#[I'm Not Lost | Everyone Else Is (Crack)]

[divinekangaroo]

got that **** assignment in tonight 2 days early DESPITE every possible thing that could have blown up happening during the assignment's duration

[justaholeinmysoul]

I wish that my life went on smoothly and normally. Like a river. Like those normal, average pathetic lives that make people numb or slightly miserable but normal and all perfectly the same. Like gears in a machine. But I broke At a certain point and no one saw,no one even listened nor cared. I look like a normal functioning gear. A loser very ugly one that people find odd but still OK. But I'm broken and I'm not functioning and I'm not even in the machine.

[butyoudidthis4what]

No Man's Land Part 2

Jack Abbot x f!reader || Part 1

18.6k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: mentions of blood, mentions of bones breaking, mentions of guns/shootings/gunshot wounds, mentions and discussions of suicide/suicidal ideation, CPR, mentions/discussions of jack's injury and losing his foot, anxiety about partner's safety, angst, Jack's traumatized, everyone's traumatized honestly, probably incorrect description of medical events, potentially incorrect medical descriptions/knowledge, PIV sex, mentions of morphine and alcohol, age gap referenced in passing once kind of, reader loves Paris and the Louvre, reader's favorite flowers are daffodils, I had this idea and started drafting before we knew Jack was a widow so in this world he has never been married, no use of y/n or related.

Summary: The aftermath of you being shot and collapsing in the trauma room and a new reality.

AN: I'm a certified yapper like our man, so I apologize for how long this is.

You drop at just the right point in your swaying that you fall backwards, head first. You hit the floor back of your skull first with a sickening crack. 

Everyone in the room knows what that was the sound of - your skull cracking.

“Fuck me!” “Fucking shit!” “Holy fuck!” “Oh god!” “Was that her fucking skull?” Verbalized reactions fill the air from Robby, Dana, Heather, Mel and Santos, respectively. Jack is silent. He’s not even sure he’s breathing. He’s frozen as he looks at you, both struggling to process what has happened and already understanding what has happened at once, hearing dulled as he focuses on you. 

Things have now gone from really fucking bad to somehow a lot fucking worse in a matter of seconds.

A head injury was the last thing you needed. And it was preventable. He should have prevented it. He should have stayed with you, told Robby to handle the code on his own, kept holding you, actually looked you over before letting you go but he didn’t. 

“Somebody get a fucking gurney in here!” Dana yells out the door. 

“Collins, you handle this. Mohan, you’re with me!” Robby orders. Once your neck is secured in a c-collar and you’re on a gurney you’re rushed into trauma two, the team swarming you just like they do any other unfortunate soul who ends up here. 

Jack suddenly finds himself again, hearing no longer dampened and follows your gurney into trauma two. “Mannitol-”

“Get out Jack!” Robby shouts at him amid the chaos of getting you hooked up to monitors and IVs going. “You can’t be in here!”

“And yet here I fucking am.” Jack almost snarls back at him as he takes a place on the other side of you. 

“Dana.” Robby shoots her a look and she steps back and away from you, peeling her gloves off and tossing them to the floor. 

“Jack,” she says softly to him, rests a hand on his bicep and squeezes gently. “Let’s step out.”

He shrugs her hand off. “No. No fucking way. Somebody…” He trails off as he looks down at you, freezing again. More blood pours from your mouth, and now your nose. He looks down and sure enough, it’s dripping out of your ear too, not unsurprising given the head trauma, but still. The image is seared in his brain.  

“Fuck!” Robby yells. “She’s in DIC.” He takes a look at your vitals. To say they’re abysmal would be a gross understatement. “Okay, massive transfusion protocol now, people! I wanna do two to one to one with how much blood she’s lost. Set up for a central line.” 

“Push etomidate and roc!” Mohan yells into the chaos. “7.0 ET please.”

“Jack, you have to move, okay? They need access to her.” Dana grabs Jack’s arm again and is able to pull him to the side. “Once she’s intubated you can sit by her, okay?” 

He gives a single nod in response, sits automatically when Dana pushes the stool into the back of his knees. It doesn’t take the team long to get you intubated and Dana helps him move so that he sits at the top of your head. 

Everything and everyone else fades away as he looks down at your face, your beautiful blood smeared face. He leans in towards you a little. He has so much he wants to say and yet he can’t get a word out. 

“We’re taking her up to surgery, Jack.” Robby is suddenly leaning down next to him. “We have to stop the internal bleeding before we can image her head.” 

“She’s in DIC. She has a subdural from the fall, I’m sure. Fractured skull. We have to address it.” Jack almost mumbles it as he watches them put the bed rails up and start to move you. 

“I know,” Robby tells him gently, “but if the major source of bleeding isn’t stopped, you and I both know that the skull fracture and subdural aren’t going to matter.”

Jack just nods and stands, follows your gurney in silence up to the OR floor. He hates it but he has to take one last look at you before turning to go into a locker room to grab a fresh pair of scrubs. He changes fast, finds Garcia and Shamsi in the scrub room. 

“What are you doing Jack?” Garcia asks him, sharing a look with Shamsi. “You’re not coming in the OR.”

“Yes I am.” He ignores her, grabs a pack and starts to scrub. The door opens again and Jack doesn’t need to turn to know it’s Robby. 

“You guys go.” Robby nods at Garcia and Shamsi. “Jack, come on. Let’s go to the gallery or waiting room.”

“Fuck that!” Jack yells as they walk in. He’s still scrubbing furiously. “I’m not going to watch them hack her-”

“You and I both know they’re not going to ‘hack her’ and that there’s nobody else you’d rather have operating on her. You need to let them do their work.” Robby stops next to the sink Jack is scrubbing at. “That is the best thing you can do for her right now. Let them work.”

Jack keeps scrubbing for a minute, jaw clenched tight. But then he stops. He knows Robby is right. Knows that scrubbing in and being in the OR isn’t going to fix you. It isn’t going to let him make up for not noticing you were shot earlier, before you were already half dead on the floor with a broken fucking skull he could have prevented. 

The combination of emotions is crushing. He throws the soap at one of the doors in the scrub room and yells a “fuck!” There’s a moment of silence and then a whispered “fuck,” that his voice crack on half way through. 

“Come on.” Robby picks up the soap and throws it away, throws a towel at Jack for his hands. “Let’s get some air.” 

“I’m going to obs.” Jack tells him. Robby tries to speak. “No. If I don’t get to be in the OR with her I at least get to fucking watch over her from obs.”

“No, Jack! I’m not letting you fucking torture yourself by watching this. She wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want you seeing her like this-”

“You don’t fucking know her!” Jack seethes, getting up in Robby’s face, chests touching. “So stop fucking acting like you do.”

A tense silence passes, a staring match before Robby holds his hands up in defeat and looks away. “Alright. I’m sorry.” 

“I have to watch her die, Robby. I have to have been there for her. Been there with her. I am not letting her go alone.” Jack shakes his head, eyes red rimmed and glassy but more serious than Robby has ever seen him before. 

“I know.” Robby opens the door of the observation suite for him. “If something happens and they get close to calling it you can go be with your girl, okay?”

“No.” Jack huffs, treading water more and more to try and stay above the flood of emotions. “No it’s not fucking okay! None of this is fucking okay! She’s not okay! I’m not okay!” Jack takes in a shuddery breath and turns his back on Robby. “None of this is okay,” he whispers, voice thick with emotion and tears that can no longer be held back. 

Robby lets Jack have a minute to try and pull himself together. He knows that right now is not the time to have some sort of heart to heart with Jack. Instead he puts the intercom on so that they can hear what’s happening in the OR but the OR can’t hear them. 

It’s not good but it’s not bad, you’re not dead. There’s no conversation between the two men, just Jack up almost pressed into the glass to watch while Robby observes him more than the surgery.

“So,” Robby says casually after a couple of minutes. “Peter?”

Jack huffs, shaking his head and coming to sit next to Robby. “Don’t ask.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I really like this little routine, you know?” You smile at Jack as he peruses the shelves, coffee in one hand and your hand in the other. You’re back at the bookstore where you met, off in the back shelves where it’s quieter, fewer people. You’re alone in the aisle. 

“Coming here?”

“Mhmm.” You nod at him. “It was a really good idea.” 

Somewhere between dates number three and four Jack had suggested you guys go back to the bookstore once a week. Make it a thing. Get coffee, pick out books together. Just walk around. How could you ever say no?

“I have one every now and then.” He smiles at you. 

You point to a book, say the title. “That looks interesting.” 

Jack looks at the book. It’s on the bottom shelf. You didn’t ask for him to bend down and get it for you but he will anyway. And you knew when you said it that he would. He’s just a gentleman like that. And so he does. Sets his coffee on the shelf and bends down to get it for you. 

“Why is it that every book you want is always on the bottom shelf?” He feigns a huff.

“Because I like making you bend down so that I can check out your ass.”

He freezes for a second. It was so not the answer he was expecting. He’s not sure he was expecting an answer. But then you come out with that. Always keeping him on his toes. 

He grabs the book and stands back up, smirking as he hands it to you. His fingers find the belt loops of your jeans and pull you close to him, lips brushing against yours. “You like my ass?” 

You giggle against his lips and kiss him. “I do.” 

“You’re terrible, woman.” He gives you another kiss. 

“More like your terrible woman.” You can feel his jaw clench at that and he holds you a little tighter. Oh he liked that. A lot. It makes you smirk. 

“Damn right you are.” One last kiss and then you break apart.

“I think I’m falling in love with you, Peter.”

He cocks his head at the name. “Peter? Should I be concerned you can’t keep your men straight?” He doesn’t mean it, nor does any anxiety roll through him. He knows you, knows it was deliberate, and knows you’re about to give him some ridiculous explanation. 

“Rabbit,” you grin. “Peter Rabbit. Abbot. Jack Abbot always makes me want to call you Jack rabbit. Ergo, Peter.” You run the back of your second knuckle on your index finger over his shirt. “Inspired by the book.” You nod and look to the side. He follows your eyes to the display you look over at where, sure enough, a copy of Peter Rabbit sits.

He groans and makes a face. “Really?” He grimaces. But you both know it’s fake. His eyes are too sparkly and the ghost of a smile is too present on his face. It’s so ridiculous. If anyone else dared to call him that he would hate it and they would know it.  

“Really, Peter. Better get used to it.” You wink and start walking down another aisle. 

“I think I’ve already fallen in love with you, Doll.” Jack whispers to himself. “You’re not allowed to go anywhere on me.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You wake with a start, your body jerking for a second before pain rips through your stomach and head. It’s bright. So so bright. Your eyes instinctively close and you pull your head back, trying to get away from the tube that feels like it’s down your throat but it follows. You start panicking. 

It filters back in. What happened. Passing out in the trauma room. Jack’s face. The pain. The bullet hole you’d felt on your skin.

“Honey?” A voice you can’t place calls out your name. A woman’s voice. “It’s okay.” You know she’s trying to be reassuring but at the moment it’s not. There’s only one voice you want to hear and it’s not hers and you panic more when you don’t hear his because where is he? Did something happen to him? Maybe he’s here and you just can’t hear him. One way to find out. 

Your eyes blink back open to an unfamiliar face above you. After you adjust to the light you quickly look around as much as you can without moving too much. 

Jack isn’t here. 

The woman above you smiles down at you. “I’m Dana. Jack just stepped out to shower and I said I’d stay with you. He’s going to kill me for convincing him to go and you waking up while he wasn’t here. It was his nightmare. He’s on his way. Knowing him he’s liable to just have a towel wrapped around him and soap in his hair because god knows if he wasn’t finished showering he wasn’t going to finish when he heard you’re awake.” 

You blink a few times, start to calm. Dana. She has a calming presence. Jack told you about her. You trust her. “Good, that’s good. He’s going to be here any second. And I’m going to get your doctor and see what we can do about getting this tube out of your throat, yeah?” 

You can hear Jack before you see him. Hear him running down the hall towards you. He’s panting when he runs into your room, looks at you, your vitals, Dana and then back to you. “You’re awake.”

All you can really do is look at him with wide eyes. He’s over by you in a second, taking Dana’s place as she goes to find your doctor. One of his hands finds yours, squeezes reassuringly. “I’m here. God I’m so sorry I wasn’t when you woke up, I didn’t want to go but they convinced me and-”

You squeeze his hand and then let go, make a motion like writing. “You want to write? Hopefully you can be extubated soon, you might be breathing over the vent already, I can look.”

You squeeze his hand again and it focuses him back on you. “Shit. Yes, um…” He feels all the pockets on his scrub pants until he finds the little notebook and pen. He gives you the pen and holds the book for you. 

Scared.

A piece of his heart shatters when he reads the word. 

“I know Doll, I know. It’s okay.” He strokes your hair gently. “I’m right here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I love you.” Jack’s eyes bore into yours and in the moment you’re so grateful for his need for direct eye contact. It’s reassuring in a way you can’t describe. Even if he hadn’t said anything. If he had just looked at you like he is now it would have been enough to calm your fears. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”

“I heard she’s awake?” Your eyes leave Jack’s and look over at the man who entered, but Jack’s eyes never leave you. 

“Yeah, she is. This is Robby, sweetheart.” You blink slowly. 

It’s a lot. Everything is a lot and there’s a tube in your throat and more people walk in, Dana again and your doctor, a nurse. You’re overwhelmed. You just want it to be you and Jack and you want to be at home cuddled in bed together, both of you perfectly fine. You don’t want this. It makes you kind of dizzy. And your inability to express yourself makes it all that much more difficult.

You focus on Jack’s eyes, try to block everything else out. Focus on his touch. His hand holding yours, the other stroking your hair. There’s a faint buzz of the others talking together and you know it’s about you but you remain centered on Jack. “That’s right, Doll,” he murmurs, voice low, just between the two of you. “Just focus on me. I’m right here. You’re okay. We’re okay.” 

“She’s breathing over.” Robby says quietly. “We can pull it.”

Jack raises his eyebrows at you and nods his head a little. “That’s good. We’re going to get the tube out, okay? Then you’ll be able to talk.” 

Your eyes widen a bit and you move your hand towards the notebook again, point at the word. 

Scared. 

“I know. I know it’s all scary, and I know thinking about having the tube out is scary. But you’re safe, okay? If you need it back in then we will put it back in okay?” He squeezes your hand. You give the smallest nod. 

Jack explains what will happen to you and then they do it. It hurts and is uncomfortable and you panic for a minute after it’s out because you’re coughing and it feels like you can’t breathe. Jack puts an oxygen mask to your face. “Breathe, baby. Just breathe. You’re just coughing, it’s okay. It’ll be better in a minute. I promise.” 

And just like he promises it does get better. “How about we switch this,” he takes the oxygen mask from your face and hands it to Dana while taking the nasal cannula from her, “with this.” He gets the cannula adjusted under your nose and over your ears and then smiles at you. 

You still haven’t spoken. You can’t find words. You don’t know what to say. 

Robby hands Jack a cup of water with a straw silently before he, Dana, your doctor and the other nurse slip out. 

“Here, I’m sure your throat is dry.” Jack holds the straw for you. “Small sips.”

You take a few before pulling back a little. “Thank you.” You’re quite hoarse and make a face at the sound of your voice but Jack. Jack beams. It makes you smile, makes everything start to melt away. You’re here and awake and Jack is here and everything is okay. “I love you too.” 

You press your lips out a little and it hits him. He can kiss you now and he does, soft but lingering. He never wants to pull away. 

“How long was I out?’’

“Since surgery?” Jack glances down at his watch. “Sixteen hours and thirty seven minutes. Give or take ten seconds.”

You smile. It’s a little weak which shoots a bit of a pang through him, but it’s okay because you’re smiling at him. “Not that you were counting.”

He laughs and rolls his eyes at you, eyes watery. “I’m really fucking glad you’re okay.” 

You get a little teary. “I’m really glad you’re here. I was really fucking scared Jack.” You let out a breath and a few tears. 

“There is nowhere else I’d rather be than by your side.” He leans back in, kisses you again, kisses all the tears away. “There is nowhere else I will be, okay?” 

You nod a little. You want to ask him what happened, what your injuries are but you can’t bring yourself to. You don’t want to know. Not now. 

Jack doesn’t volunteer anything. He figures that you’ll ask when you’re ready. He knows what it’s like to have it shoved in your face when you’re scared and drugged out on morphine and other medications and overwhelmed and not in a mental place to process it. 

You can’t have been awake for more than thirty or forty minutes but you’re already so tired again. Jack can tell.

“Sleepy?” 

“A little.” You pause. Then, a whispered admission. “Kind of scared to go back to sleep.”

Jack’s heart squeezes. “That’s understandable,” he nods. He knows the answer is no but he asks anyway. “Can I do anything?”

“Hold me.” Your words are out before he finishes his questions. His eyebrows raise. He wasn’t expecting that. 

You can see him thinking. Thinking about how to say no. His face is pained and he tilts it. You know he’s afraid to hurt you. “Please.” He bites his bottom lip. “I need this Jack,” you whisper. “You need this.” 

“If I hurt you at all you have to tell me, okay? If anything feels like it’s tearing or pulling or ripping, you have to tell me immediately.” He gives you a serious look, fear blazing in his eyes.

“I promise.”

He nods. “Okay.” It takes a while for him to help shift you over a bit and move all the wires and lines but eventually he’s in bed with you, holding you. 

“Thanks Peter.” It’s completely sleep garbled but so precious and he has to laugh because even with all that’s happened you’re still calling him that name.  

“You’re welcome, Doll.”

Once he’s sure you’re asleep Jack sobs as quietly as he can as he holds you. Lets himself process the emotions that he has tried to keep himself walled off from since you went down in the trauma room. He doesn’t want you to see, doesn’t want you to have to deal with him right now when you need to focus on yourself and recovering. He doesn’t want you to feel guilty, because he knows you and he knows you already feel bad about all of this. Like it’s your fault. 

Jack doesn’t know it but you wake when you feel him start to tremble. You hear and feel every sob. A little piece of you dies inside.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack leans against one of the windows in his apartment, stares out into the dark city and alternates watching the rain fall under the light of the street lamps and tracking drops that slide down the window. The bedroom is dark, only illuminated by the light of the city that pours in. He’s half dressed, shirtless, a pair of flannel pajama pants. The window is cold against his arm but he likes it. It reminds him in the moment that he can still feel. 

You watch him from the bathroom doorway. You’ve been together seven and a bit months now.

You’re struck by how beautiful he looks in the backlighting. Struck by how sad and conflicted he looks. 

You walk over to him quietly, but making your footsteps just heavy enough so that you don’t startle him when you wrap your arms around him from behind, rest the side of your head on the smooth skin of his back. Always so warm, your Jack, even now in the chill of the rainy night. 

He leans back into you for just a second, just long enough to acknowledge that he knows you’re there, appreciates it. 

Neither of you say anything for a few minutes before his voice interrupts the patter of the raindrops hitting the window.

“I’m sorry.”

Your brows furrow. “For what?”

“Being like this,” he shrugs. “It’s been so long. It shouldn’t still affect me like this.”

“Well first, should is a stupid word. Nothing should or shouldn’t be. Things just are. And it’s okay for them to be as they are. It’s okay for this to be as it is.” You lift your head from his back and gently pull at his torso a bit to get him to turn and look at you. He tries to avoid that eye contact he normally needs but you don’t let him. “Second, you have nothing to apologize for. And third, I don’t know Jack, I’d almost be more concerned if the anniversary of the day you lost a piece of yourself, literally, and woke up alone and terrified in a hospital bed ever stopped affecting you.”

As difficult as it is to hear, he likes that you just say it, say what happened. You don’t shy away from it, don’t avoid talking about it or speak about it without actually saying it. You never have. You’ve always just accepted it as part of him. He takes in a deep breath and then grabs your hand, leads you over to bed with him and waits for you to get in. 

But you give him a look, a slight raise of your eyebrows and nod. He sits on the edge like you wordlessly asked. You kneel before him and it makes his heart pound, blood rush towards his groin even though he knows this isn’t going there. It’s just instinctual. 

Jack watches you with glassy eyes as you push his pant leg up and remove his prosthetic for him, set it aside. You don’t have to ask if it’s hurting, of course it is. It’s the anniversary of losing his foot. Even when there’s no real reason for it to be causing him pain it is anyway. You know it. He knows you know it. 

You open the drawer of his nightstand and pull out the balm he has, get a little bit and warm it between your hands before placing them there. You glance up at him. You always do. Always make sure it’s okay. You know how hard it can be for him to have you touching there sometimes if he’s too in his head. He just barely narrows his eyes before letting them go back to being wide and round as he watches. An unspoken please. 

You start massaging gently and he takes another big breath in and holds it for a moment before letting it out and leaning into your hands slightly. “Mirror?”

He knows you’re asking if the pain is bad enough for him to want to do mirror therapy. He shakes his head. “No. It’s not that bad.” He gives you a small smile, cups your face with a hand. “Especially not now. You make it better. You always make it better, make everything better.” 

A slow smile spreads over your face. You work on him a little more before his hands are on yours and pulling you towards him a little. He slides into bed and you follow. 

You lay on your sides looking at each other. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Not right now, no.” He swallows hard, looks like he’s waiting for you to be upset. “Is that okay?”

“Course it is. I’m never going to force you to talk about it with me.” You already have talked about it. You know everything, every detail he can remember and was told about what happened. About his hospital stay at Landstuhl, transfer to Walter-Reed. How depressed he got, the survivor’s guilt, the wishing he had just died instead.

But he knows what you mean. You don’t have to talk about it now, about his feelings, what he’s carrying in his chest and mind at the moment. You lean in and kiss him. “We can whenever. If and when you’re ready. Or you can talk to your therapist. It doesn’t have to be me.”

The way he looks at you makes your stomach flip. Like you’re the most important thing in his world, like you hung the moon and stars for him, like he’s amazed by you. Like you’re helping to heal him.

He reaches out to cup your face again, runs a thumb over your cheek. “I want you.”

You smile at him, soft and small, befitting of the moment. “You have me. You’ll always have me. No matter what.”

He gives you a look that acknowledges your words. “You know what I mean.” His hand starts to wander down to the hem of his shirt you wear. “I need to turn that part of my brain off. Get lost in you.”

“God, what a tough ask,” you click your tongue, voice teasing and full of feigned exasperation. “Such a real hardship for me.”

He laughs a little. “I’ll make it up to you.” 

“Oh no Dr. Abbot,” you move closer to him and push at his chest so he rolls on his back, straddle his hips and bring your chest to his, lean in to kiss him but stop short, just let your lips move against his, “this is all about you.”

Jack groans from somewhere deep in his chest. “You know what doctor does to me,” he murmurs before he kisses you hard, possessively, holding the back of your head with one hand so you can’t move away, not that you’d ever want to. 

“Indeed I do, sir.” Another groan from him and a smirk from you as you sit up and push the covers back, pull his pajama pants and boxer briefs down all at once. 

Jack swears you spend hours lavishing him in attention, kissing every inch of him, every scar. Even that one. 

By the time you guide him inside of you you’re the only thing on his mind. You ride him slow, just fast enough to not be teasing, at the rhythm and pace you’ve learned he loves, let him watch as he slides in and out of you because you know how much he loves it. 

You lean back at one point, rest your hands on both his thighs and something about the move and the way you’re not afraid to get close to the missing part of him heals him and makes him lose it. 

After, you lay on his chest, absentmindedly draw random shapes on his skin while he runs a hand up and down your back. “This part always feels just as good but in a different way,” you murmur. 

“Cuddling releases oxytocin. Oxytocin makes you feel happy, helps you heal, reduces stress, bonds you to the one you’re snuggling with. It’s called the love hormone.” Jack always makes you laugh when he does that, explains something medically, biologically. You like him sharing his knowledge, little pieces of his job with you, and you like that he’s not condescending about it, just tells you it like you’re a student.

You laugh a little. “That tracks then.”

You sit in a comfortable silence for a bit. Jack thinks about everything you’ve done for him tonight, over the past seven months, how you feel laying here on his chest. A surge of oxytocin hits him and he’s overwhelmed by it, how much he loves you, how much you do for him, care for him.

“I don’t deserve you.” He says it quietly, almost like he doesn’t mean to speak the thought out loud.

You stop tracing shapes, furrow your brows and lift yourself up to look down at him sternly, eyes burning with love. “I’m not even gracing that absolute bullshit with a reply tonight Peter.” You kiss him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four days pass. Things are simultaneously getting better and increasingly harder. 

You meet everyone, the entire ED, you swear, everyone Jack has ever talked about. They’re all lovely and genuine. You hit it off with them all despite the circumstances. Part of you worries though, that they only like you because they pity you and because you’re in the hospital and what else can they do. Jack reassures you that you’re one of them now, you’re Pitt family, that even when they didn’t know you or about you and had never met you, you already were.

Jack helps you shower. Really Jack showers you. Does it all for you. It’s one of those most intimate things you’ve experienced with him. Him taking care of you like this, when you can’t take care of yourself. He takes his time washing your hair and body gently, like you’ll break if he touches you just a little too hard. He makes sure your stitches and central line stay dry. Makes sure you don’t lean your head back too far and aggravate your skull fracture. 

Physically you’re doing okay. Improving. Maybe not as fast as everyone, Jack especially, would like. But you’re not getting worse. 

Mentally, however, things are devolving. Rapidly. 

Once the initial shock and happiness at being alive wore off you’re left with reality. 

A nurse from the floor comes in to take vitals like they do a couple of times a day. Jack steps out to go grab a drink from the vending machine while you and the nurse chat a little. You ask her if you can move into the chair, go sit by the window. She says of course, unhooks you from some monitors and helps you move over. She takes your dinner and sets it on the table in front of you. You thank her and wait for Jack to come back.

Dusk is falling over the city. It’s easier to sit and look outside when it’s not so bright. You keep the lighting in your room low to help with the headaches you’re still fighting. You suppose a broken skull will do that to you.

You haven’t felt well all day, have slept more than usual. You’re sure it’s just depression from being here and all the changes and mostly, probably, seeing what all of this already has done and continues to do to Jack, physically and mentally. Your stomach turns at the thought and you shiver despite your cheeks burning. You’re so uncomfortable and there’s no end in sight and you don’t want to keep doing this to Jack, keep asking him to be here and sleep here. The logical and rational part of your brain knows that you’re not asking him to do anything. He’s doing it because he wants to, because he loves you. 

“You need to eat,” Jack reminds you as he walks back in the room. 

“I’m not hungry,” you murmur, continue to look out the window. 

“I know, Doll, but you’ve gotta eat to keep your strength up.” Jack says softly as he pulls up a chair to sit across from you. You nod a little at him but don’t move to start eating. “What’s wrong?” he finally whispers. 

It takes a moment but eventually you shrug. You don’t want to burden him with it. 

“Talk to me. Please. Even if just a little.” 

“I don’t know… I’m just tired, I think.” 

He tilts his head at you, eyes appraising and clinically evaluating you. Something is off, something has been off, he’s just struggling to figure out what. 

“Don’t look at me like that, please,” you whisper. 

He furrows his brows. “Like what?”

“Like I’m a patient who needs to be evaluated.” 

“I can’t help it. It helps reassure me that you’re okay.” He lets out a bit of a breath. “I’m worried about you right now. Is everything okay? Do you feel okay?”

You take in a big breath of air and fight back the wince before letting it out. “I’m just… I don’t know Jack. I’m sad. I’m fucking sad. All the time.”

