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tangerineastronaut · 5 months ago

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bibliophile ⟡ j. yunho

part two

you're stressed...your study buddy has an idea.

Pairing: Yunho x Fem!Student!Reader Genre: Smut - dark twist Requested: Yes/No w.c. 5.8k Warnings: heavy on the smut, semi public sex (ish), mutual pining, food? - THE SUCKER - he does...things with it. Yunho is a FREAK. Reader is desperate for yunho dick (yes YOU, reader) Spoiler warnings are in comments if you need them. A/N: So, this is sort of two requests in one, however I don't want to disappoint anyone so I'll post it solo. I hope it's okay! <3 god deleted my ticket to heaven with this one. Requests: Open (link below)

Requests | WIPs Masterlists: BTS | ATEEZ | GOT7 | Stray Kids

Taglist: @baby-stay92 If you'd like to be added to my taglist, please DM me or click here.

You release a tired sigh and rub your eyes, throwing your pen down. It bounces off of your ridiculously thick textbook and lands on the papers scattered around your study partner.

“Ah ah. No crashing yet, we’ve got three more chapters,” Yunho says with a laugh, tapping you on the end of the nose with his own pen. You pout, making a face at him before dramatically collapsing on the table.

“I give up. You can become a lawyer, I’ll go back to making sandwiches,” you groan, muffled against pages of your future.

“I thought you liked working at the sandwich shop?”

“I did,” you reply, tilting your head to look at him. “But sandwich shops don’t pay me six figures.”

“Then stop whining,” Yunho shrugs. You grumble words unintelligible even to yourself and sit up, fixing your hair. You stretched, yawned, checked your phone for the thousandth time that evening. Finals were next week. Then there was the Bar exam. You were so close to being y/n l/n, attorney at law…but you were beginning to feel nauseous at the mere sight of words on a page.

“Wanna take a break?” Yunho suggests, leaning back to stretch. You avoid looking at the way his sweater rides up, revealing inches of what appears to be a toned belly.

“No,” you mumble, forcing yourself to look away. “If I leave this library…I think I may never return.”

Yunho chuckles and nods, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index fingers. For a few minutes, you both just sit there, enjoying a rare moment of peace. Usually the library is filled with students, exactly like you—stressed, depressed, drowning in student debt and reading assignments.

“Yunho?” you mumble. He hums a response, looking over at you. You swallow. “If I start to cry, will you judge me?”

“Not at all,” he responds. You nod once, feeling tears burning in your eyes.

For the next hour or so, you take turns reading passages and summarizing them, going through various laws and statutes that you could barely comprehend. Your brain felt as if it might explode, and you considered calling it a night, but it was only 10 p.m. and you’d be damned if you gave out before midnight.

“What the hell are these ‘title 16 provisions?’” you scoff, crinkling your nose. “Were these even part of our assignment?”

“Let me see,” Yunho says. He scoots his chair over to your side of the table rather than just moving seats, and you feel your heart leap into your throat. And god, his arm slides over the back of your chair as he leans in to look at the tiny words on your page.

He smells like coffee and the peanut butter granola bar you shared earlier, and this close you can see that he has very light freckles on his cheeks. You kind of want him to never move.

“Ah, no this isn’t part of this assignment but we will have to know it for finals,” he says, words going in one of your ears and out the other. He begins talking about these provisions, but you must be numb to all forms of communication other than Jeong Yunho’s body heat.

“Y/n?”

“Huh?” you mumble, shaking your head. Yunho has a funny look on his face, one brow raised. Oh god. Oh god. He caught you staring like a fucking creep.

“...You good?” he chuckles. You swallow and quickly nod, brushing your hair back so fast you nearly hit him in the face.

“Yep, uh huh,” you mumble. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Oh,” he says as though relieved. “Good. Well, if you need to take a break, let me know.”

He begins to move; you panic and grab his wrist.

“Wait! You didn’t explain this part to me,” you say, pointing at a random section on the page. Yunho sits down again and tilts his head.

“You need me to explain…marital property to you?” he asks, sounding both amused and disbelieving.

Well, if you’re gonna be a bad liar, at least you’ll be persistent.

“Yes,” you nod. “Just like a refresher, you know? My brain is cooked.”

Yunho stares at you for a few seconds, and you feel your cheeks heat up. It feels like he knows something you don’t know, and you don’t like that. So you yank him back into his seat and let go of his wrist, pretending to be very interested in one of the most basic aspects of your degree.

Marital property is boring, even when the hottest guy in your class is explaining it to you. And what’s worse—he knows. You know he knows. He’s explaining basic concepts to you, and then explaining the basics of those basic concepts, all the while keeping a little smirk on his handsome face. You consider caving, thinking of any possible excuse for your behavior. You’re delirious from lack of sleep, that’s actually true. But you were too deep in this to give up now.

“That’s most of it,” Yunho finally says, long fingers splayed over the textbook. They nearly reach from one end of the open book to the other. You shiver. “I guess we should move into parental rights—”

“Yunho,” you begin with a sigh, ready to admit defeat. He smiles innocently, resting his chin in his hand.

“Yeah?”

“I—”

You freeze, having forgotten how to form sentences. Yunho’s still smiling at you, but his free hand is now resting on your thigh. You thanked the gods you’d decided to wear a skirt today.

His palm is large, warm, spanning much of the plush skin there. He’s not gripping it, but it’s still very obviously intentional. You feel your cheeks burn hot; you’re determined to remain unaffected.

“Nevermind,” you mumble. He chuckles and turns back to the page, though he doesn’t move his hand.

You don’t ask him to.

You go back to your respective chapters, thankfully far beyond the basics, but his hand stays right where it is. He even reaches over his other arm to sip his coffee, refusing to move it. Your skin burns in the shape of his fingers; you almost want to push him away simply because your body is reacting to his touch in a way that’s making you feel crazy. You’re practically feverish, just because he’s near you. Pathetic, honestly.

When you sigh and rub your eyes, those long fingers twitch, making you jump. You try to play it off, though you know he’s aware of your reaction, because he does it again. When you don’t react as dramatically, he squeezes gently.

Your knee jerks up so fast it hits the table, causing your belongings to rattle, and your heart feels like it’s going to explode. Yunho chuckles, though doesn’t move his hand. You clear your throat as though everything is normal. As though he’s not currently squeezing your upper thigh.

“Yunho,” you say quietly.

“Hm?” He doesn't bother looking up from his textbook.

“What are we doing?”

He does look up this time.

“Studying,” he says, giving you a sweet smile. You narrow your eyes.

If he was going to do this, then so were you. You were sleep deprived, numb to the world, and horny as hell. So you parted your knees.

Not much, just an inch or so, but very obvious. You didn’t miss the way Yunho’s throat worked as he swallowed, clearly not expecting the reciprocation. You go back to your textbook, but your victory is short lived, however, as his large hand slides further inward.

You’re flustered. But you’re also stubborn. So you drop your pen and look him in the eyes as you open your knees. Yunho’s gaze is steady as he slowly moves his hand, as though expecting you to stop him. You don’t.

Yunho went back to reading and you did the same, just as his pinky brushed the crease of your inner thigh. You knew you were wet, knew he could probably feel the moist heat radiating from your body behind your pink panties, but you chose to be nonchalant. Until he rubbed the back of his knuckle against your panties, over your clit.

The soft moan that escapes you is mortifying.

Yunho quickly clamps a hand over your mouth, laughing breathily as your brows pull together and you shudder. He looks as shocked as you are, though now you’re hazy, focused only on how good it felt, and wanting more.

“Shh,” he chuckles nervously, glancing around despite the fact that you’re the only ones here. “No wonder you act like you’re walking around on thin ice. You’re frustrated as hell, huh?”

“P-Please,” you whimper pitifully against his palm, though it’s muffled. He moves his hand and you grip his wrist, looking up at him. You silently communicate your needs, praying he has mercy and doesn’t force you to say it out loud. Yunho glances around one more time, licking his lips before looking down at you like a fucking steak on a platter.

“If we’re gonna do this, you gotta be quiet for me,” he murmurs. You nod quickly, gasping when he effortlessly yanks your chair closer to him. He adjusts his glasses before lowering his hand to your thighs, gently stroking them.

“Can I touch you?” he asks quietly. You open your mouth, but he presses a finger to your lips. “Quietly.”

“Yes, yes,” you whine. “T-Touch me.”

Yunho bites his lower lip, as though imagining doing much, much more than that. When he rubs your thighs again, your knees fall open and you stifle a moan behind your sleeves. Yunho smiles at the sight of you, slipping his hand between your legs again.

This time, he’s more careful, though it’s much more frustrating for you. You squirm when he strokes either side of your cunt, making a ‘v’ and squeezing your plush pussy lips between them. You moan again, loudly, and Yunho scrambles to cover your mouth.

“Baby, you’ve gotta be—”

“Quiet, I know,” you pout, gripping his wrist. “C-can’t help it…feels good.”

Yunho swallows, letting his fingers brush against you again. You manage to stay quiet this time, but your mouth opens in a silent scream.

“So fucking sensitive,” he murmurs, drawing his hand back. You nearly protest, but he presses his index finger to your clit like a button and you jolt, covering your mouth just in time. Yunho smirks.

“H-Haven’t had sex,” you say, fisting the sleeve of his sweater as he pushes again. “In m-months.”

“Why?” he asks, beginning to rub slow circles against your panties. You feel your wetness spreading beneath them, but you don’t care. You grip the edge of the table and swallow.

“Busy,” you breathe, licking your lips. Yunho’s eyes follow your tongue. You don’t notice.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Y-yeah, yes,” you nod frantically.

Yunho uses the hand between your legs to turn your entire body toward him. You want to mention how attractive that is, but he’s leaning forward and pressing his lips to yours.

His kiss is nothing like his touch; there’s nothing dirty or hurried about it. His nose brushes the crease of yours as he tilts your heads to the side, his free hand moving up to cup your cheek. It’s a sweet kiss that makes no sense when his fingers are currently resting against your panties beneath your skirt.

He seems to have forgotten what he was doing amidst your soft kisses, as you break away from his lips to impatiently bounce and whine. Yunho smirks and begins rubbing his middle finger directly over your clit, applying very little pressure. He kisses you again, and you throw your arms around his neck, trying to push your body into his. His knee prevents you from doing so.

“Nng…what are you doing?” you whine, fisting his sweater. “Wanna…wanna be in your lap.”

Your own admission makes your cheeks flush red, but you don’t care. You’re horny and your crush’s hand is between your thighs.

“Not yet, baby,” he mumbles, stealing another lazy kiss. “Wanna keep you like this. I like how desperate you are.”

“I…I’m not desperate,” you mumble. Yunho bites his lower lip and applies more pressure to your clit, you buck your hips and grip his sleeve. He’s laughing, but you don’t care, aching for more of him.

“Desperate,” he hums, pulling you in for another kiss. You don’t understand his obsession with kissing you; wasn’t he as horny as you were? But you kissed him back anyway, because you’ve had a crush on this guy since your freshman year and even the slut hormones clouding your brain couldn’t block that much out. He was a damn good kisser too, taking the lead and hardly giving you time to breathe.

In contrast to his soft mouth, Yunho’s index finger hooks your soaked panties, tugging them to the side. His finger brushes your bare cunt, though he knowingly silences your moans with a kiss.

“What can I do?” he asks once you finally break apart. You’re unwilling to let him go, however, pulling his lips back to yours..

“Don’t care,” you mumble between kisses, body buzzing with need. “Whatever you want.”

“Can I go in here?”

He prods at the needy hole between your folds and you fucking purr, clutching his sweater and pulling him close with a whine.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he laughs. He waits for you to eagerly nod, then brings his fingers to your mouth and taps your lips. “Open.”

You do as he says and he slips his fingers inside. You nearly moan around them as you instinctively suck and lick his digits; they’re long and thick, two of them practically as big as a few hookups you’ve had in the past. Yunho watches, pupils wide as you act like an obedient doll a little too eager to be fingered in a library at midnight.

When he pulls his fingers out, they’re slick and shiny with your drool, and you see him suck in air. You blush, a little embarrassed at how thorough of a job you’ve done. You expect Yunho to go beneath your skirt, but he slides his wet fingers in his mouth, eyes never leaving yours.

It’s the filthiest thing you’ve ever seen, next to the look of pure bliss in his eyes as he sucks your saliva off of his fingers and replaces it with his own. You decide then that you do not want him to finger you.

“Fuck me,” you blurt out.

You barely register what you’ve said, but you’re damn near ready to jump his bones. Yunho blinks in surprise, obviously not having expected that. He pulls his fingers out of his mouth.

“Really?” he asks. He sounds surprised for reasons you don’t understand, but you nod.

“Yeah,” you say, pulling him in for another kiss. “Want you inside me. All of you.”

“Fuck,” Yunho groans. He grabs your face in his hands and kisses you back, harder. Your hands are shaky as they go for his jeans, but then he freezes like you’ve just slapped him.

“What?” you ask, breaking the kiss. Yunho curses and rubs his face with both hands, tilting back in his chair. “What is it, yu?”

“I don’t…fuck. I don’t have a condom.”

He runs a hand through his hair like this is the biggest mistake of the century. You bite your lower lip—the idea of leaving tonight and not getting fucked by him makes you genuinely want to cry.

“We could…you know?” you mumble, face hot. “I mean, I-I’m clean. Obviously, haven’t had sex in god knows when—”

“No,” Yunho says, shaking his head. “I don’t trust myself.”

“Don’t trust yourself to what?” you frown. Yunho looks at you,

“There’s no way I’m gonna be able to make myself pull out once I’m in you,” he murmurs. “We need a condom.”

You swallow. You really shouldn’t push; but you need to hear more.

“How do you know?” you breathe, licking your lips.

“C’mere.”

“What?”

Yunho reaches over, grabbing your wrist. He pulls you into his lap and you gasp, able to feel the rigid line of his cock beneath you. But he grabs your face and pulls you in for a kiss again.

“I’ve been thinking about you for so long,” he hums, and you mewl in response, grinding down against him. He kisses you again to stifle what was no doubt a moan.

“Y-Yeah?” you manage to squeak out. Yunho nods.

“Yeah. Not gonna be able to pull out if I’m balls deep in that little cunt with you fucking crying for it like this.”

Fuck. You needed him. To be honest, with or without the condom, but if he felt it was necessary.

“Let’s go get one,” you mumble dizzily. “A c-condom. There’s a convenience store down the street.”

Yunho frowns, looking at the clock on the wall.

“The library will be locked, won’t it? Don’t we have to lock up?”

You lean back in his lap, smiling.

“Yes. But I’ve got a key,” you chime.

The moment you stepped into the store, you immediately regretted it and felt all the horny escape you. Not really, but it was embarrassing as hell, and painfully obvious as to what you were doing here. Yunho didn’t seem to mind, his hand tightly clasping yours as he guided you toward the back.

You had a little trouble finding the condoms—it made you inexplicably happy when Yunho suggested asking the clerk as he didn’t know either, even though your answer was a firm NO—but eventually found the rack next to the sex pills and cold sore cream.

Hot.

Yunho squints, and you cross your arms impatiently. You grab a box and shake it.

“It’s not a shoe store, here,” you mumble, pushing the box into his hand. Yunho glances over the label and smirks, tossing it back on the shelf. You want to ask what the hell is so funny when you’re so fucking wet your panties are sticking to your thighs, but then he finally makes a choice and puts the box in your hands. Oh.

Oh.

XXL. Makes sense.

You make him grab a few more things as though that makes the purchase less shameful. When you go to check out, you look everywhere but at the clerk—until he has the audacity to speak to the man holding your hand, very obviously purchasing condoms so the two of you can go fuck in a library.

“Finals week?” the guy says. Yunho slides his card across the counter and squeezes your hand.

“Finals week,” he nods.

“I just realized we could’ve gone to my apartment,” you say, unlocking the library door. Yunho leaned against the wall, unwrapping the candy he’d apparently decided on last minute. A red round sucker. “It’s only a few minutes away.”

You’d been given a key to the library your second year here, as you were a trusted student who often pulled all nighters—and you lived in the shitty part of campus where the power often went out. You were aware this was a total abuse of that power, but you figured if you showed Yunho to Ms. Lin, she’d understand.

“Yeah, well, my fantasies during puberty weren’t at apartments,” Yunho shrugs, holding the door for you. You head inside and find your table, where you drop the bag of your purchased items. Yunho grabs it, immediately fishing out the box.

“Very boy of you,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “Let me guess, the hot librarian offers to help you find your dick? Is that part of the dewey decimal system?”

Yunho smiles. “Can we get back to you whining for me to fuck you? I liked that.”

“I was not—”

Your freakishly tall study partner grabs your wrist, tugging you against him. You swallow and look up, lips parted at the sudden contact.

“Not what?” he asks. You blink, but something is suddenly pushing at your lips. You open dumbly, feeling too obedient as you take whatever he’s putting in your mouth apparently. The taste of artificial cherry makes you grimace.

Yunho backs you up to the table, crowding you against it. He cups your face in his hands and kisses your cheek, thumbs brushing below your ears. You realize you’ve been staring at him wordlessly, sucker in your mouth.

“How’s it taste?” he asks.

“Good,” you mumble. It doesn’t taste good, you hate cherry, but if Jeong Yunho puts something in your mouth, you love it, you decide. Cherry is your new favorite flavor.

“I doubted if they sold gags, so,” he chuckles. “This’ll do.”

You frown, but he takes the stick of the sucker before you can respond.

“Open,” he says. You open.

You see his eyes twinkle, almost like he can’t believe how well you’re listening to him. If only he knew you’d do anything he asked.

Rather than pull it out, Yunho rubs the sucker around your mouth. He coats your tongue with the sticky flavor, then the inside of your cheek. By the time he pulls it out, you don’t realize you’re drooling, mouth open for him.

He pops the sucker in his own mouth, just like his fingers, and you shudder. Then he’s slipping his hands beneath your skirt, pushing your panties down your thighs.

“What are you doing?” you ask softly, more curious than concerned. Yunho takes the sucker out and kisses your cheek, then your lips. You can taste it on his tongue, just like yours.

Something sticky and wet prods at your clit and you gasp, but Yunho wraps an arm around your waist and keeps you from pulling away. You squeak helplessly in shock, caught between mind numbing bliss and disbelief. He’s rubbing the bulbous head of the sucker against your clit.

