdam (Non-canon)
Part 1, Part 2
A fun, family-focused one-shot set during Harry's Amsterdam shows, following Harry, Nora, Remy and Leo as they settle into tour life. Between rehearsals, park days, ice cream runs and life around the arena, it's a story about family, growing up, and finding normal moments in an extraordinary world.
Request: You know the video of Harry arguing with the pap? How about something similar where you see the video and message him about it to check he’s okay? Are you going to turn anon back on soon?
A/N: I'm aware that I'm cutting off communication with many of you by keeping the anon option turned off, but after past experiences with having it turned on, it makes me feel at ease when it's not. I don't know if and when I'm going to turn it back on. I still love everyone who interacts (kindly) with me and my posts. 💕
what about like a niall or harry texting fic where reader is very sick but she’s alone cause he’s at the studio. she waits as long as she can but something happens and she can no longer put it off. she texts him like “hey babe..” and asks very kindly if he can take her to the ER? but insists that it’s not a big deal (when it really is)?? ❤️🩹
Request: Current Harry. Reader is pregnant, first trimester and she woke up very nauseous and shaky while harry was out on a run. She texted him asking when he'll be back and she didn't wanna worry him so she didn't really tell him about what's happening until she got really dizzy and felt like she was gonna faint and he's then super worried and tells her to wait for him so he can take her to the hospital since she was this ill
𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 : john logan x sports med! fem!reader
𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 : suggestive content [making out, mild mild PDA], not secret but private relationship, hockey frat boys, probably alot of inaccuracies
𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 : The Briar hockey team treats the sports medicine clinic like their personal emergency room, John Logan treats it like a second home. But the team can't confirm nor deny your relationship... well until now
𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐜𝐞 : 3.8k words
𝐛𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲’𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 : Might not be my best work! but I am just getting used to the sports fandom in general. Also still deciding whether im leaning more towards book or show Logan, so I hope you enjoy my attempt at feeling out his character. diver credit : @cafekitsune
The sports medicine clinic at Briar somehow always smells the same no matter what time of year it is. Hockey gear, melting ice packs, and disinfectant.
And is technically supposed to close at six.
Technically.
In reality, it closes whenever the hockey team finally stops wandering in with mystery bruises, split knuckles, sore shoulders, or dramatic declarations that they’re "probably dying" before immediately asking for snacks five minutes later.
Which is why you’re still here. Somewhere along the line, what started as a second-year sports medicine placement had turned into unofficial emotional support for the entire Briar hockey team, half the roster had your number for “emergencies,” which unfortunately ranged anywhere from actual injuries to Garrett once texting you a photo of a bruise shaped vaguely like Abraham Lincoln at two in the morning.
The fluorescent lights hum quietly overhead while you reorganise rolls of athletic tape for the third time that evening, one AirPod in, paperwork half-finished beside you, when the clinic door swings open.
You don’t even look up immediately.
“You’re late,” you say automatically.
“Mrs Logaaaan,” Garrett sings back.
Tucker’s voice follows before you can respond. “Oh thank god, my favourite healthcare professional.”
“Can you legally prescribe me a girlfriend?” Dean winks at you, messing with his hair- spraying sweat onto the other players around him.
That makes you glance up and grimace.
“You need deodorant first,” you reply flatly.
Your comment earns a loud chorus of offended reactions.
“You’re so mean to us.” One of them whines
“You guys make it incredibly easy.”
Hockey players file into the clinic grinning like idiots, damp hair from practice still sticking up in random directions, one drags himself dramatically toward one of the beds clutching his shoulder like he’s been mortally wounded.
“See? I told you guys that Logan’s her favourite. She hates the rest of us.”
“That’s not true,” you say automatically.
It kind of is, though.
You’d known all of them for years at this point - through playoffs and fractured fingers and Dean getting banned from intramural basketball for “excessive dramatics” - but Logan had somehow become something else entirely before you even realised it was happening.
“Logan’s my favourite because he knows how to fill out injury forms without drawing smiley faces.” You snort quietly and reach for a fresh pair of gloves.
“That was one time,” Dean argues.
“It was four times. It doesn't get funnier the more you do it.”
The boys continue arguing over each other while you start sorting through who actually needs treatment and who’s just here for attention.
And from behind all of them, Logan steps into the room, looking unfairly good for someone who just spent two hours getting bodychecked into plexiglass.
His practice jersey is half untucked, curls damp at the edges from sweat, hockey bag hanging from one shoulder while he watches the entire scene unfold with the long-suffering expression of a man who absolutely could stop his teammates and simply chooses not to.
Your mouth twitches on instinct.
“Not a single one of you knows how to act in medical facilities.”
“We’re athletes,” one of them replies solemnly. “We’re fragile.”
“You’re twenty.”
“Exactly.”
His eyes find you. It’s subtle enough that most people wouldn’t notice unless they were specifically looking for it, but you do. The way his expression shifts slightly the second he sees you, shoulders loosening a little like he’s finally somewhere he actually wants to be.
Unfortunately, the team notices too.
“There he goes,” Garrett says loudly to the room. “Looking at her like she personally invented happiness.”
“Actually disgusting,” another adds.
You shake your head under your breath, trying not to smile as you move toward the nearest bed.
“Alright, what happened?”
“Practice injury,” the player says dramatically.
“You got hit with a foam roller.”
“It was aggressive.”
From behind him, Logan laughs quietly.
The sound pulls your attention toward him automatically.
He’s already looking at you.
He always is, it started sometime last winter, subtle enough neither of you acknowledged it at first, until suddenly Logan had become this fixed point in your day without either of you meaning for him to.
And then, because apparently he enjoys making your job harder, he drops onto the stool closest to your station while the rest of the boys continue causing problems in the background.
You narrow your eyes slightly.
“You injured too?”
He shrugs once and glances at your clipboard.
“Are you busy?” he asks.
You look down at him. “No actually, this is all for fun.”
His mouth twitches.
Behind him, one of the guys points accusingly. “See that? Flirting.”
“We’re literally talking,” you say.
Which, admittedly, had become a problem sometime around November. Because Logan looked at you during conversations like every sentence mattered more than it probably did.
“That’s how it starts.”
Logan ignores them entirely.
“You look tired,” he says instead, quieter now.
You blink at him once, slightly thrown by the softness of it in the middle of all the noise, mostly because Logan only really sounded like that with you. Everyone else got easygoing sarcasm and dry one-liners. You got this version of him instead.