Ah. Depression. 

He knows it intimately and chastises himself mentally a bit for not realizing it sooner, not recognizing it. Not anticipating it from minute one. He gives you a moment to see if you want to say more. 

“I… I feel sorry for myself, yes, but it’s more than that. I see what it’s doing to you, the pain it’s causing, I’m causing you. Physically, having to sleep here. I can practically see your back and hip hurting, Jack. I can see the overcompensation when you walk. I know you cried. I was awake. And I didn’t want to make it a thing and pressure you into talking to me. But I see how scared and on edge you are, all the time. Because of me-”

“No.” He doesn’t mean to interrupt but he has to right there. “Not because of you. This is not your fault. None of this is. This isn’t because of you, it’s because of what happened to you.”

You shake your head. “No, Jack, it’s me. It is me. I feel like I’m sucking the fucking life out of you. Dealing with me is exhausting. I can’t keep asking you to do this, be here and take care of me. It’s not fair.” You sniffle and wipe some tears you didn’t know fell with the back of your hand. “I mean, Jesus, Jack, I’m exhausted and all I have to do is sit in bed all day. I hate it.” The tears fall a little faster and he gives you space to let it all out. Your emotional brain takes his silence as some sort of tacit and silent agreement. That you are hurting him, that it is exhausting him, that you are sucking the life out of him. 

The rational part of your brain is right there but you’re too exhausted to listen to it, to fight your emotional brain on it. So it all consumes you. 

“I sit here and sometimes I just wish it would stop, wish it would be over, for both of us. Wish I had never even made it out of the OR, fuck out of the courthouse. You could be properly grieving already and working towards mo-”

“What the fuck?” It falls out of his mouth before he can even stop it. “Are you for fucking real?” He knows this reaction is wrong, that he should be validating your feelings. He knows far too well what it’s like to be depressed in a hospital bed wishing that you had died instead. But it’s too much for him because he already lived so intimately with the possibility of that reality. Of you dying. And so to have it brought up and brought up by you. All rational thought and ability to control himself disappears. “Properly grieving? You think I’d be properly grieving? Jesus fucking Christ, Robby would have had to beat me to the fucking roof or they’d be burying us together!”

You shake your head, tears falling harder. “I don’t want that, I would never want you to do that. I’d want you to take care of yourself! I’d want you to live for me. For us. Find-”

“No.” He shakes his head, runs both of his hands over his face, heel of his palms pressing into his eyes for a moment. “No. I can’t fucking-” He has to swallow hard through the intense nausea that threatens to make him dry heave. Just thinking about this, let alone living it. He knows this is not his finest moment, not a good reaction, that it’s a really really fucking bad one, but he can’t think about it right now, about an alternate reality where you died, where he was anywhere other than right next to your side in this moment. It’s too much. And so he reverts back a bit, starts to completely emotionally shut down. You’ve never seen him like this before. “I can’t fucking talk about this right now.” 

A knock on the door interrupts you and you both look up and over at a smiling Robby. “Hey! Look who’s awake! How are you feeling sleepy? You’ve been asleep every time I’ve come to visit today.” He starts making his way closer. 

“We can talk about this more later,” Jack mutters at you under his breath. His tone is a little sharper and more brusque than he means or even realizes. 

But with your emotions where they are already it feels a little like he’s pulled a piece of your heart away. You wonder if this is it. If he’s finally had enough of all of this. Of you. 

He didn’t sign up for this. There haven’t been any vows of sickness and health. 

The adrenaline runs icy through your fingers and toes and sits like a rock in the back of your throat, hugging tightly around your stomach so much that your incision burns and itches. It gets hard to breathe. It’s panic, you tell yourself. You nod silently, fidget with your fingers and whisper the smallest “okay.”

You’re thankful for the low lighting and the cover it gives you and your tears. “Sorry about that,” you force a small laugh at Robby. “Just one of those days I guess.” You force a yawn this time. “Honestly I’m actually a little sleepy again,” you admit sheepishly. “I think I might get back in bed.” 

There’s a pause as Robby waits for Jack to react. But Jack says nothing, and the look on his face tells Robby he’s a million miles away. You getting up is what brings Jack back to himself somewhat and he’s up and hovering behind you to make sure you don’t fall in an instant. 

“Um, well.” Robby runs a hand through his hair and over his beard. “Jack, if you wanted we’re pretty backlogged down there, we could use someone for even just a few hours to help out. I just wanted to offer. We’ll be fine if you don’t.” Robby’s eyes flick between the two of you. “Thought it might be a good way to help transition back to full shifts eventually.” He coughs awkwardly. 

Jack looks at you with his eyebrows slightly raised, like he’ll do whatever you say as opposed to what he actually wants. Despite looking at you it’s like he doesn’t consciously take in your face at the moment, how hurt you look, how small, the tears lining your eyes, how scared you look, how anxious, how questioning. 

“Up to you.” You give him a strained smile. “I’m just going to sleep, so it’s not like you’re going to miss much here. Robby is right, might be a good way to help transition.”

Jack nods. “Okay. Okay, yeah.”

“Fuck, thank you so much,” Robby sighs in relief. “It’s pretty bad honestly.” He looks at you with a soft smile. “Sleep well and I’ll keep an eye on him for you.” 

You give him a forced smile back and nod, waiting for Jack to come say goodbye before following Robby out the door. But Jack is so shut down and on autopilot he doesn’t even give you a kiss or say anything other than an absent, “sleep well,” before he follows Robby out of the room. The sound of the door closing behind him may as well be the sound of your heart shattering.

Hours pass. 

Hours you do not in fact spend sleeping but instead wide awake feeling like you’ve got the flu. Everything hurts, you shake, you’re sweaty because you’re so hot but you feel so cold. You just feel so weak. You’re so miserable you’re not even aware of the way breathing takes more effort and seems less effective, how much it hurts. Hours enough for you to miss Jack and wish he was here and want to call down and beg him to please come back up. But not quite enough hours for the next vitals check.

The hours are quick for Jack. Work helps him. It keeps his mind busy. The more and more he comes back to himself fully and opens back up with clear eyes the more desperate he is to get up to you and apologize. He feels awful about actually deciding to come down here. How could he leave you? He knows he didn’t react well. It just caught him so off guard and he reverted back to a previous version of himself. All he can do is hope you’ll forgive him, but he knows you well enough to know that you’ll understand and be able to put yourself in his shoes and forgive him and you guys can talk. 

He volunteers to take one last ambulance coming in. He goes outside to wait for it, to get some fresh air. To be out of the hospital if only for a moment.

Mel runs through the automatic door, head on a swivel to find him. She starts running to him when she sees him. “Dr. Abbot!” 

Jack turns his head, thinks Mel’s voice is off, but he guesses it’s been a bit since he’s heard it down here. But when he sees her face, the way she’s running towards him, his heart speeds up and he shakes his head a little as she approaches him. Mel’s eyes are wide, just the slightest bit wet.  

“Dr. Abbot,” Mel breathes. “She’s crashing. Robby went up to see her and she crashed.”

“What?” It’s whispered. Jack’s whole world stops again. He doesn’t even wait for an answer, is sprinting inside and screaming to hold the elevator because he knows it’ll be faster than he can take all the flights up to your room. He tries to hold onto hope. Mel had said crashing not coding.

This would fucking happen. This would fucking happen. He leaves you and then you crash. The realizations hit him when he gets in the elevator and presses the door closed button over and over. That the last thing you said to him was that small, barely audible “okay.” That your last interaction was an almost fight in a way, was him upset when you were telling him what was on your mind when that’s what he has been begging you to do. That he walked out of your room without saying goodbye, without giving you a kiss, without telling you he loved you.

Sleep well.

That could be the last fucking thing he ever said to you. Sleep well. He pictures your face when he looked at you that last time, near tears, scared, small, anxious, questioning. Probably questioning whether he was going to come back or whether he loved you or whether he still wanted to be with you after so clearly hitting a nerve with him. Especially on top of all the guilt you were already feeling before that conversation. The guilt you were telling him about when he shut down. 

The world already gave him a second chance with you and he fucked it all up in a minute. Somewhere deep in his bones he knows “sleep well” will be the last thing he ever said to you, that your last interaction together will be a quasi-argument. Because if you’re crashing at this point, this far out from surgery, something bad is happening. Differential diagnoses flip through his mind. Pulmonary embolism, having somehow reopened one of your internal wounds and bleeding out, sepsis, delayed collapsed lung, drug reaction, the list goes on and on. None of them are good. All of them would require you to fight hard to pull through. 

And with fucking “sleep well” as the last thing he said to you after he practically jumped in your shit you probably think you have nothing left to fight for. 

You’re vaguely aware of Robby coming into your room and talking to you even though you can’t make out any words at first. But then you become acutely aware of him screaming about you crashing and somebody call Jack. 

Jack. 

Robby says something about intubation but you get a hand up, cling to the fabric on the arm of that blue sweatshirt he always wears. “Wait,” you choke out, wondering when it got so hard to breathe and how you’re just noticing. “Jack,” you force out in a wheeze, “want to talk,” you look up at Robby with terrified eyes he’s seen hundreds of times in patients who think they’re about to die, only yours have a slight look of determination. “Please.” 

He hesitates for just a second. “Okay,” he nods, looking down at you. “Okay. But only if he’s here within the next two minutes. I’m counting.” He grabs an oxygen mask and holds it over your mouth and nose. Your eyes say ‘thank you’ in the most heartbreaking of ways. You both know he’ll be there with one minute and fifty six or seven seconds to spare. 

The elevator door opens on your floor and Jack’s sprinting out of it to your room, praying that maybe you’ll still be alive when he gets there. He could talk to you, tell you he’s sorry and he loves you and please fight. He’s panting when he runs into your room, looks at you, your vitals, and then Robby. “Why the fuck isn’t she intubated yet?!”

“She wanted to be able to say something to you,” Robby tells him as he pushes drugs, barks out orders and gets ready to intubate you. “She’s totally fucking septic Jack, out of fucking nowhere,” he calls back over his shoulder. “She must have thrown a septic PE.” Robby pulls the oxygen mask away from your face.

Jack looks back at you as he moves closer. You lick your lips and rub them together a little, trying to get them wet and unstuck from each other. You look terrified but try to offer him a brave smile anyway. “I love you,” you manage to mouth before everything is consumed by black and quiet.

Where everything goes black and quiet for you, Jack’s senses are overwhelmed by the look on your face, the way your eyes shut, the way Robby’s hands so gently turn your head back so he can intubate you and seconds later by the high pitched whine coming from your patient monitor announcing you’ve flatlined and Robby yelling for someone to start compressions. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He’s not exactly looking for it when he spots it as he walks down a street to pick up the take out you ordered on his way home. But it’s there and it makes him think of you. It’s almost perfect. Almost. 

He slips inside, gets in a conversation with the store owner. They can customize it for him. He thinks you’ll love that, the idea that nobody has the same engagement ring as you. The owner says he’ll get him some sketches. Jack puts down a deposit. You text asking if he’s okay. 

He says a quick goodbye to the owner and that he’ll be back and runs to get the food and back to you. He’s known for a while now that he wants to ask, wants to marry you. You just get him in a way he can’t describe and knows he’ll never find again. 

That night in bed he lays awake spooning you and thinking about how to propose. You wouldn’t want something too big and flashy. But he doesn’t think you’d hate it being in public necessarily. God, what if you say no? What if you’re not ready or it’s too fast or he’s too old, too broken? 

No. He knows you don’t think he’s too old or broken at all. He knows you’ll say yes, knows you’ll cry. But how to do it. Where to do it. 

The bookstore with the ring in the book feels like too much, a little too on the nose. You wouldn’t hate it by any means but it doesn’t feel right. 

He thinks about a conversation you had in the travel section at the bookstore. 

“I love travelling.” You say it as you look over the shelves. “Especially internationally.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhmmm,” you hum. “We should go somewhere.” You hand him a book on Paris. “I love Paris. Have you been?”

Jack shakes his head, starts thumbing through the book. “Can’t say that I have.”

“I would love to show you around. It’s just so pretty. The Eiffel Tower sparkles and they light up all the buildings at night and I swear almost every building looks so beautifully historic. And the Louvre. I love the Louvre. I don’t even really know why, I just do. I like the inverted pyramids by the entrance and I like how you just get lost in there.” You’re flipping through your own book, this one about France in general. “We could do a France tour. Start in Nice or somewhere and work our way up.” You look up at him, and when he looks up from his book at you he’s surprised to see nerves. “If you would want to, of course. Obviously. There’s no pressure. I know you’d have to take time off from work and you love work and it would waste a lot of time off, probably depending on how long we went for. If we did. So it’s okay. I could go by myself or with a friend if I got desperate enough.” You give a breathy, anxious laugh and fiddle with the book. 

Jack gives you a little smile and puts the book back where it belongs. “It might shock you to hear this but I have maxed out the amount of annual leave time off I can accrue. I donate everything I have leftover at the end of the year. I’ve donated all of it for a couple of years now because I can’t accrue it anymore.”

“Oh, well,” you clear your throat and it would almost be funny and adorable if he didn’t hate seeing you in distress. “That’s very nice of you. You’re a very good man Peter.”

“I want to go with you.” Your lips twitch up and eyebrows raise. “I want us to do that.”

“Yeah?” You beam at him and it’s straight sunshine. You’re too good for him, he swears. 

“Yeah,” he nods, returns your smile, kisses you quickly. “Robby might try to kiss you like that for getting me to go. He’s always on me about taking a vacation.” 

Yes. In Paris. That would be perfect. You haven’t started planning the trip because life has gotten busy for both of you, but he mentions it enough to make sure you know he hasn’t forgotten, you talk about when you’ll start planning it some nights but often fall asleep mid conversation, exhausted from your day. 

In front of the inverted pyramids at the Louvre. He can hire a photographer and they won’t even look suspicious. Just like someone taking photos of the Louvre. 

He starts planning it, the France trip. Doesn’t tell you. Reaches out to your boss who he has met to make sure you can get the time off. He’ll surprise you with it soon, he tells himself. He’ll tell you soon now that he has the ring hidden away in a box in a closet that you can’t reach easily. 

Soon. He knows he can’t keep putting it off, can just hear Dana and Robby in his ear if they knew, telling him to grow a pair and do it, that tomorrow isn’t promised, that he should do it here at the hospital so they can finally fucking meet you. That, while they don’t know you, Dana would give him a sharp look then, they know you’ll love it. 

You’ll be at the courthouse tomorrow. It’s not too far from his place. He could surprise you and pick you up, take you out somewhere nice. He has the day off too so he could go get the book you handed him, put the tickets and copy of the itinerary he’s planned so far in it. 

He smiles to himself as he imagines the shock on your face, the way you’ll struggle for words and repeat a bunch of one syllable ones for thirty seconds before the ability to form real sentences comes back to you. Yeah, that’ll work. 

Tomorrow. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s a perfect day. Not too hot and not too cold. Like that Miss Congeniality bullshit that you made him watch and he secretly and surprisingly enjoyed.

It’s your perfect day. 

Jack thinks that’s real fucking ironic. 

Sleep well. 

Jack was right.

Those were in fact the last words he ever spoke to you. 

While you were conscious anyway. It’s all he can think about as he sits here in his dress blues at your fucking funeral. He couldn’t bring himself to buy a plain navy suit for the occasion. 

No, that day he had said a lot more words to your unconscious self up by your head as Robby and the team tried and succeeded at stabilizing you enough to get you to the OR. And he had said a lot more words when they let him in the OR so that he could hold your hand and talk to you for just a bit longer before they called it. Somehow in the moment he had managed to block out Garcia standing on the other side across from him with her hand in your chest, manually beating your heart to give him more time with you. 

And then he had said a lot more words to your dead body.

He must have sat in that stupid operating room with you for hours just holding you once they had closed your chest and sat the OR bed up a bit for him. He thinks he must have cycled through every stage of grief with you in his arms. 

Denial. All he could do for a while was mumble to himself that this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. You weren’t really dead. This is some twisted fucking joke you’re trying to play. To see if you could get him to cry. You can stop playing now, Doll, you got me to cry. Okay so not an elaborate joke. Well, you’d wake up in his arms any second now, shock everyone, the whole medical community with your recovery. Because this simply could not be fucking happening.  

Anger. He yelled at you to wake up and not do this to him, to think about how unfair and selfish you were being, how fucking dare you. How dare you leave him here alone. How dare you for talking about him properly grieving. Does it look like he’s properly fucking grieving to you? And he knew, he fucking knew you were about to say moving on, that he could be working towards moving on as if he’s ever going to fucking move on, fuck you for that. He was supposed to propose and you ruined it. You left him How. Fucking. Dare. You.

Bargaining. He negotiated with himself. He should have looked you over before stepping away from you, should have taken you right into an exam room and checked every inch of you for injury before leaving you. If he could go back he would. He would do it all differently. He wouldn’t let you out of the house, would have insisted you skip work that day. He’s not a particularly religious man but he’s praying, bargaining with a God he’s not sure he believes in to bring you back to him. Take his other foot, take his hands, take his ability to be a doctor, take anything and everything that’s enough to bring you back. 

Depression. Crushing and all consuming. The reality that this was happening. A sadness so deep in his soul and causing so much physical pain in his heart that for one glimmer of a second he thought maybe he was suffering from broken heart syndrome, that maybe if he could keep himself worked up and sobbing it would kill him. A sadness so consuming he’d never pull himself out of it. There would never be enough tears shed or enough therapy or enough anything to make any of it better. 

Acceptance. Eventually it washed over him. You were dead in his arms. He was holding your lifeless body. This was his new reality. One without you in it.

But mostly he just sat there and cried over you. Cried for you. Buried his face in your neck at times to muffle the screaming sobs that made him shake. Rocked you and held the side of your face against his when his sobs became so deep they were soundless.

For a while he thought Robby and Dana were going to have to drag him out of there, drag you out of his arms. But at some point he just broke in a different way. Became some sort of numb. Resigned. So he forced himself to leave.

The only thing he could think to do at the end as he laid you back down was to try and make them better. Those two words. 

Brushing some hair back from your face and running his thumb over your jaw he had told you that he loves you and that he always will. He whispered for you to rest now, gave you one last unreciprocated kiss, and then murmured “sleep well.”

He had to damn near drag himself out of the OR after that. Robby knew it. Dana knew it. They were both right there waiting for him. He had needed to get the fuck out of the hospital and to somewhere he could just send himself into oblivion because he had no fucking idea how to deal with the pain, with the loss of you. 

Dana’s hand on his arm grounded him a little. Enough that he heard Robby say quietly, “let’s get you home.” 

Home. 

Jack had realized in that moment that he didn’t have a home. You were his home. Your heartbeat. The one that was now gone. That simply no longer existed. That had been thrown away by the universe like it meant nothing when it meant everything to him. 

Yes, he realized he had an apartment, he had somewhere to go. But that was the apartment that he was supposed to have shared with you. The apartment with all of his things, all of your things, still in boxes. You had been planning on spending the weekend unpacking and painting and getting furniture where you wanted it. You had been planning on making it your home. Together. And then you got shot.

And now, Jack had realized, there was no more together. There was simply an apartment full of boxes of shit and furniture haphazardly placed just to get it in. 

He had had to laugh about it, it was so fucked up. He had barely even realized that he, Dana, and Robby had made it outside somehow, through a side door so that he didn’t have to walk through the entire Pitt. And so out there on the sidewalk in the sun - because of course it couldn’t have been night, he couldn’t have had one thing to give him comfort - he’d broken down in a fit of laughter for a moment that quickly devolved into sobs. 

Big wracking ones that required Robby to hold him up until he had let Jack slide down the side wall onto the ground where the sobs came so hard they were silent. It hadn’t been just you he was weeping for at that point. It had been for you and for himself and for the future you should have had together. For the apartment whose lease would be broken and the trip to Paris he had planned to surprise you with that would never be gone on. For the engagement ring that would never grace your finger. For everything that could have been. For everything that already was.

He’d stopped crying at some point. Dana had gotten her car and driven him and Robby to Robby’s place. Everything since then had more or less blurred together. 

Schedules had been changed so that Dana and Robby worked opposite shifts so that one of them could always be with him. Always watching him. Acutely aware what was likely to happen if they didn’t.

You had no family so everything had been left to Jack, which meant it really had been left to Dana because Jack was barely functioning. Funeral planning. Burial or cremation. Dealing with all of your things.

Unsure of your preferences Dana had picked burial, found a cemetery, bought a plot, gotten it all arranged. Unbeknownst to Dana the one thing Jack had managed to do during all of this was purchase the burial plot next to yours. Only time would tell how long that space next to you would remain empty. Not long if Jack had it his way.

And so here they all were. At the cemetery. On your perfect day.

The funeral was to be held graveside and then back to somewhere for the celebration of life, Dana told him where at one point but he doesn’t remember. Somewhere in his mind he notes that it feels like the entire damn department is here and he can’t help but wonder who the fuck is staffing it right now. As if it matters. As if he’ll ever bring himself back to that hospital. 

Jack’s completely zoned out, unaware of what’s being said, if anything is being said. Your casket is right there. With you in it. He wants to climb inside with you and let them bury you both with him alive. He wants to let your grave smother him to death. He realizes it already is in its own way. So then he might as well be with you, right? No. You’d specifically told him you wouldn’t want that. You said you’d want him to take care of himself and live for you, for the two of you.  But he doesn’t fucking want to. He just wants to be with you.

He tracks your casket as it lowers six feet down. He wants to dive in after you. After a moment Dana nudges him. Right. It’s time. Time for him to throw a flower and some dirt on the top of your grave. 

He forces himself to stand, takes the two daffodils from Dana and approaches your grave. One for him and one for you. They’re your favorite. He stops for a second and just stares down at the wooden box that houses you. Some sort of broken and raw moan slips out before he can stop it, a whimper just a second long, just enough to prove to himself that he’s alive and you’re not standing next to him and there to comfort him and make it all better. He can’t cry. Not here. Not now. Not in front of all of these people. 

He brings a shaky hand up and reaches under his overly pressed shirt until he finds the chain, pulls his dog tags up and over his head, wraps them around the stems of the two daffodils. His chin trembles as he tosses them on top of your casket before following with a little dirt. He thought about tossing the ring he bought you in too, but instead he wears it on a different chain around his neck for now. 

The symbolic burial of himself with you through his dog tags doesn’t escape anyone’s notice and if anyone present wasn’t crying already they were now. Robby and Dana share a heavy tear blurred look with each other. He still can’t be alone. 

Jack just stares down. Can’t bring himself to move. To go sit back down. So the funeral ends with him standing there, looking down at you. 

Robby and Dana give him a few minutes. As he senses people leave he lets the tears slide down his face silently but copiously. His shirt is darkened by his tears quickly. Eventually Robby clears his throat and steps up behind him. 

“Jack?” Robby says his name softly at first. Jack doesn’t respond. “Jack, come on.” It’s a bit louder this time, but still nothing. Robby grabs his shoulder and gives it a little squeeze, is much louder now. “Jack!” 

“What? What happened?” Jack’s head snaps up, the rest of his body following and pushing him out of the chair in seconds. His neck twinges from the awkward angle as his two fingers curl over your wrist automatically, finding your pulse as his vision clears and the patient monitor showing your vitals becomes readable.

All your vitals are normal. Stable.

Your eyes remain closed. Comatose. 

“Nothing,” Robby says quietly, squeezing his shoulder again. “You fell asleep. It didn’t look comfortable. You’re going to fuck your neck if you’re not careful.”

“Jesus fucking christ,” Jack pants, the sheer amount of adrenaline spreading through his system so fast making him shake. He closes his eyes as he tries to bring his heart rate and breathing back to normal. He takes a second to focus and it’s there, under his two fingers thumping along in time with the reading on the patient monitor. Your heartbeat. 

“Fuck.” Jack brings his free hand up and uses it to wipe away the tears itching his face. His chest is wet, shirt undoubtedly darkened by his tears. 

“Another one?” Robby gives him a knowing look. “Funeral again?” 

Jack just nods. It’s not the first nightmare Robby has woken him from in the last three days. It’s not the first time Robby has woken him up from that nightmare. 

“You talked to your therapist recently?” Robby asks as he sits in the other chair near your bed. 

“I don’t have fucking time for the psych-bullshit right now, Robby.” Jack huffs as he sits back in his chair, stretching out his neck. “And I don’t need therapy. I need her to wake the fuck up and come back to me.” He leans forward to kiss your hand, gives it a squeeze and holds his breath that you’ll squeeze back. You don’t. “It’s been five days Robby. Five fucking days.”

Robby nods slowly. “I know. Her body has been through a lot. Sepsis on top of a gunshot and skull fracture is a lot and brain bleed is a lot. And she had a PE, and they had to crack her chest, Jack.” You got lucky and didn’t need surgery to fix the brain bleed. And nobody had wanted to do a thoracotomy on you, not while you were septic, but with your other injuries they had to be careful with blood thinners and the thoracotomy quickly became the only real option. The last ditch option. “All of that is a lot. She needs time. And it’s not bad news. She’s been extubated. That’s a big thing, you know that.” 

“I know,” Jack sighs. It’s small and as exhausted as he sounds and makes him deflate into the chair. “I just… can’t Robby. I can’t keep having that nightmare. I need to hear her voice. I need to know she heard something from me other than fucking ‘sleep well.’ I need this to have never fucking happened!”

Robby doesn’t reply immediately, gives Jack a few minutes to come back down. “She knows you love her, Jack. She knows that you guys would have worked through whatever it was. Deep down she knows that, even if in the moment she was having anxiety.” 

“You don’t even fucking know her. You can’t say that.” Jack shakes his head at Robby “You have no fucking idea.” 

Robby just raises his eyebrows and gives him a resigned look, lets the silence take back over. 

“I need to get back down there, but Dana is going to come up in a bit,” Robby tells him as he stands up. 

“I don’t need babysat.” Jack huffs. 

Robby walks by and squeezes Jack’s shoulder again. “There’s a difference between being babysat and your friends wanting to sit with you to be with you through a difficult time, Jack. We just want to help and right now all we can really do is be here. It’s not babysitting. It’s being a friend. It’s loving a friend. Let us do it, okay?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before walking out. 

And so here you are again. Just the two of you. Only one of you conscious. Jack runs a hand through his hair, moves his chair back closer to your bed and holds your hand. He’s exhausted but terrified to sleep. It always ends the same. 

He’s hardly aware of time passing but knows it must because Dana walks in, hands him a cup of tea. “How’re you?” Jack shrugs. Dana lets him. “Drink the tea.”

He takes a sip, if for nothing more than to get her off his back about it. They sit mostly in silence. Sometimes Dana volunteers a funny story or tells him about some ridiculous patient they had, keeps him up to date on the Pitt gossip. 

“You should shower,” she suggests to him. She’d gone over to your guy’s place at some point and brought in toiletries, fresh clothes for you both. “I’ll sit with her.”

“I’m fine. It’s not like I do anything other than sit here.” 

“Still, it’s a good place to take a minute to yourself. Clear your head.” Dana tilts her head at him. “Look at me.” 

After a second he does, tears his eyes from you to look at her. “She’d want you to take care of yourself.” 

Her words are a little too close to what you had said to him and he bristles, looks back at you. “Nerve there,” Dana observes, always perceptive. “I know I’m right. I know she must have told you that at some point or it wouldn’t have pulled whatever that reaction was.” 