“Shh…figure it’s too risky to eat you out properly,” he hums in your ear, crushing you to his chest. You squirm, though not out of discomfort.

You have no idea how to react, hands gripping his sweater as he holds you in place. The candy feels warm and sticky, sliding through your cunt juices as he teases you with it.

“I wasn’t going to,” he says, voice strained as though he’s doing all he can to hold back. “But I saw it and…well fuck, baby, if I’m honest, I just wanted to see if you were desperate enough to try and fuck yourself on a piece of candy.”

You whine and bury your head against his shoulder, because you fucking are. You are desperate enough to try, because he slides the candy between your lips and you jolt when it brushes your hole.

“F-Fuck, Yunho,” you gasp, nails digging into fabric. You hear him laugh, and it sounds so fucking cocky, like he knew you’d end up like this, but you can’t bring yourself to care as you work yourself to ruin on a piece of candy.

He slides it beneath the hood of your clit, twisting the stick in his fingers. Your knees buckle, but he’s gripping you tight. He works it like a toy, rubbing up and down, focusing on your clit until you’re nearly there before he moves it again. It didn’t feel this big when it was in your mouth, but you’ve never wanted something inside you so bad.

“Oh my god,” you moan, thighs clamping together. It doesn’t stop his hand, or the candy, the rounded tip pushing against your hole. He starts rolling it again, and you gasp as you feel yourself snapping inside, the hot neediness spilling over the edges. You try to warn him, but only manage to squeak.

“Are you…are you cumming on a fucking lollipop?” Yunho asks, voice filled with awe. You nod.

Your ears ring, your vision blurs, and you feel something pushing against your mouth. It’s Yunho’s hand you realize, but you can’t stop, can’t stop shaking and screaming and there’s something wet on your cheeks.

You haven’t had a proper orgasm in months, maybe even a year, and were it not for Yunho holding you up, you’re pretty damn sure you would’ve fainted.

When you open your eyes, Yunho is laughing quietly and hugging you tight, rubbing your back.

“Fuck, are you okay?” he asks, sounding concerned and impressed. You sniff and nod, using the back of your hand to wipe your cheeks. Yunho cups your face and uses his thumbs to clean you up. You were crying.

“I’m sorry, jesus, I didn’t think it was that bad,” he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. You realize then that the damn sucker is in his mouth.

You whine, yanking him forward until you’re kissing him. It’s clumsy, but he takes the sucker out and tosses it on the table behind you. You begin working desperately at his jeans, and hear him release a cherry flavored groan.

“Still gonna let me fuck you?” he asks, keeping his lips against yours.

“God yes,” you say in a shaky voice. “P-Please.”

“I can do that,” Yunho breathes. He places a large hand on the softness of your belly, gently pushing you back.

Yunho towers over you, one hand moving to cup your thigh and open you up so he can stand between them. The other goes to his jeans, and you find yourself biting your lip and digging your nails into your palms.

XXL?

“Since you look like you’re about to fucking eat me,” Yunho says with a laugh, “why don’t you do it? Hm? When’s the last time you put a condom on?”

You feel yourself blush at having been caught, but sit up to snatch the box near you.

“Asshole,” you mutter, refusing to give him a proper answer.

Your hands are too shaky to open the box, so you end up ripping it down the side, condoms spilling out. You sigh anyway and grab one, slipping the foil packet between your teeth. You move your hands to his jeans, and realize that for the first time…you’re nervous.

Until now your brain had been sex focused; it still was, but your post orgasm clarity made you realize how fucking desperate you looked. You roughly popped open the button of his jeans.

Yunho was so damn tall that his hips were practically level with your face whilst you were on the short table. This meant that, as soon as you’d tugged his boxers down, you suddenly found yourself face to face with the biggest cock you’ve ever seen.

XXL.

For a moment you were too dumbstruck—why did they bother sculpting the soft dicks when the hard ones could look like…this? All veins and smooth skin and a pink mushroom head that looked perfectly designed for…use. You wanted it in your mouth. But he hadn’t technically put his mouth on you, and you were both in a library, and right now you were starting to get a little shaky at the idea of this thing going anywhere near your neglected pussy, so you swallowed your resolve and took the condom from between your teeth.

Yunho watched as you struggled to tear open the packet, biting your lower lip in frustration. You finally got it open, sighing as you placed the rubber at the tip. He grabbed your hands then, and you paused. Shit. Were you doing this wrong?

“We don’t have to do anything,” he mumbles softly, cupping your chin. “You wanna stop right now? We stop. Not trying to ruin the mood, just want you to know it’s okay.”

You shake your head.

“I’m okay, thanks,” you say quietly. “It’s just…fuck, Yunho.”

He laughs, his little ego having returned just a bit, you wanted to roll your eyes and kiss him at the same time. He bites his lower lip and strokes his thumb over yours.

“I’ll be gentle,” he hums. “You can take it for me.”

Fuck. Yes, you absolutely can.

Yunho guides you onto your back, though you settle on your elbows, propped up for him. You watch as he squeezes the rest of the lube from the packet onto his cock, giving a few tugs before nodding at you. You weren’t sure if you were excited or scared, but there were two heartbeats and one was between your legs.

He pushes your legs apart and guides his cock forward. You lick your lips and let your knees fall open, bunching your skirt around your waist, offering yourself to him. Yunho sucks in air through his teeth and curses.

“So fucking pretty,” he hums, supporting his weight on one palm as he brushes his cock against you. You shiver as the cold lube is smeared around your sensitive cunt. “Knew it from the day I saw you freshman year in a skirt just like this one. Thought I was gonna die when you smiled at me.”

“I didn’t know you remembered,” you mumbled. You were so nervous your first day, which wasn’t helped by the hot guy who approached you and asked if you were lost. Apparently you could stop feeling ashamed for having mind fucked him back then.

“Of course I do,” Yunho chuckles, teasing the head of his cock up and down your slit. “So cute, how you blushed when I talked to you. You still do that, you know.”

“Shut up,” you mutter. Yunho laughs, then licks his lips.

“Gonna put it in now. Tell me if it’s too much,” he says. You nod.

The swollen head of his cock catches on your hole, and Yunho uses his weight to lean forward and urge himself inside. It aches a bit, not just from the size but fuck it’s been so long since you’ve had something more than your own fingers in you. Your thoughts go from not so bad to okay damn to holy fuck there’s more? Because he keeps pushing and you keep taking, and you feel every inch of him filling your insides while his body offers more.

“Fuck, baby. Fuck,” Yunho whines, still gripping the base of his cock as he guides it into you. Your head falls back and you curse at nothing; his cock is somehow too big but perfectly sized at the same time and you’ve never felt so god damn full. “Look at you, that needy little cunt is swallowing me babygirl. Keep fucking taking it.”

His words make you dizzy, and you whine when he’s finally fully seated. You feel heavy, pinned to the table, as though you can’t move. You reach down and feel the rigid sides of his cock, shocked to feel just how much is inside you.

“How’s that, beautiful?” Yunho asks. He places both palms on the table, either side of your body, and you tense. If he started thrusting, it would fuck you up.

“Good,” you say, nodding. “Big, but good.”

“Knew you could take it. 'm gonna fuck you now. Stop me if you need to," he murmurs. You can take it.

"I can take it," you nod. He smiles, kissing you once, then twice.

You squeak as Yunho begins fucking you properly, ploughing into you hard and fast, moving with need and instinct rather than reason.

The table shakes with his heavy thrusts, pistoning into you so hard it makes you dizzy. You’re surprised you can take him like this, able to feel every inch of him when he’s seated inside, pressing deliciously on your walls.

Yunho ruts into you like an animal, unfortunately one with a very big cock as he struggles to keep every inch buried inside you. He wasn’t lying about not pulling out, as he refused to do so even when thrusting. You had no room to breathe, no chance for air, as he fucked into you repeatedly while trying to go deeper.

You’re at a loss for words, lips parted, eyes following his expression and movements. He’s desperate in his own way, obviously holding back, though you don’t know from what. You consider encouraging him to let go—until he groans loudly and snaps his hips, stealing the breath from your lungs.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, baby. So fucking…need you to hold still for me and take it,” he breathes. "Hold still. A-Almost done, fuck, keep taking it so good for me."

You do as he asks without question, clinging to his shoulders, nose to nose with Jeong Yunho as he forces his cock as far as it can go in your body and begins to pump a thin condom full of cum that should be you.

Yunho takes a few moments to breathe, arms shaking where he holds himself up on the table. You run a hand through his damp hair, watching as he moans softly and leans into your touch.

“You okay?” you giggle. He nods, tilting his head to kiss your palm.

“Just…You’re so fucking perfect. Want more of you if you’ll let me, wanna make you feel good every day," he says.

You blink at the surprising tenderness of his words, feeling they were more than sex related. You wanted to ask questions, but right now, you were both sticky with sweat and fucked out on a library table that would need to be wiped down with holy water.

You separated, which left you shuddering from the sudden cold emptiness inside of you. Yunho exhaled sharply, waiting a few moments before removing the condom and tying it off.

You both cleaned up and fixed your clothes as best you could—though you stuffed your panties in your bag because the sticky wetness was a little much.

“Do you want to come over?” you ask, making sure your skirt is covering your ass. “You know. To clean up.”

Yunho smiles, which makes you smile, and then you’re blushing and cursing at yourself. He nods and brushes your cheek with his knuckle.

“Sounds good,” he hums. You beam and gesture for him to follow you. Yunho watches as you collect your things with shaky legs, smiling to himself.

You were so damn pretty. Intelligent. He’d noticed right away that you were someone he was going to want.

He grabbed his own bag and walked past the table, pausing as he stepped on something.

The sucker.

You crinkle your nose when you notice it, too.

“Guess we need to throw that away,” you mumble. He nods, bending down and picking it up. He holds it in his hand for a few seconds.

What a good idea it had been.

He slips it into his pocket, for the memories.

Memories like, your name. Your favorite color. That skirt you wore on your first day. Apartment 2B, where you lived. You like the right side of the bed, don’t you? Yunho likes the left side.

The last man you slept with—11 months, 1 week, and 4 days ago.

Yunho hated that one.

You had waffles for breakfast this morning. You usually have oatmeal. You sleep with a nightlight on.

You’re afraid of the dark.

“You coming?” you ask with a shy smile, pausing at the door. Yunho looks up. You didn’t see him slip the sucker in his pocket. You never notice things like that.

“Yeah,” he says. He follows you out the door and waits for you to lock up. Then, without thinking too much of it, he takes your hand. You don’t pull away. Your hand is small compared to his, and he squeezes it. You squeeze back.

You like hot showers.

You sound so pretty when you moan, especially when you think you’re alone.

Your bathroom window is never locked.

You're never alone.

Yunho has a good memory when it comes to you.

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kenmaspuddinghair · 4 months ago

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Honorably discharged disabled Simon part 3

part one part two

this one has a happier ending than the last, but Simon is diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy ( pronunciation) which is a kind of nerve damage. sorry this one took a little long I had to research for this one

exactly 1.0k words :)

Here you are all alone sitting outside a hospital room at almost 3 AM with Simon's “Ghost” mask in your hands while he's in surgery right behind you, Price left a while ago to pick up some food and the other guys in the 141. According to the doctors Simon had peripheral neuropathy from the attack about a month ago, it spiked when he got into the fight with the man back at the butcher shop, for you, he got into a fight that caused this for you. You were trying your hardest not to cry when the doctor walked out “Okay, the surgery was a success, he isn't necessarily cured right now but as long as you take the right precautions and steps, it can get better and may go away over time, it could take months or even years though. He’ll need full-time care and if you're not up for that he’ll need a different nurse. I'll get you a sheet with all the information and potential symptoms” he said, already walking away. As you were going into the room another nurse came out from the room, “Are you his girlfriend, he just woke up and he keeps calling for you, he refuses to let us see his face, but we got what we need done” and before you got a chance to correct her she went off.

“Hey Simon, how are you?” First he removed his hands from over his face then his eyes went over your entire body slowly before he answered “Can’t really feel anythin, can ya put my mask on?” you smiled at him getting closer to pull the mask over his head. “Price will be here with Soap and Gaz, he's bringing some food too” he never answered you, he just kept staring at you with this look in his eyes, you just sat by his side looking over him. You sighed, “Simon listen, I don't know if they told you, but you have peripheral neuropathy, your nerves were damaged during the attack and, when you grabbed that guy it only made things worse” You paused but before you could continue he replied in a voice so soft you didn't know he could make that sound “it’s not your fault y’know, shouldn't attacked him” you smiled but before you could continue Price came in. “I'm assuming she told you about what happened and what's gonna be happening” It was as if something clicked in Simon's mind, he pushed himself up “She can stay right? She'll still be ‘ere to help me? Right? You'll stay to help me won’t ya?” he directed the last part to you, voice breaking and dripping with a mix of worry and horror. You looked him directly in his eyes and replied simply but firmly “Simon, I will stay and take care of you for as long as you let me”

Simon was discharged around 10 AM, the last few hours he spent joking with Soap and Gaz just eating food you knew was not good for them at all, but they had to leave a bit ago so now with the help of Price you got Simon in the car and back home. So far Simon only had a few symptoms, muscle weakness, muscle twitching/shaking, and occasional numbness and/or pain, so far it's stayed confide to Simon’s right under his collarbone, the exact part of his body that was stuck under rubble for hours, according to the doctors this is the best case scenario much worse could have happened to him. The plan was for you to make sure he ate well-rounded meals and didn't over-exert himself and give him a check-up weekly for any worsening symptoms or injuries.

Currently, you were in the kitchen cooking lunch while Simon and Price talked in the living room. “You like her a lot, don't you? And don't try to tell me you don't like her, even the nurse thought she was your girlfriend, you even let her see your face. I didn't even get to see your face for years” Simon just sighed, he couldn't exactly lie it was way too obvious, so he chose the next best thing to do “So what do I do? I don't even know if she's allowed to date me” “Well she's with the military so as long as I, the captain, says it's okay then it's okay, but you know she's not gonna ask you right?” Simon started to panic, was Price confirming his worst fear right now, that you didn't like him at all and wouldn't even give him a chance. “What do ya mean she won't ask me out, like she doesn't like me? Like-” “No no Simon, like she's not going to risk losing her job by asking her patient out, meaning you have to do it. Of course she likes you, are you dense?”

Not only was Price saying that it was okay for you two to date but also encouraging it, but now he had to work up the nerve to actually do it, it would be simply right? He would just ask you out, that's it. “Lunch is ready.” just then Price stood up, grabbing his hat “I'm gonna head out now, make sure he eats” he directed the last part to you before heading to the door “Will do” you called “Oh also Simon, I forgot to mention but I'll need to stay in your room tonight, peripheral neuropathy can be really bad for some people at night so I should be there for you just in case” Price just chucked and smirked and Simon before closing the door behind him. God, who was Simon kidding, this is the hardest thing he's ever had to do, and that's saying a lot, Simon’s done countless terrifying things that would have the average civilian crying and yet Simon was panicking over asking a girl out, gosh, what were you doing to him.

part four

tags- @piconico17 @just-lilita @madsdawson @silversfavfics @enfppuff @solazoro @sirbonesly

#simon ghost riley #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon x reader #ghost x reader #medic!reader

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frgdsecrts · 5 months ago

Text

Suresh had actually eased a bit of Ricardo’s concerns with that one statement. He easily is brought back to his usual self and even a small bit of comfort could be felt. “Young, but so very tired.” A small confession, but one nonetheless. He turns his attention to the other as Suresh answers his questions, nodding along to his words. When he was asked not ask anymore questions he gives a little nod, “As you wish. Don’t worry…I do not plan to tell anyone of what you have told me tonight.” It was best that the two of them perhaps ended this conversation, mostly because he respected Suresh and whatever wishes he might have. “I should go find Mathias. It’s been a pleasure, as always, Suresh.” He is about to turn, but then adds, still in a hushed voice, “From one friend to another, I would reconsider beverages that are not handed to you personally by your own people, those you consider friends, or made in your safe haven. Too many hands in one pot can sometimes bring unpleasant surprises.” His gaze travels down to the flute half filled with champagne, never having been one to partake in the free drinks at events. With that he gives Suresh a small smile, a nod, and then makes his way back towards the crowd.

He felt it. That whisper of jealousy. And Suresh looked at Ricardo curiously. This was not the place for insecurity. But it was something to keep note of, that doubt he could just taste. He did not speak of it. Not now. Not tonight. "No. You are both so young." Suresh meant it kindly. Their youth was not their fault either. Everyone had to start somewhere and both Mathias and Ricardo had to carry so much on their shoulders. An impossible weight to bare. "I told him the truth. That his priest doesn't hate him. And that he could have let him die but he didn't. As for the question..." Suresh turned his gold eyes to look at Ric. "I said that happiness is a chemical reaction, a brief state of contentment that we enjoy. And that while I think god’s feel pleasure. I don't think they feel happiness." He lifted his finger to his own lips. "Ricardo. Please don't ask me any more questions."

#threads: ricardo & suresh #ricardo threads.#event: winter solstice #( mobile )#we can end it here <3 or with your reply next lovey

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universefcb · 1 month ago

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can u do a lando x reader where she gets along well this his family and he cant help admire her and think about marriage and stuff like that. thank youu <3

WHAT IF IT WAS 4EVER?,LANDO NORRIS.

→ Summary: You went to spend a lazy Sunday at his parents' house with his family.

→ Warning: Mention of Reader. Fluff. Romance.

→ Author's note: Please make me more requests from him! I love writing about him.

And sorry if there are mistakes, English is not my language.I hope this is what you asked for!

The Norris house smelled of lavender, fresh coffee, and baking banana bread. It was one of those lazy, overcast Sundays when everyone wore sweatshirts and spoke softly so as not to break the spell of comfortable silence.

Lando sat on the edge of the kitchen table, his long legs stretched out in front of him, watching a scene that had been repeating itself for a few weeks, but it seemed like the kind of routine he wanted to have forever.

She.

In the kitchen with her mother, laughing easily as she cut fruit, grabbed too many cups at once, and stole spoonfuls of raw cake batter. She got along so well with everyone—as if she had grown up there, as if she already knew the exact places for the cutlery, the favorite smell of his sister's tea, his father's silly jokes.