“Your team is exhausting.”
“That’s fair.”
“You included.”
“Less than the others.”
“Debatable.”
That finally gets a proper smile out of him, small but real, and it sits annoyingly well on his face.
You gesture toward the treatment beds with your pen. “Okay, which one of you is actually injured and which one of you just wants free medical attention?”
“My knee-”
“My wrist-”
“Emotionally, mostly-”
“Shocking,” you mutter, already beginning to inspect somebody’s wrist.
And through all of it, Logan stays where he is.
Closest to you.
Which, unfortunately, only makes the entire situation infinitely worse.. Because now he’s just sitting there. Watching you work.
You move from player to player while the clinic slowly dissolves into complete nonsense around you, someone stealing gloves from a supply drawer while another dramatically asks if bruising counts as a life-threatening condition.
“You’re literally holding an ice pack shaped like a cartoon penguin,” you deadpan, “meant for the kids who come for weekend lessons by the way.”
“It’s emotionally devastating.”
“You’ll survive.”
“That’s what they said about the Titanic.”
“Get out.”
Laughter breaks across the room in an undignified uproar.
Logan stays focussed on you with that same quiet gaze he always gets whenever you’re concentrating on something. One foot hooked loosely against the stool rung while he absentmindedly spun the little keychain attached to the back pocket of your scrub bottoms.
You glance back over your shoulder briefly.
He doesn’t even look guilty.
If anything, the corner of his mouth lifts slightly when he realises you noticed.
“You’re annoying,” you murmur quietly while digging through the drawer for bandages.
“Thought I was hot.”
You try to stay unimpressed, but your mouth still betrays you by twitching slightly while you go back to work, “You can be both.”
That earns the smallest laugh out of him.
Across the room, Garrett notices immediately, pausing mid-sentence and looking between the two of you suspiciously.
“Why are you looking at him like that?”
You don’t even blink.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to put him down.”
“Because he’s touching my keychain.”
“That’s weirdly domestic.”
“It’s literally a keychain.”
“Yeah,” Dean cuts in, grinning now. “A married couple keychain.”
Logan finally speaks again from beside you.
“Pretty sure married people have bigger problems.”
Dean chirps back, “Like taxes and children.”
Garrett points at Logan. “That man would thrive as a girl dad.”
Logan doesn’t even look embarrassed. If anything, he looks mildly annoyed at being interrupted.
You throw a roll of tape at them without looking.
The room erupts instantly.
“Okay,” you say over the noise, trying unsuccessfully not to laugh. “Everybody either sit down properly or leave.”
Shockingly, they obey.
You finish checking a plethora of oddly shaped bruises and superficial cuts while the clinic finally settles into a moderate calm around you, the post-practice energy finally starting to wear off.
The entire time, Logan stays close. Close enough that every now and then your thigh brushes his knee when you walk past, close enough that he occasionally reaches out to tug lightly on the edge of your hoodie sleeve just to get your attention for absolutely no reason.
Especially when Dean starts dramatically fake-flirting with you while you’re checking his wrist, only for Logan to look up from where he’s sitting and say,
“Relax.” Which is unfortunately the exact tone he uses whenever he’s jealous but is trying to pretend he isn’t.
Dean sharply bursts out laughing.
“OH MY GOD THERE IT IS, you’re actually possessive!”
“I’m not possessive,” Logan lies.
“You looked ready to fight me.”
“You’re annoying me.”
“That’s even worse!”
You shake your head, trying to hide your smile while Logan leans against the counter behind him, completely unbothered by the fact that the entire room is basically accusing him of being in love.
Eventually, when the bulk of the man-toddlers have left the clinic and you’ve handed out enough ice packs to survive a small natural disaster. You finally make your way back over to Logan, picking up the 100th incident form to fill out for the stragglers left behind,
“You sure you’re fine?” you ask eventually without looking directly at him.
“Mostly.”
That makes you glance up, you click your pen and drop it into your pocket,
“Mostly?”
He finally shifts slightly on the stool.
“My shoulder’s stiff.”
You stare at him.
“You waited until after I treated everyone else to tell me that?”
A shrug.
“You were busy.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
His mouth twitches again.
“You like me anyway.”
The worst part was that he said things like that with complete certainty now, like somewhere over the past few months he’d stopped questioning whether you’d stay.
One of the teammates gags dramatically somewhere behind him.
“There it is.”
“Shut up,” Logan says immediately.
You’re already moving toward the storage cabinet before the teasing can escalate further, only to realise halfway there that the tape drawer is nearly empty.
You stop.
Then sigh.
“Great.”
“What?” Logan asks.
“Your idiot teammates used the last of my shoulder tape.”
A couple guys cheer from across the room, “LET’S GO.”
Logan rolls his eyes at them, “That sounds like a team problem.”
“That sounds like your problem,” you huff.
He looks entirely unbothered.
“So,” you continue, ignoring them completely, “I need to go grab more from storage.”
Logan nods once.
“You can come back after your shower and I’ll tape it for you properly.”
He pauses.
“You want me to leave?”
“You smell like a locker room.”
“That’s hurtful.”
“And yet,” Garrett says from the hallway without even looking back, “she keeps letting you come over.”
Logan doesn’t miss a beat.
“That’s because she looooves me.”
“Disgusting,” Dean mutters.
You point toward the hallway.
“Go shower or change or whatever the hell you hockey people do after practice and come back in twenty minutes. I’ll restock from the storage room.”
One teammate gasps dramatically.
“She’s asking him to come back.”
“She asks all injured athletes to come back,” you say flatly.
“Yeah, but not like that.”
Logan looks up at you with the faintest grin tugging at his mouth, then he stands, tall enough that suddenly the tiny clinic space feels much smaller than it did thirty seconds ago.
He grabs his bag from the floor without taking his eyes off you properly.
“I’ll be back,” he says.
One of the players makes kissing noises immediately.
You throw a roll of bandage backing at them.
This time Logan laughs properly.
The rest of them filter out behind him in a mess of noise and complaints, leaving the clinic suddenly, almost suspiciously, quiet.
You thank the gods and take advantage of whatever time they've mercifully gifted you. Taking the minutes to do small tasks like restocking tape from the back storage room, reorganising supplies and finishing the paperwork you abandoned earlier.
By the time the clinic door opens again, barely fifteen minutes later, the noise of the team has completely faded into the distance.