“I’m not leaving her. I don’t care if I can use the shower in her room.” All he can think about is showering you there, watching the pink water go down the drain as he got all of the blood out of your hair and off the rest of your body, the way you melted into his touch and thanked him. How intimate it was. Potentially one of your last moments of intimacy. 

“And the last time I gave into you and showered she fucking woke up without me.” The words hit him and he looks at Dana. “The last time I showered she woke up,” he whispers. He’s not really one to normally believe in such a thing but right now he’s clinging to anything. “I should shower.”

Dana gives him a long nod with a small smile. “Yeah.”

So he does. Tries to split the difference between quickly so that he doesn’t have to spend too much time alone thinking but slow enough to give you time to wake up. But when he turns the water off and doesn’t hear Dana talking he already knows. 

You haven’t woken up. 

“I’m sorry, hon. I was hoping it would work.” Dana looks at him apologetically. 

He shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

Dana nods a bit and walks out. 

Jack finds it hard to talk to you like this. He doesn’t really know why. Maybe it’s just too hard for him to stand the silence he gets in return. 

Sometimes he’ll read to you. That feels nice. You go on and on sometimes about how much you love his voice. You guys met at a bookstore, both love reading. So it just feels right. And he doesn’t have to stop talking and forget and be waiting for a reply that you won’t give him. He can just read. 

He picks up whatever he had been reading to you and starts back up. He doesn’t make it through much though because he just can’t. The sun is setting outside again, another whole day of you in a coma almost finished and he can’t stand it. 

It burns him from the inside, makes him feel like he needs to crawl out of his skin. He needs you to wake up. He needs to fix you. He’s a doctor. Fixing is what he does. He’s fixed countless people. 

But he simply cannot fix you. The only one that matters.

“You know,” he starts, leans back in his chair and looks at you. He scoffs. “God I don’t even know. I don’t know how to do this. What to say to you.” He shakes his head. “And I hate that,” he whispers. 

He sets the book down and the author’s name catches his eye. He moves in closer to you, gets up and sits on the edge of your bed, leans his head in a bit towards you as he holds one of your hands. He needs you to hear this. “I’ve decided that if you don’t wake the fuck up soon I’m going to have no choice but to have someone bring me that book and start reading it to you.” He squeezes your hand and shrugs. “So there. That’s my motivating wake up talk.” Tears hit his eyes and his lips wobble a little. “Wake the fuck up or I’m reading you the god damn book.” 

Jack watches you for a moment and sighs. He leans in and gives your cheek the lightest kiss. He can’t bring himself to kiss your lips again and not feel yours move back against his. He settles back in his chair and picks up the book he was reading. Instead of opening though he just vaguely hits himself straight in the face with it a few times. He doesn’t even know why. He just has the impulse. It’s not hard, it doesn’t do anything. It’s just tapping, just something to ground him maybe. He rests it on his face, closes his eyes and leans his forehead into the cover just to feel the resistance when he pushes the back against him a bit. Maybe he tries to pretend it’s your forehead and the way you lean into each other with your foreheads together sometimes. 

“Should I be jealous of the book Peter?” Your voice is barely audible with how cracked and dry your throat is. 

It takes a second for the book to drop out of Jack’s hands and hit the floor. “Holy fucking shit,” he breathes. “You’re awake.” 

He’s frozen for a minute, shaking hard as adrenaline pours into his system and he feels every emotion he can think of at once. 

“Fuck me,” he huffs. “Really? All I had to do was threaten to read that stupid book to get you to wake up?”

You give him a pained smile and small laugh. It sends him into action. 

“What can I say? I really hate that book. Couldn’t have you torture both of us. I think I’m doing that enough to the both of us right now.” You lick your lips and try to swallow. “Water?” You whisper at him. 

He brings you a cup quickly, holds the straw for you. “Sips,” he says softly. “Little sips right now, okay?” You do as he says, eventually nodding for him to take it away. “Pain? Are you in pain?” He looks on your bed and finds the remote. “Here.” He puts it in your hand, your thumb on top of the red button. “If you need a booster of morphine press the button.” 

You’re immediately pressing it over and over. “What happened?” You groan slightly. “My chest, Jack. It’s so bad. It hurts to breathe, like a weight’s on it.” Your words are a little slurred as the boost of morphine hits. It takes him back to the way you slurred in the trauma room and he has to fight not to go right back there in his mind. You need him. 

“I know.” He strokes your hair. “I know, I’m so sorry.” He looks over at one of your IV pumps. “I can ask them about upping your dose now that you’re awake, okay?”

You nod, blink at him. Your hand drops the button and finds one of his and gives it a little squeeze. “What happened?”

He searches your eyes with his, lets them flit about your face. His lip trembles. It breaks your heart. Whatever it was destroyed him. 

He sits back in his chair, moves it as close to you as he can get it. You reach up to cup his face with your hand and he leans into it immediately, puts both of his hands over yours. “You went septic. Threw a clot. It was bad. It was really bad. You coded. They had to crack your chest to get you back. So that’s why your chest hurts so bad. You’ve been in a coma for five days. I’m so sorry,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry I didn’t-”

“Hey, hey,” you whisper back to him. “Don’t do that. Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault. You didn’t do anything, didn’t cause this.” 

“No,” he sniffles, “I know, but I just… I…” Tears start to stream down his face as he looks at you helplessly and shrugs. “I couldn’t…”

“Jack.” The way you say his name shatters him and he folds, buries his head in your lap, wary of hurting you, and sobs as he keeps squeezing your hand. “It’s okay,” you whisper, run your free hand through his hair. You both know its a lie. Nothing is okay right now. 

But you’re awake. 

He doesn’t cry for long, too conscious of how exhausted you must be, how he doesn’t want this to be how he spends the time he just got back with you. Not right now anyway. There will be time for tears and emotions and processing later. 

He rubs his face in your lap a bit to wipe his eyes and then lifts his head before resting it on its side against your legs. “I’m just so happy you’re awake.” 

“Me too.” You give him a sleepy smile. “Was always going to wake up, couldn’t leave you here alone could I?”

He gives a little half laugh, half sob. “Good. Because I don’t know what I’d do without you.” You want to tell him he’d figure it out but you don’t. 

“You gonna give me a kiss now Jack Abbot? I know I haven’t brushed-”

He’s moving the second you say kiss. He feels bad it didn’t occur to him immediately but he was just so overwhelmed with you being awake. His lips against yours cut you off. It’s not just one kiss, it’s two and three and you lose count. 

Soft ones, small, just long enough. They say more than he could figure out how to say with his words right now. Each one is perfect in its simplicity.

“You should rest,” he murmurs against your lips. You hum at him in response, eyes already fluttering closed. “You know I love you right? More than anything. More than I deserve.” 

You open your eyes back up and look at him. “Course I know that,” you murmur. “You know I love you right?”

He smiles at you. It’s a little watery, a little trembly. “Course I know that.” 

You swallow hard, just from all the meds and fighting the exhaustion. “Get in bed.” Your tone doesn’t leave much room to argue but he does anyway. 

“No. It’s not safe. I could hurt you. You need to heal a bit more.” He squeezes your hand. “But believe me, I want to, more than anything.”

“You won’t hurt me. Didn’t last time.” You look at him with big sleepy eyes that kill him. “Heal better with you in bed with me.” He bites his lip, torn, so scared of causing you any pain and so desperate to give you what you want. To give himself what he wants. “You’re the one that said oxytocin helps healing…” Your eyes flutter closed again. 

He has to laugh through some tears. “God, you really do listen and learn don’t you?”

You hum at him. “Someone has to be your best student. And it better always be me Dr. Abbot.” 

He laughs at that. It’s so you, such a you thing to say. For the first time in days he really laughs even with as short as it is. For the first time in days he feels hope. Hope that everything is going to be okay and you’re going to go home together and unpack and set up your place and paint and just be together.  

“You’re my best everything,” he murmurs as he gently shifts you and all your wires and climbs carefully into bed next to you. He needs it. And you need it. And so he lets you both have it. He lets himself hold you as best he can while keeping you in a neutral position that won’t hurt you. Your head falls to rest on his shoulder and you sigh softly as you fall asleep. Jack kisses the top of your head, lets his lips linger. 

“Sleep well.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Doll, I am not a dancer. I promise you. Nobody wants to see it.” 

“I don’t believe you,” you pout at him. “And I’ve seen those hips in action Peter. I know how much control you have over them. How you can isolate all the little muscles in them.”

“None of the muscles in your hips are particularly little-”

“You’re not changing the subject,” you cut him off. “It’s a wedding. We’re going to have to dance. At least to the slow songs.” 

“Are you sure you really want to take me?” He doesn’t even really mean to ask it, it just comes out. 

You look up at him and pause, drop his comforter that you were pulling back to get into his bed. “I… Is it too soon? Too serious too soon? I guess going to a wedding together is kind of…” you trail off looking for the word. “I don’t know a thing.”

“No!” He’s quick to reassure you. He leans up and pulls the comforter back for you. “Get in bed.” 

You do as he says. “It’s not too soon, and I want to go with you, trust me. Even under threat of dancing. I just wanted to make sure you don’t feel like you have to take me. I know a lot of your friends will be there and if you’re not ready to make those introductions, that’s okay,” he explains as he pulls you to him, arms wrapping around you but loose enough so that you can see each other. 

“I don’t feel like I have to take you. I want to. I want people to meet you. I want to show you off.” One of your hands slips into the back of his hair and plays with it, ruffles the curls and scratches at his scalp on and off as you look at each other. 

“Show me off?” He smirks at you. “You wanna show me off?”

“My intelligent, thoughtful, hot as all fuck doctor of a boyfriend? Yeah. I wanna show you off.” You grab at the old shirt he’s wearing to sleep in and give it and him a look of mock offense at it being on but pull him to you by it anyway. “Wanna see you in a partial suit. Nice slim fit pants, collared shirt, a tie, one or two buttons open at the reception and the tie shoved in your pocket to use on me later.” 

Jack sucks in a sharp breath of air and you just give him a little raise of your eyebrow, start to roll onto your back. He’s on top of you and kissing you and has his hands roaming all over you the second your head hits the pillow. 

He always pauses for a moment and makes eye contact with you before letting himself collapse on top of you after he’s done fucking you like this. The intimacy of that quick moment always makes your heart metaphorically skip a beat. This time is no exception. 

Jack snuggles into your chest, kissing at the top of your breasts as he does before he settles. You run your hands through his hair, are always running them through his hair or up and down his back or both. He loves it. 

“Hey Jack?” He’ll never get used to hearing his name come off your tongue.

He makes a little hum of acknowledgment, still blissed out and coming down. 

“We’re dancing at the wedding.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Days blur together. 

Your Pitt family rallies around both of you. 

You start seeing a therapist and it helps, you improve some, mentally. Jack finally makes an appointment with his therapist and it helps him. 

Everyone helps distract you, but it’s not just sitting in your room with you. One night Samira, Javadi, McKay, Mel and Heather show up in your room with painting supplies, easels, foldable stools, and a woman you’ve never met before. 

Paint and sip, they explain. You’re doing a paint and sip right here in your room, minus the sipping, unfortunately, because of your meds. It’s so sweet and thoughtful it makes you teary. Jack will never admit it but it may or may not have made him a little teary as he gave you a kiss and walked out to be with Robby for a bit as you guys did your painting. 

There are more things. There are a lot more things that they all do for you, and for Jack. Robby forces Jack to leave the hospital, just to go home, get more things for you, pick up food you like, small things. The first time is rough for both of you. But it gets better.

Of course, the most special though, the one that helps your mental health the most, is what Jack does for you. 

One night a good two and a half weeks into your hospital stay, Jack goes out to pick up dinner and Dana, Samira and Heather show up in your room again, but this time they have clothes for you. Nice clothes. A nice dress, the one you were going to wear to the wedding. Nice shoes. Make-up. Perfume. 

The Pitt is having a little get together on the roof and you should come, they explain. You worry that Jack is not going to be happy with you out of your room and on the roof, that it’ll scare him and you don’t want to scare him any more than you already have. They convince you that it’s okay, that Robby called Jack already and told him and so he knows to meet you up there. You’re confused by it all but don’t feel you’re in a position to really question anything and also very excited about the prospect of getting to be out on the roof in fresh air and city noise. 

The girls help you get dressed and your makeup and hair done nicely. Dana sprays some perfume on you. It makes you smile. 

“What?” She asks, but it’s a little too knowing. 

“I wore this perfume on Jack and I’s first date.” 

She hums. “Well isn’t that special? You’ll have to see if he remembers.” 

Heather and Samira disappear, say they’ll meet you up there, they’re going to go change. Dana brings you up, opens the roof door and tells you to go, she’s gotta go change. You look at her confused and shaking your head and now you know something is up. But she’s off before you can question her.

You turn around and walk out onto the roof a little, around a little corner and there’s Jack. 

There’s Jack standing next to a dinner table with a white linen tablecloth with candles on it, fairy lights strung up on the guard rail. There’s Jack holding a bouquet of daffodils for you and looking at you like you’re a vision. There’s Jack standing in front of you in nice slim fit pants, a collared shirt with two buttons undone. 

You look shocked because you are so far fucking beyond shocked you didn’t even know it was possible. He did this for you. 

“We didn’t get to go to the wedding,” he calls to you as he walks over while you walk to him. “You look gorgeous.”

You’re speechless. Beyond. You’re thoughtless, struggling to process this, all this work that he did for you.

“I promise to give you a raincheck on the tie,” he smirks as he reaches you, leans in and kisses you. He pulls back, brows furrowed like he’s confused and it makes you laugh a little because how the hell is he the confused one now. “You smell like our first date.”

“I…Jack, this is… Yeah, it’s the same perfume. Dana brought it.” You pause, think back on your conversations with Dana. She dragged it out of you so casually one day you thought nothing of it. You shake your head and laugh a little. “She asked me about it one day and I didn’t even think about it.

“She’s pretty good, isn’t she?” Jack laughs. You nod. 

“Jack, I’m,” you look around, hold onto his forearms to ground you. You’re teary. Of course. “You did all this? For me?”

“Well I certainly had many co-conspirators who helped me get it all set up, but yeah. It was my idea. You needed it. I needed it. We needed it. A date night. And this was the only place we could get in.” He hands you the daffodils, grabs your hand and leads you over to the table where you stop.

“I…” You look around again. “It’s safe? For me?” You look back at him and he knows from the look in your eye that you’re not asking because you’re worried about yourself. You’re asking because you’re worried about him, worried about putting him through more trauma and more pain if something were to happen to you up here. 

“Yes.” He helps you into the chair. “You’re probably the safest diner in all of Pittsburgh tonight. You’ve got a physician’s supervision.” He smirks at you. His eyes flick to the ground on the side. His go-bag. He’s prepared, just in case. That brings you back to reality, brings you back to yourself, makes you smile and give a soft laugh. 

He sits down opposite you, starts to take a drink of water. “Have I ever told you how hot I find it that you’re a doctor?”

Jack chokes, starts coughing and it makes you giggle.

“What?” You draw the word out with a bit of that shit-eating grin he loves. “What did you expect me to say?” 

“I don’t fucking know but not that! You were so speechless a minute ago!” He’s laughing a bit now, looking at you like you’re one of the seven wonders of the world. 

“It’s just the truth!” you say through a laugh. He reveals dinner to you. Your favorite dish from your favorite place. You thank him for this, all of it, you keep saying it because you’re so blown away. 

You eat dinner. You eat all of yours for the first time in two weeks and it makes Jack so incredibly happy and relieved. After you’re done with dinner you sit for a bit, chat a little before Jack stands up and holds out his hand to you. You raise an eyebrow at him. 

He takes his phone out and thirty seconds later your guy's song, soft and slow, starts playing from a speaker he had hidden under the table. He offers you his hand again. 

“Oh Jack.” You pull the words out a little bit as you start to cry.

Through tears you take it and let him pull you close into a dancing hold. “I hope they’re good tears,” Jack murmurs as he holds you close.

“They’re the best,” you sniffle. “I love you so much.”

Jack kisses your temple at the side of your eyebrow. “I love you more.”

The song plays on a loop. Jack dances with you until you admit you’re tired and need to rest. It’s not even really dancing more than just swaying together, him holding you close, murmured conversation. But it’s everything. He’s everything. 

You’re there for weeks. Weeks that are beautifully uneventful, the only exception being when you hit some milestones in your recovery. 

And then one day is eventful again because a word starts being used. The word you’ve both been desperate to hear. 

Home. 

You’re desperate to get out of the hospital and home. Jack is just as desperate to get you there. He never wants to let you out of it again, but that’s a conversation for a later day. He’s dreading when you have to go back to work, back to that courthouse. Rationally he knows with the increased security since the shooting it’s probably one of the safest places for you to be but his emotional brain doesn’t give a single fuck about that. 

You laugh about it with Jack one day, how you’re going to go home to your apartment that’s still in boxes with furniture pushed to the center of rooms so you could paint. “It’s okay, we can wait to paint or I can make Robby help. And then you can just boss me around and tell me where to put things as I unpack while you rest on the couch.”

He gives you a very pointed look. 

“I think I’ll be okay to help you unpack. At least some things and at least for a while. If I get tired I’ll rest and I won’t go lifting a box of books, okay?” You give him a reassuring smile. 

“No.” 

You let out a deep sigh. “Jack, we’ve talked about this. You can’t treat me like I’m glass forever. Especially once we’re home.” 

“Why not? And it’s not even treating you like glass, it’s making sure you take it easy and recover.” His face is set, but not quite as hard as it has been when you’ve had this conversation in the past. 

“I will take it easy. And I will recover. And you will be there to make sure I do both of those things. But being active, to an extent, I know, is important. Robby has said it. Dana. Heather, Mel, Santos, Shen, Parker, Perlah, Princess, Shamsi, Whitaker, Garcia, Javadi, Mohan, Mateo, everyone who has ever stepped in this room. Even you told me that, back when I didn’t want to get out of bed.” You run your hands over his chest, try to be soothing. You don’t want to upset him. “I know you have been through a lot with this. I know I have been. I know we have a lot to process and work through together and individually. I don’t want to argue. And I know that if our positions were reversed I would be the exact same way towards you, and that if anything you have it worse because you’re a doctor and so you know way too much about the things that could go wrong. But I’m okay. I will be okay. You tell me everyday how I’m getting stronger.”

Jack settles his hands on your hips, rests his forehead against yours. “I know. I just… struggle. Because you were better and then you weren’t. And I am terrified that’s going to happen again even though I know the chances at this point are so low.” His hands squeeze your hips. “I think maybe seeing you out of here will help. Seeing you at home. It’ll make it more real. That you’re really okay.” He pulls his head from yours. “I’m sorry.” 

“Hey,” you cup his face with both of your hands. “I don’t want you to be sorry, Jack. Not for caring so much, for loving so much. Because that’s what this is and I know it. It’s not micromanaging or not trusting me or wanting to control me. I know that. I promise. I know this is motivated by fear and by love. We’re going to get through this together, okay?”

He nods because he knows it’s true. 

And then there’s another eventful day, with a phrase you’ve both been itching to hear. 

Discharge instructions. 

They let Robby give you them even though he’s not technically your doctor. He gives them to you even though he doesn’t need to because you have Jack who’s going to be all over you and enforce stricter ones. But you still appreciate hearing them so that you have some idea of what’s okay and what isn’t and what appointments you have scheduled for follow ups and the meds they’re sending you home with. 

You ask about sex. 

Jack almost drops the bottle he’s packing away for you. “Why, please tell me why on earth,” he draws the word out, “you’re thinking about sex? And not recovering.”

You look at him, hold a finger up and then riffle through the bag next to you on the bed. You take out the small stand mirror Dana had brought you so that you could do your makeup that one night. You open it and hand it to Jack. “Take a look in the mirror Dr. Abbot.”

You’re so nonchalant with how you say it, like it’s obvious and just a fact and nothing you should really have to be explaining. 

“Oh my god,” he mutters. 

Robby ends up totally snorting his laugh because he tried to stifle it for Jack for a minute but it’s too good, it’s too funny. Robby smiles at you as he pulls it together, thinks how good you are for Jack. How you’re what he needed.

“You could have just asked me, you know! I’m a doctor! I know you know that, you tell me how hot it is all the time! We didn’t have to fucking drag Michael into this,” he huffs. But all of you know it’s not serious. He’s not really mad. He’s just worried and scared and wants to protect you and doesn’t want anything to happen to you and more than anything he doesn’t want to hurt you. But there’s the subtlest tinge to his voice that reflects his lust, his want, his desire to have you like that again. 

“Yes, but I don’t trust you to give me a straight answer right now,” he goes to interrupt you but you shake your head and continue, speaking over him, and Jack pouts. Truly pouts. “And you know that’s valid and you would have given me the most conservative answer possible. And it’s Robby,” you shrug, “he’s a doctor and your best friend and obviously knows we’re having sex, or were before all of this. Plus he saw my tits when he coded me, I think we lost some boundaries when that happened.”

“They’re very nice b-”

Jack shoots him a glare, one that would have Robby dead on the floor if looks could kill.

Robby stops talking and clears his throat. “Right, well, uh,” Robby hugs his tablet to him and rocks back and forth a bit. “I mean as soon as you’re ready and feel up to it.” You look over at Jack and flash a pleased smile, raise your eyebrows. “But nothing too rough or overly strenuous. Keep it soft, slow. You know real love-making-”

“I’m going to fucking quit if you keep talking.” Jack interrupts Robby who wears the biggest self-satisfied shit eating grin. 

You snort a laugh because the whole situation is so fucking absurd. “Thank you, Robby.”  

“Of course.” He opens his arms and you hug. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I am really fucking glad I won’t see either of you tomorrow.” 

The three of you share a laugh. “Ready?” Jack asks you. It’s funny how in the moment you’ve been dying for you’re suddenly terrified and unsure. The hospital is safe. There are doctors and medications. 

You remind yourself that there’s a doctor and medications at home too and the thought lets you smile at Jack and nod.

He flicks his chin to the wheelchair. “Oh you cannot be serious. That is so unnecessary.”

“Hospital policy.” Jack shrugs. 

“Hospital policy or Jack policy?”

“That one actually is hospital policy.” Robby confirms. 

Jack gives you a triumphant smirk and you roll your eyes and stick your tongue out at him. He does it back. 

And then he wheels you out.

Being home is strange. It’s a whole new normal to get used to again. There are lots of emotions. You’re all over the place, somehow more emotional labile the first two days at home than you ever were in the hospital. 

Despite his own emotions Jack is your rock through it and things start to get better. He paints with Robby’s help. You talk him into letting you paint. You direct Jack and Robby on where furniture should go, with Jack’s input of course. You and Jack unpack boxes together. 

Six or seven days after you came home you’re down to just two boxes left. All books. You and Jack are unpacking them together, him bending to get them out of the box and you alphabetizing as you put them on the shelves. 

Jack picks up a book. The book. The one that started it all. The one ‘Move in with me?’ is written in. He stares down at it. 

Earlier today he’d unpacked the box where he’d hidden the ring. The ring box is in his pocket, pants loose enough to hide it. 

“Peter?” You hold a hand out behind you to get the next book from him but Jack doesn’t put one in your hand or say anything. “Jack?” you repeat as you turn around to him staring at the book. He has a weird look that you can’t really place. Your brows furrow in concern. “Are you okay?”

He sets the book back in the box and looks up at you for a second. And then he’s sliding down to one knee and your eyes widen. “Jack,” you whisper, already teary. 

“We’re going on the France trip,” he starts. “It’s all planned. You should be well enough to travel by then and we can adjust to take it easier if we need.” Your mouth drops open a little. “I had this all planned too. Proposing. I was going to take you to the Louvre, propose in front of the inverted pyramids, have a photographer. I had planned to tell you about the trip the night of the day you got shot. And then the entire time you were in the hospital I wanted to ask but I didn’t want it to feel like I was asking because you were in the hospital and things were scary.” 

You bring a trembling hand to your mouth. “But I can’t wait anymore. I can’t wait for Paris. You know this has nothing to do with what happened. I had planned this before what happened. I knew I wanted to marry you within a month. That time you met me outside of the hospital after I coded that vet at the very end of my shift. We had spoken on the phone for less than a minute, I didn’t tell you about it or say anything was wrong and yet you just showed up. In your work clothes. When I asked why you were there you said you could hear it in my voice, that I needed someone, needed to not be alone and so you took the day off, and it’s funny because up until you said it I had been telling myself that I needed to be alone. But you were right. When I started to argue you just put a hand to my chest and kissed me, told me that it was already done, you’d already let your boss know, grabbed my hand and started walking to my place. And that’s when I realized you knew me better than I knew myself and that you weren’t afraid to just do things for me, that you weren’t going to make me ask, ever, for anything, when you knew I wouldn’t be able to. You weren’t going to make me struggle, force me to either open up or not get what I need from you. That’s when I knew I wanted to marry you.” He pauses and swallows, trying to clear the tears that line his eyes from his voice. “There’s so much I wanted to say in this moment, so much you deserve to hear” he laughs a little, the sound wet with tears, “but everything has fallen out of my mind. I promise though that, if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of our lives making sure you hear them and know how important and necessary you are to me, how much I love you.” 

Tears stream down your face. They have been for a while now. Your mouth and chin tremble under your hand. 

Jack gets the box from his pocket and opens it.

The way Jack says your name is etched into your memory. Then. “Will you marry me?”

You move your hand from your mouth, give him a look and move your shoulders in a way that says he didn’t even have to ask. 

“Yes.” 

It’s not exactly whispered, your voice is just so choked with tears it makes it sound like it. Jack’s face breaks out into the biggest teary smile and yours matches. Shaking hands get the ring on your finger and then Jack is standing up, arms going straight to hold your face and he kisses you like he never has before. It’s indescribable. It’s perfect. 

You hug him tightly for a minute before you both pull away. “Is it okay? The ring?”

“Oh,” you sniffle, try and wipe at your eyes with your hands. “You’re going to laugh,” your voice gets a little more high pitched as another wave of emotion hits you. “The tears, there’s too many, I haven’t been able to see it.” You cover your mouth with your hand. 

And Jack, Jack starts laughing. Because it’s so you, from being too teary to see it to the way you got even more emotional when you told him. You laugh-cry with him. 

The entirety of the proposal is perfect. 

As is what follows once you’ve seen the ring, almost screamed about it and how perfect it is, and gushed about it for several minutes to him. 

Jack takes your hand and leads you to your bedroom. Your shared bedroom. He lays you down on soft sheets. It’s your first time after what happened. 

He takes his time with you. Kisses every inch of you, every scar, new and old, lingers on the new ones. He worships you. Takes you apart and puts you back together again. Lets you do the same to him. 

The groan of relief that comes from his chest when he finally pushes inside of you is unholy. He holds you tight to him. He adjusts so that he’s on top of you, arms under your shoulders with his elbows supporting him, holding your face in his hands. It’s all panting and breathy and sloppy kisses and uncontrollable groans and moans and warm sweaty skin and eye contact and Jack slowly losing it and groaning nonstop as he fucks you and chases your hips harder and harder, moving you both up the bed a bit as he tries to get deeper and closer to you. 

You take a bath after to clean the sweat off of you both and just to feel each other. He pours in so much epsom salts to help you heal that you tease him you’re going to float in the water. It’s so warm and his touch is so relaxing that you actually fall asleep leaning back against him for a few minutes. He lets you sleep. Tries to commit the moment to memory. 