“Do you think she’ll accept?” Flo’s quiet voice brought him back to reality. She was standing next to him, drinking a cappuccino.

“Accept what?”

“You.” Flo raised an eyebrow. “With that silly look on your face, you’re going to propose to her tomorrow.”

Lando let out a muffled laugh, but inside… she was right.

He looked again.

She wasn’t just beautiful. She was warm, she was light. She was “stay in bed for five more minutes”; she was the kind of hug that could calm any storm. She had a way of smiling that made people stop talking just to keep looking.

And the scariest thing?

She liked his family. She really did. It wasn't an effort, it wasn't out of politeness. It was genuine.

When his mother mentioned the old dress from her youth, she asked to see it. When his father mentioned old cars, she asked. When Cisca teased Lando, she laughed knowingly. Everything with her was natural. Nothing forced.

Later, when lunch was over and everyone was sprawled on the couch with dessert plates on their laps, she laid her head on Lando's shoulder and began to play with his fingers.

“Your family is wonderful,” she said softly, so that only he could hear.

Lando swallowed hard. His heart was beating faster than on a starting grid.

“You are wonderful,” he replied.

She smiled against his skin. But then she straightened up, sitting back down.

“You seem strange. Are you okay?”

“Okay.” He ran a hand over his face. “I’m just… trying to figure out how I ended up here. On this couch. With you. Feeling like… this is it.”

“What is this?”

He looked into her eyes, and even though he was afraid of appearing too intense, he didn't hold back.

“That’s it. Me, you, my family. The sound of the rain outside. You making tea for my mother, playing with my sister. Me wanting time to stop. That’s it.”

She didn't say anything for a few seconds. But she took his hand and squeezed it tightly.

“I feel it too. And if it comforts you, it also scares you a little.”

Lando smiled, a shy smile, different from the ones he gave to photographers or on podiums. It was that smile that only she knew. The real one.

“It’s not fear of failure,” he confessed. “It’s fear of not being enough. You…you are so many things.”

She laughed, looking at him with that sparkle in her eyes that made everything seem easy.

“So we do it together. And you’ll see: what you take from life... is this.”

When everyone went to sleep and only the two of them were left in the room with the movie paused and the lights dimmed, she dozed off with her legs over his. Lando didn't have the heart to wake her up. He stayed there, running his hand through her hair, watching her serene and sleepy expression.

And it was in that moment — simple, calm, without anything extraordinary — that he knew for sure.

It wasn't the highest podium he wanted to reach.

It was her.

That was it.

It was all that.

And if he ever had the courage, he would tell her that he thought about asking for her hand right there, with her hair spread out on his lap and the muffled sound of the rain through the window.

But for now, Lando was content to kiss her forehead and promise, with all his heart:

“I will make you happy. Every Sunday. Forever, if you let me.”

Taglist: @paucubarsisimp @nngkay @meganesanchez @htpssgavi @merinottt @luvvpedri @moonvr @joaosnovia @httpsdana @ilovebarcaaaa @p4uul0vr @pedricando @barcapix @owala6789

#universefcb #lando norris x you #lando norris x oc #lando norris x y/n #lando norris x reader #lando norris x oscar piastri #lando x reader #lando norris #f1 x you #f1 x reader #f1 imagine #f1 fic #fórmula 1 #f1 fanfic #f1 x female reader #f1 x y/n #f1 x oc #my fanfiction

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nereidprinc3ss · 1 year ago

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do you believe me now? | 3

in which spencer reid spends a rainy day teaching inexperienced fem!reader how to touch him. of course, her efforts don't go unrecognized, much less unrewarded

series masterlist

18+ (smut) warnings: inexperienced reader, softdom!spencer, sub reader, oral m receiving, reader swallows lol, a truly sickening amount of praise, like really, you JOKINGLY refer to each other as dirty sluts, r has longish hair, spit mentioned once, thigh riding (moans loudly), its filthy idk what to tell you, i feel like i've crossed the desert on foot i don't even know what else is in here, your honor they're in love, i take you to dinner first, this part is stupidly long a/n: had a fucking field day the three separate times i had to rewrite this el oh el... but think i like how it turned out?! anyway, if u like this PLS lmk bc writing it took a small piece of my soul, and yes there will be a part four!! take care of yourselves!! i love you!!!

You give Spencer half a minute or so before knocking on his door for a second time.

It’s miserable outside, and though the hallway you’re standing in now isn’t terribly cold, you’d much prefer to be in Spencer’s apartment, where it will be the same toasty 68.5 degrees as always. Not that the heating will magically dry you. And not that you’ll be there for long, if the date you’d scheduled last week goes on as planned.

You’re getting worried, about to knock for a third time when the locks finally click and the door opens to reveal a disheveled Spencer Reid—not at all looking ready for a date. You take in his ensemble; blue checked pajama pants, FBI Academy crewneck, the usual questionably paired socks. He’s rubbing his droopy eyes, which slowly widen as he notices your attire.

“Shit, I’m sorry, our date! I mean—you look really nice. I look… like this. Why don’t you come in while I get ready to go?”

He holds the door open a little wider and you step through, relishing in the familiar warmth as you pull your hood down and excess water droplets spatter on the ground.

“When did you get in?” you ask, hanging your raincoat up on a hook. You know he’d wrapped up a case yesterday evening, but you’d gone to sleep before the team left Cincinnati.

Spencer pauses in the middle of the room, staring at the antique flooring like he forgot what he was doing.

“Uh… four hours ago.”

“Wh—four hours? Spencer, you must be exhausted.”

He laughs awkwardly, running a tired hand over his face.

“I mean… I’ve definitely felt better.”

You kick your soaked shoes off and cross the room until you’re toe to toe with him. Immediately his hands settle on your waist and yours find his arms. His eyes are kind, and he’s clearly pleased by your presence despite his lack of energy.

“The weather’s terrible, anyway. Let’s just go out another day.”

His features have softened and you can see how tired he truly is—not just in his bleary eyes, but the way his fingers grasp weakly to you, the way his head bows slightly. It seems bone-deep.

“But I haven’t seen you in a week. I don’t want you to go home.”

Your lips twist. A clap of thunder rolls in the distance and the rain starts coming down even harder against the windowpanes.

“We could hang out here. We can take a nap!”

Spencer sighs—half resignation, half disappointment.

“But we made such good plans,” he laments.

You kiss his cheek.

“Plans that can be rescheduled. The bookstore will still be there next weekend.”

It takes him a moment to settle into the idea, but you watch the exhaustion win.

“Okay. But no nap. I want to be awake for you. Coffee?”

You nod enthusiastically, beaming at the prospect of getting to spend the day doing nothing with him. Spencer mirrors your grin, before pressing a kiss to your head.

“You’re so cute.” Heat creeps into your cheeks and you can’t think of a satisfactory reply, but in the end you don’t need to, as he tugs gently on your hands. “C’mon. Tell me what mug you want.”

The kitchen counter bites into your palms as you lean with your back to it, watching Spencer putter all around the kitchen as he works on the coffee. It makes you tired just to watch.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take a nap? Caffeine isn’t a substitute for sleep, you know.”

“I do know,” he agrees, measuring coffee grounds. “But other than last night, I actually slept fairly well this week.”

“You seem exhausted.”

“I… am tired in lots of ways. Not all of which can be resolved with more sleep.” he admits.

Your heart drops ever so slightly at the way his voice weakens as he looks through the fridge. Sometimes you remember there are still things you don’t know about him—sides you haven’t met. His work side is one of them, and it more than a little intimidates you.

“Bad case?” you ask, voice quiet and crackling with nervous energy.

Spencer nods, approaching and setting a carton of milk on the counter behind you—caging you in with his arms in the process. It’s hard to find the words when he’s this close, but you manage to stumble through them.

“Do… do you wanna talk about it?”

Spencer hums, tilting his head before gently saying, “not right now. But thank you for offering, lovely.”

“Okay, well—if you change your mind… if there’s anything I can do to make you feel better…”

Finally he stops with the teasing—the unabashed staring at your lips, the faux-attentive nods—and drops his head to your level to kiss you properly. It’s obviously an attempt to get you to shut up, you’re not dumb enough so as to miss that—but you don’t really care why he’s doing it so long as he does it at all.

“I feel pretty great right now, actually,” he murmurs against your lips, a hint of a smile coloring his words. “Do you want sugar in yours?”

“Um…”

Your eyes dart helplessly between his as he pulls away and you struggle to un-fluster yourself enough to answer his simple question. Spencer seems to delight in this. The longer it takes you, the bigger his perfect smile gets.

“You took too long. You’re getting sugar.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?” you plead later on the couch, for the third or fourth time, setting your mostly-empty mug on the coffee table.

His eyebrows raise.

“I’m sure, honey.”

“But I want to help,” you pout, pulling your knees into your chest. Spencer regards you for a moment from the other end of the couch, before beckoning you closer wordlessly.

“You are helping,” he assures you, gently grabbing your wrist as you crawl into his lap. He rubs soothing circles into the delicate skin with his thumb. “You being here and being you is plenty.”

It’s the closest you’ve been to him since before he left, and while you’ve all but given up on asking him to sleep with you, it doesn’t mean you don’t think about it multiple times per day. It’s especially difficult to keep your thoughts PG when you haven’t seen him in a week, and his hair is all messy, and he’s got his pajamas on, and you’re in his lap, and he’s looking at you like that.

“What are you thinking about?” Spencer murmurs, likely concerned by your lack of response and the glazed-over look in your eyes. You reanimate, averting your gaze to the spot on your thigh he’s now rubbing absentmindedly.

“Nothing. I just missed you.”

“I missed you a lot, too.” You don’t even have to look up to know that his brows have twisted into a pleasant sort of bemusement, like you are a particularly complex puzzle—you can hear it as he continues speaking. “I’m still not used to having something external take up so much of my attention while I’m trying to do my job. I’ve never had that before. Not something good, anyway. It’s like every time I leave, I’m thinking about you more than the time before. And I was already thinking about you a lot.”

The corner of your mouth twitches as he rambles.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really,” he chuckles. “You prove to be incredibly distracting even when you’re hundreds of miles away. Do you know how many nights I almost called you before realizing it was one in the morning?”

A slow smile spreads over your face.

“Oh? Whatever could you have been calling about at one in the morning?”

You’re teasing him, and it works. He blushes adorably.

“Um… probably exactly what you’d expect. In hindsight I think it’s best that I refrained.”

“What?” You grin, incredulous, forgetting your shyness and leaning closer. “You totally should’ve. I’ve never had phone sex before. I would’ve done it.”

“No, you wouldn’t!” Spencer laughs. “It would have just been me talking to myself with you on the other line. I don’t think phone sex is really up your alley.”

“Shut up,” you laugh as your lips meet. He smiles into the kiss. Before you get too lost in it, you pull away, leaning back when he tries to follow you. “I think you’re over-complicating it. It’s just dirty talk, right? I can totally do that. It’s just, like… blah blah blah, dirty slut, something something…”

You trail off as he gives you a look. Poker faced—aside from the slightly narrowed eyes sparkling with humor.

“You want me to refer to you as a dirty slut?”

Maintaining eye contact is an uphill battle—you crack in a matter of seconds, resting your forehead against his and closing your eyes stubbornly.

“No. For all you know I want to call you a dirty slut.”

It’s ridiculous, but he recognizes the bravado for what it is, still smiling slightly as he rubs your hips.

“Right. I apologize for assuming. But just for future reference, I don’t want to be called that, and I don’t think I’d be comfortable calling you that, either.”

“But you can call me other stuff,” you remind your boyfriend, pulling back and still not looking at him.

“Yeah? Like what?”

And just like that, you’re shy again.

“I don’t know… nice things. I like when you’re nice.”

“I like being nice to you.” It’s so sincere-sounding that you meet his gaze, examining his face. His eyes are clear and soft on you, the only source of warm light on such a grey day, as his hands keep running slow lines over your sides. “Kiss?”

And how could you ever deny him anything?

As has happened before, the kiss starts out innocent enough. And it’s not that it gets particularly heated, or anything—it’s just that it doesn’t end, and after a few moments your mouth slips open and so does his and that’swhat gets both of you worked up over a period of minutes. Pressure and heat that you’re becoming accustomed to build between your legs, and you don’t even notice that you’ve begun rocking back and forth in his lap until Spencer is attempting to still your hips with patient but assertive hands.

“Honey, that’s—slow down, sweetheart.”

Finally he gets a grip on you and you realize as soon as you stop moving that there had been friction occurring—and you’re pretty damn sure you know what you were grinding against.

Your whole body feels hot with arousal and embarrassment.

“Oh my god—I’m sorry,” you mumble, moving your hands from his shoulders to cover your face. “That was an accident, I—”

“It’s fine,” Spencer assures you, squeezing your waist gently. “I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing because I know we haven’t… gotten there, yet.”

A moment passes—your hands fall to the FBI stitching across his chest, studying the letters without really seeing them. You haven’t gotten there yet… but why not? Why haven’t you touched him, or even seen him? You think back to the few times he’s touched you and realize that you had been too busy with either your own insecurities or pleasure to genuinely consider how it might be affecting him. He says your name gently, drawing your attention.

“You okay?”

You nod haltingly, brow furrowed as you think.

“I—yeah. I was just realizing that I haven’t, like… touched you, yet.”

It’s silent for another long second, and you glance up, to where he’s studying you with a dissonant kind of relaxed scrutiny—a knowing confidence that probably comes with a lot more experience than you have.

“Do you want to?”

Woah.

Usually you have to beg on hands and knees and prepare a slideshow presentation before he agrees to doing anything sexual in nature. He’s never so overtly invited or initiated it before. Not that you’re complaining by any stretch of the imagination.

You nod shyly, still fiddling with the fabric of his shirt.

“If you want to, I can show you how. But it’s also absolutely okay if you don’t.”

Show you how?

Your brain is melting into sludge at the idea.

“I do,” you admit, meeting his gaze again. It’s kind, and you know he really wouldn’t be upset if you said no—but now that you’ve thought about it, you feel deeply compelled to try.

“Okay. Come here, first.” You lean forward expectantly, eyes fluttering shut as his hand finds the back of your neck and he pulls you into another soft kiss. By the time your lips separate again, your head is spinning. “We’re just trying something, okay? You’re allowed to stop whenever you feel like it. Really low stakes. Got it?”

You nod, still close enough that your noses brush as you do.

“Got it.”

He presses one more chaste kiss to your lips before pulling away and leaning back into the couch.

“Scoot back a little, angel.”

Wordlessly you do so, heart pounding with nervous excitement as he lifts his hips and slides his pajama pants down just enough to where he can comfortably pull himself out, and—

Your breath catches.

Now, you may be about as virginal as they come, but you weren’t born yesterday. You’ve seen porn, you’ve received unsolicited nudes—it is the 21st century. Yet never before have you thought to yourself; wow, that dick is the pinnacle of beauty. Perfect. Breathtaking. But there’s just no other way to describe him.

So that’s what hits you first—how unexpectedly pretty it is.

The size sinks in a quick second later.

You can’t tell with perfect accuracy how many inches he is, but you’re pretty damn sure he’s big. That’s meant to fit inside of you?

No, no—that’s a consideration for another day. Right now you need to stop staring like an idiot. You glance up at his face, and he’s sporting a cocky little half-smile which lets you know you’ve been caught. Motherfucker he’s so hot. It’s unnerving.

“Do you have something you’d like to say?” he asks politely, quite obviously containing his amusement. But you can’t summon a sufficiently sarcastic response.

Your voice comes so soft when you reply, “you’re pretty.”

Spencer melts, eyes impossibly softening.

“Pretty?” His smile is earnest now. He strokes your cheek and you can’t not lean into his touch.

“Mhm. I want to, um…” your lips twist to the side as you look back down, finding he’s not gotten less intimidating since you last checked. “But what if I’m bad at it?” you whisper. He chuckles, brushing hair over your shoulder.

“It’s kind of a hard thing to be bad at. And I’m gonna help you, okay?”

It’s the honesty with which he speaks to you that makes you feel so safe. There are no hidden intentions or words that seem to mean one thing but really mean another. Spencer wants you as a person more than he wants you as a body and that’s been clear since the first time he touched you. You take a deep breath.

“Okay. What do I do?”

“First, you’re gonna spit in your hand.”

You look up, alarmed.

“You want me to intentionally get my spit on you? Is that not your worst nightmare?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not super worried about yours,” he teases. “But if you’d prefer, I can spit in your hand.”

“Actually, mine is fine,” you laugh nervously.

Hesitantly, you do as instructed, even though it seems frankly bizarre.

“Good. Now just wrap your hand around it, like this.” His voice is quiet, focused as he guides your hand downward. Your heart rate ticks up again as he encourages you to wrap your hand around the base of his cock. He feels much warmer than you’d expected—his skin is silken beneath your touch but he’s undeniably hard and that sort of eliminates any sense of him being fragile from the equation.

“It’s gonna be less sensitive down here—and then, up here—” he slides your hand back up, covering your thumb with his own and swiping it just below the head of his cock on the underside. He hisses and you look up in fascination. “That’s the most sensitive part.”

Without further instruction, you do it again, keeping your touch light and watching his face for a reaction. His drawn brows twitch, furrowing deeper for a second, and his lips part. A heavy exhalation passes between them and quickly builds into a breathy laugh.

“What?” you murmur, over-eager to please and very nervous to do something wrong.

“Nothing. Just feels good, that’s all.”

“Don’t laugh,” you pout. Of course that makes him laugh again, and he leans forward to kiss your head.

“I’m laughing at myself, angel. I’m a grown man fighting for my life from a handjob that you’ve barely started. I knew it would be different with you but I didn’t realize it would be this different.”

Heat rises in your cheeks and you look away.

“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”

“I’m not lying,” he urges, grabbing your free hand and encouraging you to uncurl your fingers. His thumb traces circles in your open palm, before capturing your entire hand in his. “Do you feel how much softer your hand is than mine?”

You frown, attempting to feel whatever it is that he’s pointing out. Despite the fact that you think he has very nice hands, you realize he’s right. By no means would you say that they’re rough, but you can tell where his gun normally sits in his hands, where his fountain pen rubs against his fingers. “Yeah.”

“Yeah. Anything you do is going to be perfect because it’s you.”