You look up from where you’re reorganising a tray of supplies with immediate suspicion.
“You showered fast,” you say lightly.
Logan closes the door behind him with his elbow before answering, hair still damp around the edges like he’d towel-dried it in under thirty seconds and called it a day. He’s swapped into grey sweats and a dark Briar hoodie, duffel bag hanging lazily from one hand, and he looks far too pleased with himself for someone supposedly recovering from an injury.
“Yeah,” he says easily, walking toward you. “Wanted to see you.”
There was a time that line would’ve completely short-circuited your nervous system. Now it just settled warm somewhere beneath your ribs because Logan said things like that all the time.
You roll your eyes automatically even though warmth blooms under your skin anyway.
The corner of your mouth twitches before you can stop it.
“Wow,” you deadpan. “Romantic.”
“I know.”
“You’re laying it on thick today.”
He drops his bag by the wall with a heavy thud and sits himself up on the treatment bed while you grab the fresh tape you’d dragged out from storage, and hold it out toward him
“There,” you say. “Knock yourself out.”
Logan stares down at the tape for a second like you’ve personally betrayed him, then his mouth pulls into the most ridiculous pout you’ve ever seen on a grown man.
“…Baby.”
“What?” you ask.
“You’re just handing it to me?”
“You have hands.”
“But you do it better.”
The thing about Logan was that he got clingier when he was tired. Post-practice Logan in particular operated almost exclusively on physical contact and opportunistic whining.
You choke out a laugh. “Absolutely not.”
“But you do it better,” he complains, looking up at you from where he’s sitting. “You literally study this stuff. It’s like having a personal private healthcare system.”
“You’re so dramatic.”
You fold your arms, trying very hard not to smile while he keeps looking at you like a neglected house cat.
You stare at him for a second, then laugh softly under your breath despite yourself.
“Oh my God.”
“I’m injured.”
“You are literally sitting upright.”
“My shoulder hurts.”
“You survived practice.”
“Barely.”
He says it completely deadpan too, which somehow makes it worse.
You step closer eventually, taking the tape back out of his hand with a dramatic sigh.
“I cannot believe this works on me.”
“It does though.”
You roll your eyes, lean down, and kiss the pout right off his mouth.
It’s quick, barely more than a soft press of your lips against his, but it instantly wipes the smug suffering expression off his face.
“There,” you murmur against him. “Better?”
“Much.”
“you're so manipulative.”
“You love it.”
Unfortunately, he isn’t wrong.
Still shaking your head, you begin to pick at the tape, searching for a start, a grin breaks across his face.
“There she is.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“You love me.”
He leans back slightly while you move closer, between his parted knees,
“Take your shirt off.”
Logan’s eyebrows lift with mock dignity,
“Wow.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m just saying, very forward of you.”
You point the tape threateningly.
“I can and will mess this up on purpose.”
That finally earns a laugh out of him before he grabs the bottom of the shirt and peels it up slowly over his stomach and chest before pulling it fully off. The movement flexes the muscles across his shoulders and arms in a way that makes your hands pause for just a second too long before continuing.
The first time you’d seen Logan shirtless, you’d nearly walked face-first into a supply cart. Now you liked to think that you mostly handled it with dignity.
But even though you have seen him shirtless before, plenty of times, your brain still stalls for a second. Of course he notices, a Cheshire smirk spreading across his face.
“Are you checking me out right now?”
You snap your eyes back up to his. “Relax.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’ve literally taken your shirt off in front of me like a hundred times.”
“Exactly,” he says, leaning back on one hand. “So why are you acting shy now?”
“I’m not acting shy.”
“You stopped moving.”
“I was thinking medically.”
That gets a laugh out of him, low and warm and entirely too satisfied.
“Sure you were.”
You shove lightly at his shoulder. “Sit properly before I ruin your tape on purpose.”
“Yes ma’am.”
He straightens up obediently, but the second you lean closer to inspect the swelling, his hands settle automatically on your hips, warm and familiar through the fabric of your leggings. Logan constantly touched you in ways so absentminded, they almost felt instinctive - a hand at your back, fingers catching your sleeve, knees knocking together under tables.
You glance down at them while peeling the backing off the tape.
“That’s not very professional of you.”
Logan looks at you innocently. “Neither is ogling your patient.”
You snort despite yourself and press your palm flat against his chest to push him back slightly so you can work properly.
“Shut up unless you want me to tape your arm to your torso.”
“Bit kinky for a medical facility.”
“John.”
You press the tape down slightly harder against his shoulder, he laughs quietly through the wince, shoulders shaking beneath your hands before finally relaxing when you glare at him.
“Abuse of power.”
“Keep talking and I’ll make it asymmetrical.”
That finally shuts him up.
The room settles into something quieter after that, the air hums softly around the two of you, close and warm and familiar in a way that makes the rest of campus feel very far away. You focus on the tape, fingers smoothing it across the curve of his shoulder and down his arm while Logan watches you with that same soft, steady attention he always gets when he thinks you aren’t noticing.
“You concentrate really hard,” he murmurs eventually.
“I’m trying to stop you from destroying your rotator cuff.”
“Hot.”
You roll your eyes so hard it nearly hurts.
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” he says lightly, thumbs brushing absentmindedly against your hips, “you keep me around.”
You finish the final strip and smooth your hand over it one last time, making sure it’s fully adhered before tossing the empty backing aside.
“There,” you murmur, “Done.”
The clinic suddenly feels too quiet without the team in it.
Just the hum of fluorescent lights, the faint smell of your strawberry chapstick, and Logan looking at you like he has absolutely nowhere else he’d rather be.
You don’t step away and his hands tighten slightly at your hips while you’re still leaning forward over him, palms braced against the crinkling paper beside him on the treatment bed. Suddenly you’re very aware of how close your faces are.
You can feel his breathe against your parted lips, warm and steady
“You’re staring again,” he says quietly.
“You’re shirtless in a medical facility.”
“You invited me.”
Your eyes flick down to his mouth first and you lean in to kiss him before he can say something smug about it.
The first kiss is soft, more amused than anything, except Logan enthusiastically kisses you back. It’s not so chaste anymore.
His hand slides from your hip up along your waist while your fingers instinctively catch against the back of his neck, and the second you kiss him deeper, he exhales softly against your mouth like it nearly knocked the breath out of him.