You decide to have a housewarming party. You invite everyone from the Pitt, time it so that the night shifters can drop by for a little bit before their shift starts if they want. You invite some of your friends too. 

You use it to announce your engagement. Every time someone knocks you and Jack go get them and you hold your left hand up. Everyone is happy for you. Some cry which makes you get teary. Jack hears you discussing the ring with Dana, Samira, McKay, and Javadi, you holding your hand out and all of them looking closely at it. He can’t hear the conversation but he catches, “he custom designed it,” and “it’s so perfect, just like him.”

He stands alone for a minute watching you and the party. He smiles as you walk up to him, arms automatically opening for you to step into. “And how is my beautiful fiancée doing?” You giggle at the word. Fianceé. It makes it so real. “Tired?” He’s checking in on you and you know he’d have all of these people out in a literal minute if you said you were tired and needed to rest. 

“No, I’m okay, I promise.” You lean up and give him a kiss. “How’s my handsome fiancé?” 

“I’m pretty perfect, Doll.” He gives your hip a squeeze. “Thank you.”

“For what?” You cock your head at him a little and he melts even more for you somehow. 

“For everything.” Jack kisses you. “For saying yes.” Another kiss. “For waking up.” Another kiss. “And for telling me that book wasn’t worth it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted both without having to destroy Jack because he deserves everything so here we are. I hope it was okay! Please let me know your thoughts and comments!! Liking, replies and reblogging are so so appreciated! My inbox and requests are open (see masterlist for more)! Thank you for reading all of this, I know it was long!

Part 3 is up!

And let me know if you'd like to see more of these two! Wedding, more before reader is shot, just little domestic moments between the two? I'm hoping to do a follow up to Perfumer and maybe a few more shorter things, maybe some Robby? Who knows, certainly not I.

Thank you again for reading and your support!

[sparrownnax]

w.hat was thay noise

[strwbrychffoncke]

"i just wanted to tell you incase you forgot... 'i love you',, 3k words ⸺ event masterlist synopsis: the ways in which you tell sylus "i love you" and ways in which he reciprocates contains: lnds sylus x mc?reader (fem in mind but she/her is used like once or twice) ,fluff! ,kitten/sweetie used as pet names ,domestic!sylus feel ,cuddling ,playful banter ,baker sylus ,incorrect evol use but its wholesome ,sylus chases u around ,twins feature ,not much to say other than soft!sylus being in love w u / both of u being lovesick for e/o + twins shenanigans at the end (i think thats it) note: (mostly edited ,will check back later) added this track last minute but immediately knew who i wanted to write it for. first fic of the event woooo~ :x

-

sylus wasn't a man of love-filled sentiments.

or at least, that's what you'd initially thought.

a man like him, the big bad leader of onychinus, someone who was above everyone else and the most sought-after criminal, wielding a steel-cold gun in one of his bloodstained hands...

someone like that didn't know love, surely.

but oh, how wrong you were.

you were the only one that knew, under all of that tough exterior, the true tenderness that lied beneath it.

and you were the sole subject to it, from the very beginning.

-

you woke unceremoniously in a bed that was not your own, surrounded in a blanket of warmth but not solely due to the comforter surrounding your plush body:

it was mainly due to the otherworldly individual beneath you, who you were using as your personal body pillow of sorts.

you stir, letting out a small groan before peeking your eyes open to catch a glimpse of the man before you.

the big, bad leader of onychinus, sleeping soundly in bed next to you, arm firmly wrapped around your waist and your head comfortably planted on his chest— your favorite makeshift pillow.

you can't help but to smile at the sight.

feeling a touch mischievous, you begin trailing your fingers, touch featherlight, up from his waist towards his chest and back down, slowly shifting to drawing mindless shapes in the expanse of exposed skin.

he doesn't react to your touches, still deep in sleep, so you change your tactic.

you drag a single index finger up, up, up past his slender waist, then his slowly rising and falling chest, his pretty neck then up towards his sharp jawline to poke at his cheek.

he grunts in his sleep, but nothing more.

you let out a huff, lifting your head up and staring at the serene expression on his face— even lost in the land of dreams, you couldn't help but to admire every feature of his visage.

a couple of minutes pass by just like this until you decide you're feeling a little bored again.

so you repeat your earlier action, dragging your finger up slowly, slowly, just about to poke his cheek again—

when your wrist is swiftly caught by a warm hand before you reach it.

"it seems my dream of a kitten mistaking me for a toy wasn't a dream after all."

sylus' crimson eyes crack open to look directly into your bright (albeit still slightly-sleepy) ones, heart full at the little playful smile you're sporting.

"she seems bored," he muses, thumb from the hand still gripping your wrist gently caressing your knuckles back and forth— a subconscious habit whenever his hands hold yours.

"should i entertain her?"

his question goes unanswered as he shifts over on his side while letting your hand go at the same time, causing you to slip from your spot on top of him to behind him, facing his back.

"—or leave her to her own devices?"

"sylus!"

your laughs are airy, quickly enveloping the spacious bedroom, and sylus finds himself smiling at the sound.

you don't leave him alone for long, quickly pressing against him and hugging his large frame from behind.

sylus releases a playful scoff. "is this a new attack of yours?"

"yeah, you can't escape, i'm going to stick to you like this forever and ever!"

"how touching," his voice is filled with amusement. "i think i can get used to this..." he trails off, smile evident in his words.

you stay that way for awhile when you decide to repeat your earlier actions in the new space, retracting a hand as you begin to draw shapes into his back this time. at the same time, sylus begins to hum whatever song is on his mind, eyes shut as he revels in your touches, neither one of you in a rush to get up from this sacred space for two.

"what are you drawing, kitten?"

your finger dances across the bare canvas of his back.

"guess," you answer simply as you continue.

he lets out a huff of a laugh. "not going to make it easy for me, are you?"

you hum in response, dragging your fingers to create imaginary lines over the muscles.

"is this... a kitten?" you can almost hear the raise of his eyebrow and see the funny yet curious expression on his face.

"oooh, i didn't think you'd get that one. how about..."

your finger traces several lines again, taking your time before you stop and wait for his answer.

"hmmm..." the way he's concentrating trying to figure it out fills you with amusement like no other.

"a... plane?"

"wrong, it was mephisto!"

"..it was close."

"are you calling mephisto a plane..?"

"..let's move on to the next one."

a hearty laugh rings out as you pretend to erase the image.

"wait until i tell him~"

"you wouldn't dare," he jokingly threats, causing you to only giggle back in response.

you decide on something much simpler this time.

your movements are slowed as you start near the center, drawing a tilted line outward and up before curving it inward and mimicking the same on the opposite side, connecting them to form a heart.

i love you.

a short, amused laugh leaves him, immediately recognizing the shape, but shaping a question instead of an answer.

"i'm not too sure, sweetie. might have to try that one again," he says, voice soft and tender, a hint of a smile within it.

say it once more.

so you do.

you repeat your action, slower, drawing another imaginary heart on his bare skin and within it, your unspoken promise of devotion towards him.

i love you.

this time, he turns around to face you, pulling you flush against him. you let out a short laugh before its devoured by his lips on yours, caught in a dance of love and devotion, giggles bubbling out of you between the breaks as you try to catch your breath while he needily chases your lips.

and the message he wishes to convey is clear as day.

i love you, too.

-

someone like him was the last person you thought you'd ever associate sweets with.

but after the time spent together, you find it hard to imagine anyone else cautiously reading the instructions, mixing the ingredients precisely, and carefully readying the icing for the fresh cupcakes that have come out of the oven and are left cooling nearby, except for him.

you tiptoe into the kitchen, watching him prepare a piping bag for the freshly-made icing he's made while he hums (when you asked him why he goes through the trouble of making it from scratch, he countered by asking "doesn't it taste better when you put in the work for something?" and despite playfully scoffing at the little smirk he offered, you couldn't help but to agree with him).

you smile at his focused expression, reading glasses perched on his nose, some remnants of ingredients spotting his clothes as he decides on which icing tip to use for these particular cupcakes (the last time he made them, they resembled simple flowers. based on the icing tip he was inspecting now, it seemed he was going to try for roses this time).

now just a step away from his back, you reach out both hands, index fingers out as you poke both sides of his lower back at the same time.

he jolts at the sensation, small gasp emitting from his lips and shock washing over him as he cranes his neck over his shoulder to catch your satisfied smile.

"another sneak attack, kitten?"

"i couldn't resist."

you step up beside him, taking a peek into the bowl filled with icing.

"red this time? i would've never guessed."

he scoffs, smiling.

"am i that predictable to you?"

"well, after spending so much time together, its only natural, right?"

"its bad if an enemy learns to read you so easily; who knows what trap will be set in the future."

"you're right," your words trail off as you step back, causing the sly crow before you to raise a brow.

"they can plan an attack when you're vulnerable, like—"

behind him again, you jump forward, wrapping your arms around his waist.

"this!"

his hearty chuckle rings through the kitchen.

even if he saw your intention from the start, he made no move to stop you. he'd surrender to you if you so much as asked.

"so? what will you do with me now that i'm caught?"

"hmmm..."

you hum in thought, noticing sylus has picked up the piping bag and was inserting the icing tip into it, getting ready to fill the bag with the red icing.

he's waiting for your answer when one of your hands reaches forward, dipping your finger into the icing bowl and quickly withdrawing your arms, swiftly turning around—

when you feel yourself being lifted into the air.

you let out a surprised squeal, giggling as you thrash around in the hold of sylus' evol, said man's attention still on the icing bag as he scoops a dallop of red into it.

"such a naughty kitten," he says, evol pulling your suspended body over to him slowly as you laugh the entire way.

"and naughty kittens deserve a punishment," as he speaks, he dips his own finger into the bowl of icing, red now gathered onto the tip before looking up at you through the rims of his glasses.

realizing what he's planning, you thrash around to no avail within the confines of his evol, trying to create distance between you two.

"nooooo! im sorry! please- aha, hahaha! sylus!"

your attempt is futile, sly smirk curling on sylus' lips as his finger moves closer and closer to your smiling face that's trying to inch further and further away, pressing his finger right onto your nose, painting it in red.

"noooooo!" you whine, sylus chuckling in amusement.

"how cute," he muses. "maybe this will teach you to behave in the kitchen."

he finally lets you down with his evol, eyeing you as you're standing upright and before him once again.

"now, go and wait till i'm finished, i'll even let you have the first taste," he bargains, turning his back to you and walking back towards the icing bowl.

despite this, a smirk plasters itself onto your face as you creep your way up behind him once again, red icing still staining your finger from moments ago stretched out, ready to paint his cheek—

"i thought i told you to behave."

despite the countless attempts to catch him by surprise attacks, he knows what you're saying through them:

i love you.

your wrist is easily caught in his grasp, stopping your attack before it can hit his cheek, a displeased groan emitting from your throat.

he brings your icing-covered finger close to his lips, lapping at the red. you watch as it momentarily stains his lips before his tongue licks them clean, humming at the flavor.

"it seems.. better this time, don't you think?" he turns, looking down at you.

you huff out a breath, trying to hide your embarrassment at his little action.

"be patient, kitten, i'll be done soon enough..." he trails off, hand unraveling from your wrist. "or do i have to restrain you?"

"i'm going, i'm going!"

with that, you scurry out of the kitchen to wait in the living room, sylus' amused chuckle surrounding the kitchen soon replaced by his soft, mindless humming once again.

i love you more.

-

a man of his caliber having a playful side seemed like a far-fetched idea.

until you experienced it for yourself.

and since the very first time, you're convinced he may be the most playful person on the entire planet.

to be fair, you kind of expected this, after all, its not like it was the first time.

but when you snatched a cupcake when his back was turned and took a bite, you didn't expect him to notice— at least, not right away.

but he did, and when he began counting, you instinctually bolted out of the kitchen, cupcake still in hand, giggles trailing behind you, determined to not be caught by him.

you dashed past the living area, two crow masks peeking up from their spot on the sofa and shifting to another figure— their boss— who was trailing behind you, watching until your figures disappeared down the long corridor of the hall.

"i give her five minutes," kieran pipes up, turning towards his brother.

"i give her three!"

"you're on!"

. . .

even as you dash down the halls, careful not to hit anything and running in scattered directions, it doesn't take long for sylus to close in on you.

you make it to a lounging area, movements slowed from the amount you've ran in the past couple of minutes, beginning to catch your breath after not sensing him around when you feel a weight on your shoulders.

"caught you."

"...!"

he's equally out of breath, taking a few moments to even his breathing, leaning against you more and more before pushing your body down onto the sofa. you fall back on the cushions with a short oof! still in the midst of catching your breath before sylus lays what feels like his entire weight right on top of you.

"sylus!"

you push against his broad chest, completely crushed by his beautiful build of a body, laughter ringing through the living space at your futile struggle against the smirking man above you.

"it seems a little kitten is stuck," he heaves a couple of breaths. "what are you going... to do about it?"

"get... off!" you laugh.

"i'm tired after all of that chasing... not to mention this is comfortable for me," he takes a couple more breaths, looking down at your slightly-sweaty face. "so i'd rather not."

"you're heavy, sylus!"

you weakly hit at his chest when he closes his eyes, pretending to fall asleep on top of you.

"sylus!"

slowly, he lifts himself up with his arms, hands planted flat on either side of your head.

"attacking me after making me chase you? how very cruel of you, sweetie."

your breaths are mostly even now, watching for sylus' next move.

he slowly begins moving his head down, and your eyes naturally flutter closed, expecting a kiss.

he takes this opportunity to plant his knees into the sofa, shifting his weight onto them as he leans down, breath fanning your lips.

"you trust me, sweetie?" he whispers against your lips.

"always," you whisper back.

he suddenly lifts his head, arms lifting at the same time before his fingers immediately begin dancing over your midriff.

your eyes shoot open in shock and betrayal, laughs immediately ripped from your throat as you thrash beneath him, trying your best to get away despite being caged into the sofa.

"s-sy-sy- ahahah! sto-o-p! s-stop! hahaha!"

his fingers continue their brutal attack on your sensitive skin, bubbling laughter infectious as sylus joins you, pleased smile adorning his face at your current state.

he relents shortly after, allowing you to catch your breath again as he looks down at you in a daze, reaching out to straighten your hair.

"kiss..." your voice is breathless, but he catches it.

"hm?"

"you still owe me... a kiss...." you breathe out, looking up at him expectantly. "from earlier."

"ah, of course."

he leans down, capturing your lips with his, hovering over your body as your arms snake around his neck, pouring your hearts into the action. you both kiss with equal fervor, chasing each others lips, never able to get your fill of the other.

i love you.

he pulls away slowly, your legs wrapping around his waist to keep him close in fear of him leaving you all of a sudden. the look in his eyes says i'm not going anywhere, his forehead touching yours as you both breathe each other in before he tucks his head into your shoulder.

"lets stay like this... just for a bit," his quiet, husky breath hits your ear and you shiver at the sensation.

"okay," you smile, hands petting through his silver locks.

i love you, most.

and you stay together, just like that, losing track of time in the world reserved for two, heartbeats syncing up as you meld against one another, both with the shared sentiment of never letting go.

(only at your insistence of taking a shower and slipping into some fresh clothes when you think he's dozed off does he relent, slowly getting up and scooping you into his arms, making his way down the hall towards his room).

-

sylus wasn't a man of love-filled sentiments.

at least, that's what you'd initially thought.

a man like him, the big bad leader of onychinus, someone who seemed to be above everyone else, the most sought-after criminal wielding a steel-cold gun in one of his bloodstained hands—

the same hands that cradled your face, caressed your hair any chance he got, tickled you when you least expected it, carried you so lovingly at your beck-and-call, hugging you close to his chest, close enough that you could feel his beating heart—

the heart of a man who loved so wholly and completely, devoting his entire being to you.

so, despite what anyone else may think, may also assume at first glance, you knew the truth:

despite the odds, sylus was someone that knew love the best.

-

epilogue:

"so... who won?" luke turns to his brother under the crow mask.

"i did, obviously," kieran is all-too confident.

"what?!? nuh-uh, she was definitely caught in less than five minutes!"

"did we watch the same thing? that was maybe six!"

"are you.... stupid?"

"rude!"

"i didn't think you'd try to lie your way to win," luke crosses his arms over his chest.

"i am not lying!"

"are too!"

the bickering continues for a couple more minutes until luke pipes up again.

"wait, what was the prize for whoever won the bet?"

"......"

kieran is the first to speak up again.

"you know what, since you won, you can be the one to tell boss the reason so many cupcakes are missing."

"WHAT???"

later, the cameras in mephisto's eyes would relay the twins chasing each other around— just amongst the footage of them scarfing down the freshly-made rose-icing cupcakes.

-

a/n: spreading the soft sylus agenda... this is inspired by a number of domestic art/tweets ive seen if i find them ill add but.. he's so soft..... i adore him

-

[chronically-ghosted]

i'm empty without you, so come grow within me

AO3 Link | main masterlist | Joel Miller Masterlist

rating: explicit (18+)

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

word count: 9K

summary: with winter approaching, joel takes stock of what he wants and what he has in his life. he wants you, but he's not quite sure he has you, not in a way that only a life in Jackson can afford. joel's an old-fashioned guy, so he's looking for an old-fashioned love . . . if he can only remember how to do it right.

inspired by the songs 'why don't we just dance' by Josh Turner and 'the kind of love we make' by Luke Combs, this fulfills a request from @handsomehelmet for my 1k celebration (creativity struck and now i'm going to make it everyone's problem)

warnings: the nastiest thing i can possibly imagine which is romance and sincerity, some willie nelson lyrics, established situationship, no age of reader specified, body insecurity, feelings of unworthiness/shame, survivor's guilt, blatant disregard for old man knees by eating pussy on the floor, unprotected piv, a teenager bullying fully grown adult to quit being stupid.

a/n: i know everyone gets into a tizzy when Joel doesn’t name what Tess is to him in front of Bill and while there probably was a heaping amount of guilt that accompanied that omission, i wonder if it might be a bit more complicated: he simply couldn’t name one thing because she was all things to him. A friend, a lover, a guide, a support system, a protector, a partner. So he says it the best way he can: “she’s mine.”

come see what else we've done to celebrate 1K followers

By the fourth bag, all you can think about is a warm shower. 

A chance to scrub away the dirt smeared on your arms, your neck, probably your face. You’d brought your own work gloves to bag fresh dirt for the greenhouse, but the longer you work, more sprinkles of dirt find their way down the lip of your gloves. You can feel it against your palms, under your nails. The cold winter air lurks beneath the crack of the door, stifled from invading by the artificial heat provided by the generator just outside, and it stifles you too with its oppressive weight. You’re fairly sure the dirt on your forehead has turned to mud, sweat and damp earth encrusted on your dry skin. 

By the sixth, you doubt your shoulders will ever move again without popping. 

You know Joel’s already do. 

Never a particularly chatty man even in his best moods, the greenhouse had become stuffy with heat and silence, both you and Joel too lost in the work to find the energy to even fake idle chatter. But, knowing this about Joel and a certain degree yourself, silences with him were never a bad thing. That was one of the things you enjoyed most about being with him; you two could do your own things together. Many snowy days were spent with him stretched out on the couch, reading, and you working on writing your sheet music on the floor, his knee hovering over your shoulder with your back to the cushions – spent in total silence, and they are some of the fondest memories you had since coming to Jackson and falling into the third and final piece of the Miller-Williams household. 

Like with the end of the world, you weren’t sure how you got there until everything had fallen into place around you; Joel and his adoptive daughter had been just another group who were taken in by the town of Jackson . . . until they weren’t. Ellie was just another foul-mouthed kid who had seen too much and had too much taken from her . . . until she wasn’t. Joel was your occasional patrol partner and a fellow Willie Nelson fan. . . until he wasn’t.

Until that unmistakable line, one that seemed to be lost on a global scale beneath the blood and the gore and the grief, had been crossed when he asked you out for drinks and the both of you knew the evening wasn’t going to end in a nightcap. 

And then you were partners, even outside of patrol. Partners in re-enforcing a weakened part of Jackson’s outer walls. Partners in cooking, attempting to recreate an enchilada recipe Joel only vaguely remembered from a Tex-Mex hole-in-the-wall fifteen minutes from where he used to live in Austin. Partners when it’s snowing heavily outside and there’s not much to do except to read and, well . . . Joel was a fantastic partner in that.

Joel Miller was a great partner for a lot of things. He worked diligently, quickly and, unless the conversation was started by someone else, silently. 

He, in short, was not someone who was easily distracted.

Which, in combination with your own exhaustion and a desire to scrub the first layer of your skin off with a loofah, is why you feel a flare of annoyance when you look up and see him staring off into the distance. His fingers loosely grip the handle of the shovel, his palm resting over the curved point, Joel’s expression is nearly unreadable, except for the small crevice between his eyebrows. He stands, fixated on the greenhouse wall, as if watching the blurry Christmas lights from the town square, suddenly oblivious to the work you two have been doing for the past hour and a half. 

“Joel.” Nothing. “Joel!” 

You raise your hand to smack him on the leg when, without looking down, he asks:

“When was the last time I took you out?” 

“What?”

His weight shifts, holds the shovel by one hand now. You catch a sliver of frustration in those deep brown eyes as he looks at you. He wears what you and Ellie secretly refer to as his “pouty-mouth”, a classic expression when he isn’t getting his way about something but won’t draw attention to the fact that it annoys him.

“Tell me about the last date I took you on.”

You huff, standing up with a pop in your hips. Your knees are aching from kneeling on the cold winter ground and your skin fluxes between overheating under your jacket and stiffly frozen on your extremities. 

“Joel, c’mon, be serious. We’ve got three more –,”

“I am being serious.” Dumb-founded, you watch as he digs the tip of the shovel into the ground with a hollow chunk. Crosses his arms and continues to frown at you like you just suggested doing away with the Christmas holiday entirely. “We’ll get to this, but I want you to tell me right now what we did on our last date.”

You roll your eyes, humoring him. “Fine, I don’t know what crawled up your ass, but okay. On our last date, we . . . we did . . . you took me to . . .”

It’s your turn to frown. He raises a petulant eyebrow and it’s eerie how many times you’ve seen that exact expression on Ellie. 

“Okay, fine, so it’s been a while. We’ve been busy – we’ve all been busy with the winter season coming. All of Jackson has been out battening down the hatches. What does it matter if we’ve let things slide a bit?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, quiet in his Joel way. He glances out through the blurred greenhouse glass and maybe he was actually staring at the string lights hung over Jackson’s square. Normally, you didn’t mind being unable to dissect his every expression, every sigh, every carefully wielded silence, but when it came to you and his feelings about you – feelings that were always implied in those silences – you wished you had a little window, some hint, as to what rumbled on behind those earth-dark eyes. 

Joel drums his fingers on the handle of the shovel, unease rolling through his body as he shifts his weight. 

“Matters some,” he tells the ground. “With the holidays comin’ around . . . matters for Ellie – her first winter here in Jackson. Matters for Tommy, with that new baby of his . . .”

“Your nephew,” you supply as much as prod. Sometimes the only way to get an honest answer out of him was when he was just a bit pissed off and less guarded. Instead he just nods, gloved hand on his hip, thick jacket widening his already confounding broadness.

“It matters because it’s important. To me. It’s important to me.”

He meets your gaze and you’re struck full force again with that feeling like you drank too much of the Tipsy Bison’s shitty whiskey too fast. Same feeling that couldn’t be drowned even with the Tipsy Bison’s shitty whiskey when you shared a drink with him for the first time. When you managed to laugh when he bet you a whole day of stable cleaning duties that Willie Nelson and Chris Stapleton survived the apocalypse somewhere in a shack in Tennessee. Joel Miller was disarmingly funny when he wanted to be.

And even worse, disarmingly sincere.

You take his gloved hand in yours. You feel the sensation of his fingers threading through yours but not the heat you’ve grown so accustomed to. 

“Alright, then. What do you want to do about it?” You ask quietly, to the upturned collar around his neck, his green flannel peeking out from behind the zipper of his jacket. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s a lot of snow on the ground so that makes our options for date night kinda limited.” You scrunch your nose at him because you like to see the light in his eyes bloom when you do.

He chuckles, a rumbling sound, and he drops his forehead against yours, fingers tightening their grip around yours. Suddenly in your throat, your heart pounds. He’s never this affectionate in public. Maybe it’s those miraculously blurred greenhouse glass walls. 

His breath smells like that peppermint toothpaste that came in last week, infused with the warming-coil smell from the greenhouse. 

“Dunno yet.” He admits. “I’ll think of somethin’.”

“No ideas yet?” You raise your eyebrows against his forehead and he grins, shaking his head.

“Not yet.” 

“Then can I make a suggestion?”

“‘Course.”

“We finish bagging this dirt, then head home for a shower. In a really sexy way, obviously.” 

He huffs, smothering a laugh, and quick as lightning he kisses you on the cheek. But in the same movement, steps away and grabs the shovel again. You don’t have time to react to the fact he just kissed you for the first time outside of the four walls of his house before he’s scooping up dirt. You drop to your knees to pick up the bag again, your legs already weak.

“We both know you’re going to pass out on the couch the second we’re home.”

Your voice is steadier than you feel, as you look up at him. His face is flushed and that worry line between his eyes is gone. 

“You got me pegged, Miller. You got me pegged.”

Two days later, he stands in the middle of his living room, hands on his hips, surveying his handiwork. All of the furniture has been pushed to the far ends of the room, up against the walls or against the staircase out in the hallway. He’s kept the overhead lights off and put the standing lamps in the corners, bathing the room in a despondent glow. He thinks, after a quarter of a century never even entertaining something like this, it might be interpreted as romantic. He hopes you’ll see it that way at least. 

He hears it now, in his head, even though she’s out in the disconnected garage, snug and warm as he could have possibly made it – you worry too much, old man. 

Ellie knows there’s something going on between you two. Hell, the entire town has cottoned onto whatever this is; you’re often seen leaving his house early in the morning, and he’s been seen on occasion strolling up to your house with flowers. It’s not new, it’s not a secret, but it is . . . it just is and that’s about as far as he’s gotten. 

He hasn’t had you over for dinner with Ellie in that very specific way that very much needs to happen, as it often does when there is a new presence added to an established dynamic – as Maria often reminds him. But that almost feels like presenting your head on a silver plate to Ellie to either sniff with disinterest or tear into – both terrifying scenarios, even though they seem unlikely. Ellie does in fact seem to like you very much, as her riding teacher and occasional greenhouse buddy. But would she continue to like you in the context of you being one half of “You and Him” as a pair? Together. As a couple . . . of people who are seeing each other, whatever that means in a world filled with the most aggressive form of fungus imaginable. 

This life in Jackson, this fragile second chance to remember and rekindle his own natural instincts, is too precious to bet on a question like that. 

So he doesn’t ask it. At least not out loud. 

That’s one of the things he likes so much about you: his silences aren’t entirely indecipherable and often are encouraged by your own. Except this silence about this particular thing doesn’t feel like one of your shared, comfortable moments and instead it’s encroaching rapidly into avoidance. 