Spencer drops his hand to your leg, rubbing it soothingly. The other moves to cover yours—the one wrapped around him.

“You’re gonna help me, right?” you ask quietly. Some adventurous part of you is very excited about this as an experiment—fascinated by the reactions you’ve already gotten from him and eager to push it.

“I am. Little bit tighter, honey. I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”

You do as you’re told, and he’s murmuring more praise—slowly encouraging you to begin moving your hand with his own. A shaky exhale catches your attention, drawing your gaze to his face. His eyes are, of course, cast downward, but his expression is hypnotizing. Those lips remain slightly parted, and suddenly you wonder if he makes noises like you do. In that moment it becomes your life’s mission to find out.

For a while you continue letting his hand guide your movements, but he keeps things so slow for your sake that you’re getting impatient. You forgo his direction, picking up the pace but trying to keep the rhythm he’d instilled in the motion. His hand slackens around yours.

“Fuck,” he hisses to himself. The hand on your thigh rubs achingly deeper into the flesh. “Angel, what are you doing?”

“I want it to feel good.” Suddenly shy again, you slow down. His hips stutter, which you think may be a sign that it was working. “Am I—was that bad?” Spencer looses a breath, looking almost… frustrated?

“No, I’m just—I’m weirdly close to coming.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Well,” he mutters, “not usually. Mostly it’s embarrassing.”

You giggle, a release of some tension, and begin pumping your hand again. His breath hitches and he finally looks up at you, meeting your eyes with his own lust-glazed ones. Heat pools deep between your legs.

“I want you to come,” you admit quietly as you twist your wrist, brushing that spot underneath the head of his cock again. His jaw literally drops, and a look that is part confusion, part pleasure, twists his features. You see the surprise sparkling in his eyes and it only spurs you to keep talking. “I’ve never seen how you look when you do, but I’ve imagined it. I bet you look so pretty when you come, Spencer. ‘Nd then I would know that I can make you feel good, too.”

“You… you are making me feel good,” he assures you. The way his brow furrows and his lips are parted give you a feeling that’s entirely new. Normally, you’re the one falling apart under his touch—but when it’s the other way around there’s a whole new kind of pleasure in it for you. You feel kind of powerful. Maybe even close to confident.

“Really? I’m not this quiet when you touch me.”

“I’ve ha—ah—had more practice not making noise.”

“But why?” you implore, ignoring the fact that he’s slept with other women and enjoyed the sounds they made, and opting to brush your thumb across that extra sensitive part he definitely shouldn’t have told you about. His hips buck up and he hisses, which is immensely gratifying to you.

“Because I like to listen.”

“What if I do, too?”

In a moment of divine inspiration , you cover the tip of his cock with your hand, swirling beads of pre-come over your palm. Spencer moans and his hips jut up into your grip. It’s a beautiful sound, just as you’d hoped.

“Jesus, fuck.”

You understand why he seems to enjoy touching you so much. It’s so rewarding to watch as his breathing picks up and pleasure contorts his face—to watch him get messier and messier and lose his composure a bit more with each stroke of your hand. It’s so simple but Spencer looks at you like you’re exercising some arcane deviant power over him and he’s not sure he should be enjoying it as much as he is.

Distantly you think about how it felt when he had his hands on you—and then, in clearer focus, how it felt when he went down on you. Both were perfect, but something about his lips so gentle on the most intimate, vulnerable part of you had felt like ascension. Maybe it was the emotional component, or maybe it just felt fucking good. Regardless, it seems an irresistible thought.

You keep stroking him until his head is lolling on the back of the couch as he groans.

“Spencer?”

“Yeah, baby?”

He sounds so destroyed it makes you clench around nothing. Without any indication that you’re going to do so, you stop touching him, and the speed with which he lifts his head again is almost comical. Immediately, while he’s utterly defenseless and desperate, you ask, “can I use my mouth?”

His eyes widen, and then shut, as he processes your request with a tiny shake of his head—probably trying to clear the haze of pleasure from his mind before he answers.

“Honey,” he rasps eventually, opening his eyes and smoothing a hand over your hair, “you don’t have to do that just because I do. That’s not why I do it.”

“But I want to,” you murmur, shy and mildly embarrassed by what feels almost like a soft rejection. “I don’t think I could do anything, like, mind-blowing, but… I want to try.”

Your face is hot by the end of the sentence, and you can’t meet Spencer’s eyes as his fingers twitch over your hip. A quiet moment passes—but it’s short-lived.

“Okay. Go ahead, baby.”

Wide eyes dart up to his.

“Really?”

Spencer smiles fondly, brushing an invisible speck from your cheek.

“I don’t think I’m capable of turning that offer down. Not when it’s you.”

“Okay—um, should I just—” Spencer watches on, finding your sudden enthusiasm completely adorable as you scoot off of his lap and gingerly kneel in front of him. Your eyes are big and glassy as you look up at him, hands set politely on his knees. You squint suspiciously, eyes darting between his face and his cock, now about as hard as it’s ever been due to your toying. He knows it’s probably intimidating for a girl who has never seen one in real life, and he feels kind of bad about it. You do terrible, wonderful things to him that he doesn’t understand. “Wow. So... it looks bigger from down here.”

“Please don’t try to choke yourself,” he instructs hurriedly, leaning forward slightly. “I really don’t need you to do that. It’s fine if you can’t fit it all, I just—” he exhales shakily. Spencer is most definitely strong-willed but he can’t pretend like the sight of you on your knees for him, inches from his aching cock for the first time isn’t impacting his cognition. Most importantly he doesn’t want to make you feel pressured. He’s trying to not let how badly he wants this show in case you change your mind.

Spencer watches as you psych yourself out—wilting like a thirsty flower.

“But what if I’m bad at this?” you mumble, hands curling into loose fists atop his legs. Spencer pushes your hair back, tucking it behind your ears.

“What’s your worst case scenario?” he asks. Your answer is immediate.

“That I’m so bad you make me stop halfway through.”

Spencer can’t help but laugh again.

“I’m sorry—I just… honey, you are really underestimating how profound your effect is on me. I just almost came from a minute long handjob. I can assure you that I won’t make you stop halfway through because I’d rather not have your mouth on me. That is… that’s just not going to happen.”

You lean your cheek against his thigh. He might actually pass away.

“Will you tell me if I’m doing something wrong?”

“Honestly, as long as you don’t bite, you’re in the clear.”

Your eyes squeeze shut and your lips pull into an embarrassed little smile.

“Great. Thank you for that invaluable advice.”

“Of course,” he smiles. It fades slowly as you take a deep breath and look up at him, obviously steeling yourself, before leaning forward and taking him in your hand again. He watches with bated breath, repeating no sudden movements to himself over and over as your hand moves up and down a few more times and your head lowers.

You delicately, so lightly trace your tongue from the base of his swollen cock to just underneath the leaking tip, mapping a vein, and his hips buck as you take him into your mouth experimentally. Only the first few inches fit but the sight of your lips wrapped around him, the way you’re looking at him is so unbelievably erotic Spencer knows he won’t last very long.

From a purely technical perspective—he knows he’s gotten objectively better head. Still, something about the way you’re so delicate with him, so soft and timid in the way you lick and kiss and take him into your mouth has him fighting not to come already. Maybe it’s wrong, but knowing that he’s watching you do this for the first time in your life is obscenely arousing. The idea that you’ve never trusted another person this much; that you’re letting him be the one to help you navigate something as new and as important as sexuality. The more he thinks about it, though, the more he realizes: it’s not your inexperience that turns him on. It’s just you. Everything you do is so undeniably you—he recognizes your mannerisms in every tiny motion, in every glance, and it’s killing him. You’re like a dream as you look up at him with big nervous eyes, (no, really, he has had this dream) and he remembers he wants to be reassuring you—not pondering life and human connection.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, groaning and hips twitching as your cheeks hollow, wrapping his achingly hard cock in soft gentle warmth so sweetly it feels taboo. “So good, baby. So gorgeous like this.”

You whine around him, receptive as always to his obsequious praise, and he notices the way your hips wiggle as you seek friction. God, you must like this a lot. Spencer gathers your hair into a makeshift ponytail, resting his hand on your head as you begin to bob it. That, he wasn’t prepared for. He’d have been satisfied with just kitten-licks and suckling but he won’t complain about this. It’s slow, and so intentional as you keep watching him for feedback cues. Ever his observant girl, you’re constantly paying attention. Aware of his reactions. He needs to keep telling you you’re good or else you’ll assume you’re terrible.

“Over-achiever,” he whispers through a little smile as you down even more of him.

Spencer is for the most part a kind and gentle person. For better or worse he is also a man, and he can’t help but fantasize about getting you all teary and drooly as he holds your mouth open and sees how much of his cock he can push down your throat. But again—kind. Gentle. So when you get a little over-zealous, attempting to sacrifice your comfort for his pleasure, he pulls your head back slightly. “That’s far enough, angel. That’s—fuck. God, you’re good at this.” The words are thoughtless, muttered to himself more than you as he watches through a haze while you look up at him with glassy, half-lidded eyes, slipping him in and out of your warm mouth, a little faster now as you gain confidence.

You whine desperately around him, like you’re the one nearing orgasm and not him. The sound of your pleasure as you suck his cock makes him dizzy. His hips buck, pressing him a little deeper into your mouth. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he exhales. “Slow down, baby. I’m—” a louder moan from him like you’ve never heard as he thrusts shallowly turns you on profoundly. He’s so much more vocal than you’d have imagined—sonically and verbally. He breathes out a quick, “fuck, fuck, fuck,” pulling your hair slightly, and you’ve never wanted to touch yourself more but you know you can’t focus on both. Instead you work on making him come—you can worry about you later. He says your name, with an authoritative edge to his tone that makes you throb. “Honey, if you don’t stop, I’m gonna come—”

You swirl your tongue around the top of him like candy and he’s done for. Spencer tries to pull out, which only results in cum both in your mouth and on your face. The orgasm is his strongest in recent memory, and he grunts, watching your lips part and a little squeak escape as he comes all over your face—but you keep stroking him all the while. Once he’s 90% sure it’s over, he falls against the back of the couch, breathing heavily and looking down at you through hazy eyes. Oh, he’s going to feel terrible about this in a few seconds—but right now you look fucking perfect. Your eyes are wide, nervous as his essence drips over your face and down your neck—he groans when you swallow cautiously, averting his eyes to the ceiling lest he do another thing he regrets.

“Baby, I am so sorry,” he mutters, forcibly clearing the haze of orgasm from his mind and sitting up, fixing his pants and looking around before locating the box of tissues on the side table. “I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” You look up at him attentively as he wipes himself from your face as gently as he can.

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t ask you first. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Spencer guides your head around by your chin, wiping your jaw and lips.

“It’s okay, Spence, I—”

“No, it’s not,” he cuts you off, trying to at least turn his guilt into a learning experience for you. He’s not deluded enough to think someone like you will stay with someone like him forever, because sometimes he does things like that, and he’s reminded that there are certainly people out there more deserving of you. At the very least he can clarify that nobody should ever do what he just did to you. “It’s really not nice to do that to someone.”

“Do you care what I think at all?”

Spencer freezes, finally forcing himself to look you in the eye. Despite the fact that he’s mad at himself, he’s sure it’s coming across as being directed at you. And he knows you’re sensitive, especially about this kind of thing.

“Of course, I do, baby. I’m sorry. Do you want to come back up here with me and tell me what you’re thinking?” he murmurs, cupping your jaw. Hesitantly you nod. The tissues end up on the table—which he will be thoroughlywiping down later—before you crawl back into his lap from the floor. Spencer helps you settle against him, hoping he hasn’t messed this up irreversibly. He keeps his voice quiet as he rubs your leg. “What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say,” you begin, “that it’s fine, because you’ll remember to ask next time. And because… I kind of liked it. I like when—when you do stuff like that.”

It’s a miracle he can hear you with the way your voice drops into an almost-whisper and you’re hiding against his shirt.

“Like what?” he murmurs. Although he’s not sure he’ll be able to handle the answer.

“Like… I don’t know. Like you can do whatever you want to me. Like I’m literally yours.” Each word makes you cringe further, but Spencer has to try hard to maintain a cool facade as he processes this. If he’s going to try and be chivalrous, you’ll have to move away from this topic—this revelation—immediately. Thankfully, you seem eager to move on. “So… how did I do?”

He almost laughs. It seems exceedingly obvious how you did, but as per usual, you require verbal reassurance.

“That was really good, baby. You did well.”

You blossom.

“Really?”

“I wouldn’t lie.”

“Was I the best girl out of all of the other girls?”

I wasn’t in love with any of the other girls.

Just barely, he manages to stop himself from saying it, pinwheeling his arms on the edge of a very steep verbal cliff. The realization that he’s been in love with you for a while hits him like a truck. But he can’t tell you that right now. He should wait until you’re less vulnerable.

Fuck.

He really wants to tell you right now.

“Actually—don’t answer that,” you decide, while all of this happens in his head in less than a few seconds. “I want to go back to pretending I’m the only girl you’ve ever seen in your life.”

“You’re the only one that matters,” he offers, relieved to express at least some portion of the much bigger truth. Then he frowns. “Not that the other women I’ve met don’t lead important lives. I actually know a lot of incredibly influential and intelligent people who are women. I have deep respect for all of them. Am I helping or making it worse?” he rambles. You giggle. He has his answer. “What about you? How do you feel?” he asks after a moment, tenderly, lowly, stroking your hair as you lean against his chest.

It takes you a moment to deliberate, fiddling with the fabric of his shirt.

“I feel good. I, um… liked it a lot more than I would have thought.”

“Well, that’s good. Much better than if you had hated every second of it.”

You hum in agreement, and he waits for you to say whatever you’re holding back. It comes sooner than he’d have anticipated.

“I feel bad about the times before. How did you just… go to sleep after? Were you not, like—insanely turned on? Not that I’m, like, irresistibly sexy, or whatever—you know what I mean.”

Spencer smiles because he knows you can’t see him.

“I wasn’t doing it to pressure you into feeling obligated to reciprocate, I guess. My line of reasoning was that it would be less intimidating if I didn’t even present it as an option until you wanted to try.”

“Oh.”

Spencer thinks he sees where this is going.

“Why?” he asks, leaning back and encouraging you to look at him. “Are you insanely turned on?”

“Wh—that’s—I didn’t say that!”

Spencer can feel how warm your cheeks are as he presses his lips to the side of your face.

“You can tell me if you are,” he murmurs, all smiley as he moves to kiss your lips. “If you want something, you need to ask for it. I’m not a mind reader.”

“Yes you are,” you grumble. “That’s literally what behavioral analysis is.”

Not quite true, but surprisingly, he doesn’t feel the need to explain to you the semantics of what he does for work right now.

“What got you all excited?”

“You know what,” you mumble, trying to look away again. Spencer doesn’t allow it this time, gently grabbing your jaw.

“Yes, I do. But I want you to tell me. If you want me to make you feel good, this is how you’re going to convince me that you deserve it.”

You whine wordlessly, looking at him with those big, lust-glazed eyes.

“You wanted me to teach you how to use your words, right? This is it. I’m giving you an opportunity. If you don’t want to, that’s okay. Maybe we can take a nap, like you said earlier.”

“No! I liked—um, I liked all of it. I didn’t know if I would, because I was really nervous. But when I first—you know—and you got all quiet… it was like you couldn’t even talk for a minute. I was kind of proud of that. Because normally nobody can ever get you to stop talking.” Spencer narrows his eyes incredulously, a small smile tugging at his lips. But he doesn’t interrupt—not when it seems you’re finally starting to get more confident in your words. “And I really liked the noises you made. I think that was my favorite part. I liked when you pulled my hair back, and how you spoke to me. And when… when you got me messy and I had to swallow it. I really liked how it felt because I couldn’t think of anything else, just making you feel good. I really wanted to… make you proud, I guess. Is that weird?”

Spencer shakes his head no, a fond smile on his face when your eyes meet his again.

“No. It’s a pretty normal thing to feel when you’re nervous and wanting to impress someone you care about. And I would have been proud no matter what, for the record. You were being very brave.”

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, watching him expectantly. Spencer should have known you’re too needy to truly absorb anything he says to you right now. Which is actually pretty cute. Everything you do is endearing to him.

“Stand up.”

You frown.

“But—”

“Just stand up,” he demands calmly, preferring to think of himself as firm and not bossy.

You do, looking rather annoyed and confused as you plant yourself in front of him.

“Why?”

“You are so full of questions.” His hands slip up the side of your legs, under your skirt, and hook in the waistband of your underwear. Spencer looks up at you meaningfully and you nod, swallowing.

As he pulls down, Spencer can literally feel the resistance of the fabric clinging to your soaked core. Under his touch the skin of your thighs is warm and soft. He wants to feel it on either side of his face, he wants to hear you whine as his stubble rubs against it, he wants to feel it clamp around his wrist, he wants it between his teeth and he definitely wants it pressing against his hips as he—

But no.

There will be time for all of those things—especially the last one—later. For now, he’ll reach between your legs just to see—

“Oh, my god,” Spencer half-chuckles, half-groans, upon feeling how wet you truly are for him. He drags his knuckles from your dripping entrance up over your clit, pinching very lightly and earning a squeak from you which he ignores. “You really did like having your mouth full of me, huh?”

“I told you,” you breathe, visibly relaxing some as he continues to play with you for a moment. Then he pulls his hand away again, patting his thigh.

“Sit.”

“You want me to…”

“Yes,” he says, simply.

“But is it not going to… am I not going to mess up your pants?”

“You are even more neurotic about messiness than I am. I can wash them, honey. Come here.”

Spencer guides your hips over his thigh, watching your pretty face twist with uncertainty as you fully settle on him. Fuck, he can feel your warmth through the fabric instantly. Already he’s getting hard again.

“What am I supposed to do?” you whisper, bunching his shirt in your fists. Spencer slides your skirt up higher, revealing the way you’re nestled against his thigh. He spreads you a little further apart, exposing more of your clit to the material underneath you. Immediately you press against him—he watches the delicate flesh rubbing gingerly against him and his grip tightens ever so slightly.

“All you have to do is rock back and forth. It’s easy.”

Already you’re starting to do it—but he guesses it’s like earlier where you don’t even realize it’s happening.

“But… I wanted your mouth,” you admit, quietly, slinging your arms around his neck and burying your face there.