You can feel the warmth of his skin beneath your hands, nails digging into his shoulder.
His mouth stays slow at first, then the kiss deepens steadily until your breathing catches halfway through it, a small involuntary sound escaping you before you can stop it, and Logan takes the opportunity to tilt his head and kiss you deeper like he’s been waiting for permission.
One of his hands slides into your hair, the other stays firm at your waist.
The new angle arches you against him properly now, your chest pressed lightly to his as he kisses you harder this time, slower and warmer and very deliberately not innocent.
His mouth is still curved faintly like he’s enjoying the fact that you started this, but the smugness fades quickly when your fingers slide into the damp hair at the base of his head and tug lightly.
The sound he makes against your mouth is quiet, but enough to make heat rush straight through you.
“Oh, you liked that,” you murmur before kissing him again. Logan’s hand tightens instinctively at your waist like he’s annoyed you noticed, which only makes you want to tease him more.
“Don’t get cocky,” he says, voice lower now.
“You literally started pouting for attention five minutes ago.”
“And it worked.”
He kisses you again before you can answer, his fingers creep below the hem of your scrubs and his palm flattens up on your spine, against your bare skin. The other slides down from your hair to your neck, guiding you harder into his lips, mouth parting to swallow your shallow breaths.
The paper beneath him crinkles loudly when he shifts forward toward the edge of the bed, and you can’t help laughing softly into the kiss at how absurdly obvious the sound is.
“You’re so clingy,” you whisper.
“Mm,” he hums against your mouth. “You love it.”
You pull away from him, chest heaving as you make room for his hands to skate up your sides, your scrub top going with them, "Actually...", his hands pause against you. You grin, going to press hot kisses to his neck, "I love you."
He groans at that, blunt nails digging into your ribs, just below your bra- itching to take it off.
You’re about to help him peel off your layers, when the clinic door suddenly slams open hard enough to hit the stopper behind it.
“YO LOGAN-”
You jerk back just enough to look toward the doorway while complete silence takes over the room.
You and Logan freeze for approximately half a second while the entire hockey team stands in the doorway staring in collective disbelief.
One teammate points aggressively.
“I KNEW IT.”
Another gasps dramatically.
“MRS. LOGAN CONFIRMED IN REAL LIFE.”
You bury your face briefly in Logan’s shoulder, mortified and laughing at the same time, meanwhile, Logan looks ready to commit murder.
He reaches blindly for the tape roll beside him and chucks it directly at them.
“Get out, you perverts.”
The tape bounces uselessly off one guy’s chest and nobody leaves.
If anything, they move further inside.
“HE’S DEFENSIVE!” someone yells.
“BRO WE INTERRUPTED FOREPLAY.”
“You guys are so annoying,” you groan, face burning.
Logan just watches you laugh for a second, despite the fact his teammates are actively ruining his life in real time, something in his expression softens completely.
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” he mutters quietly.
You look back at him with teary eyes.
“You threw tape at them.”
“They interrupted me.”
“That sounded possessive. Maybe Dean was right?”
“It was, can't believe I'm proving him correct.”
"YES MRS. LOGAN" Dean cheers from within the pack.
That makes you laugh all over again.
Logan, meanwhile, tightens an arm around your waist and glares at them with absolutely zero shame. He doesn’t even bother to move away from you anymore, which is probably the most embarrassing part.
“Door,” he says flatly.
The boys finally retreat, still yelling over each other, and the second the door slams shut again, the clinic falls back into silence.
𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 : john logan x fem!reader
𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 : angst, mentions of fainting, breakup implied or atleast taking a break implied, dizziness, medical inaccuracies for the plot.
𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 : Being a chronic fainter was a little annoying. but you learnt how to manage and by junior year at Briar, everyone around you had adapted to it too; Hannah and Allie knew how to catch the signs before you hit the floor, Garrett keeps electrolyte packets in his backpack, and the hockey house has practically developed an emergency response system.
Everyone adapts except John Logan.
Because no matter how many times you wake back up smiling and insisting you’re okay, Logan never quite learns how to treat it like something ordinary. And when one particularly bad fainting spell leaves you unconscious long enough to genuinely terrify him, the careful balance the two of you have built between normalcy and fear finally begins to crack.
Or: two times John Logan watched you faint, and the one time he realised loving you meant learning how to be scared without letting it consume him.
𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐜𝐞 : 5.7k words
𝐛𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲’𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 : First time fulfilling a request, I hope you like it anon, im sorry that it probably isn't the fluff you are looking for but I hope you like it nonetheless. thank you @mieluno & @kthice for the text dividers
fainting had always been a little bit inconvenient.
not dramatic enough to be cinematic, not predictable enough to properly prepare for - just inconvenient in the kind of way that slowly embeds itself into every aspect of your life until you stop noticing how abnormal it actually is. It all started in high school, the first time it happened was arguably horrifying- 3rd period math class, and your crush had just offered you a pen and flashed you a crooked smile. Your heart raced, like a hummingbird wild and erratic and before you knew it, one minute you were bashfully giggling at his jokes about quadratic equations- the next you were face first in your notebook. The doctors told you Vasovagal Syncope, which in your opinion sounded like a hard metal rock band, but you took their blood pressure medicines from that day onwards.
Over time, you learnt how to live with it. Sometimes it was manageable. Sometimes it was just dizziness and blurry vision making you sit down on the nearest surface before your body decided to humble you publicly. Sometimes it was waking up to panicked faces hovering over you while you tried to convince everyone around you that no, seriously, this happened all the time.
which, unfortunately, was true.
Allie and Hannah learned the quickest, being roommates would do that to you. The boys learned soon after. By junior year, there was practically a system in place for it - water bottles shoved into your hands, someone grabbing your bag before you hit the floor, Garrett texting Logan before you were even fully conscious again.
Logan, however, never quite adjusted to it the way everyone else did.
he tried to.
God, he tried.
but there was something uniquely horrifying about loving someone whose body could go slack in your arms without warning. Something deeply unsettling about the way you always laughed it off afterwards, brushing it aside with flushed cheeks and a quiet, "I'm okay,” while his heart was still somewhere near his throat.
because to you, fainting was normal.
to John Logan, it never would be.
But here are the two times he dealt with it..somewhat normally. And the one time he didn’t
𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟏
The library at Briar had a very specific kind of silence.