Standing in that greenhouse and seeing the string lights over the town square reminded him of a long ago Christmas, dancing with his favorite person under a Christmas tree, and how good it made him feel. How special it made him feel. All these years later, safe in a way his body has almost forgotten, there’s an urge he has to share that feeling, to recreate it under entirely different circumstances, with someone new. Someone else. To not try and fight the smile that constantly threatens to buoy up every time he’s around you. 

It’s foreign, that feeling in his chest, but it’s not entirely alien, at least not of late. 

He knows he’s white-knuckling it because he knows firsthand how painfully quick it can all be gone. Taken away. Left and buried by a black river while the world burns.

But he’s worried he’ll crush it with how tightly he holds on. How hard he begs a silent universe for it to last just a little bit longer. 

His knees ache, his left shoulder goes tight when it rains, his body is not what it once was, but his mind is still there, still clear, and he remembers how romance used to feel, where it used to reside in his younger body, and as he stares out at the cleared room, listening to your footsteps overhead as you attempt to follow his vague instructions to “make yourself feel pretty” (because you already were to him, even covered in dirt and sawdust), he thinks this feels like the old world. An old world romance. It’s foreign, that feeling, but for the first time in a long time he doesn’t want to hold it at arm’s length.

“Joel?” You call from the top of the stairs, your voice tentative and cautious. But not cautious like you peeking around a corner to look for clickers. But cautious as in unsure, doubtful. You are a woman made up of a lot of things, with foundations unlike he’d ever seen before, but doubt is not a part of you. You never doubt him. 

“Yeah, baby?” Your nerves make him nervous and he futzes with a lampshade while waiting for you.

“Are you done down there?” 

He has to breathe slowly through the fluttering beneath his breastbone before he can answer. “Yeah, baby, all finished. You can come down now.”

“Okay . . . but you can’t laugh.” Him, laugh at you? There’s the instinct to smother the faint grin that spreads out across his mouth, but he told himself he wasn’t going to fight whatever came across his face tonight. If you see it, then you see it and he’s come to accept that. 

(Maybe even want that.)

He shakes his head, his only pair of nice boots (a thank you from a former rancher when Joel fixed his family’s heater) clicking on the hardwood floor as he stands at the bottom of the stairs. You must be hiding behind the wall because he can’t see you. 

“I’m not gonna laugh, sweetheart. Why d’ya think I’d laugh?” 

Silence faces him at the top of the stairs, and then:

“Because quite frankly I forgot my tits could look like this and I don’t know how to feel about it.” 

The snort that comes out of him is a poor attempt to muffle the chuckle. He thumbs the wood finial at the top of the bannister. 

“Can’t remember ever having any complaints before and I don’t think I’ll have ‘em now, no matter how they look.” 

“Whatever, Miller, you’re just a horn dog.” 

He rolls his eyes, fingers rubbing anxiously together at his side, as if he could tug the fluttering out of his chest. He leans on the other foot, the one with the bad knee, to adjust the slightly uncomfortable tightness in his jeans. A dark swirl in the second step of the stairs has become wildly interesting.

“Baby, just come down here. I’m not gonna laugh. Promise.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” you grumble, still out of sight. “I know where you keep your feral child and I will not hesitate to let her loose on you.”

Joel nods, grinning faintly, still focused resolutely on the whorl in the floor. “That’s a real big threat from someone who –,”

The words die in his throat.

In fact, he’s quite sure he won’t be capable of speech for a very long time. 

That foreign feeling – that feeling he’s worked for twenty years to suppress – is ignited in his chest. 

You walk, no, maybe you float down the stairs in the most stunning red dress he’s ever seen. It’s definitely not yours – he knows every inch of your closet because he had inspected it studiously when you offered to keep some of his clothes at your place and he was trying very hard to delay putting a handful of his belongings beside a woman’s things in a move that felt heart-stoppingly domestic. 

No, he has never, ever seen you in this dress. 

Come to think of it, he’s never seen you in any dress and you were entirely correct that your tits look wildly different. Fantastically different, but –

“Maria didn’t have any heels that fit me to go with the dress,” you announce airily, your chin up. But your eyes dart over his face as if looking for something you need to find. “But it’s fourteen degrees outside, Joel, and I’m not doing whatever this is in just socks because that’s ridiculous so you’re just going to have to deal with the boots.”

The Boots. The ones you wear while crushing clicker skulls and tending the stables. They still bear damp spots from where you tried to clean the blood and dirt from the leather.

It’s rather incapacitating how arousing he finds this particular combination.

So much so, he doesn’t realize he hasn’t said anything in a full minute until you bark at him, a cold tinge of panic in your voice.

“Joel!” His eyes snap to yours. Of course, you’re fucking beautiful – your eyes seem bigger, cheeks pinker, mouth wet – fucking Christ, where did you get make up? 

“Say something!” Those rosy lips drop down and to his horror, you’re upset. “Please!”

“B-baby, you look . . .” He doesn’t mean to grab your entire ass in one hand; he just wants to feel as much of that velvet on your skin as possible. You stumble into his arms, another something that is so unlike you, as he tugs you forward. Bends his lips to your ear to discover how fast you’re breathing. How fast your pulse races in your neck. The shudder that breaks the rigidity of your body when he brushes his mouth, the short bristles of his beard, against your skin is no surprise; you told him exactly what that sensation does to you in no uncertain terms the first night he ate you out on the table of your kitchen. “You look incredible.”

Your fingers bite into his biceps. Push back out of his arms, despite the obvious warmth in your cheeks. You level his arousal in a single glare. “Joel, I asked you not to tease.” 

Tommy once told him he was a pain in the ass to be around sometimes because he displays every negative emotion as anger and so it’s damn near impossible to figure out whatever it was he was so bent out of shape about.

Sadness as anger.

Shame as anger.

Guilt as anger.

Fear as anger.

With your fingers balled up, it's the tremor in your fists that gives you away. 

He had genuinely intended this to be a quiet night away from the cafeteria, away from the Tipsy Bison, away from anyone else. He wanted you all to himself and in his greed, he didn’t see it until he saw it in your eyes. 

How vulnerable being pretty made you. How vulnerable privacy made you. 

How being vulnerable made you so deeply, deeply afraid. 

Almost as afraid as he was. 

Without a word, he turns to the record player, strategically hidden behind the couch and puts on the carefully selected record. The silent scratches for a moment before –

Your eyes widen as Nelson begins to sing his most beautiful love song (in Joel’s humble opinion). Your shoulders slacken, hands lose their grip, you blink up at him in total bewilderment. You aren’t an indecisive person, you’re quick as a whip, rarely confused – so this befuddled look on your face is kinda cute. 

Tucking that rare look on your face away for another time, Joel wanders to the center of the room, in the heat of the light from the fireplace, his good boots clicking over the wood. He opens his arms, hand out to you.

“Let’s try something new tonight.”

I'll always be with you for as long as you please

For I am the forest but you are the trees

The decision you make is a visible one. 

Your palm is warm, weighted as it slides over his. This time his hand respectably settles on your waist, then on your low back when (to his surprise) you come closer. He’s delighted to watch you smile at him, distantly aware of the stretch of his own on his face. 

Willie strums on his guitar, crooning softly, the sound warm and deep. With the weight of you against his chest, that feeling crackles like the flames over the wood logs in the fireplace. You drop your head, turn your cheek, and just before you come to rest on his shoulder, he sees your smile slide into a smirk.

“New, huh? What’s new look like for a sixty-five-year-old man at the end of the world?” Even with teasing, your voice is soft and sweet, the soft powder of cinnamon. Slowly, as if not to startle either one of you, he leans his chin against your forehead.

“You n’ I’ve been burning both ends, keepin’ the lights on. New to us is having a goddamn break.” His voice is low, meant only for you, and in the tremble of his deep bass, the words elongate in his mouth. He brings your intertwined hands just under his chin and when that goes well, he tightens his grip around your back, drawing you flush against him. It reduces the dancing to more of a sway but Joel can’t find a single thing to complain about. You gently tap the pad of your middle finger in the hollow of his collarbone to the beat of the song.

I'm empty without you so come grow within me

For I am the forest and you are the trees

And the heavens need romance so love never dies

“‘N ‘m only fifty-six, jackass.” 

You grin, twisting in his grasp, rub your nose on his chest to wrap your arms around his neck. He clutches to your back like a key finding its lock. 

You'll be the stars dear and I'll be the sky

And should any of this find us let them all be forewarned

That you are the thunder and I am the storm

“This is nice, Joel,” you murmur in his ear. The backs of his arms are growing warm by the fire. He presses his lips to your exposed shoulder, unsure of what to say, or what not to say, only nodding. He closes his eyes, trying to hold this moment forever in his memory. The soft flare of your waist, the winged-spread of your ribs, beneath his hands brings him back into your arms.

"Yeah?" Quiet, into your skin as if to muffle the question entirely, to muffle the unsure wobble in his voice. "It's good?"

He feels you nod beneath his chin, the smell of fresh soap escaping from the back of your neck, and the clamp around his throat loosens. He breathes, unimpeded for the first time all night, a low exhale taking the tension from his body as the air leaves his lungs.

Relief. A sinking down into the moment, into your arms.

You chuckle with your cheek against his chest and he feels the vibrations down to his stomach.

"Yeah, Joel, you did good. Really good." With the hand he holds in the air, you rub your thumb over the knuckle of his thumb, soothing. It used to bother him you could read the lines of his emotions as well as you read a book, as well as you write your own name, effortlessly, as if you had been given a guide no one ever thought to show him. But now, now that you understand how much this means to him, that you know he needs to be told he made you happy, it's more than relief. It's an unburying – a resuscitation of pieces of himself (seed-like bone fragments) that he thought had long since died in the soil of his ribs. "Thank you. I needed this."

He wants you to see the whole of him. Lift up an antiquated silver plate and show you the dents and scratches in his reflection. When you kiss his cheek gently, the hope floating in his chest flares, a solar explosion with tendrils that reach into the blackness of space and it asks him, what would you do to keep her?

Everything. Anything.

He shuffles closer, feels the warmth of your body lined up against his, the clean scent beneath the edge of your jaw blooming in his nose and throat. The hope hums, pitches dark like the forest floor in the rain, and grows teeth. His want for you digs into his skin and evolves into a needy, unsatisfied thing.

“Where’d you get this dress, hm?” He asks, lips half an inch from your shoulder. It falls and rises, never catching on your skin as he plays with the fabric. He runs his palm up your spine, the velvet coming with him, and watches as the swell of your thighs and the tease of your ass is revealed. Dirty old man. “‘N who do I have to kill to get you to keep it?”

You laugh into his neck. He wonders if you’re intentionally twisting his curls at the base of his neck to send sparks of arousal down his spine or if you are completely unaware of the cause of his insanity. Your hands are littered with scars and calluses and every time you touch him, he could melt through the floorboards.

“They found it in some strip mall and were actually going to strip it down for material. But Aaron at the sewing center owed me a favor and you said wear something nice, so . . .” You thumb the lip of his collar, your fingertips brushing the knot of his spine every time you drag your fingers back and forth. 

And I'll always be with you for as long as you please

For I am the forest and you are the trees

He knows you well enough to know that something lingers in your mind, but even after all this time, even after what he’s seen with you, been through with you, the things he’s done to you – he isn’t quite sure if he has the right to ask. 

Instead, he squeezes you. He means to do it just with his hands, but ends up swallowing you in his arms. 

Your mouth is pressed up against his chest when you finally go on. 

“It just seems silly to keep, Joel.” 

The high he’s been riding on all night falters, since you first walked down those stairs to him. Your eyes are wet when he pulls back and cups you by your cheek. He stops swaying with you.

“Why’s that?” 

There it is, that all too familiar flicker of fear. You can’t look at him, despite his every touch, his every glance pulling you into him, to be near him. 

“Because other people should have it. They should have a chance to . . .” 

You withdraw your head from his hands, his thumb brushing your jaw as you retreat. He might actually lose a piece of himself if you let go now, but instead you clasp his wrists in your fingers. You stare at your hands and his between you, as if this whole thing between you could solidify at your feet, finally real. 

Willie has stopped singing, only that musky drone on an empty track.

“Someone else should have a chance to feel pretty, to feel this way, because it shouldn’t be wasted and I’m afraid – I wonder if –,”

He knows he’s being a bit too rough when he takes your jaw and straightens your gaze to him, but his heart might fly out of his chest before he has a chance to say anything. His stomach turns, not knowing he’s not at the peak of a roller coaster drop, that he’s standing on solid ground, even if it swims under his feet.

“What you feel is not wasted.” A murmur, stern, as steadily and as serious as he possibly can be.

That feeling aches in his chest and you haven’t even gone anywhere. You haven’t left . . . yet. “What this is, is not wasted time. I spent twenty years wasting time, looking for something that wasn’t there, and with you . . . I can’t say I’ve found it –,”

“Why? Why can’t you say you’ve found it?” Your grip around his wrists tightens, eyes hard. “Why can’t you name it, Joel?”

“Can you?” He pulls his hands out of your grip and you let him go. “How can you ask for what you want when you can’t even ask to keep this dress?” 

“Because I don’t deserve it!” It’s not silence that follows; it’s emptiness. You face away from him, pressing the heel of your hand into your brow bone, teeth slightly bared. Your arm bars across your stomach like you are literally holding in your guts. Finally, you lift your head, the few scant tears on your face sparkling in the firelight. “I don’t deserve you, Joel. I don’t deserve any of this. Ellie, the way she . . . I’m here, warm and happy, acting like the fucking world hasn’t ended. Playing house, playing pretend. Pretending like I’m your –,”

You swallow the words caught in your throat, gaze leaping away from him. At your side, your hand trembles again. 

Oh, honey, the shit I’ve done . . . 

With wide, wet eyes, you watch him approach. He doesn’t look at you, instead seeing exactly where he’d like to put his lips on your stomach beneath the fabric. 

“Then what do you want, hm?” There’s a fold in the front of the dress and he runs his fingers along the edge of it. “We can’t fix it. Can’t go back ‘cause there’s nothin' to go back to. I don’t care what you had to do to get here, right here, with me because I’m so fuckin’ glad you are. I’m not pretending, not wasting my time, never was. ‘Cause you’re right.” 

Your hand over his stills his endless roving and then it stays, scarred hand over scarred hand. Your gesture says something to him, something so meaningful he has no idea how to put it into words. He swallows his attempt and instead, slowly, drags both hands over your hips, where they stay. Heavy against the velvet. 

You rest your own against his forearms, neither pulling him in or pushing him back. 

“I was right about what?”

His eyes flick to yours and maybe it’s presumptuous, maybe he really is an old man afraid of his feelings, or maybe living this long – despite everything that ever tried to make it otherwise – living this long has granted him the privilege of knowing with perfect clarity what you’re thinking when you look at him like that. How he wants to whisper it back to you and he decides he will the next time your skin is warm and tacky, body helpless beneath his. 

Your eyes shamelessly track the brush of his tongue against his bottom lip.

“That you’re mine. Just like I’m yours.” 

The hands at his forearms glide up to his chest. The rims of your irises have gone a bit blurred, a bit unstable, and you can’t decide whether to look at his mouth or his eyes.

“Joel?” Suddenly breathy, all begging, pleading.

“Hm?”

“Get me out of this fucking dress.” 

When your lips crash into his, his entire world narrows down to where on his body, yours touches: 

your rough hand cradling his cheek, the other fisting the collar of his shirt. His fingers digging into your skirt, the heat from your thigh nearly driving him to tear straight through the fabric to get to you. Your sweet, perfect mouth smeared against his, lips puffed pink, nose to your cheek. 

That warm, wet cunt he thinks he can feel through his boxers, jeans, the dress and your underwear. 

It’s not enough. 

The cry you let out is some mangled mix of a moan and his name when he licks the soft supple skin behind your ear and nips your earlobe.

“Baby, please – please – bedroom, we have to–,”

He grunts his disapproval at your words, overwhelmed by the scent that makes his mouth water as he stains the column of your throat with wet, humid kisses. 

“Joel, c’mon, honey, just upstairs –,” 

The last flickering tiny speckle of logic in his brain fights with itself; take your right here or haul you over his shoulder – which isn’t great for his back and, quite frankly, he intends to spend most of the night on his knees. 

First option it is. 

You mumble in confusion, eyes shut, chin brushing the thread of gray curls on the top of his head as he purposefully sucks a bright hickey into your collarbone, one hand cupping your breast, the other pushing you backwards. You go willingly, of course. 

Until the backs of your legs hit the couch and there’s nowhere else to go. In the stumble, your dress rides up even higher and those thighs he’s actually lost sleep over appear to him. He drops to his knees, hands like meat hooks as they squeeze your waist, pulling that warm cunt even closer to him over the edge of the couch. You groan when he pushes the skirt up even higher, practically to your tits, as he explores your outer, then inner thighs with soft strokes of the back of his hands. He presses his nose to the crevice between your thigh and hip and inhales. 

“B-baby, the windows,” you swallow thickly, slurring like you’re drunk, grabbing at his shoulders like you’re trying to steady yourself, or turn him towards the windows. “I mean – the curtains, baby, the curtains are –,”

“It’s a fucking blizzard outside,” he explains tersely with his eyes still closed, as if irritated to have a conversation instead of focusing every ounce of concentration he has to the heat and smell beneath your black panties. He drags his teeth over the elastic band around your hips and makes you whine his name for an entirely different reason. 

You don’t make him stop or wait when he tugs those panties down your hips. In fact, you help, lifting your hips, the irises of your eyes so wide and black, you look halfway out of your mind.

Good.

He gathers the skirt he was once so fond of and stuffs it into the cushions behind you. You watch him as he moves, eyes half-lidded, finger scraping your bottom lip. Around his ribs, your knees dip back and forth, moving targets, like he’s forgotten why he’s here and needs reminding. 

His big paw, the size of which makes you feel indescribably small, catches your knee and stills it, gaze dark and heavy. Do not test me right now. You try not to moan. 

“Can’t believe I’m going to let you fuck me with my boots on,” you whisper airly, watching with delirious fascination as he puts one of your slender legs over his shoulder. His mouth is actually watering at the sight of your damp curls. 

“Not gonna fuck you. Just gonna eat your pussy. You’ll know the difference.”

“Semantically, it’s the sa-a-me thi-ng, Jo-e – ah, Joel!” 

His tongue up inside you turns you into a whiny, high-pitched, feminine mess. He eats like he does everything else: diligently, quickly, and silently. 

Until you bury your fingers in his ash-flecked curls and tug. 

That first deep, loud moan ripples through his body, rolling him up just off his heels, his crotch seeking some kind – any kind – of friction. 

The feel of his mouth humming against your cunt has your eyes rolling back in your head. “Please, oh fuck, please –” 

You are a grown woman. You should not be making these noises. 

You also shouldn’t be using a man’s face to get off . . . but you do it anyway.

“Tha’s it, baby,” he mutters when your hips grind against his face. His nose catches your clit and around him, your thighs wobble. “Use me, fuckin’ use me.” 

His grip around your calf over his shoulder turns rough and he knows he’ll bruise you, but fuck, the thought of you walking around town with a mark in the shape of his hand where everyone can see —

He briefly lifts his grip from your thigh to adjust his iron-hot cock in his jeans. From his view over your cunt, it doesn't seem like you noticed, or even saw him leave your skin. He watches you writhe, try to capture your breath, eyes crammed shut as your hips rock almost without your control. He takes a chance to lick the musky dampness from his upper lip when your cunt rolls back from his face a fraction of an inch — and then he sinks in again.

Call it age or the fact that you both are here at the end of the world, but the first night he ate you out, you told him exactly how and where you like it, unabashed and in control and honestly it’s the hottest thing he can think of in recent memory. 

He would have written it down on the backs of his eyelids if he could. 

He follows it to the letter.

“Joel – Joel, baby, please don’t stop –,” You buck and moan beneath him as he spells out your instructions with his tongue along your cunt. He dots the i’s with a tap of his tongue or a lick on your clit. Just inches above his head, your chest heaves, your fingers locked into his curls, gently pushing him closer to your puffy pussy as if he’d ever waste a drop of what leaks out of you. 

With a flat-tongued brush against your suffering clit, you arch off the couch, your sighs now verging on desperate, high and whinging, because it’s just not fair how good he makes you feel. He can feel your foot curl against the planes of his back, the rubber heel heavy, your mouth open and wet, with your eyes locked on the ceiling as you try to ride out your humming orgasm with a semblance of control.

“Look at me.” 

No other man has ever been able to make you come with just his mouth, you told him once.

And no other man ever will. 

It’s sweet, the way your eyes soften briefly when you lock eyes with him, crouched between your thighs — before your head tips back, lips wrenched apart in a silent scream, and you come, as hard as he has worked for the flush of slick down his chin.

There’s goosebumps on your thighs, he notes. He rubs his thumb against your raised skin and you shudder, head rolling against the back of the couch.

He’s already feeling a slight twinge of shame at the noise his knees will inevitably make when he stands, but for now he’s content watching you glide down from your high, his head against your knee, shoulders still stretching your legs open wide. 

To his delight, you manage to laugh, your hand draping over your eyes. You can see the shine of the dull light all across his lips, his chin, his nose and you have to close your eyes. He should make you lick it off him, but not tonight.

“Top marks, Miller, as usual,” you mumble, “but the threat of voyeurism really deserves the extra credit.” 

He grins. Still waiting for your breath to slow, he wipes his mouth with his palm and slides the leg over his shoulder down in between his own thighs. Propped up on one knee, he begins to unlace your boot. He holds your calf like it’s delicate as he gently drags the boot over your heel. 

He’s just as reverent with the other side. 

And then your boots, the pair, sit at the end of his couch, like they were always meant to be there. 

His heart, easing down from its own thunderous beat, squeezes and that feeling, that strange-not-so-strange feeling, the one that dictates practically every action with you, dribbles into his veins. 

You open one eye. A flutter of lashes, coy and playful, the curve of your mouth guarding a hoard of secrets.

“Now, Joel Miller . . . will you take me to bed?” 

It’s a question. A request. Your eyes, as dark as ever, on his warm his chest, all the way down his spine. You’re asking, politely, for a thing you both know he would never, ever deny you. 

He cannot lose you, he just can’t. 

He stands and, yes, his knees crack and pop, but he regains stability when he toes off his only good pair of cowboy boots. He nods, grinning, and offers you his hand.

The walk, half-run up to his bedroom is something his brain designates as not important enough to store away. 

Instead, it languishes in the way you stretch out on his mattress before him, ass in the air, knees spread over his blankets and arms sliding through crumpled sheets towards the headboard. 

The room is dark, the only light fighting its way through the downpour of snow comes from the lamp posts that dot the street outside. But the veil of snow warps the light and everything in the half-darkness is doused in blue. 

The shadowy, blurred curve of your shoulder, blue. 

The spread of your fingers on his mattress, blue.

The swollen bottom of lip of your mouth —

“Joel.” 

The snow falls so fast and hard, it patters against the windows and the sides of the house. It’s the only thing he can hear over the pounding of his heart and the short breath in his lungs. He stares at you, soaking his blankets in your scent and slick, and you stare right back in utter and total silence. 

You sit in the center of his bed, bare for him beneath the velvet dress that is red like blood, your patchy white socks at complete odds with your smeared make up and the fucked-out look in your eyes. But there’s something else there too. 

Something softer. Gentler. 

You reach out a hand to him and he goes to you, like always. The instant your skin touches his the instinct to fuck you hard until you’re bruised and crying evaporates. He doesn’t think you want that anymore either. 

No, you need — 

“Joel, please come here. I need you.” 

You need him.

The mattress squeaks when he settles one knee and then the other on top of it, his fingers stroking your ear, brushing the tips of your hair, while he kisses you with an ache that is not physically manifested. Instead, it resides —

“I love you,” you whisper. 

You pull back infinitesimally, just enough that your eyes are all he sees. 

A patient silence hangs from the ceiling. The sound of snow falling. Of baited breath. The scratch of your fingers against at his beard —

“I love you too.” You smile and his body is no longer big enough to contain his heart. “I feel like I’ve always loved you. Is that strange?” 

Your gaze traces the same path your fingers take when you think he’s sleeping; it runs over his nose, his forehead, his eyebrows, the plush curve of his lips. Like you can’t believe he’s there with you. Like you can’t believe he’s real. 

That feeling — that feeling he had been fighting because it always was the only thing that would ever really do him in — is love. He loves you. 

He loves you.

And you love him. 

Didn’t think they told stories like this anymore, not in a world like this. So maybe, for once, Joel Miller just got lucky. 

“No. It’s not. Just be sure you mean it.”

He can't tell if the glow in your eyes comes from within you or it beams out of him. “Every word.”

Eventually, he sheds you of his favorite dress of yours, your only dress, and he lays you back, fully bare in the nest of his blankets. In the corner of his bedroom, the heater hisses like the wind from a purple storm, the static crackle of warmth hovering in the air. You watch, with eyes that shine like stars, as he pops apart the pearl-snaps holding his shirt together. 

And then his white undershirt goes next. He used to worry what he looked like, until he found someone else who had done exactly what was necessary to survive. 

When he goes to unzip his pants, you sit up, hair mussed and the hickey he gave you earlier throbbing like a dream. 

“I wanna do it.” 

He lets you unbutton his jeans, slide the zipper down, at the edge of the bed, but your hands are shaking, your breath stunted.

“I’m fumbling like a teenager,” you huff, a small, flustered smile on your face. “It’s like I’m nervous, but what is there to be nervous about —,”

His mouth pressed up against yours creates the most beautiful silence of all. 

How do you want me, you ask him and he thinks, all the time. But he takes you both under the covers and settles in next to you. He positions one leg over his hip and immediately you know exactly what he’s asking for. Quick as a whip, you are. 

There’s a rustle of covers, the bed slats squeaking, and then he’s nearly nose-to-nose with you. You kiss him again, maybe nervous still. 

He disconnects, when you slip between his legs and take his thick, leaking cock in your hand. 

“Baby, wait, do you need — I know it’s a lot — I’m a lot –,”

He can’t fathom why he’s so nervous either. But you chuckle, shake your head, smile at him. 

“Don’t need anything but you.” 

Your leg wraps tighter over his hip, knee up to his ribs, as he sinks inside you. The palm wrapped around the back of your knee grips roughly only once.

This is true silence. The instant where the world goes muted, everything distant and muffled, when he’s first buried deep in your heat. 

Your fingers thread through his curls and suddenly all sound is cranked up to an eleven. Your rapid, stilted breathing, the groan of the bed, your soft smothered moans, or are those his? —

“Fuck me, Joel.” 

Eyes never leaving yours, he does. 

Your fingers dig into his skull, nails biting, hand wrapped around his neck to hold yourself steady as he thrusts up into you. He thumbs your stiff nipple, half of his hand still grasping your ribs. 

You meet him thrust for thrust, a slow steady pace that draws sweat to his hairline and endless gasps from his mouth. But your gaze stays strong, never falters. Your hand slips to his shoulder, to stabilize just a bit more, but then it's on his chest, twisting his chest hair and he thinks he feels that sparkle of sanity, of rationality, any restraint to hold back crack and shatter between the clench of his teeth. 

“Goddamn–,” 

He rolls, taking you under him and demanding a faster pace. You push your hand against the headboard, the bed knocking against the wall in rhythmic, hypnotic thuds. 

He thinks you hiss his name before you bite down his shoulder. 

The sharp shock of pain lights up his brain, channeling the sudden awareness that he liked that so fucking much all the way down his spinal cord where it presses hot against his groin. 