“Do this for me first. Just get yourself off like this one time and then you can have my mouth. You said you wanted to help me feel better because I’m tired today, right?

“Yes,” you mumble, squirming over him.

“Well, there are a lot of days when I get back home and I’m tired. I’m gonna need you to be able to get on top of me, just like this, and make me feel better. And I know you don’t know what it feels like to have something that deep inside of you yet, but it’s gonna be a lot. Even once you know how it feels to have me inside when you’re underneath me. I need you to practice for me right now so you’ll be ready, okay?”

You could come from the words alone. You nod, dazed with need as you roll your hips in a circle, pressing his thigh against your clit.

“Back and forth, baby,” he murmurs, guiding your hips forward with his hands locked around them. “Back and forth, just like this…”

You moan quietly, shamelessly, eyes fluttering as you look down and watch your clit dragging over the darkening fabric. It’s easier if you isolate your hips, grinding down without moving your legs or upper body at all.

“It feels really good,” you whisper under your quickening breath.

“Yeah? Does it?”

“Mhm.”

“Good, angel. You look like you know what you’re doing.”

It’s audible now, quiet and wet and dirty.

“I don’t,” you breathe. He sucks in a breath of his own, stilling your hips with fingers pressed deep into your flesh.

“Sit up, baby.” You really wish he would stop making you stop, but you don’t want to keep going in case he needs you to quit—so you rise slowly, thighs trembling as you kneel. Spencer groans at the strings of your arousal momentarily connecting your core to his pants before they snap, getting your inner thighs wet. There’s a dark, very wet patch over his thigh, shining like glass. He thumbs over your slick clit absentmindedly as he looks up at you like you’re a miracle. “You’re fucking soaked. I’ve never seen you like this. Is this all from making me come?”

You nod feverishly, hips grinding against nothing in search of friction. He sits you back down on his leg, allowing you to sloppily find your rhythm again. Spencer bounces his leg lightly and you cry out softly, buckling forward. His arms wrap around you, still pressing you down against his thigh as you rut against it.

“You’re sweet. Maybe I should have known how much you’d like it when I came all over your pretty face. You really like hearing that you did a good job, huh? I bet you like it even more when I prove it to you.”

You moan a “yeah,” barely processing his words.

“My good girl even swallowed on her first try. Took it so well. And now look at how you’re taking this. You’re gonna love riding, baby. Just going to be another thing you’re good at as soon as you try it.”

“Spencer,” you gasp, overwhelmed by the praise. He’s bouncing his leg at regular intervals and everything is so sensitive.

“I know it’s harder to finish this way, but just one time, remember? And then you can have my tongue for as long as you want. You are my only plan for the day. Just give me one like this.”

But it’s not really harder to finish this way. Then again, you’re so turned on you could probably finish if a breeze hit you just right. Regardless, the thought of him going down on you again pushes you even closer to the edge.

You don’t know how much time goes by like that, you rubbing against him like it’s the last thing you’ll ever do, him pressing up into you until the pressure is so taut it snaps. There’s no time to warn him, but you suppose you don’t really need to. You writhe against him, caught between wanting to keep going and not being able to take more stimulation. He lifts you up just slightly, trying to separate you from his leg. You exhale deeply as your body relaxes, already close to dozing off against his chest.

“We can’t have you tapping out just yet. I still have to fulfill my end of the deal.”

In the end, he fulfills it three times over, and you end up showing your appreciation in kind one more time—much slower and more comfortably in his bed. He gives you plenty of time to learn what he likes, taking your teasing and coquettish explorations like a champ and never so much as tightening his grip in your hair. Turns out, you don't exactly spend the day doing nothing.

And you do end up taking that nap after all. Just... much, much later. And with less clothing on.

part 3.5

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x self insert #spencer reid x #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds smut #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine

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pierregazly · 1 year ago

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but mama, i love him ꨄ oscar piastri smau

oscar piastri x leclerc!reader

the one where oscar's girlfriend has been soft launching their relationship for ages. and he's okay with it, especially if it means he can keep hiding in plain sight from her three overprotective brothers.

ynleclerc

tagged charles_leclerc

liked by charles_leclerc, arthur_leclerc, oscarpiastri, and others

ynleclerc omg omg omg... charles leclerc signed my hat? should i add it to the shrine? give them something to sacrifice?

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username any non-f1 fan would automatically assume ynleclerc is a crazy fan page for charles

username or a charles leclerc hate page... all she does it make fun of her brothers here

username she's offering her signed hat for the tifosi to sacrifice for a CL16 win??? that seems like pure love all around

arthur_leclerc i also signed your hat?

ynleclerc i also do not care? will a hat signed by you get me millions if i sell it for sacrificial purposes?

charles_leclerc what's next? my personal belongings?

ynleclerc is that an offer? if so, oui. i will take what i think will make me the most money next time i'm there, merci <3

scuderiaferrari if it gets us a 1-2 finish, sacrifice everything ynleclerc... please 🙏

username being a Ferrari fan is so satisfying when you remember ynleclerc is an automatic inclusion in everything and anything charles does

username the things i would do to have her as a McLaren fan... she's too beautiful for Ferrari 😭

oscarpiastri a piastri hat will get you good money in straya btw

username oscar??

oscarpiastri

liked by logansargeant, landonorris, mclaren, and others

oscarpiastri 'stop hitting me with the ball on purpose you jerk' was said more times than it should've been, by someone who really just sucks at tennis. had an awesome week back home, time to get back to it 💪

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logansargeant no wonder you're so worried about getting run over

username the coordinating outfits?? i'm gonna scream, who is she!!!

username what does logan know, tell us your secrets girl logansargeant

username oscar is gonna soft launch this relationship until the end of time. show us her face, you coward!!

ynleclerc did you pay her for all the bruises that tennis ball left?? poor girl

oscarpiastri it's not my fault she's a terrible tennis player, we all know i've offered to pay for a trainer

landonorris so this is why you couldn't come to bali with me 🤨

username lando really said i'm the third wheel??

username to be fair i'd probably pick oscar's girlfriend over lando for a week away too

username girly you don't even know who she is!!! she could be the devil

username i wanna be included in oscar's post week home photo dump :(

ynleclerc has posted a story

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant, pascale.leclerc.355, and others

replies

oscarpiastri you can call me pookie whenever you want if you're gonna post things like this

ynleclerc i'd call you pookie with or without your permission, mon amour

charles_leclerc who is this

charles_leclerc why won't you tell us who you're dating

charles_leclerc we won't hurt him

charles_leclerc answer my texts

ynleclerc

liked by oscarpiastri, pascale.leclerc.355, arthur_leclerc, and others

ynleclerc get you a man who can do both, luckiest woman in the world whenever you're around. mon amour 🤍

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username people involved in formula 1 and their obsession with soft launching everything NEEDS to be studied

username at least she posts her boyfriend and he isn't just a small figure in the background of every post (charles this is a direct hate comment)

arthur_leclerc this would have been very lovely if it weren't for the last photo

liked by charles_leclerc and lorenzotl

ynleclerc suppose it's a good thing you could easily ignore it. cheers :)

pascale.leclerc.355 trés belle, ma fille 💗

charles_leclerc maman?

username could you IMAGINE if ynleclerc told pascale but obviously hasn't told her brothers? i can FEEL the outrage

username starting to think this may be a driver, ynleclerc is at every race weekend and ALWAYS makes a post with her mystery man at some point during the week after...

username okay ms sleuth (i think it's lando)

username i'm like 65% sure it's oscar, and 35% positive it's someone that looks a lot like oscar

ynleclerc

tagged oscarpiastri

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant, landonorris, and others

ynleclerc someone exposed us on twitter, so i had to expose us on instagram 😮‍💨

comments on this post have been limited

oscarpiastri love you <3

oscarpiastri i will love you even when a ferrari has run me over, of course.

arthur_leclerc is this your way of telling me i was right, without texting me back?

charles_leclerc this must be a joke, non?

pascale.leclerc.355 so very excited to finally be able to invite the both of you for dinner. trés belle 🤍

charles_leclerc maman, you knew?

ynleclerc oscar and i will see you for sunday dinner, maman! <3

tresbelleleclercspam

liked by logansargeant, charles_leclerc, alexandrasaintmleux, and others

ynleclerc live feed of oscar running away from charles in the paddock when he said he 'just wanted to talk, mate'

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charles_leclerc i truly just wanted to talk about the race

charles_leclerc i did not have a speech planned, non

arthur_leclerc i did have a speech planned

lorenzotl i just wanted to welcome him to the family, as a good big brother should

oscarpiastri my apple watch warned me of an overactive heart rate 5 times today. why did you do this to me. why couldn't you have three sisters???

ynleclerc so very sorry, in our next life i'll try to make sure you only have to worry about sisters and not three overprotective brothers

oscarpiastri as long as i get to spend every lifetime with you <3

i actually got a request for something like this ages ago, and finally got around to finishing it. i so hope you all loved it as much as i loved writing it. thank you for all the support!!

i'm not currently taking requests, but if anyone has lil suggestions or prompts please feel free to send them.

#oscar piastri #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri imagine #f1 x reader #f1 x you #oscar piastri fanfic #oscar piastri smau #f1 smau #f1 one shot #f1 imagine #f1 fluff #oscar piastri fluff #f1 #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 imagine #oscar piastri x you #my writing #smau

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crsdseas · 3 days ago

Text

ALEJANDRO'S EYES CRINKLED at the corners as etienne's smile broke through, a rare and genuine warmth that mirrored the fondness growing between them. their shared curiosity of perspectives clashing and reshaping lit a spark in him, one he hadn't felt in some time. finding this connection with etienne was like finding a hidden treasure in uncharted waters, and in a way, their friendship was exactly like uncharted waters. it moved one way, then another, and alejandro did not know which way it would go next. he had walked in here expecting to be told about maybe one or two trinkets then sent on his way and somewhere along the way it felt things shifted to more than just trinkets. "igualmente."

AS HE LOOKS at etienne, listening to him, alejandro can feel every single wall slowly being chipped away. a soft sigh slips through slightly parted lips, touched by the words that have just been spoken to him. "then, consider it off." his voice was softer than usual, still light. then came two things he wasn't expecting; the flicker in etienne's eyes that he couldn't describe and interest to know what happened the last time he kissed someone he was connected to. alejandro let out a soft sigh, "there is no need to forgive curiosity, is that not what brought us together?" and perhaps what has kept the two of them still friends. the curiosity to learn from one another and to know each other on deeper level than what is on the surface.

ALEJANDRO WALKED ACROSS the room to come up in front of etienne, his lips curling into a gentle, but sad, smile. "you see, the last time i let my armor down with someone and shared a kiss with them....i felt like a regret after. i'm sure i have been a regret before to others but this one hurt because...i thought it was a bit more, you know? and it's not so much the regret part of it that hurt me, it's the lack of communication that followed afterwards that cut me like a blade. admittedly, i'm terrified to be a regret to someone so close to me again."

HIS OWN WORDS played over in his head, acting as a gentle reminder to himself of what he had just said he wouldn't do. still he reached out to gently cup the bottom of etienne's chin, "sin embargo, al mismo tiempo, no quiero vivir en un mundo de 'qué pasaría si' contigo." he dropped his hand, letting those words hang in the air for a moment. the silence wasn't uncomfortable, just a bit heavy with unspoken words. he looks to the side to focus on something other than etienne's gaze, afraid he might risk everything if he looked at him too long.

HE ONLY TURNED to look at etienne again when he felt their hands touch. hearing him speak his own language made something in alejandro spark and he felt as it shot through his veins. whatever it was, it filled him with a new sense of life. then, his eyes lit up, an idea formed. "four days," he blurts, catching etienne's gaze, "i need you to give me four days. i have just gotten an idea, but i need a bit of time to bring it to life. on the night of the fourth day, be ready for me, i will come for you." he brought etienne's hand up to press a gentle kiss against his soft skin as if he were sealing a promise. "i have to go. you have given me much to think about and much inspiration." it's been so long since he's gotten the chance to plan something special for someone, he prayed to the gods he could pull it off. "hasta la próxima vez, mi querido amigo."

This time Etienne smiles properly, a hard-won expression betraying his fondness for the man in front of him. In this, Alejandro is without pride, always open to a new experience, to a new avenue of thought, echoing Etienne's own thoughts regarding the thrill of having your perspective challenged and subsequently altered. Different as they are, it astounds him just how kindred their spirits seem and, more than that... it delights him too. "I hope you will forgive me my assumptions, then - for they were based on my experiences, rather than your behaviour," he explains, "You are unlike most people I have met."

He waits while Alejandro says his piece, his gaze fixed unerringly on the other man’s face as he listens to his reasoning. It is a surprise to hear his own words reflected back at him. “That is because you are not a fool,” he says, “And your curiosity is nothing less than a virtue, in my eyes… I like that you ask me questions. I enjoy conversing with you.” And it feels strangely natural to do so. Comfortable, in a way he has rarely experienced.

It is beyond belief that a man such as Alejandro, with his pleasant demeanour and handsome face, should ever have occasion to feel lonely, but Etienne does not doubt the truth of his words. What he sees in Alejandro is a loneliness that comes not from being physically solitary, but from feeling that nobody really knows you. It is a sensation that Etienne is intimately familiar with himself, though they must experience it in different ways: Alejandro keeping people at a distance with his mask of levity, and Etienne with his inability to wear a mask at all. “The defenses you speak of, the armour that you wear…” He begins slowly, carefully, “If they make you weary, and you are able, you may set them down at my door. Eres vale conocerlo, Ale.”

No te besaré. The words are accompanied by a flicker of something that Etienne can only term as disappointment, dulled at the edges like a stone tossed by the sea. He sits with it for a moment, turns it over in his mind, tests the weight of it, and then decides to put it away. It is the sensible choice, and, therefore, it must be the correct one. He is not meant to be kissed. “La última vez?" He asks instinctively, before thinking better of it and shaking his head, "Perdóname, no importa. No tienes que decírmelo."

When Alejandro expresses what Etienne means to him, he nods, reciprocation coming easily and without exaggeration or artifice. He truly cherishes this man, his friendship, all the parts of himself he has seen fit to share, and would not trade them on a whim. They are worth too much. “Y tu tambien,” Etienne replies softly, reaching to take Alejandro’s hand in his for just a moment before adding in his own language, “Mon cher ami.”

#𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔧𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔯𝔬 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰 #𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔧𝔞𝔫𝔡𝔯𝔬 & 𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔫𝔫𝔢 #// ugh #🥺#we can end it here or with your next reply if you want <3

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menagerofmischief · 8 months ago

Text

Spill Your Guts (OP81)

summary: after revealing what she listens to in order to wind down, y/n ends up with an invite from her favorite podcast host to appear in the next episode

driver!reader x podcast host!oscar piastri -> habs incoming... series masterlist

cw: not fia approved words, reader teasing lando (they're besties), kissing, fluff, bad flirting, oscar being bullied by hattie

wc: 2.9k

a/n: this one is written + smau, with a bit of different formatting for the podcast episode. this one was fun to write, I hope y'all will like it and show it some love.

-> TAKE 1

“Hi,” you said, flashing a smile to the camera. “I’m Y/n L/n!”

“And I’m Lando Norris,” your teammate, sitting in a chair next to you in the video set up, said while waving his hand. “And we’re McTeammates!”

“Lando,” you said, shaking your head as you turned to look at him. “We talked about this. We drive for McLaren, we’re teammates but,” you lifted a finger up, pointing it at him. “We’re not, McTeammates.”

He rolled his eyes, sticking his tongue out at you. “Whatever you say, McGrumpy!”

“That’s it!” You said, pushing your chair away from the table and standing up. “I’m taking away your Gray’s Anatomy privileges.”

“You can’t do that, you bitch!”

“Try me, you little termite!”

-> TAKE 2

“Hi,” you smiled, lifting your hand up to wave at the camera. “I’m Y/n L/n.”

“Why do you always start?” Lando complained. “Like why isn’t my name first, I’ve been here longer.”

“Because I’m the lead in the championship and your nickname is last lap Lando.”

“That’s so fucking mean, you muppet!” He sobbed, wiping the corner of his eye to add to the dramatic effect. “What’s wrong with you - you know I’m sensitive about that.”

You sighed, putting your hand on his back and rubbing along his spine in a comforting manner. “I’m sorry, Lando, I didn’t mean it.” You said, putting your fingers into his locks and ruffling his hair. “We can do your name first, and you can start the video. How does that sound?”

He looked up at you, eyes shining with excitement, the previous dramatics instantly gone as he started nodding his head. “Deal! No take backsies!”

-> TAKE 3

“Hi!” Lando said, his voice full of enthusiasm as he waved at the same with a big grin. “I’m Lando Norris.”

“And I’m Y/n L/n!” You said, smiling at the came and praying this take was going to work out because if you had to start this video over one more time you were going to strangle your teammate.

“Today we’re answering your questions. which you had the chance to send us on Instagram and we put them in this bowl.” Lando explained, holding up the said bowl full of folded papers.

You pushed your hand into the bowl, running your fingers over the papers before grabbing one and pulling it out. You unfolded the paper, looking down at the printed words. “What is Lando afraid of?” You read the question, laughing a little. “Fish!”

“Hey!” He interrupted, snatching the paper from your hands. “It’s my question I’m supposed to answer!” He looked down at the paper, humming while nodding his head. “I’m also afraid of the dark.”

You bit your lip to stop yourself from making a comment, wanting badly to tease him about saying he was afraid of the dark.

Satisfied with his reply, Lando threw the paper away and dug into the bowl for the next one. He unfolded the paper, clearing his throat dramatically before reading out the question. “What does Y/n L/n listen to, to wind down?” His eyes snapped up, looking into yours. “Uh, I know this one!”

“I don’t care,” you replied, snatching the paper from his hands. “It’s my question.” You told him, returning his previous words back to him, which made him pout. “To wind down, especially after a race I listen to a podcast hosted by some Aussie guy named Oscar. The podcast is called Spill Your Guts, it has no specific theme and the host is a funny guy. Plus, he sounds cute.”

“I could have answered that!” Lando said, poking your arm with his finger. “I knew your answer word for word.”

“I’m sure you did Lando,” you said, nodding your head at him. “Now why don’t you pull out the next question?”