Not actual silence - that would’ve been impossible considering half the student population seemed physically incapable of existing without aggressively whispering every thought that crossed their mind - but the sort of hushed atmosphere that made every dropped pen sound like a gunshot.
You were currently trying very hard not to contribute to that atmosphere by murdering John Logan with a highlighter.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Logan muttered from across the table, long legs nudging yours beneath it.
You didn’t look up from your notes, underlining a sentence in your physiology textbook hard enough to nearly tear the page. “Because,” You whispered sharply, “you’ve tapped your foot against mine for the last fifteen minutes.”
“That’s because my feet are freezing.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“It became my problem when you shoved your icy ass converse under my legs.”
A snort came from beside you. Hannah quickly disguised it as a cough when you glared at her over your laptop screen.
Across from her, Garrett looked deeply unbothered by the entire interaction, lazily flipping a page in his philosophy textbook while Hannah slowly collapsed into silent laughter against his shoulder.
“You two are disgusting,” Allie informed you quietly from the end of the table.
You blinked. “We’re literally studying.”
Logan hummed beside you, not even pretending to pay attention to the stats worksheet in front of him anymore, “Yeah baby, real filthy behaviour.”
Heat crawled up your neck instantly.
The word baby wasn’t exactly new. Logan had been throwing it around for months now, slipping it into conversations with such casual ease that you’d stopped reacting outwardly somewhere around week three, despite the fact every single time still felt like someone plugging your nervous system directly into a live wire.
“You’re staring again,” You muttered.
“I’m allowed to stare at my girlfriend.”
Allie gagged dramatically.
“Oh my god,” She whispered loudly, “he’s gotten even more annoying.”
“Impossible,” Hannah replied solemnly.
Garrett barely glanced up from his book. “Give it a week. They’ll become one organism.”
“We already basically are,” Logan said casually.
You finally looked up at him then.
That was the problem with Logan. The reason you’d fallen for him so spectacularly despite your better judgement.
He said things like that so easily. Like it was obvious.
obviously he’d started keeping protein bars in his backpack because you forgot to eat when you were stressed. obviously he waited outside your exam halls even when he had practice. obviously your legs ended up over his lap every time you sat together for longer than ten minutes.
Your chest tightened softly.
And because apparently the universe enjoyed humiliating you whenever you got too emotionally comfortable, your vision blurred slightly at the exact same moment.
You frowned. That was… inconvenient timing.
The words on your laptop screen swam for half a second before sharpening again. Your heartbeat fluttered unpleasantly.
Not enough to panic over yet. You subtly shifted in your seat, rolling your neck and readjusting your posture- hoping to god that it would be enough, trying to ignore the familiar lightheadedness curling at the edges of your body.
“Hey.”
Logan’s voice dropped quieter instantly.
You looked over.
His brows had pulled together slightly, eyes scanning your face with terrifying precision.
“How long?” He asked softly.
Damn him.
Most people didn’t notice until you were actively halfway unconscious.
“I’m okay,” You whispered automatically.
A look crossed his face. Because he knew that tone. Knew what it meant when you said I’m okay in that specific careful voice. Your boyfriend leaned back slightly in his chair, completely ignoring the fact that Garrett was now openly watching the interaction over the top of his textbook.
“When was the last time you ate?”
You blinked once.
Logan sighed immediately. “Baby.”
“I had coffee?”
Allie dropped her pen onto the table. “Oh my god.”
“You can’t survive on caffeine and academic validation,” Hannah hissed.
“I literally can though.”
“No,” Logan said flatly, “you literally cannot. That’s the whole issue.”
Despite yourself, you laughed quietly.
Wrong decision.
The movement sent dizziness crashing through you harder this time, your stomach dipping sharply as black spots burst across your vision.
Logan was moving before you could even process it properly.
One second you were upright, the next his hand was wrapped around your wrist while the other steadied your shoulder.
“Hey,” He said immediately, voice calm enough that someone who didn’t know him wouldn’t notice the tension underneath it, “look at me.”
Your body felt frustratingly floaty all of a sudden.
“I’m fine,” You murmured weakly.
“Yeah, sweetheart, that sentence is losing credibility.”
Garrett was already standing.
“I’ll get water.”
Hannah reached for your bag without needing to ask while Allie shoved your laptop aside to make room.
The horrifying thing was how practised everyone looked doing it.
Like this had become routine.
Which, unfortunately, it kind of had.
“I hate all of you,” You mumbled as Logan carefully crouched in front of your chair.
“You love us deeply,” Allie corrected.
“Stockholm syndrome maybe.”
“You literally chose to date one of them,” Hannah pointed out.
“That weakens your argument significantly,” Garrett called over his shoulder.
Logan ignored all of them.
His thumb pressed lightly against your pulse point while he watched your face with that same concentrated expression he got before hockey games. Like he could somehow prevent your body from betraying you if he paid enough attention.
Your chest ached.
“Hey,” You whispered softly once your vision finally started stabilising again.
Logan looked up immediately.
You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing against the crease between his eyebrows. The tension sitting there.
“I’m okay.”
He closed his eyes for half a second. Then he turned his head slightly and pressed a quick kiss into the centre of your palm before standing back up.
The library collectively chose that exact moment to become aware of the fact that the hockey team’s second line centre was looking at you like you personally held his heart hostage.
“Oh my god,” Allie whispered dramatically.
Hannah looked emotional.
Garrett looked disgusted.
“Suddenly we’re all trapped in a Nicholas Sparks novel,” he muttered.
Logan didn’t even glance away from you.
“Shut up,” He said absentmindedly, still watching your face carefully, “she almost passed out.”
“I did not almost pass out.”
“That’s not medically valid.” Logan shot.
You flicked his forehead, “You’re not medically valid,”
You stared at him for two seconds before bursting into startled laughter.
And just like that, some of the fear eased out of his shoulders.
𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟐
The thing about the hockey house was that it never really felt like anyone was visiting it.
It felt like everyone was always a part of this little ecosystem, even if half of them technically still had their own places and the other half only owned two plates and a concerning number of energy drinks that nobody could fully account for.
Tonight was one of those nights where everything blurred into something almost domestic in a way you loved. Garrett and Hannah were folded into each other on the armchair in the corner, Hannah scrolling absently while Garrett spoke over her shoulder in low, easy comments about something on his screen that she kept pretending not to care about but clearly did.