He lifts up onto one elbow, skin sweat hot and sticky as it splits from yours. 

“Tell me what you need to come,” he pants.  

You whine again, your throat dripping sweat, but that’s not an answer. Knowing he has about a half-a-dozen to a dozen good grinds before it puts too much strain on his back, he uses every single one of them to drag you to the knife’s edge. 

“What–,” grind, “do you need –,” grind, “to come?”

The wail you let out nearly makes him come on the spot. Your eyes have that same, out-of-this-world, off-this-planet unfocused gaze, any sort of language impossible. You plead with him in the silence. A silence loaded with damp moans, grit teeth, and skin against skin against skin against skin against skin. Best sound in the world, as far as he was concerned.

You arch until he lifts above you and, taking the hand that was by your head, tuck it down between your legs. You let him grasp around with spread fingers where you are wet, where his cock rocks into your body, watch as that pulls him apart faster with dark eyes, before pressing his thumb against your clit. 

There, you say without words. There is where I need you.

Once, twice, he circles – he can feel the tightness in his back already settling in, his jaw fixed and locked, his body battling the two overwhelming sensations of dull pain and fierce, wild pleasure – and you hit your release and you soak him in it. 

He falls then too, falls just as hard and as fast as you, the chronic pain he holds in his shoulders, his neck, his back, his knee fleetingly gone in the rush of heat that branches out of his body from his groin and it feels divine.

When he lies on top of you, face buried in the curve of your neck, the heat from your humid skin warming up the breath in his lungs, the throb of your body matching his, his mind wiped clean, the thought occurs to him:

It’s not silence he’s found with you, it’s quiet. 

It’s peace.

Eventually, some awareness seeps back into his trembling body and he rolls off of you, but takes the curve of your jaw in his hand as he goes. He can’t settle into the pillows because he can’t stop kissing you, love bites occasionally against your lip, as if where his body fails, he proves his love for you won’t end so easily.

Eventually, you press your fingers into the base of his skull and, like a reset button, he groans and drops onto his back. 

Eventually, the quiet returns. Only soft noises, murmurs of existence outside of this perfect little room, fill the space. 

Eventually, he falls asleep with you curled up next to him. 

He knows you love waking up in bed together, but he also knows you love fresh coffee even more. 

Which is where Ellie finds him the next morning. 

He nearly adds too much ground coffee to the pot because he’s distracted, lost in thought about the way your curves looked in the bright morning light, when the back door slams open and a little creature made of entirely scarves, mittens, and an oversized purple jacket stomps into his kitchen and clomps its snowy shoes on the rug. 

“Joel, we gotta go!” She’s a little breathless, red-cheeked too as she unwinds the scarf around her head and her face is revealed. “We don’t wanna miss it!”

“Miss what?” Joel asks, this time carefully measuring how much water the pot needs. 

His question is not met with her usually buzzy chatter. Instead, she’s stopped undoing her scarf and just stares at him like he’s been beamed down from another planet. 

He realizes all too late that he’s still in PJs at 9AM (basically a sign of another apocalypse), he’s making more coffee than just for himself, and he’s smiling. 

Shit.

“Ellie, um, I –,”

She rolls her eyes. Her scarf is flung off her neck and she starts yanking off her gloves, her plucky attitude back, if not a bit smug.

“Get your girlfriend up too. They’re lighting the big tree in town square in an hour. I know she’d be pissed if she missed it.” 

So definitely caught. Time to be “The Adult” here and put it out on the table. 

“Don’t call her that.” Joel eyes her. Coffee percolating, he grabs a slice of bread and Ellie’s favorite jam. “Makes it sound like we’re fourteen.” 

She frowns at him, classic “pouty-mouth”. 

“I’m fourteen — rude. But seriously, and I say this because I care, get over yourself. Call a spade a spade. You’re dating her, fucking her–,”

“Ellie!” 

"– and you make gross ga-ga eyes at each other when you think I’m not looking."

She slides into the seat at the island in front of him as he pushes the toasted bread with jam across the marble to her. She takes a bite, chews with her mouth open, and shrugs. “That’s a girlfriend, dude.” 

Joel turns back to the eggs that might be burning, his shoulders hunched and fist tight around the spatula. Hate it when the kid is right. 

He salvages what he can of the eggs, plates them along with two strips of bacon on two plates, and balances a mug of coffee on each. He tries to salvage some of his dignity with a glare. 

“When you’re older, you’ll see some things just don’t need labels.” 

At that, she rolls her eyes again and snatches up the last strip of bacon from the folded, greasy napkins. “Whatever, you dork.”

Argument soundly lost, he gathers up the plates and heads back up stairs. She’s still mumbling to herself as he goes. 

“'Girlfriend', pfft . . . much better than fuck bunny!” She yells to no one in particular.

You hear the entire conversation from bed, the door cracked open enough for the sound to travel. Muffling a giggle, you snag his white shirt from the floor and draw it over your head. You should probably be more embarrassed that Joel got caught in his Walk of Shame, even if it was to his own kitchen to make breakfast. But . . . you’re just not. 

The smile is still on your face when his footfalls approach the door and he sticks his head into the room.

“Sounds like we’re busted,” you smirk. 

Joel almost chuckles. “'Bout as busted as you can be.” He hands you one plate and sits on the end of the bed with his own. He takes a low, slow sip of coffee and you follow him. The eggs are nibbled at and the bacon is perfectly crunchy.

“So . . . girlfriend?” 

He rolls his eyes. “Not you too.” 

“I mean," you slip the plate and coffee onto the bedside table, then hug the sheets around your knees, "I agree with you on the bit about labels. It seems silly. And not wasteful silly. Just . . .”

“Silly.” Joel’s eyes are as dark as his coffee, warmer than it too. “Doesn’t really capture the whole thing, does it?”

An apocalypse and a half later, and a boy’s sweet eyes on you can still make your stomach swoop. 

“No, it doesn’t.” 

“Then what do you wanna say, if people start askin��?”

You bite your lip, eyes up in faux-thought. “Truth be told, I'm kinda partial to fuck bunny. Cute like with a little tail and ears —,"

The groan from Joel and subsequent head shake makes you laugh enough for you to take pity on the old guy. You crawl closer and his eyes slip from your face to where the sheet tucks under your knees. But a hand on his cheek returns his gaze.

"I like what you said last night." Your smile is soft, pleased. "That I’m yours. Like you’re mine.” 

Joel’s warmth bleeds from his whole frame as he leans in close to put his mug on the bedside table, then leans in closer still to you. He drags his nose over your bare, exposed shoulder, in a way that is sweet and sensual all at once. He stops with a kiss on the hinge of your jaw. 

“I like that too. I like saying that you’re mine.”

Ignoring the shiver that rockets up your spine at the low hum of his voice, the flutter of his lips barely against your cheek, you tuck an errant curl around his ear and it immediately springs back up again. You smile and he smiles back, a youthful shine in his eyes.

“Wherever you are, I am too.”  

Listen to: I am the forest by Willie Nelson

[valalice]

✮ YOU'LL ALWAYS BE A GAMEGIRL .ᐟ ft. 𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓲𝓮 𝔀𝓲𝓵𝓵𝓲𝓪𝓶𝓼.

ʚɞ summary. a collection of streamer ellie headcanons.

warnings. streamer!ellie. modern au. fluff i guess? this is basically crack. ellie's chat can't give her a break. loser!ellie also if you so fancy it. talk about a strap on but it's nothing serious. ellie fights with kids for a living. wc. 1.4k

a/n. and the crowd BOOO'S... i know, i know literally everyone to ever exist on this app has their own thoughts on streamer!ellie, but i thought it would be fun to do my own thoughts on her <3 remember to support your writers by reblogging & commenting !

m.list | tlou m.list

࿐ streamer!ellie who grew to stardom during quarantine. much like everyone else in the world she had a lot of time on her hands, so what's better than increasing her addiction to gaming and worsening her already bad eyesight by staring at a bright monitor in the dark? it's not like she had much school work (she did) to care about anyway.

࿐ streamer!ellie whose fan base are her biggest haters that always clown on her. many of the fans who have been around since the start still joke about younger ellie, ellie who was in high school and still cringe when she started streaming. “so, yeah i graduated college. that's the reason why there wasn't a stream on saturday.”

[user000] did you get a degree in loserology?

[user001] bro has a whole college degree and still streams 💀

“i’m talking about my accomplishments and you guys are clowning me!?"

࿐ streamer!ellie who succumbed and adopted a kitten a few years ago, a ginger one at that. her face lighting up when she realizes she has yet to introduce her son to chat. taking off her headset (for once) setting it down on her desk, “i’ll be right back, chat.” leaving her room to find where the small kitten could be.

when she comes back, she holds the small ginger puff of fur in her arms with a cheeky smile. taking the kitten in her hands and holding him to the webcam “say hello to little bro, chat. haven't named him yet, was thinking we could do a poll.”

it was best and worst decision ellie ever made adopting a cat. the best because she loves the little stinker. and the worst because anytime she's on the chat is filled with

[user002] DONTTT CAREEE WHERES RICK

[user003] show us the child

࿐ streamer!ellie who has the worst eyesight ever. she wears glasses and still squints whenever she has to read something in game or the chat.

࿐ streamer!ellie whose desk is some second hand desk she got years ago. it’s gone from place to place with her and chat jokes that it's her emotional support desk. it's often littered with pop cans, various wrappers, notebooks and sketchbooks, figurines, comic books, scratched up stickers, and guitar picks. if she's lost anything her best bet is that it's somewhere on her desk.

࿐ streamer!ellie who swears she's not a scaredy cat when playing horror games, but the moment she hears any sound she's freaking out “chat, you heard that right?” "I'M NOT GOING FUCKING INSANE!" and when out of nowhere her character is getting chased her voice will pitch a little higher “HE’S CHASING ME! HE’S CHASING ME!” when the character ultimately meets their doom she’ll deadpan the webcam, “that game wasn't even that scary.”

[user004] whatever you say bud

[user005] that clip of u screaming like a little girl says otherwise

[user006] now we all know who's dying first in a horror movie

࿐ streamer!ellie who starts to get an inflation of views on her streams from clips of her being posted on tiktok (her audios have gone viral a few times). and who rolls her eyes at all the ‘wuh luh wuh?’ comments, “is the sky blue? are there forks in the kitchen? is the grass green? i love women, women love me.”

[user007] women may have we in it but we do not love you

[user008] is the women in the room with us???

[user009] BRO NO NEED TO LIE WE KNOW U DONT PULL

࿐ streamer!ellie who's mic blows out the any time she screams from a game.

࿐ streamer!ellie who is genuinely so shit at shooting games. chat knows that within the first few minutes without a fail ellie will get shot and killed, yet they still get hyped as ellie gets focused on the game. and when she does get killed, her hands will come down crashing on her desk, causing her setup to shake before stretching out in her chair stretching, letting her hands come on top over her headset before falling down over her face.

[user010] just load up roblox bro

࿐ streamer!ellie who hits a milestone and decides to do those ‘letting my followers spend my money’ it's very short lived because chat is just as unhinged and chaotic as her. “why the fuck is there a maid’s costume? fuck no.” and when her eyes rake over the cart to see that someone added a strap harness and dildo, “YO CHAT? THE FUCK?”

[user011] now thats just sad

[user012] AINT NO WAY

[user013] guys stop being mean :/ we all know it's just going to collect dust and cobwebs :/

[user014] ellie bitchless williams

࿐ streamer!ellie who enjoys doing more laid back and casual streams like building lego sets or setting up a new action figure. she’s done quite a few cooking streams which all end in disaster, “chat is there a huge difference between baking power and baking soda?” “i don't give a fuck if i shouldn't be eating raw cake batter, salmonella fears me.” “uh, should the oven be smoking like that?”

[user015] can't believe i'm witnessing ellie burn down her place in real time

or even once in a blue moon an outside stream.

[user016] ayeeee the gremlin is out of its dungeon

[user017] how does it feel to see sunlight again?

࿐ streamer!ellie who rarely post besides the casual spam of her stories, but is somehow extremely chronically online.

࿐ streamer!ellie who got banned from her mic privileges in roblox and later completely banned. all because she has no self restraint when arguing with little kids, “your avatar is ugly.” some random kid would say, “yo daddy is ugly.” ellie would bite back. and when she finds herself in yet another shooter esc game and a kid thinks it's smart to say "your aim is butt!" ellie’s retaliation to the critique is “that's not what your mom said last night you little fucker!” then shooting the kid’s character.

[user018] kid sounds like he's 8 MAX

[user019] ellie desensitizing these kids young

[user020] TO A CHILDDDD?????

[user021] bro can only get a kill if it's a child

࿐ streamer!ellie who thinks all her jokes are knee slap worthy, but her chat couldn't be less phased.

[user022] pack it up

[user023] 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

࿐ streamer!ellie who met you in a lobby when she's coincidentally not streaming, her team needed one more player so she shot her shot, “uh, hey,” she's totally cool right now, her palm totally isn't sweating off of her mouse “would you like to join my team? we just need one more player.” and she plays it chill when you accept “cool, cool. thanks.” but afterwards she put herself on mute and jumped out of her chair, all while her phone is blowing up with text from the groupchat.

࿐ streamer!ellie who tells her chat about it the next time she streams. “had a pretty girl on my team. i've never seen her, but i don't need to. i know it in my soul, it's my spidey sense.”

[user024] u sure u weren't dreaming???

[user025] didn't happened unless we have proof

࿐ streamer!ellie who hopes she'd see you in another lobby, but in reality it's probably a few weeks or months before she notices your handle in a lobby again, but she's always on the lookout for it. and when she does she thanks whoever is out there that she's streaming. she's solo playing this time so there's no opportunity for her to be on a team with you again, but she swears she could ascend into the heavens when you giggle at her wishing you luck in the game, covering her face from her webcam to hide that her face is turning bright red, "good luck to you too."

[user026] we all know she needs it

[user027] OKAY ELLIEEEEEE WE SEE UR GAME

“chat, i’m threw the roof. calling it know we're winning this.” ellie in fact did not win. she yet again got killed in recorded time, by none other than you. she couldn't even be upset over it “pretty and talented, damn.”

[user028] bffr u were her easy kill

࿐ streamer!ellie who by the end of it you initiate a conversation with her “i would apologize for killing you, but i just couldn't help myself.” “oh no, no. it's no problem. i’m shit at this game, it's all good.” "well maybe you could get better if we play together more?” and chat could just see the wheels turning in ellie’s head “uh—” her voice fucking cracked, “shit, yeah!” realizing she's getting a little too excited, so she's gotta tone it down “that would be cool.” smoothing a sweaty hand on her sweats. to say her chat explodes is an understatement.

[user029] WE ARE WITNESSING HISTORY

[user030] WINNERS LOVE WINNING

[user031] U BETTER DUST OFF THAT STRAP!!!!

[theobservatory]

｡⁠☆I'm Baby｡⁠.ﾟ⁠+⁠ 

☆Tim drake x reader

☆Cw: Damian being a menace, crack/fluff

To be honest, Damian was only getting close to you to bother Drake. He didn't really have a reason for it either, but bothering is pseudo older brother is entertaining, fun even.

It's not tranquil, like painting. It's not rewarding, like training. It's not adrenaline filled, like patrol. No, it's just... Fun.

Damian can't even explain why it's fun either. There's just something about the look of utter anguish, irritation, that crosses Drake's face that just makes him smile.

It's an evil little thing, all sharp teeth and hard lines. Nothing like those big grins you see kids have in childish movies. No, he looks like a shark in fish infested waters. Like a wolf locked in a pen of sheep.

So imagine his surprise when you derail his plans by being likeable. You're clever, and kind, but not smothering like Grayson. He didn't start showing up at your window to actually get close to you, and yet here is, tucked into your side as he vents about school today.

The people at his school are utter imbeciles, and he only goes to appease his father. Not that he understands why his father sends him. He already has a friend his age, Jon! He's sure you'd be his friend too, if he asked.

... Even the thought of doing that is too humiliating to fathom.

He's sure you'd just look at him with that dumb smile that makes his chest feel tight, and you'd probably pet down his hair, and say something like "Of course we're friends! Why else would I let you crash on my couch after patrol?" Because you're good like that, and always give reasons why you do and feel things.

But he'd rather drop dead than be perceived as childish or immature. Asking someone to be your friend is playground chat, and Damian stopped going to a school with a playground this year so he's much too old for that. Instead he just rambles about how many times he's had to correct his teacher this year, because if he thinks the kids are stupid don't get him started on the adults.

You listen the whole way through, an arm wrapped around his shoulder. He's practically squished to your side. He planted himself there as soon as he got through the lock on your front door, but you don't say anything about it, you never do. It's much more tolerable than Grayson's constant cooing.

"And do you know what the worst part is?" Damian huffs, a balled fist gripping your pants.

"What?"

"She tried to correct me on the Greek Pantheon, me! It's as if my chosen aunt isn't Princess Diana of Themscryia! Imbeciles, everyone of them!"

You nod solemnly, clearly understanding Damian's plight. This is why he comes to you, no one at that blasted manor gets it. They would try and correct him, teach him to be more understanding, but you just listen! You listen, and commiserate! Like any good sibling should.

"I used to have a teacher like that. It turned out no matter what I told him, no matter what evidence I presented, he just decided that I was a lost cause anyway." You roll your eyes, picking at the stitching of Damian's sleeve. He should probably stop you, but he can't even bring himself to give the gesture a glance of his attention. "I ended up transferring out of the class, my peace was not worth the credit. I just took it online instead."

"If only father were that understanding. I would take every class online if I could."

"What, there isn't a single thing you enjoy about school? When I was your age I only ever showed up for extracurriculars, but they managed to at least make it a little worth it for me."

Damian wants to say no, "My art and art teacher isn't deplorable." But that would be a lie.

"What're they-"

The lock of your farthest window clicks, interrupting you. Damian slips a blade out of the pocket of his school uniform, but doesn't bother moving. A measley intruder won't stand a chance against him, especially because they would be interrupting his you time.

A foot slides in through the open window. Black slacks, he can tell by the hemlines they're expensive. The shoes are glossy, but slightly scuffed, also clearly expensive.

Damian glares, he knows exactly who this is. The grip of his blade gets tighter.

"Hey babe." Drake greets, pulling his satchel in the window before closing it. "You'll never believe the day I had at work-"

Damian and Drake lock eyes. He can feel his eyes turn into giddy crescents as Tim's face falls into disbelief. Yes, this is the exact feeling he's been waiting for. He could revel in that disgusted expression he has.

"What's he doing here?" Drake sneered.

"Don't be rude."

"Wha- I'm not being rude. I just- baby, sweetheart, why the fuck is my little brother in your apartment?"

For his part, Damian just snuggles closer to you, causing you to squeeze him tighter. If it's even possible, he looks even more smug than he did before. All according to plan.

"I invited him. He likes to hangout after school sometimes." You smile, it's genuine, as if you're completely oblivious to why this would distress Tim. They both know you well enough to know you're having just as much fun fucking with your boyfriend as Damian is.

"You know each other? You do this regularly??"

"No thanks to you. I've only met your family once and it was in passing, Tim! What was I supposed to do, tell him to leave? He's just a baby!"

Under normal circumstances, Damian would grow irate at being called a baby. He is ten years old, in double digits, basically an adult! However, annoying Drake takes precedence right now.

"Yeah Drake, I'm just a baby." Damian says flatly. "I'm just a baby, and you're scaring me."

You gasp. "Timothy you're scaring my baby!"

"That demon is NOT a baby! Are you under mind control? Blink twice if you need help."

Your hand tugs Damian into your chest, and you plant a kiss on his forehead. His demonic smile wavers for a moment as a flush hits his cheeks, that same icky syrup-like feeling you tend to give him curling in his chest. It comes right back when he sees that absolute offended and affronted look on Drake's face.

This is the best day of his life.

"If you don't start being nice to this sweet baby angel right this second, I'll have to throw you out of my apartment. Sorry Tim, those are the rules."

"You just made that up, those- that's- those aren't the rules!"

Damian pulls out of your hold to sit up straight on the couch, re-pulling out his switchblade. It glints off the yellowish lighting in your apartment, the same glint in his wolfish grin.

"Please." He stands. "It would be an honor if you would allow me."

You pretend to think about it, a matching mischievous look on your face. "Hmm okay, but only because you asked so nicely.

"I'm sorry Tim, but I don't make the rules, I just follow them."

"I'm not sorry." Damian brags.

"Shut it, brat."

Tim begins to climb back out the window, huffing as his satchel gets stuck on the sill for the second time. His head pokes back in before he closes it, a glare, that would be terrifying if Damian was anyone else, on his face.

"This isn't over."

"I disagree."

The window slams shut, and Damian slots himself right back where he was before. Both of you have the evilist of giggles as you basket on the high of teasing Tim Drake.

Despite his shitty day at school, it's a good day, anyway.

You only played along bc Tim's been ignoring you for the sake of work, leaving his stabby little brother here to satiate your boredom. This is petty revenge.

Damian also becomes the biggest cock block in the world after this. You think it's funny, Tim not so much.

Also planning on writing a short follow up to this where Tim comes to you after patrol and needs reassurance.

｡⁠☆Requests open

[cheollollipop]

house rules. | c. seungcheol

genre: smut. (NSFW 18+ MDNI)

wc: 2k

content warning(s): alcohol consumption, dirty talk, unprotected sex (please use protection!), fingering, oral (f. receiving), gambling. please lmk if i forgot something!

🃁 author’s note!

rewatching going seventeen and RSP seungcheol is on my mind heavy. so… here ya go! lol.

The basement smelled like sweat, smoke, and adrenaline.

Industrial lights buzzed overhead. Concrete walls sweat under the heat of twenty bodies, money, and pride all laid out on green felt tables. It was the kind of place where people didn't just lose chips. They lost cars. Property. Reputations.

And tonight, I planned to win.

I recognized a few of them.

Joshua gave me a two-finger salute from across the room, sharp in a navy bomber. Minghao offered a nod, impassive as always. Jeonghan came to kiss my cheek. He smelled like cologne and danger. "Didn't think you were coming," he whispered.

I shrugged. "Didn't think I'd need the money."

"You don't," he said. "You just like making men cry."

"And you don't?" I grinned.

He laughed. But then my eyes snagged, drawn to the table in the center of the room.

And him.

I didn't know him.

But I felt him.

Bleach-blonde hair, tan skin, all black everything. He lounged in his seat like he owned it, one arm slung across the backrest, the other idly flipping a poker chip between his fingers. Broad shoulders. Thick forearms. A lazy confidence that didn't need to prove anything to anyone.

His eyes met mine.

And held.

Something about him made me feel... undressed.

"You sitting or just staring?" he asked, voice low and rough, just shy of amused.

I slid into the empty seat across from him.

"Why not both?"

Jeonghan leaned toward me, voice low. "That's Seungcheol. New to the crew. Not new to taking everyone's money."

Seungcheol didn't blink.

"Big talk," I said.

He smiled at me, slow and sharp. "Big hands, too."

I arched a brow. "You always start with sex jokes, or am I special?"

That got a laugh from the table.

But not from him.

His eyes dragged over my mouth. My hands. My chest. Like he was calculating the cost of getting me naked.

"No," he said finally. "You're just special."

⸻

The game bled hours and so did the tension.

Sweat beaded behind my knees. My thighs stuck to the vinyl seat. The room smelled like liquor, leather, and adrenaline. One by one, the players folded or fell out, until only Seungcheol and I remained.

His gaze never wavered. Not once.

I raised him. He matched. I bluffed. He called.

We danced.

And I fucking loved it.

"All in," he said.

I didn't even look at my hand.

"All in."

The river hit.

Queen of diamonds.

Flush.

Mine.

He looked at the board. Then me. No change in expression. No crack in his voice.

"You win."

I leaned back, exhaling. My heart was pounding like a war drum, but I kept my face still.

Jeonghan was the first to laugh. "Holy shit. You actually beat him."

"So you're buying drinks, right?" Soonyoung added. "Because I just lost three grand watching you flirt."

I rolled my eyes and started gathering my chips, letting the tension ease from my shoulders.

Seungcheol stood slowly. He didn't say anything at first, just reached for his drink and finished it in one swallow. Then he looked at me.

Not like I'd taken his money.

Like I'd stolen something else entirely.

I stepped back from the table and started saying my goodbyes. Mingyu gave me a high five. Vernon mock bowed. Joshua leaned in and whispered, "Be safe."

Jeonghan was grinning like the devil. "You leaving with all that money and him?"

"Who says I'm leaving with him?" I shot back, feigning innocence.

"Baby, he's already halfway undressing you with his eyes," Seungkwan said behind his drink.

I didn't turn around. "Maybe I like the view."

"God," Jeonghan muttered. "You're gonna fuck in the car, aren't you?"

I grabbed my coat and turned to Seungcheol, whose smirk had deepened.

"I don't usually sleep with men I beat," I said.

He stepped closer. "Then let's call it foreplay."

I didn't hesitate.

"Let's go."

And just like that, I followed him out of the basement, my coat slung over one shoulder, the air cooler but the heat between us burning brighter by the second.

The moment the heavy door shut behind us, he turned to me in the alleyway.

"You played me."

I smiled. "You wanted me to."

He stepped in closer, pinning me lightly between his body and the brick wall.

His mouth brushed my ear. "Not as much as I want to fuck you."

My breath caught.

"I guess it's your turn to go all in," I whispered.

He grinned, dark and hungry.

"Get in the car,” he said and I did.

The second the passenger door slammed shut behind me, he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me in like he was done pretending.

Our mouths crashed, all teeth and heat and tongue, messy and open like we'd been dying for it. His hand stayed wrapped around the base of my neck, just firm enough to make me shiver, while the other gripped my thigh and dragged me into his lap like he owned me.

I didn't resist.

I climbed into him, straddling his thighs, hips grinding down over the hard length already straining against his jeans.

"You've been driving me fucking crazy all night," he muttered into my mouth, voice low and ragged. "Sitting there all smug. Smirking. Winning."

"Didn't hear you complain."

"Didn't say I didn't want to ruin you for it."

That earned him a moan.

He slid his hands under my shirt, fingers dragging up my ribs, hot and rough, not bothering to be gentle. He pushed the fabric up and over my head without breaking the kiss, then cursed when he realized I wasn't wearing a bra.

"Jesus fuck—" he leaned in and took one nipple into his mouth, teeth grazing just enough to make me arch.

His hands gripped my hips, dragging me harder against him. The friction made me gasp.

"I want these off," he growled, tugging at my jeans. "Now."

I helped him, shimmying them down as best I could in the cramped space, panties going with them. He shoved the seat back to give us more room, eyes dark and greedy as he looked at me, half naked and breathless in his lap.

His fingers slid between my thighs and cursed again. "You're soaked."

"You gonna do something about it?" I breathed, grinding against his hand.

He didn't answer.

He shoved two fingers inside me without warning.

My head dropped to his shoulder with a moan.

"Fuck—Seungcheol—"

"You like that?" he whispered, lips at my ear, fingers curling deep inside. "Like being fingered in the dark where anyone could walk by and see?"

I whined. Bucked into his hand.

"Yeah, you do." He kissed the side of my throat, biting down just enough to make me clench around him. "You like being a winner and a slut."

I didn't deny it.

Couldn't.

Not when he pulled his fingers out and dragged them across my lips.

"Suck."

I opened my mouth and let him slide them in.