It’s a few days later, the video already long gone from your mind, when you walk into your driver’s room after a practice and flop directly onto the couch as soon as your helmet and balaclava are off, letting your body mold into the cushions after the exhausting practice.

You grab your phone and open it, eyes focusing on the new massage you had gotten while you were in the car. Your expression is confused as your eyes swipe over the number, not recognizing whose it is.

You enter the chat and after a brief moment of hesitation, you reply.

Your hands are shaking as you try your best to shove your phone into your pocket before jumping up, a scream tearing from your throat before you’re running to Lando’s driver’s room.

“Lando!” You yell, grabbing the door handle and pushing his doors open without knocking. He stops dead in his tracks and turns around to face you.

Lando holds both hands up, his mouth full of a chocolate doughnut that is half sticking out. He quickly grabs the part that’s sticking out and pulls it out of his mouth, swallowing the rest as fast as he can. “Don’t tell my trainer, please!”

Your eyes slide over to the half a doughnut in his hands and you shake your head at him. “I don’t care about that,” you tell him. “You’ll never believe what happened!”

“Max Verstappen got a 100 points penalty and you secured the championship?” He offers, deciding to finish his doughnut while he has a chance.

“No, I don’t think that’s possible,” you tell him. “But it would be great! What was I saying? Oh, yes!” You clap your hand before putting them on his shoulders and shaking him. “Oscar Piastri invited me to star in an episode?”

“Who?” He asks, his voice muffled by the treat in his mouth.

“The Spill Your Guts, guy!”

“You got invited to Spill Your Guts!?” Lando asks, swallowing the doughnut before looking at you with a smile. “You’re going to be on an episode of your favorite podcast?”

“Yes!” You laughed, smiling at him.

“How?”

You grabbed Lando’s hand and moved him over to the couch, flopping down into a comfortable position, you patted the spot next to you, signaling for your teammate to sit down. Once he did, you cracked your fingers and locked your eyes with his. “Okay, so…” and then started explaining.

OSCAR: Hello everyone! Welcome to tonight's episode of Spill Your Guts. Tonight’s guest is definitely the most famous person I’ve ever had sitting opposite of me if you don’t count my sister, with her 120k TikTok followers. Anyways, it’s my pleasure to welcome Y/n L/n to the studio!

Y/N: Hi, Oscar! And hello to everyone who’s listening in tonight. The pleasure is all mine really - I’m honestly so excited to be here. Just ask Lando, I’m pretty sure he’s gone deaf from all my screaming.

OSCAR: [laugh] Okay Y/n, settle in and fasten your seat-belt, we’re starting.

Y/N: I’m ready!

OSCAR: I’m sure you’ve been asked this many times but what’s it like being a Formula 1 driver?

Y/N: Thrilling. Every race week is a new adventure and the sport is really competitive so you’re constantly trying to prove yourself and set new records. There’s really no time to slow down.

OSCAR: I’ll be honest, it sounds a bit exhausting. Now, if you were a driver what would you be?

Y/N: Maybe a doctor [sigh] I’ve always been interested in medicine but racing is my life. But yeah, if I wasn’t a racer I’d probably want to pursue a career in medicine.

OSCAR: [hum] I can see it. You’d look good in scrubs. [both laugh] What’s your favorite Grand Prix?

Y/N: Two words Oscar - Las Vegas!

OSCAR: That’s a night race, yeah? Seem fun. Are you ready for some rapid fire questions now?

Y/N: Go right ahead, pretty boy.

OSCAR: [nervous laugh] Okay then, ready steady go! Wet or dry?

Y/N: Wet.

OSCAR: Monza or Monaco?

Y/N: Monza!

OSCAR: Blondes or brunettes?

Y/N: Brunettes [laugh] Australian ones preferably.

OSCAR: [very loud laugh] How cold are the ice baths?

Y/N: Very fucking cold.

OSCAR: Vettel or Alonso?

Y/N: None of them - Rosberg. Catch the reference.

OSCAR: I did! Catch the reference, that’s it. I watched that video to come up with questions.

Y/N: Oh, is the next question bums of boobs then? Because bums for sure.

OSCAR: That was not a question but thank you for answering it either way. Let me take a quick peek at the chat. boy4norizz wants to know who’s your favorite F1 teammate?

Y/N: [loud laugh] Oh God, Lando I’m gonna kill you! So, the only answer I can give you is Lando, because he’s the only teammate I’ve had in F1. But if I had another, it would definitely be them.

OSCAR: Cats or dogs?

Y/N: I like both but if I had to pick - dogs. I’ve got a dog actually, a goldie. His name’s Apollo.

OSCAR: I love goldies!

Y/N: You should come meet mine sometimes.

OSCAR: I might take you up on that. Now, last I checked you are the current lead in the championship, right? How does that feel?

Y/N: Still feels a bit unreal, if I’m being honest. Obviously every driver dreams about winning the WDC, and obviously only half of the season is done so I don’t want to be getting ahead of myself with the talk, but to actually be in the lead and have such a big chance to win it feels amazing.

OSCAR: I hope you do win it.

Y/N: Oh! [small pause] Does that mean you’ll be cheering on me?

OSCAR: Absolutely! You mentioned half of the season being done so that means summer break is approaching right?

Y/N: Yes, summer break starts after the next race.

OSCAR: Got any plans for the break?

Y/N: Depends. Are you free?

[few moments of silence and then both start laughing]

OSCAR: [catching his breath] Alright, thank you everyone for tuning in - and thank you to Y/n, for joining us. Enjoy the rest of your night.

liked by yourusername, landonorris, mclaren, hattiepiastri and 12,864 more

oscarpiastri: Another thank you to F1 star, Y/n L/n for joining us in tonight's episode of Spill Your Guts. And thank you for bringing the merch! Go stream the episode if you missed it!

tagged: yourusername

comments:

user01: call me crazy but they have so much chemistry

user423: you're not crazy girl, I literally felt like I was intruding userr: same! and her inviting him to meet her dog!! if they don't date I'll kms

ynsmclaren2: 'do you have plans' 'depends, are you free' WELCOME BACK SEBASTIAN VETTEL

user3: no because I literally screamed when I heard that userss: preach sister. they sound so good together I need them to date

yourusername: it was an amazing experience, 10/10 host would come back

oscarpiastri: dibs on getting the first interview when you win your championship? yoursername: deal user33: oh they're down bad

hattiepiastri: you're embarrassing me, you have her number use it

oscarpiastri: I'm telling mom you're mean to me hattiepiastri: do it no balls, she likes me more user454: I live for hattie bullying oscar

You look into the mirror one more time, raising your hands up to smooth down your hair for God knows what time that night. You push yourself forward, practically leaning over the desk so your face is directly in front of the mirror and run your finger over the edge of your bottom lip, making sure corners of your lipstick aren’t smudged.

“Stop that!” Lando says, picking up a makeup brush from the bed and throwing it at you. It’s times like these that make you wonder why you agreed to go on vacation with him. “You look great! I’m sure the pastry boy’s jaw is gonna dislocate from how hard it’s going to drop when he sees you.”

“That’s … definitely a mental image.” You reply, picking up the brush from the floor and throwing it back at him. “I’m nervous,” you admit, picking on the bits of skin next to your nails.

Lando gets up from the bed and approaches you. He smiles and lifts a hand up to pat your shoulder before deciding to pull in for a quick hug. “There’s no need to be.You’re a catch and if he screws us it’s his loss.”

You bite your lip, teeth digging into your bottom lip as you think it over. “Yeah, you’re right. Come on, I’m gonna be late.”

After pushing Lando out of your room you grab your purse and exit the room. The elevator ride down to the lobby feels like a small eternity, your stomach tied in knots by the time you finally step out in the lobby.

You make your way outside, a lump in your throat as you look around the busy street. Your eyes finally meet his and it’s like time slows down. He’s leaning against his car, dressed casually in pants and a T-Shirt, and holding a small bouquet of flowers.

You smile as you approach him and he mirrors your smile with his own. “These are for you,” he says, offering you the bouquet. “You look breathtaking.”

“Thank you,” you reply, taking the flowers from him, your fingers brushing against his. “And you don’t look bad yourself.”

He laughs in response, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards into a smile. He grabs the car door handle and opens the door, gesturing at it with his free arm. “Shall we?”

You can help but laugh, nodding your head you get into the car and he closes the door, going around the car and sitting in the driver's seat. “Where are we going?” You ask, settling back into the seat and pulling on your seat-belt.

“A little restaurant I used to go to with my parents and sisters when I was younger,” he tells you, starting the car. “Trust me, you’ll love it.”

f1wagupdates: new WAG in the paddock?

current championship lead and famous mclaren driver Y/n L/n, was spotted having an intimate dinner with Oscar Piastri, podcast host of Spill Your Guts, which L/n starred on and mentioned it being her favorite podcast.

after the episode she appeared in fans noted the flirting between L/n and Piastri. are the two finally together?

comments:

ynsmclaren2: I'm very happy for them but why don't we give them some privacy instead of photographing them going out to dinner

user332: hell yeah! my otp is real

user441: they look so cute together, I ship it

oscarpiastri: the term WAG stands for wives and girlfriends and is used for partners of athletes mostly because they are straight men dating women. the appropriate term to use in this situation is HAB because that stands for husbands and boyfriends and is therefore the same things as a WAG but for the other gender

oscarpiastri: if you're gonna gossip at least do it right user77: he ate I fear user667: f1wagsupdates you've been real quiet since this comment

oscarpiastri: #HABandproud

user11: please I love him user334: mclaren's media team is gonna have a field day user102: protect him from pr training at all costs

tap to load more comments...

“Stop biting your nails, it’s disgusting” Hattie said, slapping Oscar’s hand away from his mouth.

Oscar tore his attention off from the screen to glare at his sister before returning it to the screen once more. This was it, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

You and Max were tied in the points and this was not only the final race of the season but also the race that determined who would win the championship. Of course he was biting his nails, he was nervous.

“And to think mom said you’d never get a girlfriend sitting in a studio and hosting a podcast.” Hattie said, bringing a glass of water up to her lips and drinking from it.

“Why are you even here?” Oscar asked his sister.

“Your girlfriend invited me,” Hattie replied with a shrug of her shoulders. “She likes me more than you.”

Oscar was about to reply but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a gasp as he completely focused on what was playing out. He felt Hattie grab his hand, her nails digging into his skin.

“Verstappen is attempting a rather risky overtake on L/n, can she defend?” He heard the voice of the commentator ring out through the speakers. The whole crowd seemed to silence down as they watched the battle for first place, for the championship.

“Last lap, they can both see the checkered flag but who will cross it first?” Oscar held his breath. “Verstappen going wide … but L/n leaves no space! She moves fast, she moves fast and SHE CROSSES THE FINISH LINE!”

Oscar winced as Hattie screamed into his ear, both of them hugging each other before running down with the rest of the team to greet you when you got out of the car.

You pulled yourself out from the car, your heart practically in your throat, vision blurry with tears brimming in the corners of your eyes. You pulled your helmet and balaclava off, each searching the crows until they landed on Oscar who was smiling at you.

Without as much as a second thought you ran up to him, throwing your arms around him and kissing him. He kissed you back, full of passion, and his arms stroked your back.

When you finally pulled away he had the biggest smile on his face, lifting his hand up to cup your cheek. “So, about that championship win interview?”

You laughed, leaning your cheek into his hand. “It’s a date.”

tag list:

p1 @formula1-motogpfan @misty-inferno @thelemonque3n @marvel-hotchner @strangemaximoff

p2 @folkloresreputation @pippyth3hippy @adharacamdridge @theseerbetweenus @sebastianstansblog

p3 @tellybearryyyy @six-call @grussellsprout @oikarma @justcharlotte

p4 @annimausi @kodeelynn @schniti-is-in-the-house @cinnvmonrolls @cmleitora

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vunblr · 5 months ago

Text

Toy Soldier (part 3)

Bit by bit, torn apart. We never win, but the battle wages on for toy soldiers.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Warnings: 18+ only. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. Fluff. Smut. Canon-Typical Violence. Dark Content: Sexual Assault Wounds (Bucky). Depictions of Physical Wounds. Psychological Trauma. Mentions and depictions of Non-Con (both characters as victims).

Summary: She had been the tool Hydra used to keep him operational; he, the weapon manipulated by their tendrils to execute their ambitions. Years after breaking free, fate Sam Wilson brings them together once more. Now, they must navigate the challenges of forging a connection beyond the twisted dynamic that once bound them in the past.

Word Count: 6.8.k.

notes: This chapter includes flashbacks to non-con situations. Please be mindful of your media consumption and take care of yourself. Passages containing this content are marked with ****** at the beginning and the end, in case you wish to skip them.

Previous Chapter - Masterlist

The next days passed uneventfully after the brawl at the bar. Every location listed in the government-provided intelligence was either empty or completely inconsistent with the reports. It felt like chasing ghosts, a frustrating pattern that left them all on edge.

By the end of the week, they were on a military plane heading back to New York. Sam leaned back in his seat, glancing idly at the other two. It didn’t take him long to notice that they were... talking.

Not in the awkward way of the first days, or the strictly mission-related conversations that followed. In fact, it wasn’t the body language he’d expect from two people who barely knew each other. Bucky’s body was more relaxed than Sam had seen in years while interacting with someone, and at one point, he caught a faint smile on Tinman’s face, a real smile.

What the hell happened between those two?

Asking Bucky directly wasn’t an option. The guy was like a human wall when it came to personal questions. He had learned long ago that pushing him only made him clam up more.

No, if he wanted answers, he’d have to go to the other source. She might be more willing to spill the details, especially if he caught her in a casual moment.

A smirk tugged at his lips as he leaned back in his seat. He’d find a chance to ask her soon, maybe over coffee. Whatever had happened on this mission had clearly done the impossible: it got the Winter Sulkier to actually drop the act.

His attention was drawn back when he noticed Bucky tense slightly, as his expression shifted while she asked him a question. She leaned toward him, perched on the edge of her seat, focusing on the phone he held in his hand. Sam, feigning a search through one of the nearby bags, edged closer to eavesdrop.

“See, you just tap here,” Bucky said, oddly patient, something Sam would’ve thought impossible coming from him. “Then swipe left to go back, or hit this button if you want to-”

“Wait, wait,” she interrupted, holding up a hand. “So anyone can message me, or is it just the guys I pick if we... match?” Her brows furrowed, her tone a mix of curiosity and skepticism.

Sam’s eyes widened slightly. Is he teaching her how to use a dating app?

Bucky shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat. “Just the ones you match with,” he replied evenly. “But... don’t expect much. Most of these guys don’t know how to hold a conversation past ‘hey.’”

She snorted. “That’s it? No effort at all?” Then she tilted her head. “How’d it go for you, then? Using the app, I mean.”

Bucky shrugged, with a carefully neutral expression. “Tried it a little. Didn’t stick with it.”

She narrowed her eyes and the corners of her lips twitched in amusement. “You ‘tried it a little,’ huh? Because you seem to know a lot about it for someone who barely used it.”

He shot her a quick look before deadpan. “You pick things up.”

“Uh-huh.” She leaned back slightly, crossing her arms as she studied him. “Come on, you are handsome, you can’t tell me you didn’t get one match.”

“I got a few,” he admitted reluctantly, blushing slightly. “Didn’t go anywhere.”

“Why not?” she pressed.

He hesitated, and his discomfort was more noticeable now. His gaze quickly darted to Sam and then went back to her. “It’s all surface-level. A few pictures, some vague descriptions, it doesn’t mean anything.”

Her teasing expression softened at the shift in his tone. “Okay, fair. But isn’t that the point? It’s just supposed to be an icebreaker, right?”

“Maybe,” he muttered, leaning back in his seat. “But I’m not great at... small talk. And that’s all this is. Small talk that leads nowhere.”

Sam, who had been quietly watching, finally spoke up. “You’re not really helping her case, you know. You’re making this app sound like a deathtrap.”

Bucky shot him a glare. “It’s not a deathtrap. It’s just... not worth the hassle.”

She raised a brow, clearly unconvinced. “Well, I won’t know until I try it. Maybe I’ll get luckier. How different could it really be once you meet in person, like a traditional meetup?”

Before Bucky could respond, Sam chimed in from a few seats over, a mischievous smirk on his face. “Well, you should also know that you might receive some... unwanted pictures.”

She tilted her head, frowning. “Unwanted pictures? Like what?”

“Dicks,” Sam deadpanned, his expression unflinching.

“What?” she exclaimed. “Why would someone... Is that supposed to attract me? Like they think, ‘Oh, I’ll send her a dick pic, and she’ll say, sure, John, let’s go feed the ducks at the park?’”

Sam doubled over laughing, while Bucky shifted uncomfortably, his gaze fixed firmly on the floor. “Yeah, uh... I forgot to mention the unwanted pictures,” he muttered.

She quirked a brow, and her lips twitched with amusement. “How is it for the guys? Did you get unwanted pictures too? Like, ‘Hey, handsome,’ and bam! Wet nipples pic?”

Bucky froze, his eyes widening slightly “I- what? No,” he stammered, his usual stoic mask cracking under her teasing.

Sam burst out laughing, leaning back in his seat. “Oh, man, you broke him.”

Bucky shot Sam a death glare, but the flush creeping up his neck betrayed him. “It’s not... That’s not how it works.”

“Oh, come on, someone must’ve tried.”

Bucky ran a hand over his face, clearly wishing for the conversation to end. “No,” he said firmly. “Guys don’t get stuff like that. Not usually.”

Sam wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, still chuckling. “This is the best thing I’ve heard all week.”

“Glad I could entertain you,” Bucky muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, fixing his gaze firmly on the floor.

Sensing his discomfort now that Sam had jumped into the conversation, she decided to redirect the attention. She leaned slightly toward Sam, with a mischievous grin tugging at her lips.

“Speaking of unwanted pictures,” she said casually, “remember when that agent flashed us his brand-new Prince Albert in the Rome safehouse? Because he thought it was infected and wanted me to take care of it?”

Sam choked on his laughter. “Oh, man, that guy! How could I forget?” He shook his head, still grinning. “I got traumatized. The guy showed it off like he was proud of it. Even with the swelling and all. And you…you just stood there like it was any other Tuesday.”