Dean and Allie were on the floor near the coffee table, Allie leaning against him in that casual way that somehow always ended with her stealing his hoodies and Dean acting like he was personally offended by affection while still adjusting her position when she shifted too much.
And then there was Tucker, occupying the remaining space like a problem nobody had successfully solved yet, talking at a volume that suggested he had forgotten walls existed.
You were on the couch.
Logan was on the couch too, your legs resting across his lap, your head resting on the back of the couch. His hand had found your ankle at some point during the evening and had simply stayed there, like it had decided that was where it belonged and saw no reason to reconsider.
“Have you eaten today?,” Logan murmured into your ear, not looking up from his phone.
You didn’t look away from the conversation Dean was having with Allie about whether cereal could be classified as a personality trait. “Hmm?”
“Did you eat today baby?” He dropped his phone into his lap and caressed your hair.
“I think so.”
A pause.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It does if you really think about it.”
Hannah glanced over from the armchair. “She’s lying.”
“I am not lying.”
Garrett didn’t look up. “You had toast and emotional distress.”
“I had toast and a very normal amount of stress.”
Logan’s thumb pressed lightly against your ankle once, absent and automatic, but his attention had shifted to you properly now. Not fully concerned yet, but already recalibrating the room around your answer the way he always did when he thought something might be off.
“Baby,” he said quietly, like it was a habit more than a warning.
You finally turned your head slightly toward him. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything.”
“You’re absolutely starting something.”
Across the room, Allie made a sound of exaggerated disgust without even looking up. “I can feel the health lecture forming.”
Dean nodded. “It’s in the air.”
Logan ignored them completely. “You said you had toast this morning.”
“I did.”
“And then what.”
You hesitated.
Which was apparently answered enough.
Hannah sighed. “Oh my god.”
“I had coffee,” you admitted finally, because there was no point pretending anymore.
Garrett closed his eyes briefly like he was praying for patience. “That’s not food.”
“It has beans in it.”
“That’s not how nutrition works,” Logan said, though his voice was still calm, still even, like he was trying very hard not to make it into a bigger thing than it already was.
You shifted your legs slightly on his lap, rolling your eyes. “You’re all obsessed with me.”
“Yes,” Allie said immediately.
“That’s not-”
“Yes,” Dean repeated, “we are.”
You opened your mouth to concede and hop to the kitchen, go grab whatever tucker had made and stored in the fridge, but the words didn’t come out as smoothly as they should have.
It wasn’t immediate. It never was, much to your annoyance. It was subtle in the way your body always was about these things, like it preferred to give you enough time to be pissed before it betrayed you properly.
A slight softening at the edges of your vision first, like the room had decided to lose definition without informing you. The low hum of conversation didn’t change, but it felt slightly further away, like you were listening to it through water.
You frowned. This was inconvenient.
You shifted your weight on the couch instinctively, trying to ground yourself without drawing attention to it, but Logan noticed anyway. Of course he did.
His hand tightened slightly around your ankle.
“You good?” he asked, quieter now.
You nodded automatically. “Yea,” pushing off the sofa, hoping the movement would reboot your brain,”... yeah im fine.”
It came out too fast. Logan’s expression changed imperceptibly, the way it always did when he didn’t believe you but hadn’t yet decided whether to challenge it in front of everyone.
“Hey,” he said again, softer, his hand wrapped around your wrist- following you away from your seat.
You tried to laugh it off, but it didn’t quite land properly even in your own ears. “I’m finally listening to you guys, just going to grab something to eat.”
You pushed yourself to step away.
That was when it hit properly. Your body simply decided that it was no longer participating in the conversation. The room loosened, like the edges stopped agreeing with each other and in between the gaps your brain filled with black spots.
You reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the back of the couch as your knees went weak in a way that didn’t feel like anything at first, until it did.
“Hey-”
Logan’s voice cut through immediately, sharper now, closer than it had been a second ago, but it was already too late for clarity.
There was so much movement all at once.
Someone swearing.
A water bottle being cracked open.
The shuffling of sneakers and socks against the floor.
Coming back was always the worst part.
Because there was always a moment where you could hear everything before you could properly exist inside it again. Voices layered over each other, closer this time, less casual.
“I’ve got her,” Logan’s voice said, low and controlled in a way that didn’t quite match the tension underneath it.
“She’s out cold?” Dean asked, like he was trying not to panic but also deeply failing.
“She’s not- don’t say it like that,” Allie snapped immediately.
“Water,” Garrett said somewhere to the side, already moving.
And then your vision finally returned in pieces.
Ceiling first.
Then faces.
Then Logan.
He was closest.
Crouched in front of you, one hand steadying your shoulder, the other still holding your wrist like he hadn’t fully decided whether letting go was allowed yet. His expression wasn’t dramatic in the way people expected panic to be.
He was focussed on you, in a way that made your chest tighten before you even fully remembered why. You blinked slowly.
“Oh,” you muttered. “That was annoying.”
Relief flickered across Allie’s face instantly. “She’s alive.”
“Barely,” Dean said.
“I heard that,” you murmured.
Logan didn’t smile, “you scared me,” he said finally. You swallowed, trying to sit up, but his hand immediately steadied you again, firmer now.
“Don’t,” he said softly.
“I’m fine,” you replied automatically, accepting the water from garrett with a smile, you reach over to your bag and search for an energy bar. You hated the nutty torture snacks, but Logan insisted on you carrying them around for emergencies.
Everyone around you had relaxed, Hannah, Garrett and Tucker went to the kitchen, animatedly chatting about dinner whereas Allie and Dean went back to their places on the floor, already scrolling through her phone.
Logan hadn’t moved, his fingers drumming against your knee. Your fingers moved without thinking, brushing lightly against his sleeve.
“I’m okay,” you said again, softer this time, like it might mean something more if you said it gently enough.
Logan exhaled through his nose, eyes flicking briefly shut like he was trying to steady something in himself. He shook his head, as if the movie had been unpaused and he had momentarily lost the plot.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”
𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝟑
Logan got the message in the middle of something he would not later be able to reconstruct properly, not because it wasn’t important, but because everything that happened immediately after replaced it so completely that the original context never stood a chance of surviving in his memory.
His phone buzzed incessantly on his desk breaking his concentration from whatever his professor was droning about ,to the group chat notifications exploding on his phone screen. It was Hannah’s name first, then Garrett’s, then Allie’s, all stacked on top of each other in a way that made him unlock his phone and scroll through hurriedly.
you fainted. properly. you're awake now. come back.