His eyes rolled back. "You're gonna fuckin' kill me."

He undid his pants with one hand, pushing them just far enough down to free his cock. Thick. Hard. Already leaking.

"Ride me, baby," he said, voice wrecked. "I know you can take it."

I sank down onto him slow, too slow, and his hands clamped hard on my hips as he groaned deep in his chest.

"Fucking tight," he hissed. "So fucking good."

I started to move.

And he snapped.

He grabbed the back of my hair, yanked my head back, and fucked up into me hard, fast, filthy. The car rocked with every thrust. His free hand slapped against my ass, then squeezed, fingers digging in hard.

"You want it rough?" he growled. "You're gonna get it."

His cock slammed into me, deep and brutal, hitting that perfect spot again and again until I was trembling in his lap.

"Look at you," he panted, forehead pressed to mine. "So cockdrunk already. Fucking soaked for me."

I was moaning now, loud and broken, nails dragging down his chest, fingers gripping his shoulders like he was the only thing holding me together.

"I'm close," I gasped. "Don't stop—don't fucking stop—"

"I'm not stopping till you scream," he grunted.

And I did.

I came hard, full-body shaking, clenching around him as he cursed and buried himself deep one last time, spilling inside me with a guttural groan.

We stayed there, bodies sticky and tangled, panting into each other's skin.

The windows were fogged. The air thick. My thighs were shaking.

He kissed my shoulder, then leaned back and smirked.

"You gonna win again next week?"

I smiled, breathless.

"Only if you fuck me like that after."

⸻

Somehow we started making our way towards my place. The ride was quiet.

Not awkward, just charged. Seungcheol kept one hand on the wheel, the other still resting on my thigh like he couldn't stand not touching me. My lips were swollen, my hair a mess, my whole body humming from the car. I didn't care. Not when he kept glancing over at me like he was already planning what room he'd take me in next.

When we pulled into my driveway, he sat up straighter.

"...This is yours?"

I didn't answer.

I crawled over his lap and tapped the gate code and watched his jaw flex as the gates slowly opened.

The driveway curved. Trees lined either side, perfectly manicured. Lights glowed up from the pavement. At the end sat a house. No, a home. Big enough to make him blink. Floor to ceiling windows. Stone façade. Lit pool to the left. A black G-Wagon parked under the side awning.

He parked and cut the engine, but didn't move.

"Jesus," he muttered. "You a fucking heiress or something?"

I shrugged. "Or something."

He looked at me, still gripping the wheel. "You really beat me and then brought me back to your mansion."

"You're still hard, aren't you?"

He blinked. Smirked. "That's not the point."

"I think it is."

And I was right. Because the second we got through the front door, he had me pinned against it, mouth on mine, hands already shoving my pants down like he hadn't just been inside me thirty minutes ago.

"Take me on a tour," he said, voice low, already panting. "I want to fuck you in every overpriced room you've got."

"Upstairs first," I whispered. "Master bedroom."

"Lead the way."

⸻

The bed was massive. He made me crawl across it while he stripped.

"You look good on your knees in expensive sheets," he said, voice darker now. "Let's ruin them."

And he did.

Bent me over the edge of the bed and fucked me deep, hard, fast, his hand on the back of my neck, holding me down as he groaned my name through gritted teeth. I screamed into the mattress when I came, shaking under him, and still… Still, he didn't stop until he finished inside me again.

He kissed my spine.

"Next room."

⸻

The shower was next.

He dragged me in, pressed me against the tile, and took me from behind while water poured down our bodies. His hand wrapped around my throat while he whispered how filthy I was for letting him have me like this, for liking it rough, for making him come twice and still begging for more.

We barely made it to the kitchen before he was on me again.

I bent over the marble island, cheeks against the cold stone, while he knelt behind me like he was starving.

"Don't fucking move," he growled. "Want to taste every inch of what I did to you."

He made me come on his tongue twice.

Then he stood, lined himself up again, and fucked me there too, right on the counter.

Panting, sweating, ruined and radiant.

⸻

We made it to the living room floor sometime around 4 a.m.

I was on top of him this time, both of us stripped bare, his hands gripping my hips like he couldn't believe this was real. He watched me ride him like I was something holy. Face flushed, lips parted, murmuring fuck yes, just like that until we both unraveled again.

And when I finally collapsed on top of him, he wrapped his arms around me and just held me there.

Breathing hard.

Silent for a beat.

Then—

"So, poker night at your place next week?"

I laughed into his chest.

"The house always wins," I whispered.

And he groaned, deep and wrecked.

"Fuck. I think I love you."

⤷ network tags: @k-films

･ ⟢ ⋮ thanks for reading! 🃜🃚🃖🃁🂭🂺

[retiredteabag]

Sukuna culinary school au

masterlist

The band of misfits that you would find in the Culinary Arts department consists of high school dropouts, older returning students, and raging alcoholics. It was not difficult to be at the top of the class when the majority of your peers were unable to assist their children with math homework, but there was one person who was in nearly every one of your classes who always received higher ranks than you did on practical exams.

He looked just about as raggedy as everyone else, if he wasn't such a star in the kitchen, you would guess that culinary was a last resort for him just like it was for the majority of your peers.

He had a long frame pressed tight to his chefs' jacket, his sleeves were always rolled up, tattoos covered his forearms and just above the collar of his jacket, black lines peeked out. Tufts of spiky hair poked below his white pillbox chef hat.

"Ryomen, dammit, I told you to quit wearing t-shirts under your uniform!" The chef yelled from the corner of the kitchen, everyone looked up from their stations to laugh at the man.

"Chef..." Sukuna pulled a scandalized look and set his santoku on a cutting board. "Respectfully, I don't need you checking me out through my white coat." He brought his gloved palms to cover his pecs.

Guffaws.

The Chef circled around behind the tables and smacked the man on the back of the head. "And we're all grateful you cover up," The older professor rolls his eyes, "but no patterns under the uniform, hear me?" He looked around the kitchen.

A chorus of 'Yes, chef' came from every station.

"Plain undershirts, yes?"

The chorus of responses echoed back.

"Good." Before he heads to his office to look at photos of students shitty knife cuts, he faces Sukuna. "I'm taking points off your daily grade."

Sukuna tugs at the collar of his jacket.

You mix your crème anglaise on the stovetop.

--

Daily grades account for 60% of the final grade, which means that homework, tests, and presentations made up for very little.

You lost points from your daily grade for all sorts of witless, subjective reasons. Your participation was lacking? Subtraction. Your attitude wasn't respectable? Subtraction. Part of your uniform or knife kit was missing? A point for every item. You had a piece of jewelry in a piercing? Huge subtraction. Worst of all? If you were late, you were in for some serious public humiliation.

The tank your grade would take, even if you missed so much as one class, could only be made up by coming to the kitchens to help out in other classes. And with everyone working full time, a bunch of students being parents, and the commute to take into account-who had the time?

Here's the truth: you love food, you love to eat, and you love cooking. It was a huge passion of yours. Even considering this, when you weigh your skills to your classmates, you weren't all that great.

You did everything right, you followed the Chefs to a t, memorized every recipe, and read every textbook handed to you. But for some reason, your food just wasn't as good as you thought it should be. It wasn't as good as the stuff that was fed to you.

Baking was more your speed. Instead of recipes, you had formulas, very specific and hard to mess up. You thrived there! But when it came to cooking, no matter how much effort you put in, the Chef would simply hum and set your dish aside.

You never scored below a 90 on any assignment. Servsafe? No problem. But for some reason, your kitchen work was just never praiseworthy.

Don't get me wrong. You were a great cook, all your friends said so. But when compared to your classmates, your dishes were just...decent.

Ryomen Sukuna had the opposite issue. He never even looked at the recipe, he hadn't cracked open a single book, cooking or otherwise, since god knows when, and he hardly paid attention in lectures. He flunked his ServSafe the first time he took it and had trouble with even the most basic of assignments handed to him.

And this was culinary school, all the assignments were painfully simple.

But something about his food...It was undeniable, he had a gift that couldn't be taught.

--

Your parents had practically disowned you when they heard the words, "Culinary Arts" escape your lips. First, though, they laughed.

Surely you were joking. You? With the perfect test scores and college credits? You? With an acceptance to any and every school you could dream of attending. You? With "too bright a future" to waste yourself in that slag heap of a school.

Sukuna, ever your foil, had a family that was just proud he decided to further his education at all. It didn't matter what he did, as long as he was taking care of himself, they were happy.

You weren't jealous of the guy, please, he couldn't figure out a baker's scale, but when he routinely got top marks for his practicals with no practice, when guests at the school's restaurant praised him like a god, when he could whip up something just about anyone would fight for in just twenty minutes? You could say you were a bit...bitter.

It didn't help that he never seemed to care. The guy worried about nothing, how he was perceived, how his actions might affect him, or how his words might get him in trouble. One would imagine him a mess, and maybe there was something uncouth about the way he would slink into the classroom with his chefs' coat unbuttoned, the way he would brush his hair back before hiding it under his hat, the way he would spread himself out at a desk while taking a written exam. Glasses on with a palm to his forehead.

He never seemed fully prepared. But he wasn't unclean. You guess that's to be expected from the Chef De Partie of a locally famous dinner spot. His station was organized, he had his mise en place in order, and he never left dishes in the sink.

So what bothered you so much about him?

He didn't have to try. It came so easily to him. He wasn't just a natural talent; he had passion, and even if he turned assignments in late or got information wrong in the classroom, his food spoke for itself. He was respected for it.

He was content to be the best. Even if he couldn't answer a single question asked of him, even if he forgot basic conversions everyone else knew, and even if he struggled to retain exam prep. He knew food like no other. So nobody could look down on him.

--

You were sat in the break room between classes, laptop open, filing through the Google Slides nobody in your group had even touched. This was the same situation you had found yourself in all this week; nobody in your nutrition group could be trusted to pull their weight for an assignment, even if the importance of the presentation was rehashed every other day.

You know what that means: you were pulling the weight for them.

It wasn't fun eating a pack of spearmint gum for lunch three days in a row, but since you didn't have a class that ran through mid-meal this semester, you found yourself working on assignments before your afternoon lecture.

One of your classmates had joined you briefly to "look for ingredients in the dry storage." All while you ranted to her about the ratio of emails to responses you had from your nutrition group.

"Eh, fuck 'em." She shrugged, checking the clock above you, "Chef will be able to tell who put the work in and grade accordingly."

You knew she was right... it was just the principal.

"Hey, have you eaten?" She seems concerned for a moment, as if she's realized you hadn't anything with you. Waggling the sticks of gum you have left at her, she scoffs.

"There's something deeply ascetic about living off sorbitol in culinary school." You chain-smoke the last piece, using the wrapper to trash the one you were just chewing. She makes a disturbed face at you.

"You need serious help." She checks the clock one more time before waving you off, heading back to the garde manger kitchen.

You're looking over your notes again, trying to prepare yourself for this stupid presentation. You've got a headache, maybe it's the artificial sweetener, maybe it's the fact that you've missed a few too many lunches, but you almost miss him when he enters the break room.

You can't exactly miss the plate of hors d'oeuvres and canapés that are slid across the table where your gum wrappers lie.

"How are you planning to become a chef if you don't make time to feed yourself."

Sukuna is unusually tall in that moment; he's never been in such a state so close within your reach. You shift your eyes between him and the plate he's brought in.

You're quiet for a moment. "Are these for me?"

"No, they're for the other person here." He rolls his eyes, and you don't need to check that the two of you are alone.

Classic mom, your friend had gone and told everyone in her class that you hadn't eaten lunch. Looking at the food before you, you're not going to pretend you mind when you have all these little goodies.

"Just come down if you're hungry, we've got plenty of food." Sukuna is just about to round out of the room, his tufts of hair sticking out under his hat, his sharp tattoos licking up the back of his neck just thereunder.

The door has almost shut by the time you speak your thanks.

It only takes a couple of bites of the delicacies for you to be able to tell that the food was not prepared by some novice student. They were Sukunas. And he had brought them for you.

Your headache is gone, but now your brain is wrestling with the idea of the effortless talent himself being thoughtful.

[wh0reforcoriolanussnow]

felix and his gf being at saltburn and felix noticed ollie acting weird towards her and gets upset at him!!!!!!

The eyes, Chico. || Felix Catton x reader

A/n: YAY TY FOR THE REQUEST! PLS SEND THRU MORE

Warnings: fem!reader, Oliver being a creep, swearing, smoking, if there’s anything else lmk!

Wc: 826

Felix Catton Masterlist

Feeling Felix’s thumb rub circles on your back, you flutter your eyes open and are met with his smile. "Mornin', baby," he greets you, and you respond with a lazy smile, relishing the comforting embrace of his body. His chuckle resonates through his chest, a gentle vibration against you. "It's too early, Felix," you murmur softly, wanting to fall back into slumber.

"Breakfast starts soon, aren't you hungry?" Felix questions, a playful tone lacing his words. You shake your head. "Yes, you are. Don't lie. I can hear your stomach," he asserts with a laugh, and you can't help but crack a smile in response. "Fine," you concede.

You and Felix make your way to the kitchen, where the aroma of breakfast awaits. You greet everyone good morning, almost forgetting that Oliver is here at Saltburn too.

You don’t understand why Felix invited him over; they barely know each other. Even when you confront your boyfriend about it, he just says that he feels bad for him, that he's going through some things at home.

Honestly, he's sort of a strange guy. You always catch him looking away from you when you look at him, around school, his eyes widen the slightest when he sees you walking down the corridors, and then he focuses his gaze on the ground. One time, he even bumped into a pole because he wasn't looking where he was going.

But today, he seems even more odd. The unease is palpable as you sit down at the table. The morning sun streams through the windows, casting a warm glow on the scene.

As you and Felix engage in light morning banter, you catch Oliver staring at you. His gaze is intense, lingering longer than is comfortable. At first, you dismiss it, thinking maybe he's just lost in thought. However, the oddity of his behavior becomes more apparent as the meal progresses.

Oliver’s eyes follow your every move, and you feel an unsettling awareness of his gaze on you. It’s as if his attention is fixated solely on you. You exchange a glance with Felix, who seems oblivious to Oliver’s strange behavior at first.

You try to focus on your plate, on the conversation with Felix, but the weight of Oliver’s gaze is distracting. It’s not the kind of attention you want or need, especially coming from a guy who's already odd enough.

You try to enjoy breakfast, but the uneasy feeling persists. Oliver’s eyes seem to follow you, and you sense a strange tension in the air. However, as the minutes pass, even Felix begins to sense the unease in the air.

“You alright, Ollie?” Felix's timely interjection is a relief. Oliver shifts his focus from you to Felix and responds with a casual, "Hm? Oh, yeah. I'm good." A smile graces his face as he savors a spoonful of breakfast as your eyes flicker between the two, watching the interaction. You can't help but wonder if Venetia or Farleigh picked up on the awkward tension in the air.

As breakfast concludes, you can’t shake off the lingering discomfort. “Remind me why you brought Oliver to Saltburn again?” You question your boyfriend beside you as you continue your skincare routine.

Felix, sensing the need for discretion, swiftly moves to the door leading to Oliver's room. "Shh, don't be so loud," he cautions in a hushed tone, closing the door behind him with a sense of urgency.

"Darling, I know he's been acting weird—" Felix begins, coming up behind you, but you swiftly cut him off. "Oh, he's been acting more than weird. I could barely focus at breakfast with his eyes on me," you huff, applying sunscreen to your face, preparing for a day out in the sun by the lake. The tension in the air is palpable as you address the unease surrounding Oliver's peculiar behavior.

"I know, I know. He just has a... tendency to stare. He's probably admiring how gorgeous you are. Aren't you used to the stares?" He bends down to kiss your cheek, and you roll your eyes in response.

"He should know it's rude to stare," you say in a sing-song voice as you pack up your skincare products. "Don't mind him," Felix adds, his large hands wrapping around your bare stomach, giving your hips a slight squeeze.

The hot temperature outside and the high UV ray lead you, Venetia, Farleigh, Felix, and Oliver outside to lounge by the lake. As you settle on the blanket, the odd tension with Oliver becomes more pronounced. He positions himself nearby, and you catch him stealing glances at you.

It’s not the casual glances friends share; they're lingering, intense stares that make you uneasy. You exchange puzzled glances with Venetia, both of you trying to make sense of Oliver’s peculiar behavior.

“That Oliver has a staring problem, doesn’t he?” Venetia comments, readjusting her sunglasses that sit on her nose. “You saw the stares this morning right?” You turn your head towards her as she does the same. “I think everyone could sense the awkwardness between you two.”

You sigh, closing your eyes and turning your head back. “He’s so strange. I still can’t wrap my head around why Felix invited him here.” You try to focus on the conversation with Venetia, hoping to ignore Oliver’s odd glances. However, his behavior persists.

As you and Venetia engage in conversation by the lounge chairs, Oliver’s attention seems solely fixed on you. It’s as if he’s not present in the moment, lost in his own thoughts. The picturesque surroundings lose their charm as the atmosphere becomes charged with an unspoken tension.

“Is he looking,” You say lowly to Venetia, who discreetly looks behind you before humming. “Fucks sake,” You groan, turning your head only to find his eyes looking at his hands. Rolling your eyes, you gravitate your gaze to Felix right beside you.

Felix, sensing the unease, stands up to move his chair closer to yours, a protective gesture that doesn’t go unnoticed, especially when he places his large hand on your thigh. You appreciate his presence, but the situation with Oliver casts a shadow over what should have been a carefree day by the lake.

The discomfort peaks when you decide to take a break and lie down on the blanket, soaking up the sun’s warmth. Venetia joins you, and you both close your eyes, attempting to find solace in the peaceful surroundings.

However, Oliver’s peculiar behavior doesn’t wane. As you lie there, eyes closed, you sense his eyes on you, a prickling awareness that mars the tranquility of the moment. You open your eyes to find Oliver glancing at you again, a furtive gaze that makes you uneasy.

Venetia, too, notices the strange dynamic and shoots you a concerned look. You spot Farleigh and Felix in deep conversation, Farleigh glancing at Oliver from time to time before giving you a look, silently communicating the shared discomfort.

“Fuck this, I’m going to take a bath,” You mutter annoyed as everyone watches you get up from your towel. Perching your sunglasses on your head, you walk over to Felix. “I’m going to take a bath,” You lean down to kiss him as he hums.

“I’ll come join you in a sec,” He says, his hands toying with the strings on your bikini bottoms. With a brief exchange of nods, you make your way back to Saltburn and to Felix’s bathroom, which connected to Oliver’s room.

The cold water is already calling your name, promising respite from the tension that clings to the air. Closing the door behind you, you take a deep breath, hoping the solitude of the bath will provide the sanctuary you need.

Little do you know that the shadows of unease follow you into the bathroom. As you start to run the water, the events of the morning replay in your mind. The odd glances, the tension at breakfast—all of it weaves into a disconcerting tapestry.

Stripping off your bikini-clad body, you let out a moan of relief when your warm body makes contact with the cold water. Lighting up a cigarette, another sigh of relief escapes you.

Unbeknownst to you, Felix decides to retrieve something from Oliver’s room. As he opens the door, the scene before him freezes him in his tracks. Oliver, standing too close, is peering through the crack of the bathroom door, watching you in the bath.

Felix’s initial surprise gives way to a flash of anger. “What the fuck, Ollie?” he exclaims, his voice cutting through the silence. Your heart skips a beat as you hear the commotion outside. You hear Felix yelling as you quickly get out the tub, wrapping a robe around your naked body before emerging from the bathroom.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He screams as Oliver stammers, caught red-handed, unable to form a coherent response. You move beside Felix, rubbing your hand up and down his arm, trying to ease him down.

“You can’t just invade someone’s privacy like that,” Felix continues, his tone sharp. “What were you thinking, watching through the door like some creep?” His eyes were blown out, his face red as Oliver just stood there distressed.

“That’s so fucked up, Oliver.” You say quietly, though your tone and glare were ice cold. Oliver, looking sheepish and guilty, attempts to explain himself. “I-I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry.”

Felix’s frustration deepens, and he points out, “Sorry is going to cut it, mate. What’s been going on with you? The staring, the weird glances—it’s not normal, man. We’re supposed to be friends. She’s my girlfriend, and you’ve been creeping her the fuck out!”

The room is charged with tension as the two friends face off. Felix, normally calm and collected, is visibly shaken by the breach of trust. You stand there, wrapped in a towel, feeling a mixture of concern and disgust for Oliver and an urge to comfort Felix.

Oliver, fumbling for words, finally admits, “Y/n, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I messed up, and I completely understand if you’re mad.” Felix lets out a dark laugh, throwing his head back as Oliver gulps.

“Mate, we’re more than just mad. What you did is so fucking wrong,” Felix spat as Oliver says nothing but nods his head lightly. "I think it’s best if you leave, Ollie," you tighten the robe around your body as Felix lets out a deep sigh, running his hands through his hair as Ollie nods, his gaze on the ground.

“Of course. I’m sorry again,” he apologizes as you give him one final look, grabbing Felix’s arm and pulling him with you back into the bathroom. Felix looks over his shoulder at Oliver, slamming the door shut and locking it.

[lisdens]

i fear some people aren't ready to face the fact that at some point vi had to let go of her parentified-child role because it would also mean understanding that jinx is an adult who makes her own choices and doesn't need protection the same way she needed back when they were kids. vi says so herself ('why did you come get me? you don't actually need my help, you haven't for a long time').

everyone who expected vi to become some sort of leader for zaun didn't understand that the reason she fought so hard in her youth for her family was because what she truly craved for was safety for herself and her loved ones. it's the whole reason she has that conversation with vander back in episode 2 of season 1.

vi going after jinx when caitlyn opens the cell would only reinforce the idea that vi has to step into the role of caregiver/protector again. vi isn't jinx's mom, she's her sister, and she has her own battle against her internal demons.

in fact, she spirals down very quickly once locked inside the cell, which is later reflected when caitlyn finds her; she's certain she screwed up again and she believes she's lost both jinx and caitlyn, and she knows it happened because vi was being herself, by doing something she wouldn't have done during her act1 self.

her fallout with caitlyn happened because caitlyn couldn't accept who vi truly is, so how can vi expect caitlyn to be okay with what she's done, when that was the reason they grew apart in the first place?

because caitlyn chooses vi, she prioritizes her over her revenge. caitlyn lets go of it because she loves vi for who she is, and not despite it.

jinx and vi love each other unconditionally, even if they don't understand each other entirely ('i didn't get to do much of this with my sister, she was more into hitting things'), so how could anyone outside of her family love vi, while simultaneously understanding her?

vi probably just went through ten different scenarios of how caitlyn is going to reject her for it, for showing who she is, and who she's always been.

and what does caitlyn do in response?

by this point caitlyn doesn't believe vi has forgiven her, so the whole 'you've grown a bit predictable' isn't a pickup line to get in her pants.

this is caitlyn's attempt at cracking a joke.

vi's worries are met with a dumb phrase that's meant to cheer her up, the same way vi did back in episode 1 ('thought for sure you were gonna get yourself killed').

she spiraled down believing she had lost everyone, and caitlyn proves her wrong with an easy smile and a reassurance; 'this is who you are, i know it, watch me be more than okay with it'.

this, for vi, must feel so, so freeing.

this is the one thing she's been craving for her whole life; the feeling of safety. i'm me, and i'm safe to exist that way in here.

she spent her entire childhood fighting to provide that stability for her family because she was given no other choice but to step into that role, she pushed her own needs aside to make sure everyone else was okay. and now, her sister is an adult who has survived without vi's protection, who has accomplished a lot of things without her big sister by her side.

now it's vi's turn to crave safety, it's vi's turn to choose and let someone else make her feel safe and reassured.

vi's not a symbol of zaun, that's what characters like sevika and ekko exist for; neither of them were pressured to step in and take that role, they fight for their city because they chose to and because they want to (and, if i might add, they're very good at it!).

she's just a girl who went through some really fucked up things in life and only ever wished for a little stability.

and she finds that in caitlyn, so she chooses it.

[l0vergirlsw0rld]

ravish

hitchhiker!readerxperv!loganhowlett

a/n: i recycled this old fic and made it a logan one yay! this was written the day after i watched once upon a time in Hollywood in theaters, clearly. haven't written smut in so long ;_;

wc: 2.4k

NSFW

18+ MDNI | age gap,oral sex, masturbation and sexual themes

summary: Y/N was at a festival last night and needs to hit the road again to go on her next adventure. she hitches a drive with someone who might just be that.

au: 1970's

You squirmed as your now blistered bare feet stood on the sizzling hot concrete.

Your arm was out, holding a thumbs up, hoping that one of the roadside drivers pull over and give you a lift. The leather backpack you were wearing was so hot it began to burn your lower back; summers in Phoenix, Arizona were practically unbearable. 

The air was dry and dusty; the back of your throat ached for a gulp of water. You had been dehydrated since you had woken up this morning.

You had gone to one of the biggest parties you had ever seen. You hardly knew anyone, and that was the joy of it; You met people from all over the States, Canada even people from Europe.

You had consumed lots of drugs and fun drinks during the night, all given to you by generous strangers.

You had lost your shoes sometime during the night, but that didn’t stop you from dancing to the music that filled your ears. Guitar strums resonated throughout the field, each chord amplified by the psychedelics you’d taken, making you feel the music deep in your bones.

Lighters were held high, illuminating the dark field. It felt like you were one with everyone in the stars.

This morning, you woke up in the middle of a flower field.

The blazing sun had pierced your vision, ripping through the haze from the pollen white flowers. Multiple ants covered your sugary drink. Disgusted, you tossed it to the side, got up and walked to the nearest busy street, which was farther than you had anticipated.

You were dressed in your crochet crop top and cut-off jean shorts from last night. Your wrists were decked in various friendship bracelets that you had received during the night, an odd custom for a party, but now you had keepsakes. You smiled, remembering the connections you had made.

Cars sped by, giving you somewhat of a  'refreshing breeze' to withstand the scorching heat of today. 

Your arm began to prickle, and the pounding headache of a hangover formed in your temples. You sighed impatiently as you tapped your foot on the ground.

I don't even care who picks me up, just get me out of here,

You thought.

Your stomach growled with hunger, you had only consumed liquid in the past 14 hours.

You observed the people in the cars that passed by you:

Well-dressed women who deliberately ignored your presence.

Families in full cars, with fathers who noticed your needy figure but quickly averted their eyes, conscious of their wives in the passenger seat.

Young men, young women.

New, inexperienced drivers

As you began to lose hope, a dodge challenger pulled over in front of you.

Cracking a smile, you skipped to the passenger window. The unknown man leaned over the console and rolled down the window.

"Whereabouts are you headed?" You asked, propping your elbows on the edge of his piping hot car. "I'm headed through Tucson, then El Paso." He spoke. 

The truth was, you didn't care about where you were going, you just wanted to go somewhere else. You had been hopping from state to state for the whole summer now, and you weren't going to stop.

You were young, wild, and free. 

"Perfect." You grinned and opened the door cheekily.

You sat down, propping your practically black feet up on the dash nonchalantly. The man just grunted and steered the car back onto the road.

You observed him quietly. 

The first thing you noticed was his height; he barely fit in the small car seats. His large hand wrapped effortlessly around the steering wheel, knuckles still marked with dried blood—evidence of a fight from the night before.