She shrugged, her expression deadpan. “What was I supposed to do? He dropped his pants before I even knew what was happening. First of all, you might find it hard to believe, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen a dick, and second, I’ve seen worse things over the years.” if he only knew how much worse.

Bucky’s frown deepened, snapping his sharp gaze at her. His jaw tightened, and there was a flicker of something in his expression, something dark and protective. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, coldly.

She glanced at him, startled by the sudden shift in his demeanor. “What?”

“That guy,” he growled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Dropping his pants like that. You’re a lady, for God’s sake.”

Sam burst out laughing again, “I hate to break it to you, but modern life’s not exactly full of boundaries, Buck. Especially when the dude thought his dick was going to fall off.”

Bucky ignored Sam’s laughter. “Still doesn’t mean it’s right.”

His gaze drifted, growing distant, and she knew exactly where it was traveling. The countless times Hydra had forced her to touch him in clinical detachment, to treat his groin marred by shrapnel, burns, and other injuries she’d long since pushed to the darkest corners of her memory. Also, that time when…

She clapped her hands suddenly, trying to steer the conversation away.

“Anyway, about the app-”

“Wait,” Sam interrupted, leaning forward with interest. “About that, last time I talked to you, you said you were dating some dude from the library. Some kind of meet-cute.”

Bucky’s attention snapped back to the conversation, as a strange, twisted feeling settled in his gut.

“Clearly, if I’m asking about the app, I’m not seeing him anymore,” she replied, with a certain edge.

“What happened?” Sam pressed, furrowing his brow. “You seemed interested in the guy, and it sounded like he was into you, too.”

She sighed, crossing her arms. “It just... didn’t work out.”

Sam gave her a pointed look. “That’s not a real answer.”

She groaned, leaning back in her seat. “Fine. Over the weeks, it was like everything he said he liked about me at first became an issue.”

“Like?” Sam prompted, tilting his head.

“Like preferring to stay home instead of going out all the time, it bored him. Or how he’d tell me he loved my cooking but would complain about his sweater smelling smoky after I’d make something. Little stuff like that.” She paused. “Then one day, I knit him a scarf. And do you know what he said?”

Sam raised a brow. “What?”

“He said, ‘I have a grandma who can do that,’” she said flatly.

Sam let out a sharp laugh of disbelief. “What a jackass.”

“Yeah,” she said with a humorless chuckle. “That was the last straw. Especially since he was the one who said he’d love it if I made something for him while flirting.”

“Oh my God, Sarah would’ve shoved the scarf through his ass, crochet hook included. And… uh did you two, you know…” Sam made a wave with his hand implying intimacy.

She couldn’t stop herself from briefly side-look at Bucky, who was staring at the ground. “No. I mean there was… but no. I don’t know, maybe that’s why suddenly everything started to annoy him.

Bucky felt a sharp surge of anger toward the faceless man. His fingers flexed against his thigh as he tried to push it down, but it stayed there. Sure, things had changed over the decades, he’d seen that much already. But memories of Rebecca knitting gloves for her sweetheart by the window, or his ma stitching clothes for them during the Depression, flooded his mind.

He knew what it meant to make something with your hands, the time, care, and thought behind every stitch. For that man to dismiss it like it was nothing, to compare her work to something anyone could do... it was a slap to everything he’d grown up valuing.

“That guy was an idiot,” he muttered, with irritation. “You took the time to make something for him, something personal. That matters. If he couldn’t see that, he wasn’t worth it.” The look on his face betrayed rage, the kind that made it clear he’d have no problem to physically teach the guy a lesson if he were standing in front of him.

She felt warmth rise in her chest at his words, “Thank you.”

Sam, who had been watching the exchange with growing amusement, leaned back in his seat with a knowing grin.

----

A couple of days had passed since they returned to New York, and she sat on her couch, biting her nails absently. The soft ticking of the wall clock felt louder than usual.

It was almost time for the doorbell to ring.

When they landed, Bucky had set her aside hesitantly and asked her if it was alright for them to talk. He’d made it clear that there was no pressure, no expectations. If she didn’t want to, he’d leave it alone. The last thing he wanted was to cause her discomfort.

She’d promptly agreed, “We can talk at my place if you are okay with that.” the offer had spilled from her lips before she could even think it through.

Her house was small but cozy, cluttered in a lived-in way. Books and plants filled old wooden shelves, the soft glow of a lamp in the corner painted the room in warm tones, and the faint scent of lavender lingered from a candle burning on the coffee table. She’d baked cookies and tidied up, in an unconscious effort to keep herself busy.

The doorbell finally rang, startling her.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she stood quickly, smoothing her hands over her shirt before heading to the door. When she opened it, there he was. Red henley, dark jeans, and a stuffed paper bag in his hand, standing on the threshold with a casual but guarded expression.

“Hi,” she managed to say, calmer than she felt.

“Hi,” he replied, nodding slightly before extending the bag toward her. “Um, for later. I figured it’d be rude to come empty-handed.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have” she said, clearly pleased, stepping aside while taking the bag, gesturing for him to come in. “Make yourself comfortable”.

Bucky hesitated momentarily before stepping inside, flicking his gaze briefly over the room. It felt... welcoming, familiar. He sat on the couch stiffly, resting his hands on his thighs.

She followed him, putting the paper bag on the coffee table and taking a seat across from him. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“So,” she began, breaking the silence, “what did you want to talk about?”

His eyes met hers, and for a moment, he seemed to weigh his words carefully. “I just... wanted to say I’m sorry,”.

“For what?” she asked, puzzled.

“For everything,” he said, dropping his gaze to his hands. “For what Hydra put you through because of me. For being part of the reason you were stuck in that hell.”

Her breath caught, and she shook her head instinctively. “What- Bucky, you weren’t the reason-”

“I was,” he cut her off gently, lifting his eyes to meet hers again. “I might not have had a choice in what they did to me, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t pay the price for it.”

She swallowed hard, struggling to find the right words. “You’re not responsible for what they did.” she said softly. “Neither of us is.”

“Objectively I know,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it is.”

The air between them felt heavy, charged with unspoken pain and understanding.

She sighed. “They abducted me because of my mutant powers, Bucky. They eventually assigned me to be your… maintenance tool because you were their most effective asset, Hydra’s fist. But even if you have not been there, there were others. For one reason or another, I would have ended up there anyway.”

The others.

******

Her words triggered memories he didn’t want but couldn’t avoid. The unending hours of hand-to-hand combat, training the newly enhanced assets. His missions didn’t end when he returned from the field; Hydra had repurposed him to mold their next generation of tools.

The rules had been clear: restrict his strength, take the blows, and avoid permanent damage. These trainees were expensive investments, after all, and he had the privilege of having his Tinkerbell next door to sprinkle some powder to fix him anew after every session.

Was in one of those travels to the neighboring cell when Soldat’s brain used the gray zones in the rules for the first time.

As he opened the heavy door, his gaze landed on the stretcher. She wasn’t alone. The asset bending her over the surface, fisting her hair, was making sure of it. His other hand fumbled, trying to place his excuse of a cock inside her, as she twisted helplessly beneath him.

His jaw ticked.

His fist connected with his target’s jaw in a blur of silver and crimson, sending him flying against the nearest wall with a sickening thud. The orders were to restrain himself while training. Her cell wasn’t meant as a place to train.

The asset groaned, attempting to push himself upright, but Soldat was already on him. In two long strides, he closed the distance, seizing the man’s throat with a crushing grip, lifting him up as if he weighed nothing. The asset’s eyes widened in panic as his legs kicked futilely against the air.

“Soldat!” a voice crackled through the speaker overhead. The handler’s voice.

He froze momentarily, loosening his grip just enough for the asset to suck in a ragged breath.

“Stand down,” the voice ordered, laced with the unmistakable threat of consequences.

His gaze flickered toward the camera in the corner of the room. He knew they were watching, assessing every move. But as he looked back at the asset, his grip tightened again.

She was still there, trembling against the stretcher, her wide, teary eyes locked on him. Her lip was split, and her arms were wrapped tightly around herself as though trying to hold her shattered pieces together.

A flicker of something broke through the red haze in his mind.

“Soldat,” the handler barked again, sharper this time. “Release him. Now.”

His hand twitched, and the hum of his arm vibrated faintly as if resisting the command. Slowly, deliberately, he dropped the man to the ground. The asset crumpled in a heap, coughing and clutching his throat.**

He walked toward the stretcher where she sat, frozen in place. Without a word, he leaned on the edge, reaching for the clasps of his upper vest and unfastening efficiently. The vest came off, revealing his beaten torso. His skin was mottled with bruises, and a sickly shade of purple spread across his ribs, the uneven swelling at the zone was a clear indication of fractures.

For a moment, the room was silent, save for the faint static from the intercom and the asset’s wheezing on the floor.

He turned his head slightly, meeting her gaze in a silent request. Her hands shook as she reached for him, steading when they met his skin.

“Soldat,” the handler’s voice snapped through the intercom. “Report back to the training room.”

He didn’t move. His gaze remained fixed on her, unwavering, unyielding. His hand twitched again, resting lightly on his thigh as though restraining himself from reaching out.

“I said, report back.”

******

“-cky… Bucky…” her voice broke the trance, bringing him back to the present.

He blinked, as his focus returned to the present. He saw her now, not trembling inside a depressing cell but sitting across from him in her living room, looking at him with concern.

“Sorry,” he muttered, scratching the back of his neck. The words felt inadequate, but they were all he could manage at the moment.

She sighed, leaning back in her seat. “It seems we still have a lot of shit to unpack,” she finally said. Her fingers toyed with the edge of her shirt as she continued, flicking her gaze back to him. “For some reason, you feel responsible for my captivity, and on the other hand, I feel responsible for prolonging your torment.” Her lips quirked into a faint, bittersweet smile. “Maybe we need to do some couple’s counseling.”

The joke was light, silly, considering what they’ve been through. Still, Bucky’s lips twitched into the faintest semblance of a smile.

Grabbing onto that tiny smile like a lifeline, she seized the opportunity to steer the conversation toward something more pleasant. “So, what’s in the mystery bag you brought?”

His gaze flicked to the paper-wrapped goodies on the coffee table. “Some... pastries,” he admitted, almost self-conscious. “Figured you might invite me for some coffee.” He quirked a brow, the faint hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“It was my intention, yes,” she replied, leaning back in her seat, “Also, I might or might not have baked enough cookies to feed an army to go with it.”

“That so?” His smirk deepened slightly.

“Well, for starters I know your metabolism screams at you to inhale calories even in your sleep, and... I was kind of nervous before our meeting,” she confessed, almost murmuring toward the end.

He blinked, caught off guard by her honesty. “Nervous?” he echoed.

She shrugged, brushing an imaginary lint off her pants. “Yeah, nervous. I mean, it’s not every day you have a sit-down heart-to-heart with someone you...” She paused, searching for the right words. “...went through hell with.”

He didn’t respond immediately, fixing his gaze on her. Finally, he nodded, “I get it.”

For a moment, they sat in a silence that felt lighter than before, and then she clapped her hands lightly and rose from her seat.

“Well,” she said, “How about we see what kind of pastries you picked, and I’ll grab the cookies and make the coffee?

“Seems like a plan.” He agreed, standing and following her into the kitchen.

She grabbed a tray and began arranging the pastries he’d brought, their golden crusts promising a delicious treat. Beside them, she added a generous pile of cookies she’d baked earlier. The hum of the kettle heating the water filled the small space.

Bucky’s eyes drifted to the counter as she prepped. He hummed in appreciation when he realized she was setting up for brewed coffee, and the familiar sight of a pour-over filter caught his attention.

“Don’t like coffee makers,” she remarked, noticing his gaze. “Tastes like dirty water to me.”

He smirked faintly. “I couldn’t have expressed it better. There’s a machine for almost everything now, but some things...”

“...are better the old-fashioned way,” she finished, flashing him a small smile.

Bucky nodded toward the tray. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” she said, motioning to the cookies.

He reached for one, and before he realized it, his hand kept returning to the tray. They were warm, buttery, and just the right amount of sweet, a huge contrast to the food he’d grown accustomed to over the years.

“You bake like this often?” he asked between bites, in an almost casual tone.

“Not really,” she admitted with a chuckle, leaning against the counter. “I had a lot of nervous energy before today. Figured I might as well channel it into something productive.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “They’re good.”

She grinned. “Glad you approve.”

By the time the coffee was ready, most of the cookies were gone. She blinked at the near-empty tray and arched a brow at him.

“Seriously?” she teased, pouring two mugs of coffee. “I don’t think the cookies were supposed to be dinner.”

Bucky shrugged unapologetically, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Couldn’t stop. They’re better than anything I’ve had in a while.”

“Well, I’m taking that as a compliment,” she said, handing him a mug.

He took it, warming his hand with the cup. “It was.”

They settled at the small kitchen table, with the tray of pastries and the few remaining cookies between them. The conversation flowed easily, and their laughter mixed with the freshly brewed coffee aroma.

At some point, Bucky’s fingers tightened around his mug, lowering his gaze to its content. He hesitated for a moment, pressing his lips into a thin line before he spoke. “When you asked me about the dating app the other day... how long... when did you feel you were ready to, you know…”

He trailed off, cursing himself inwardly for the clumsy phrasing and lack of subtlety.

She tilted her head, “Well, you mentioned it as a joke, and then I took the opportunity to ask since, you know, I was curious about them.” She chuckled lightly. “Not that my attempts at normal dating have been anything to brag about. As you heard on the plane... pretty pathetic.”

Bucky’s lips quirked briefly, but his eyes stayed on the coffee, waiting.

She shifted slightly in her chair, toying with the edge of her mug with her fingers. “As for being ready... I don’t know. It’s been a couple of years since I started feeling the... the need to have someone. Someone who’s more than just a friend.” She paused, and her gaze drifted somewhere far away, before returning to him. “But, honestly, the world changed so much. Dating now is... different. Messy.” She offered a faint smile, “Well if it feels like that for me, I can’t even imagine what it’s like for you. You probably grew up around my daddy’s time.”

Bucky’s head shot up, quirking his brow in mock indignation. “Your dad’s time?”

She grinned, catching the faintest flicker of amusement in his eyes. “You were probably handing out love letters, not even using a phone.”

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “Hey, we weren’t that old-fashioned.” He paused, “But... yeah. It was different.”

“Guess that’s one thing we have in common,” she said softly. “Figuring out where we fit in a world that’s... moved on without us.”

He looked at her then, somehow the weight of her words made him feel less alone in his own struggle.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “I guess we do.”

Gathering her courage, she nodded toward his vibranium hand, “Can I see it? Properly, I mean.”

His body tensed for a fraction of a second, but he saw genuine interest in her eyes. Slowly, he lifted his arm, extending the sleek prosthetic toward her.

She reached for it with both hands, brushing her fingers trough the cool, polished surface. His gaze widened slightly as she turned it gently in her grasp.

“Wow,” she murmured, running her fingertips along the ridges and smooth joints. “The fingers are less edgy than the old one.” She traced a line along his palm. “How’s the sensory feedback?”

Her question startled him out of his momentary daze, and he cleared his throat. Her touch was making harder to stay composed than he wanted to admit. “neuro-connections are more advanced,” he began, in an almost clinical tone. “So I have better control over it. I can feel pressure and temperature more accurately. But that’s... all.”

Her thumbs brushed over the pads of his fingers, “That’s a lot, though,” she said quietly. “It’s incredible. Do you ever... forget it’s not flesh and bone?”

His lips twitched faintly, though it wasn’t quite a smile. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Until I catch someone staring at it. Or...” His gaze dropped to her hands, still cradling his. “Until someone touches it. And I remember it’s not real.”

Her grip tightened slightly, an unconscious response. “It is real, Bucky,” she said firmly, lifting her eyes to his. “It’s you.”

“Thanks,” he said after a long pause.

Noticing that she still hadn’t released his hand, she let go quickly, feeling her cheeks warming under his stare. “Sorry, I got carried away.”

He shook his head lightly. “It’s fine,” he muttered.

She grabbed a pastry from the tray and took a bite to occupy herself. The silence lingered before she worked up the courage to ask, tentative but curious. “So... when did you feel ready to date and try the apps and stuff?”

He stiffened almost imperceptibly.

“You asked me,” she deadpanned as she gestured toward him with a half-eaten bun. “Fair if I get to ask you the same.”

He sighed, brushing his fingers over his temple as he scratched it absently. “I don’t think...” He trailed off, then started again. “Last year, my therapist suggested I start stepping out of my comfort zone. Told me it’d help with... things. So... I tried.”

“And?” she prompted, leaning slightly forward, encouraging but not pushing.

His gaze dropped to the table. “I’d be lying if I said it’s been great.”

She remained silent, giving him space to continue.

“It’s just...” He hesitated, his hand curling into a loose fist on the table. “Meeting new people it’s hard. Small talk feels fake, like I’m watching it happen instead of being part of it. There’s this constant voice in my head, reminding me of all the things I can’t tell them. All the stuff I can’t explain. I look at someone across a table, and they’re smiling, talking about their favorite movies or where they want to go on vacation. And all I can think about is how much they don’t know. How much they can’t know.” He paused, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “That I’ve done things... that I’ve had things done to me. And if they ever found out, they’d run away.”

She set her pastry down quietly, folding her hands in her lap as she listened, letting him talk, suspecting he probably hadn’t spoken this much in years.

“And then there’s the other stuff,” he continued, lower now. “The touch. Sometimes, even a handshake feels wrong. Too close, too much. I can’t control how my brain reacts. Sometimes I flinch, or freeze. And how do you explain that to someone on a second date?”

“Yeah. Touching can be... hard if you’re not familiar enough with the person,” she murmured, dropping her gaze to the table.

They both understood why.

The silence stretched. He didn’t need to ask what she meant, and she didn’t need to elaborate. Hydra had ensured they both carried scars that made even the simplest gestures of connection fraught with hesitation.

She straightened in her seat, trying to shake off the heavy mood. “You know,” she said, with a faint edge of humor creeping into her tone, “for a conversation about dating, this has turned into a pretty depressing therapy session.”

He seemed to hesitate, curling his fingers slightly around his mug before he spoke. “It’s not like that with you.”

Her brow furrowed. “Uh?”

“Touching,” he clarified, his voice quieter now, almost as if he were confessing something. “Those days in Poland... I noticed.”