He read it once without reacting in any visible way, which was what made it worse in hindsight, everything else that he had been doing was irrelevant, as though the idea of continuing it belonged to someone else entirely, and he was no longer that person.
By the time he got back to the house, his hoodie was half-zipped because he had started putting it on properly and then stopped halfway through, his cap still backwards and slightly uneven like he had forgotten it was there at all and his hair underneath it flattened in places that suggested his hand had been through it more times than he had noticed.
Logan shut off his ignition and ran up the stairs, two at a time until he was bursting through the front door- his bag hanging from one shoulder as he scanned the scene in front of him. Garrett stood near the kitchen counter with a glass of water he had clearly forgotten to drink from, Hannah sat on the couch angled slightly forward in a posture that suggested she had not yet decided whether she was allowed to relax, Allie hovered somewhere between the hallway and the living room in a way that made it clear she had been going back and forth between checking on you and giving you space, and Dean existed in that familiar state of pretending not to be paying attention while absolutely paying attention.
And you were on the couch. Your eyes were open but not fully anchored yet, blinking slowly in that delayed way that made it clear your body was still catching up to where you were. Your shoulders were slightly hunched forward as if you were trying to find the correct posture for being awake again and your hands were loosely folded in your lap before you noticed him properly.
The moment you did, everything in you shifted in a way that was immediate and familiar, like muscle memory rather than thought. You sat up, twisting over the couch to meet his eyes and smile with your hand outstretched- that was when the collective inhale happened, like even the house was waiting to see what he would do.
His eyes stayed on you without breaking, taking in the fact that you were sitting there, awake, conscious, present, and yet his brain still hadn’t stopped running like a hamster on a wheel, rotating again and again through all the scenarios he had plagued himself with on the drive over- a broken movie reel that fluttered between bad, worse and catastrophic.
You saw him, the way his eyes darted all over your face, how his hand was tightening and loosely against his bag strap.
“Hey,” you said, your voice slightly rough, but it jumpstarted him to begin slowly approaching you, like a wounded animal. Your first instinct whenever he looked like that, as if you could smooth the edges of his expression back into something manageable by making yourself smaller within it, which was something you did without hesitation, like it was part of a pattern you had both already agreed to without ever discussing it.
He let you.
Let you intertwine your fingers with him and pull him closer next to you. Let you kiss his hands, then knuckles and then the side of his wrist. He let you ground him before he could process anything.
“I’m fine,” you said quickly, already aware of how the room was still holding itself slightly tense, and your voice tilted into something apologetic without fully meaning to, “I’m sorry guys, I must not have realised how stressed I was. I didn’t mean to scare anyone, I just didn’t eat properly and I got a bit dizzy and I didn’t realise it would turn into anything, it won’t happen again, I promise.”
Around you, the room began to release itself in pieces.
Garrett exhaled and shifted his weight like he had been waiting for permission to stop bracing, Hannah leaned back into the couch again as her shoulders loosened, Allie moved a step closer to you and immediately started talking in that half-joking, half-relieved tone about electrolytes and how she was “putting you on a schedule if this ever happens again,” and Dean, finally, contributed something about how he shouldn’t have asked about how your paper went, and he’ll let you run him over with his car to relieve stress next time, which was unhelpful but normal in a way that helped everyone else reset.
You leaned into Logan without thinking, still holding his hand, your body molding into his as you rubbed circles on his knuckles and pressed your hand into his thigh
You looked up at him, already softer, already slipping back into the version of the evening where everything was normal again. But what you couldn’t see was the way his emotions swirled thunderously in his mind, how he couldn’t begin to relax like everyone else did- in fact he was baffled they were so normal so quickly. He barely heard you ask about his class, or notice when you peppered soft kisses to his jaw and say that you missed him- how boring it was when he wasn’t there. As though the structure of his day mattered more than anything.
He tried to answer at first, his words bubbling to the tip of his tongue, but it didn’t take long for him to realise they wouldn’t come out in a smooth, caramelised way that would flow into the calm atmosphere of the room. He gently let go of your hand, in a decisive way that made you furrow your brows and scan his face.
“Logan?” you said, quieter now, not fully alarmed but already sensing the direction this was going.
He rubbed his hands together, throat working thickly as his adams apple bobbed. Everyone else had noticed the shift, conversations slowed. Dean stopped mid-sentence. Allie’s expression changed slightly as she looked between the two of you. Hannah went still in a way that suggested she was no longer sure whether to intervene or wait.
Logan turned to you, his hair falling in specks along his forehead, “I need a minute.” He got up and went upstairs, footsteps heavy along the ceiling of where you all stayed frozen until his bedroom door clicked closed; you blinked a few times, looking at your friends who met you with confused, concerned shrugs and shakes of their heads.
Your expression tightened and you pushed yourself up to follow him, ignoring whatever advice your friends were half-heartedly giving you.
When the door creaked open under your hand, you found him sitting on the edge of his bed, hands braced on his knees and holding his head, as though he needed something solid to hold the weight of his thoughts. His cap lay discarded on the floor, shoulders slightly lifted in tension that he was not releasing, and when you entered the doorway he did not look immediately, as if he already knew what would happen if he looked at you too quickly.
When he did meet your eyes, it was not anger that you saw first, but something more difficult to place because it did not sit cleanly in any single emotion. It looked like a strain held in place for too long.
“You shouldn’t apologise like that,” he said, and you frowned slightly, stepping inside and shutting the door behind you. Trapping whatever conversation you were about to have within these four walls.
“I wasn’t- I just didn’t want everyone worrying,” you said, still trying to smooth it over in the same way you had in the other room, still trying to keep it within something manageable. The bedframe creaked under you, as if warning you from crossing your legs and sinking into this situation.
But he shook his head once, not dismissive but overwhelmed, and when he spoke again his voice had shifted into something quieter but sharper at the edges, “You were apologising for being unconscious.”
That made you stop, properly stop, because it didn’t match the version of the moment you had been holding onto, and he saw that in your face immediately.
“I wasn’t here,” he said, and there was something in the way he said it that made it clear that time had not been abstract for him in the same way it was for you. “You were just gone, and I found out from my phone blowing up, messages that had sat there for god knows how long because…” He grit his teeth, “I just had to turn it on silent for class. And I get back to everyone telling me it was fine, that you’re fine, like that changes anything.”