He had a tanned complexion, with dark hair that looked soft to the touch. His broad, muscular shoulders nearly brushed against you, and you caught a faint scent of cologne mixed with whiskey and woody cigars.

He wore a white tank top beneath a flannel, paired with worn work jeans. A pair of tinted aviators rested on the bridge of his angular nose, and his work boots, as dirty as your own feet, pressed down on the gas pedal.

 "What do you do for a living?" You continued eyeing him.

The man snorted. 

"I do all sorts of things. Mostly any job with tools." He replied. 

"So, a handyman?" You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. 

"You could call me that." He rasped.

"So, is that why you're going to El Paso? To work?" The car stopped at a red light.  The man reached into the glove compartment in front of you, his arm hair brushing against your thigh as he grabbed a box of cigars.

"You're a smart kid." He mumbled as he stuffed a cigar between his lips. He lit the end and took a drag;

"And you're running away from home," He offered you a cigar.

"Uh-no, I'm just on a solo adventure." You took a cigar from the box.

He lit the end with a swipe of his thumb and you inhaled; a dry scratchy feeling in your throat made you erupt in a coughing fit, trying to catch your breath.

The man found this amusing, his eyes crinkled as he grinned.

"If you don't smoke, kid, don't start now." He pulled the cigar from your lips and placed it in his mouth, where it joined the one he was already smoking. Now, two cigars jutted out from the side of his mouth.

"Jesus, you don't need to out-smoke me, I think you already did that." You crossed your arms with a huff.

"You're too innocent for smokes anyway...Also too innocent to wear whatever you have on now. It ain't covering much." He practically scolded, tightening his grip on the wheel.

Your cheeks flushed a bright pink.

"If it bothers you so much, stop checking me out, then." You rolled your eyes.

"Don't need to when it's all in your face. Can see your whole stomach and half of your ass is hanging out." He flung one of the cigars outside. 

"Perv." You looked out your window.

The man swallowed hard and stayed quiet, driving behind the other vehicles.

You picked up on his silence.

"Oh, you didn't like that did you?" You continued. 

He ignored you as you re-drew your attention to him, he stayed focused on the road in front of him.

You grinned.

This was amusing, you had a man about 20 years older than you all flustered because you caught him checking you out. You were probably his fantasy; young college girl age, petite, adventurous, non-commital. Compared to uptight, old fuller marital women of his age. 

The truth was, you've always liked older men but never attempted to be with one outside of your fantasies.

It was common for younger women to be coupled with older men, but the men from your town were distasteful, not like this man who was sitting next to you. 

You turned around in your seat and laid down to where your head was on his lap, and your feet were sitting on the passenger side door.

"What're you doin' kid?" He grumbled looking down at your face from the wheel.

"You want me to suck your dick don't you?" You met his eyes.

He scoffed and turned his attention to the road again.

"How old are ya'?" He took a drag.

"Pfft, I'm old enough." You replied.

He hummed in acknowledgement.

"Guess how old?" You added. 

"Early-twenties." He blew smoke out the window, cherry wood.

He guessed correctly. A devious smile curled at your lips.

"You sure know your young women pretty well, sir." You chuckled at your own joke.

The man took the hand that held the cigar and cupped your face roughly pressing his thumb on your lips, shutting you up. His cigar burned centimetres away from your face, a faint heat could be felt from the lit tip and the smoke drifted in your nostrils, the smell was intoxicating.

"Don't say things like that." He grumbled. You bit his calloused thumb seductively, giving it a soft suck which earned a raspy "fuck" from the man. 

"What's your name anyway?" He removed his thumb from your mouth placing the hand on the steering wheel. He squirmed slightly in the seat, readjusting his hips, and your head moved with him. He was getting harder by the minute.

"It's Y/N. You?" 

"Y/N?" He tasted your name on his lips. "-Logan." He growled, in a husky voice.

Your hands drifted down to your shorts, and you unbuttoned them. His eyes darted to your hands, and you felt his chest expand against your head as he took a deep breath.

You pulled them under your hips and let them bunch at your ankles. You spread your knees apart, exposing your clothed goods. You were wearing a light blue thong.

"You want to feel?" You lightly stroked your legs, prompting him to go the same.

Logan took one last drag of his cigar and threw it out the window, like the first one; his right hand was now free.

Instead of taking up your offer, he just returned his hand to the wheel, ignoring you.

"Fine then," You whined.

You pulled the fabric to the side, revealing your now wet folds.

You began to play with yourself, slowly. Rubbing supple, soft circles on your clit. Quiet moans escaped your lips as you built a rhythm. You knew where it felt good, you weren't new to touching yourself.

You turned your head to the side, facing Logan's shirt, you inhaled his scent and let out another moan.

Logan let out a low grumble from his chest and lowered his hand onto yours.

He guided your hand to insert your fingers inside of you. You let out a surprised whimper as he worked your hand to fuck yourself.

"Mh- I want- ah- your fingers, not mine- ah-" You managed between thrusts.

He removed your hand from your core and lifted it to his face, he inhaled deeply before mumbling another fuck.

"Taste yourself." He commanded as he brought your fingers to your mouth.

You complied, inserting your index and middle finger as deep in your mouth as possible, looking up at him while doing so. He watched you while biting his lip.

His hand snaked under your crop top, lifting it, exposing your breasts.

"Fuck sake," He breathed out after seeing what was underneath.

"Can't do this here." He jerked the wheel aggressively to the side, pushing you further into him.

He had pulled the car into an off-road wooded clearing a few miles away from the city; of course, it didn't take long for him to get there, he had gunned it the whole way; after all, he had more pressing matters to take care of.

You.

The both of you had made your way into the back seat of the car, your knees hung over his bulky shoulders, his face buried deep between your legs.

You were completely naked and he was fully dressed aside from the flannel that was discarded moments ago.

You gripped fist fulls of his hair as he lapped at your sensitive spot. Logan loved eating you out, your taste was sweet and your smell was intoxicating. Your wetness dripped off his chin as he sucked on your clit, sending you to another dimension entirely. He was skilled with his tongue, he knew how to keep a steady rhythm and when to switch it up. He groaned against you, savouring every second he had with you.

Logan had never been with such a pretty young thing like you before, he couldn't get enough.

He pressed his thick calloused index finger at your entrance while still using his tongue. Slowly, he pumped it deeper and deeper inside you, eventually reaching his knuckle. You moaned into your hand, trying to muffle the noise you were making. The two points of stimulation were too much.

You were already approaching your orgasm; Your hips bucked against his jaw and hand as you escalated gradually to meet that sweet release.

"Logan ah- I'm gonna cum" You exclaimed tightening your grip on his hair. This was the motivation for him to go even harder. He caught his breath against you between his thrusts. Pushing back against your clenching thighs and dove deeper, licking long fat strokes on your swollen clit. His coarse facial hair rubs against your skin, causing a slight burning sensation. Your knees shook as he picked his pace and enveloped your sensitive bud between his lips, sucking hungrily and giving it a slight bite.

Logan groaned as he heard your moan of surprise, you didn't know you like that. But he did.

You felt the pressure begin to pool out as your head tilted back with a loud moan:

Your fingertips and toes began to tingle.

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head.

Your back arched instinctively.

Logan sent you over the edge, you fell in shambles of moans and whimpers as he slowly helped you ride out your orgasm.

"That's it sweetheart, good girl." He murmured with his mouth full of you as you caught your breath.

He slowly lapped you clean until you began to feel sensitive. Logan pulled back and looked at you hungrily as he licked your cum off his lips.

"You really like doing that don't you?" You asked breathless.

He snuck his hand down to your slick and now swollen pussy, using his fingers to spread you open. He observes it in awe as if he hadn't spent the last few minutes with his face right up there.

"It's... pretty...n' soft." He mumbled under his breath. Logan ducks down and places a long kiss right on the sensitive area, breathing you in once more.

You flushed a bright pink, embarrassed. You had never had a guy ravish you like this.

"Your turn, let's switch," You said propping yourself up on your elbows.

Logan chuckled."Nah, kid, we gotta hit the road." He tugged on his pants to relieve the pressure of his hard-on against the denim.

"But you-" You start but Logan cuts you off by pulling you in for a hungry kiss. His hand tangled in your hair as he pressed you to him, sucking your bottom lip between his teeth and biting. You moan in his mouth again and he pulls away with a smirk.

"Later," He grits, pocketing your panties. "Get dressed," He spanks your ass and gets out the back seat.

"Yes sir," You excitedly find your clothes.

i feel like logan loves to eat out, oops :)

->-> click here for part 2 <-<-

->->click here for part 3<-<-

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[nosyp]

i would LOVE. a gentle smut with player 120, where cho hyun-ju had been feeling off due to the feeling of everyone looking at her weird in the games for being trans, but the reader yk just loved her for her, and wanted to show her that and basically just have intimate lovey dovey sex with her!? LIKE SORRY IF THIS IS CONFUSING.. IM JUST ALL FOR THE GENTLE SMUTS OF HER ESPECIALLY THEY DRIVE ME NUTS BRO

I'm so sorry if it took so long I had to sift thru requests sooo... hope you enjoy tho :)

Here are soime pics as well as compensation

Title = A Small Token of Appreciation

Warnings = smut🔞, touching, kissing, blowjob, gentle sex, cumming in mouth

Pairing = Hyun ju (Player 120) x GN! reader

Word count = 1.7k words

The tension in the air was palpable as Cho Hyun-ju sat in the corner, her gaze distant, lost in her own thoughts. Ever since entering the games, she had felt the weight of every pair of eyes on her, every whisper and judgmental stare. People had made their assumptions, and it made her feel like she didn’t belong, not just in the game, but in the world around her. Everyone was questioning the fact that she looked so much like a boy despite acting feminine. 

The insecurity started to simmer beneath her calm exterior and had been growing, creeping in quietly with each passing day, until it was almost impossible to ignore.

But you could see it, the way she held herself a little more tightly, the subtle frown that tugged at the corners of her mouth, and the sadness in her eyes that she tried so hard to hide. No one else seemed to notice, or maybe they were too afraid to acknowledge what was happening beneath the surface. But you noticed. And you knew exactly how to show her that none of that mattered to you.

You loved her, not for any reason other than the fact that she was Cho Hyun-ju. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought. To you, she was perfect, every little part of her. Her strength, her vulnerability, the way she cared so deeply for others. It was all so beautiful.

You approached her slowly, your steps soft against the floor as you closed the distance between you two. Your heart hurt to see her like this, but you wouldn’t push her. You knew she needed to come to you when she was ready. As you reached her, you knelt down beside her, your fingertips gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She flinched slightly at the touch, but you could see the tension in her body begin to ease just a little.

“Hey,” you whispered, your voice soft and full of warmth. It was more than just a greeting, it was a reminder. A reminder that she wasn’t alone in this. “Y’know… you don’t have to carry all of this alone, you know?”

Her eyes flickered up to meet yours, and for the briefest moment, you saw the walls she had built around herself crack just enough for you to glimpse her true feelings. Vulnerability. Doubt. Fear. She was a fighter on the outside, but in this very moment, she was simply someone who needed comfort. Someone who needed to be reminded that they were loved, just as they were. And you were the person to remind her.

You reached out and cupped her face with both hands, your thumbs brushing over her soft skin as you gazed into her eyes. “I love you,” you said, your voice a quiet but powerful declaration. “I love you for who you are, not what others think of you. You’re perfect just the way you are, and I need you to believe that.”

She didn’t say anything at first, but her lips parted slightly, a breath escaping as her eyes softened, the tears threatening to spill but held back by sheer will. You could see the way her breath hitched as the walls around her heart finally began to crumble, just a little.

And then, without another word, you leaned in, pressing your lips to hers with all the tenderness you could muster. It was a kiss that spoke of reassurance, of love that was unwavering. Slowly, you pulled back just enough to speak again, your voice now a soft whisper against her lips.

“I’m here for you, Hyun-ju,” you murmured. “And I always will be.”

Her arms came up to wrap around you, pulling you closer as if to say everything she couldn’t in that moment. The feeling of her embrace, the way she melted into you, trusting you, was all you needed to know that, no matter how hard the world outside was, you would always be there for her.

The kiss lingered for a moment, soft and full of meaning, but the tension between you two wasn’t just emotional anymore. It had slowly become something deeper, something that pulsed between your bodies, unspoken but undeniable. The way her body pressed against yours, the way her hands moved to your back, pulling you closer, it was clear she needed more. She needed to feel loved in every way, to be shown that she was desired just as much as she was valued.

You pulled away slightly, your breath coming out in soft, steady puffs. Her eyes were closed now, her cheeks flushed from the intensity of the kiss, and you could see the desire building in her. She was slow, steady, as if she was testing the waters. You reached down to brush your fingers along the sides of her arms, feeling the goosebumps rise on her skin.

“Are you sure?” you whispered, your voice a soft murmur. You wanted her, but you also knew she needed to feel safe, to feel like she was in control of this moment, even if just a little.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she gazed at you with a quiet intensity. “I trust you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, but the sincerity in it made your heart skip.

That was all you needed to hear.

You leaned in again, kissing her more deeply this time, your hands moving to trace the curve of her back, feeling the warmth of her body against yours. She responded almost immediately, her hands sliding up to your shoulders and then down to the fabric of your clothes, tugging at it gently as if asking you to remove the barrier between you two.

You paused for a moment, pulling back just enough to undress her slowly. Every piece of clothing that came off revealed more of the woman you adored, and with each layer she shed, you saw not just her physical beauty, but her soul, the woman who had faced so much and still managed to smile.

When she was finally bare before you, she looked up at you with such raw vulnerability, a quiet desire in her gaze that made your heart ache. “I need to feel you,” she whispered, her voice trembling with need.

Your response was gentle, tender, as you cupped her face again, kissing her softly before guiding her to lay back, your hands running down her body in the most soothing way. “I’m here, Hyun-ju. You’re safe with me.”

You moved over her slowly, your body hovering just above hers as you kissed her once more. It was slow, languid, filled with the love you wanted to show her. Your hands explored every inch of her skin, tracing the curves you adored, feeling the warmth of her body beneath your fingertips. You could feel her shivering slightly as you moved lower, your lips following the path your hands had taken, pressing gentle kisses to her chest, her stomach.

She gasped softly as you moved between her legs, your fingers tracing the lines of her body, asking her permission with every touch. When you felt her nod, her hands gripping the sheets beneath her, you lowered your mouth to her, your lips brushing against her with such tenderness. You wanted to show her how beautiful she was, how much she meant to you in every possible way.

You were slow, slow because you knew she needed this gentleness, this tenderness, to remind her that she was desired for more than just her physicality. As you moved against her, your lips trailing soft kisses across her body, she responded with soft moans, her fingers gripping your hair, urging you to continue.

“I love you,” you whispered against her skin, your voice full of emotion. “I’m never letting you go.”

The two of you moved together, every touch, every kiss, every caress, meant to remind her that she was wanted, not just in this moment, but always.

Your hands tugged at her pants, and your eyes were looking up at her for approval. She looked towards you, meeting gazes and nodded her head, giving you the permission you needed. Gently, you slipped your finger between the waistband of her pants and her skin, letting it stay there before lightly pulling it off. 

It revealed her red cock, it was a shade of pink that was so intense it must’ve hurt. You couldn’t let her go through it anymore so you quickly slipped it in your throat, shoving her whole length into your mouth. 

“A-ah… slowly…” she moans.

You start moving your head up and down her cock, your tongue providing a warmth to her cock. The sudden warmth from your mouth heightened the pleasure even more, causing her to roll her eyes all the way to the back of her head. 

“U-ugh more…” she begged, hand now on the back of your head, gripping it tightly.

Her hand didn’t do anything beside gripping it, allowing you the freedom to go at your own pace. At first it was slow, intimate… but it grew quicker as her grip tightened. 

Your head bobbed up and down faster, saliva coating her member even further. Her grip around you tightened even further, her fingers tangling in your hair as she pulled you closer. The pressure of her hands was a silent command, urging you to keep going. And you did.

Your mouth wrapped around her so beautifully she couldn’t stop staring. Her eyes eagerly followed yours, enjoying the sight of you. It didn’t help that your hands were gripping her hips so strongly, increasing the experience even more. 

It didn’t take long for her to finally reach her climax, allowing her fluids to spill into your mouth. Your mouth felt so full that spit… and some of her cum was flowing out of the small gap between your mouth and her. Then, you pulled away, trying to save all the cum. 

Without warning, you swallowed it all in, surprising her, but the look in her eyes told you everything, you had given her exactly what she needed, and she appreciated it more than words could express.

[glitchy1938]

(Same anon who asked for the reader who gets visions) oooo I loved the reader who gets visions post, you really know how to make a vision take flight

Sorry for requesting again, but I’ve got another idea floating in my mind. You don’t have to write this if it is too detailed of a concept :)

What about a reader who is a friend and fellow virtue of the ancients or beasts (they’re my favorite groups I’m sorry) and desperately craves to be acknowledged as worthwhile, not exactly jealous and will never say it but they feel like they are never recognized for all the work they do, so obviously they need to do more! And they begin to slowly corrupt with visible cracks throughout their dough, and they start getting more resentful, refusing to stop their work because they think their friends want to steal the glory for themselves, as they are actively destroying themself.

It took a while but I made it, I also made with my OC if that's okay.

Even If I'm Crumbling..... I Need More...!!

[Ancients & Beasts x reader]

Pure Vanilla Cookie

• You were his closest friends with White lily Cookie, and he really appreciate that you want to know more about everything.

• But he feel... Something else in you... Like, everytime he get better at something, you want to surpass him, he didn't quite get it at first...

• You never admit it to him, or anyone, but the more he get of acknowledgement, the more you feel you NEEDED to do more.

• You started to work even more harder then before, even not eating, drinking or getting any sleep ! That doesn't matter to you. All you needed what to prove to everyone that they recognise your hard work.

• Pure Vanilla tried everything... To at least make you eat, drink or get a sleep. But you deny all of that. Saying that you had to surpass yourself more and more and they won't take all your glory to themselves.

• He didn't want to force you, but that change when you saw that your Doug start to slowly crumble.

• This time, he stayed with you all time, refusing to leave your side and forcing you to take care of yourself. He didn't care that you'll hate them, all he wanted was for you to come back to your sense...!!

Hollyberry Cookie

• She's the one who saw first that you truely change, yes, it's good to surpass yourself, but not until you crumble !!

• You're one of her dearest friends and she can't stand seeing you refuse to take care of yourself and only wanted to be more stronger than her to get more glory.

• She'll force you to, even if it means locking your room with her so she'll be here with you and make sure that you won't die of working yourself until death !!

• She will not allow it.

Dark Cacao Cookie

• Now, this man will be impressed by all your work, telling you that you did great. But... That wasn't enough for you.

• As a king, he know that all eyes are on him when he do something impressing. So he doesn't get it why you so need to do more.

• You wanted to take away his crown ? No, he knew you didn't... Than why ?? Why working so hard into the aren to prove you're strong ?

• He didn't want to interrupt you at first, but it's when Caramel Arrow Cookie informed him that you passed out in the training area and your Doug was slowly crumble that he take it seriously.

• He won't listen to your pleading or order to let you go training again, for crumble yourself even more ?!? DON'T YOU SEE WHAT'S HAPPENED TO YOU ?!!

• He'll order his servent or even himself to take care of you. It doesn't matter of you don't want to, he won't lose you like he almost lost his kingdom.

Golden Cheese Cookie

• This diva will NOT tolerate that you're willing to give your life just to prove yourself more.

• Yes, she's greedy and love gold and her kingdom, and also the fame and glory, but she know what's more important and take care of yourself.

• She doesn't allow you go to found the most important treasure or something, she won't let you get hurt or killed.

• She'll pemper you for your hard work every time you're about to do more or your Doug is about to crumble more.

White Lily Cookie

• She's also working herself to get forgiven by the other Ancients, but she's very worried about you.

• She always find yous still in your desk because she's also working a little more ay Night time but seeing there with more knowledge books beside than before, where you there the hole time ?!?

• She doesn't want to force you, she take your hands and pleaded you to stop your work, you only hurt yourself more !!

• If that doesn't work.... She'll apologize but dragged you in your bed and laying on top of you so that you won't escaped.

• She'll hug you tightly as you told her that you won't let her take your work, she doesn't care about that !! SHE CARE ABOUT YOU GOD DAMN IT !!!

• She'll give you all the medecin you need to recover, and to your mental health is back to a normal cookie work.

• She doesn't want to lose you please !!

Sweet Bleu Chocola Cookie (aka Zakia)

• She already saw the Doug started to crumble when she saw you working harder then before. She immediately start to heal you injuries and taking you to your chambers.

• She maybe sweet and all, but she won't let some glory get the better of her friends, and specially not you.

• She'll even ask her uncle or sister to the throne until she's SURE that you'll stop working yourself too hard !!

• If you say to her that she won't take your work away from you, she'll cry and for the first time yell at you to stop your none sence !! DID SHE EVER VALUE GLORY MORE THAN FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE ?!?

• You'll be stuck with her until you recover, end of story.

The Beasts

Shadow Milk Cookie

• Well this man is... already interested in your hard working self, and almost happy that you see him as glory as he also see himself... that, is until he saw your Doug start to crumble.

• He won't tell you to stop, oooh no, he'll just dragge you into his chamber and give you What you need to stop.

• He won't take "no" for an answer when he ask for you to eat or sleep. You'll need all your strength if you want to recover.

• He's not the best at comforting, but you can see that he's trying to.

• His minions also are worried about you, believe it or not.

• Candy Apple Cookie pleaded her master to let her take care of you, seeing you like that makes her heart broke... Same with Black Saphire Cookie, his mission is to look out for you when you try to work again.

• He get it that you want to clam glory for your hard work, but it's not like that that you'll succeed.

Burning Spice Cookie

• This man, as we all know, is THE working cookie then anyone, and he push his army or anyone else who can be useful.

• He's proud to see you working more and more of yourself when your in the training area. But he saw the Doug slowly crumble too...

• He didn't ask you to stop or go get rest, he ORDERED you to stop. But of course, you didn't listen.

• He'll have to dragree you by picking you like a potato bag on his shoulder while you scream at him to let go of you.

• He doesn't care if you try to fight back, the last thing he want is you die because you didn't take care of yourself.

Mystic Flour Cooke

• She's the cookie of Empathy, but that doesn't mean that she's not worried about your health.

• She get it that you want to prouve yourself more, but if that mean you'll die of this, she won't accept it.

• She'll directly tell you to stop and get rest IMMEDIATELY. And if you're being stubber and refuse, she'll take you hand like a child and won't listen to your pleading to let you work

• She'll scold you for pushing yourself just for glory. Saying that it will only hurt you more than it'll give.

Red Chocola Cookie

• This girl won't listen to you saying that you need to know more or be more strong.

• she'll force you to stop doing what ever your doing to go to bed and to think of nothing else.

• The glory must really take your head, did you think she need fame or glory ? hell she'll think you go crazy because of it.

• Even if she's married and want to see her sister and brother, she'll ask- no... Order her husband (Fallacy) to send letters to her sister and brother, and cancel any work or duty she has.

• She'll give you the best medecin you need to recover, food, water, anything you need for stop hurting yourself more.

[ha-rinrin]

Holding On

WARNING: This definitely counts as spoiler for act 3.

Summary: Jinx thinks she too far gone, but you think exactly the opposite.

Pairing: Jinx x fem!reader

Wordcount: 829

Authors note: I decided to cope with writing so I'm back guys :)

masterlist

The air was thick with tension, the faint hum of the explosives making everything feel heavier. Jinx stood in the center of the room, her body trembling with the weight of her thoughts. The bomb was in her hands—its cruel, ticking countdown echoing through her head, matching the frantic pace of her heartbeat.

She looked at the device, her eyes wild with something darker than madness. Her fingers were just inches away from pulling the trigger. The detonator. The end. She could feel it. The destruction. The chaos.

But there was something else too. Something so faint, you almost missed it—a desperation that even Jinx couldn't hide.

You didn’t know how you got here, only that you had to get to her before it was too late. Your heart pounded in your chest as you rushed into the room, your eyes locking onto her figure.

"Jinx!" you called, your voice strong, breaking through the sound of the countdown. She didn't look up. Not at first.

"Don't even think about it," you said, your voice sharper now, cutting through the tense silence that had surrounded her. You knew you were running out of time.

Her head snapped up, her eyes filled with something you couldn't read, a whirlwind of anger, pain, and confusion. The bomb was still in her hands, her fingers trembling, but she didn’t move.

"You think you can stop me?" she whispered, her voice hoarse, raw. "You think I care?"

You took a step closer, your hands raised in a gesture of caution, but your resolve was unwavering. "I care, Jinx. I care more than you know. But this… this isn't you."

Her lips curled into a bitter smile, but her eyes betrayed her. They were glassy, unfocused. "Who else am I supposed to be, huh?" The words were jagged, broken, just like her. "I’ve lost everyone. I don’t even know who I am anymore."

"You're Jinx," you said, your voice softening as you took another step forward. "You're the girl I… I can’t lose, not like this." You swallowed, your heart aching with every word you spoke. "Please, put the bomb down."

For a long moment, she just stood there, her face unreadable, as though trying to make sense of the chaos in her mind. Then she spoke, her voice barely above a whisper, but you heard it clearly.

"You’ve been the best girlfriend… the best person in my life. You know that, right?" Her hand trembled, but she didn't pull away. Her eyes didn’t meet yours as she spoke, but you could see the hint of something breaking in her gaze. "I’m sorry… but I don't think I can keep going like this. I don't know how much more of me you can take."

"Jinx, no…" you breathed, stepping closer, your heart pounding as the weight of her words hit you.

"You deserve someone who can be whole," she continued, her voice cracking, the words spilling out before she could stop them. "You deserve someone who can… stay. I don’t even know who I am anymore. But you—" She stopped, shaking her head, a faint laugh escaping her lips, bitter and broken. "You were everything. Thank you. Thank you for everything."

"Don’t you dare," you whispered, your voice trembling. "Don’t you dare say goodbye. Not like this."

Her hand tightened on the detonator again, her fingers almost convulsing, but she was silent, the look in her eyes telling you more than any words could.

You couldn’t let her go, not like this.

“Please, Jinx,” you whispered desperately, your voice barely audible. "I need you. I love you. I can’t lose you. You don’t have to do this. You’re worth so much more than all of this. We’ll figure it out together. Please."

She looked at you then, her lips trembling, her eyes glossy with unshed tears. The bomb in her hand felt like nothing compared to the weight of the emotion that filled the room. She slowly lowered the detonator, her hands shaking as she clutched it loosely, a faint tremble passing through her.

"I'm too far gone," she said, barely above a whisper, her voice breaking. "But maybe... maybe I still have something left. I can't leave you alone"

You reached for her then, slowly, gently. She didn't flinch as you took her hand in yours, her fingers cold but now gripping you back, even if just a little.

"I can't let you go," you said softly, your voice trembling but firm. "Please... don't leave me like this."

For the first time in what felt like forever, she let herself lean against you, her body trembling. The bomb was still in her hand, but she wasn’t holding onto it anymore.

"I don't deserve you," she whispered, her voice barely a breath.

And for once, there was no chaos. Just the fragile thread of connection between you, something both of you clung to as if it could mend the broken pieces. "You deserve everything," you murmured, your voice steady and sure. "And I’ll be here to remind you of that, every step of the way."