You try to re-anchor him in proximity the same way you always did, your hand finding his again, your voice softening as you said, “You can’t always be there Logan, I don’t want you to always be on edge. I’m okay.”
But when he looked at you this time, there was something in his expression that did not settle with that reassurance.
“I know,” he said quietly, and it came out with more restraint than anything he had said earlier, like it was something he had been holding back for a long time and could no longer keep contained in the same shape. “I just don’t know how to stop thinking about what it looked like when you weren’t.”
You cup his cheek, turning him towards you, “I’m right here baby,” You kiss him, imprinting the taste of you onto his mouth, the feel of your lips together as a way to tell him that you’re still there with him, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Logan held your wrists, his fingers shaking against your skin, “I..” his eyes were wide, pupils flicking between yours, “I never know when you aren’t going to be here.”
He tugged at your hands and you let him, nails digging into the bedsheet uselessly next to you. Your breath caught in your throat, face quaking and crumbling at the edges, eyelashes fluttering- beating away the bubbling tears forming on your lashline.
“I think I’ll sleep at the dorm tonight,” you said eventually, and your voice was softer than it had been before, tired in a way that didn’t fully belong to the moment.
Logan looked up at that, but he didn’t stop you, just watched with a shattered look in his eyes, his lips pursed and pressed against his hands that were clasped together. You collected your things as seamlessly as possible, and given that you’d stayed over for the entire weekend, it was proving to be harder than you thought. But you huffed and puffed with each new article that got shoved into the shoulder bag until the room looked as if you’d never stepped foot in there.
You’d already begun to calculate how many trips it would take to empty out the clothes from his dresser and toiletries from his bathroom.
Logan still hadn’t said anything, his eyes widening by a fraction when he realised just how much you had erased from his space, but he stayed silent when your fingers hesitated against the door handle and didn’t dare to say anything when you turned back to him- eyes begging him to stop you, to cradle you in his arms and work it out. He ignored it all, looking through you and barely flinching when you shut the dare harder than necessary.
You adjusted your bag strap over your shoulder with careful hands, stilling when you realised everyone was staring at you when you emerged from the stairwell, “I’m heading home guys..”
Your throat tightened but you shook your head and forced a smile onto your face, it felt plasticy and fake when your eyebrows tightened together, nose burning with each deep breath you took.
You added lightly, “I’ve got that test tomorrow anyway, and it’s probably better if I just- yeah. I’ll head back.”
Allie and Hannah both turned slightly, breaking out of the pitying trance when you grabbed your keys and headed for the door.
Neither of them said anything at first, because there was a specific kind of silence that settles when two people are trying very hard to behave like nothing irreversible has happened only a floor above them.
“Okay,” Allie said finally, careful but not pushing, “Text us when you get in?”
You nodded quickly.
“Yeah, of course.”
Hannah’s eyes lingered on you a little longer, not interrogating, just observing, like she was storing away the way you were holding yourself more tightly than usual, the way Logan wasn’t following you to the door, barely letting you out of his hold with attacks of kisses and whispers in your ear.
But neither of them asked.
Because to everyone else in the house, it still looked like something that could be explained away by stress and timing and too much noise and not enough food.
You said goodbye in a way that was deliberately light, stepping out with your usual version of composure stitched back together over something slightly less stable underneath it.
Back in the living room, the energy eventually returned in fragments, Logan had rejoined the group nearly an hour after the girls had left.
Allie and Hannah left together not long after you, mumbled goodbyes were exchanged and worried whispers about Logan along with promises to update them over text had gotten them out the door back to you .
And once the door closed behind them, the house settled into a quieter version of itself.
Dean was the first to fully break the tension, dropping onto the couch with the kind of exaggerated movement that only made sense when someone was actively trying to remind a room how normal they were allowed to be. Tucker followed soon after, already halfway into a joke about how “Briar parties are medically unsafe environments” that no one really responded to but still helped reset the tone anyway.
Logan stayed silent for a moment too long in the kitchen doorway before eventually sitting down on the arm of the couch, not fully joining the group, just occupying space near it without integrating into it. The others kept talking for a while, but their volume softened slightly in the way it does when people unconsciously recognise that something heavier is still present in the room.
Eventually, Dean stretched and yawned in an overly theatrical way.
“Right,” he said, pushing himself up. “I’m calling it before I start thinking about my own mortality again.”
Tucker followed immediately, clapping Logan on the shoulder on his way past like nothing meaningful had just been discussed at all. “Don’t overthink it, man,” he added lightly, already heading upstairs. “She’s been doing that since high school apparently. She’s fine.”
Garrett didn’t follow them right away.
Logan just exhaled once, slow, like something had tightened in his chest at the phrasing.
Once the footsteps disappeared upstairs and the house settled properly, Garrett stayed behind in the spot next to Logan, leaning against the couch and pretended not to be boring holes into the side of his best friend's face. Logan was still on the couch arm, staring somewhere that wasn’t really the room.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
“I can’t imagine it,” Garrett broke the silence, voice quieter now, stripped of the earlier group energy, “loving someone and knowing that at any point they might just not respond.”
Logan’s jaw tightened slightly at that, but he didn’t interrupt.
Garrett looked down at his hands briefly before continuing, “I know everyone’s saying she’s used to it and it’s normal for her or whatever, but… that’s not really the part that sticks, is it?”
That landed differently.
Logan looked down finally, his hands loosely clasped together, and when he spoke his voice came out lower than before, less controlled in the way it had been earlier.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said, and there was no performance left in it now, no attempt to hold anything in place. “I love her so much it actually hurts, and I can’t… I can’t keep doing that thing where I pretend I’m okay when she’s-”
He stopped. Swallowed slightly and pressed his fingers to his eyes. Logan exhaled again, slower this time, like the words were physically difficult to keep forming.
“But I also can’t go on like this,” he finished, quieter.
That silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable in the way earlier ones had been. It was just heavy with the absence of an answer. Garrett nodded once, slowly, like he understood that there wasn’t a clean solution sitting anywhere in reach.
“I think,” Garrett said carefully after a moment, choosing each word like he was placing it somewhere fragile, “it might actually be harder to let her go than it is to keep reminding yourself she wakes up every time.”
Logan turned to Garrett, and nodded slowly- a row of tears fell from his chin and onto the soft cashmere beneath him, “I just don’t know how many times I can do it.”
𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @harls-sturn, @https-dandelion
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