“Oh,” she said softly, as her fingers brushed the edge of her cup while her gaze flickered to him.

He looked down at his hands, gathering his thoughts before continuing. “I’ve been... thinking about it. And the only reason I can come up with is... because you were the only ‘good’ thing in that hellhole.”

She stared at him, unsure how to respond. Then she shook her head slowly. “After everything Hydra made me do to you, how can you feel-”

His gaze snapped to hers, sharp and unyielding. “I don’t blame you,” he cut her firmly. “I’ve told you that.”

She bit her lip, afraid to ask. “But... how much do you remember about-”

“Everything,” he said quietly.

She inhaled sharply, tightening her fingers around the mug and locked her eyes onto his. “E-even...”

“Everything, doll,” he said again, softer now.

She swallowed hard. “I see. And still...”

“Don’t blame you,” he repeated, resolute, as though daring her to argue.

******

It had been two days since they’d injected him with that burning substance, two days of his body rebelling against him in the most excruciating way. The unrelenting ache of the forced erection was a constant, painful thrum, and despite his silence, the slight tremor in his movements betrayed the toll it was taking.

At first, the staff had dismissed it as a side effect of the experiment. But as the hours stretched into days, and Soldat’s body refused to yield, it became clear that something had to be done.

The traditional methods failed. They’d barked orders for him to “take care of it himself,” but he stood motionless and unresponsive. They had thrown him into freezing water, and his body had trembled violently, but the condition persisted. Even a brutal beating did nothing to break the cycle.

Finally, they summoned her.

She’d entered the sterile room, and her stomach churned. He was shirtless, his skin flushed an unnatural shade, and though his expression remained stoic, she could see the tension in his jaw, the way his hands curled slightly at his sides.

“You,” the handler barked, gesturing toward him. “Fix the inconvenience.”

Her heart sank. She swallowed thickly, forcing herself to remain composed. “But... he’s not injured, sir. I don’t-”

The sharp crack of a slap cut her off, her head snapping to the side as pain bloomed across her cheek.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, pet,” the handler sneered, his voice dripping with venom.

She bit down on her lip, as she nodded numbly. “Yes, sir.”

Approaching him hesitantly, she reached out and hovered her trembling hand over his overheated skin. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move, just stared ahead, his blue gaze void of anything human.

Tentatively, she placed her hand against his chest, and noticed the heat radiating off his body was almost unbearable. Closing her eyes, she tried to infuse him with her healing surge, willing it to work, to cool the fire that was consuming him.

Nothing.

She retracted her hand, “It’s no use, sir,” she excused herself in a whisper.

“Try harder,” he snarled, sharply.

Before she could react, he grabbed her trembling hand and shoved it between Soldat’s legs. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t react. He remained still, his lifeless gaze kept fixed on the far wall, as though none of this was happening.

Slowly, reluctantly, she wrapped her hand around him -or tried to-, her fingers barely circling his length. Her heart pounded in her ears as she forced herself to send another wave of her healing surge through her palm.

Nothing.

“S-sir, it’s not...” she stammered, withdrawing slightly.

“Try a different approach,” the handler barked, his patience wearing thin.

Her stomach twisted painfully. “B-but...”

“Don’t act like you’ve never seen a cock in your entire life, slut,” the handler spat with malice. “We both know very well that’s not the case.”

Shame and rage bloomed inside her chest, but she didn’t dare meet his eyes.

The handler’s cruel smile widened, and his next words were laced with venom. “Jerk him off.”

Her body froze. She stared down at her hand, still trembling against the Soldat’s unmoving form.

When she didn’t move, the man stepped closer. “Do you prefer if I order him to fuck your brains out?” he sneered. “I’m pretty sure he’d gladly comply. His fried brain probably can’t even remember the last time he did it.”

The Soldat’s jaw ticked imperceptibly at the words, a flicker of something passing through his otherwise blank expression. A muscle in his temple twitched, so slightly it was almost imperceptible, but she noticed.

“Do it,” the handler barked, his tone icy. “Now.”

Slowly, she shifted her gaze to the side, staring at the far wall to avoid looking at him, at either of them. Her hand trembled as she reached out, brushing against the overheated skin of his abdomen before curling around him again.

The Soldat kept being unresponsive.

Her fingers tightened slightly around him, and she began to move her hand in a clinical and detached way, trying to retreat her mind to a faraway place.

The handler leaned against the counter, and his smug smile made her sick. “See? Was that so hard, pet?”

She didn’t respond, focusing instead on keeping her breathing steady. Soldat remained as a statue, with his gaze fixed straight ahead. But she saw it again, the faintest twitch of his fingers, a subtle clenching of his jaw.

Was it anger? Pleasure? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t afford to dwell on it. She tried to focus on the rhythm of her movements, the hum of the fluorescent lights above, anything to drown out the humiliation.

“Good girl,” the man praised her mockingly.

At some point, the Soldat’s breath hitched slightly, a small, involuntary response. She froze for a fraction of a second, before forcing herself to continue.

The handler’s gaze was fixed on her with sadistic amusement. “See? The horny dog is starting to stir,” he sneered, chuckling darkly. “Keep going, pet. Put some effort into it.”

She kept going, trying to block out the handler’s taunts and the oppressive heat radiating from Soldat’s body.

“I can’t wait to see how this ends,” He stepped closer, and his boots clicked against the sterile floor as his shadow loomed over her. She could feel his cruel satisfaction like a physical weight pressing down on her.

He smirked, tilting his head as if studying a piece of art. “It’s almost poetic, isn’t it? The indomitable Winter Soldier reduced to this.” He leaned closer, his breath hot against her ear. “And you, pet... always so eager to fix him.

Her hand faltered for the briefest moment, and the handler’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t stop,” he hissed, sharply.

Her fingers resumed their mechanical rhythm, trembling slightly as they moved over the heated skin.

Soldat’s body betrayed him, starting to respond to her ministrations. His chest rose and fell slightly faster, and the faintest sheen of sweat formed along his collarbone. A muscle in his jaw ticked again, and his metal hand twitched at his side, the slightest flex of his fingers betraying the struggle beneath the surface.

She noticed every subtle reaction, every unwilling signal his body sent. It felt like a cruel mockery, this was not a man choosing to respond, but a body manipulated and prodded to betray its instincts.

The handler’s smirk widened as he circled them, amused. “See? The body don’t lie, pet. No matter how much you both fight it, nature always wins.”

Soldat’s breaths were growing more uneven, and his nostrils flared as his chest rose and fell with increasing urgency. For a moment, his steel-blue gaze flicked down to her hand, a fleeting acknowledgment before snapping forward again, returning to the blank void.

The handler leaned against the counter again, crossing his arms, watching with sick satisfaction. “He’s close, isn’t he? Just look at him.”

Soldat’s fingers twitched again, curling slightly into a loose fist. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, a small, involuntary moan escaping his lips. Barely audible but deafening in the oppressive silence of the room.

The handler laughed, cruelly. “There it is,” he sneered, clapping his hands mockingly. “Hydra’s fist reduced to nothing more than a desperate animal. Guess even the strongest aren’t immune to a good touch. Keep going, pet,” he ordered. “We’re almost there.”

Soldat’s gaze flicked down to her hand again, and the faintest flicker of something passed through his otherwise blank expression. Another quiet moan slipped out, broken and involuntary, while his body tensed beneath her touch, and the muscles in his abdomen started to tighten,

The handler licked his lips as his gaze kept glued to the scene before him. “Almost there, loyal pet. Finish it.”

Soldat’s breaths hitched again, and his body betrayed him further as his head tilted back slightly, exposing the vulnerable line of his throat. The faint sheen of sweat on his skin glinted under the sterile light, and every detail etched into her mind despite her desperate attempts to detach herself.

And then it happened.

His body went rigid, his metal hand clenched into a fist, so tight it trembled at his side. His breath hitched, and a low, guttural sound tore from his throat, a mixture of release and anguish that echoed in the sterile room.

She froze, retreating her hand almost immediately as though burned. Her chest heaved with shallow, shaky breaths as she stumbled back a step.

Soldat’s body sagged slightly, and his head dropped forward, while his breathing started to slow down, bleeding the tension out of his system. He didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge the handler either, his gaze fixed again somewhere distant, unreachable.

The handler clapped, grinning wide and cruelly again. “There you go, pet. Good job. I knew you had it in you.”

Her hands clutched at her sides, biting her nails into her palms as she forced herself to stand still, to remain composed even as her world felt like it was shattering.

Sensing her discomfort, he kept his smirk firmly in place. “Now clean yourself up” he said coldly. “You look like cheap whore.”

Then he turned around. “You, take him to cryo,” he lazily ordered to the guards who had been standing silently by the door. “He’s done for now.”

******

“I know what it’s like to not have a choice,” he said simply, “I know what it’s like to be used, controlled, forced into something you’d never choose for yourself.”

Her gaze dropped to the table.

He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees. “I’m no saint. I’ve hated a lot of people, doll. Hated myself more than I can say. But you? Not once. You were there, real and raw. And, maybe, is because of that that I trust you.”

She stared at him, and her hands twitched on the table, wanting to reach out, to bridge the gap between them. But instead, she sat there with her heart pounding.

“Bucky, I-” her voice faltered. The weight of his admission was almost too much for her to bear.

The way he looked at her then, open and bare, broke whatever restrain was keeping her still.

Her body moved before her mind could catch up. She stood abruptly, scraping the chair against the floor, and rounded the small table.

Without a word, she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace.

He didn’t flinch. Slowly, his arms came up to encircle her waist cautiously, as though afraid he might break her. She pressed her cheek against the crown of his head and put her hands around his broad shoulders.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice muffled against his hair.

She felt him shift slightly, dipping his head lower until his forehead rested lightly against her shoulder. His breath was warm against the side of her neck, and the subtle weight of his body leaning into her made her heart ache.

“For what?” he murmured.

“For not hating me.”

Next chapter

Taglist: @sunshinedayz19 @star-maker-rain-dancer @tumdlrnewb84 @mgchaser @buckys-arm-and-rios-dagger @gotminho @kaitlin013106 @startorrent @idontknowhowtonormal @mattmurdock42 @hnnhbananananana @aeriss-at-heart45 @jainaeatsstars @airixaram @seventeen-x @jaxz21 @zizzlekwum @hi172826 @valckenaux

Dividers by @/strangergraphics

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes angst #bucky hurt/comfort #bucky barnes fic #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes x curvy!reader #bucky x curvy!reader

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moonstruckme · 8 months ago

Note

Hellooooo my favorite catlover/writer

I got another pop up idea this morning (happens way too often)

But first of all ! Don’t wear yourself out ! You write a lot and it’s amazing ! But prioritize yourself first. Don’t let requests put a pression on you ❤️

I know how it feels

Anyways

I’m not a morning person like most of the population except SOCIOPATHS.

And I imagined what it would feel like having the emt!marauders watching you up since they have to go to work early. You know like kisses, shoulders massages, soothing words as they try to calm your rise and everything…

If you don’t like it that’s ok! Don’t write it.

Love you, rest well. (Drink water)

Thanks for your request babe! Hope you're resting well and drinking water too <3

emt!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 654 words

You stir when you feel Remus shifting underneath you. He reaches over to shut off his alarm, hand coming back to rest over your head placatingly. The appeasement doesn’t last long; when he goes to move out from under you, you make a soft whining sound.

“Dove.” His voice is husky with sleep, but there’s fondness to it. It makes you want him to stay even more.

The mattress creaks at the other end of the bed as James gets up. Sirius grumbles, scooting closer to you and shoving his face into your neck in rebellion.

“Don’t let them take me,” he mumbles pitifully.

“Baby.” Remus sounds more exasperated and also more amused now that both you and Sirius are half atop him. You’re not sure which one of you he’s talking to, but it hardly matters. “Come on.” His lips touch down on your head. “You can sleep, but we have to get ready.”

The bathroom light turns on. Both you and Sirius moan tormentedly.

James’ laugh is too loud for the early hour; you’ll never understand how he wakes so quickly. “Need some help?”

“Please,” Remus replies.

Sirius makes a half-asleep sound of protest as he’s dragged away from you, James speaking to him in a low, amused voice.

“Alright,” Remus murmurs, kissing your head again, “my turn.”

He eases your head off of his chest, setting it gently on the pillow before getting out of bed. You mourn the warmth of his spot next to you.

James is ready the fastest, back to press kisses to your pouty lips and soothe his big hands over your shoulders. “Do you want me to make you something for breakfast, lovie? If you get up now I’ll whip you up a fancy coffee.”

“James,” Remus chides from the bathroom, “let her sleep.”

James sighs but bends to mush loving kisses into your neck, murmuring nonsense at you all the while.

“I know you don’t like the bathroom light on, but if you think about it, we’re the ones who have to endure it. Sirius is in there halfway to a temper tantrum because his hair won’t behave, and you’re here all warm and cozy in bed. You look terribly cute like this, do you know? It’s really cruel of you, it ought to be illegal, and if Sirius were awake enough to form a thought he’d agree with me.” His kisses turn ticklish, and James chuckles when you wriggle. “Really! I mean it, you don’t know how lucky you are getting to stay here in bed and looking so adorable. Remus is about to drive us to work, and Sirius is going to insist on laying down in the backseat and moaning about how much he misses you all the while, it’s terrible. I ought to take a picture of you to console him.”

“Don’t,” you mumble. You find one of James’ hands with your own, dragging it underneath your pillow for safekeeping.

James laughs again, and another chuckle joins him as Sirius comes out of the bathroom.

“What’re you doing to her, you relentless pest? At least one of us should be allowed to sleep.”

James makes a soft grunting sound as the bed dips. You don’t have to open your eyes to know Sirius has draped himself over his boyfriend’s shoulders.

“Don’t worry, gorgeous, I’ll get him away from you,” Sirius promises. “Jamie, I require one of your fancy coffees.”

“Me too,” says Remus from the bathroom.

James succumbs to the weight of peer pressure and goes, and a short while later the bathroom light shuts off. Remus crouches by the bed, kissing you softly.

“Sleep well,” he says, brushing some hair away from your face. “We’ll see you after our shift, dovey, okay?”

You mumble out a response, already falling asleep again in the returned darkness of the bedroom.

Remus’ thumb skims fondly over your cheek. “Love you too, sweetheart.”

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faiirytaleskies · 3 months ago

Text

"Pot belied pig, of course." Naturally he had to be a little shit about it and he even gave Corey a playful smirk to go along with it. "I was going to name him Wilbur after the piggy from Charlotte's Web. C'mon..How can you not find that adorable? You're going to be a godfather to a little baby potbellied piggy!" He laughed a bit but of course was just joking. "In all seriousness, I was actually thinking a cat. Maybe we can even have little pet play dates. Pirate has to meet their new family member, don't they?" He smiled at the mention of his boyfriend, "I'm sure Archie wouldn't mind helping pick one out in the process. He's such a good boyfriend."

Mat chuckled, nodding, "I guess so. That's alright. It's nice to relive those times in our lives, ya know? Keeping memories alive like that." It was a chance to disconnect from the real world they currently lived in and dive back to a simpler time in their lives. Every so often he also found himself just zoning out and thinking of those times. Part of him wishes they could back, while another part is happy being in the present too. He turned to look at the tv again, "I guess we'll find out after these commercials."

With the photo album put away, they began to dive into the pizza. He's reaching for a piece of cheese when he hears Corey tell him they loved him. "I love you too, Corey. Always and forever." Neither one of them said to each other very often, but they didn't to in order for them to know the love was there. It had always been there, in various stages of their lives, and it always would be. "Honestly? I would have us no other way. I think I'd be weirded out if you didn't give me shit all the time." He laughs, biting into a piece of pizza. He chews it slowly, enjoying every second of it. "Hey, look, let's hurry up and grub down. I've got another joint for us to smoke and we still have lots more to watch today. Remember you promised me a flick, too."

These were the moments in life Mateo treasured so dearly. Sitting here, chowing on pizza, watching tv, and enjoying a moment in time with a good friend.

"Now we're talking. Dog, cat, pot bellied pig? Please don't be the last one." They could forgive a lot of things, but someone keeping a pig in the house was a step too far. "One of the kitties from your boyfriend's place? I could be convinced to get Pirate a sibling, maybe." Corey never pictured themselves being a cat-parent, but they were grateful they'd had the little guy around these last months. Someone to curl up with after they got back from a show, someone who was almost always happy to see them.

"Yeah, we got a little distracted looking at the photo album, huh?" And talking about their mom. It was amazing how much space she still occupied in Corey's mind, even a few months following her death. "As long as UCLA are winning, that's all that matters. Gotta support my gals."

Corey made sure they put the photo album away before starting on the pizza. They didn't want to get grease or fingerprints all over them. They had digital copies of everything, but it wasn't the same as being able to hold them in your hands like this. "Course I love you, Mat," Corey said after a few moments. They realized they'd never acknowledged it earlier. Wasn't a phrase Corey used very often. Their mom was usually the only one that'd heard it. "You're the only family I got left. Might give you shit all the time, but I don't ever forget that."

#threads: mateo & corey #mateo threads.#( we can end it here or with your next reply lovey <3)#death tw

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lowkeyren · 11 months ago

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NOT EVERYONE KNOWS!

in which — being in a secret relationship with them but they’re all idiots

featuring — dan feng, blade, jing yuan (separately) x gn!reader

wc: total 2.6k, from event req: here!, debut fic for my milestone event yippee, they keep fumbling but it’s ok cus they’re hot, reblogs w comments are appreciated, please enjoy!! <3

#DAN FENG

+ wait… since when are you guys married?!

dan feng? i just know he’s gonna mess this shit up so badly. he’s the high elder, but also the epitome of boyfailure. he really can’t help it, those terms of endearment just slip out so easily when you're by his side.

and it doesn’t stop there. he’s completely oblivious to the shocked silence and wide-eyed stares from others; for example, he might be holding your hand absentmindedly while discussing serious matters, and only snaps back to reality when you cough awkwardly.

but unfortunately, it’s not that simple when the gang (re: high cloud quintet) find out about your relationship. disclaimer: chaos ensues

dan feng immediately sits up upon seeing you enter the room, a fresh batch of tea brewing in hand. the discussion among the group gradually fades into the background as his eyes trail your figure while you carefully pour tea into each person’s teacup.

the piquant aroma fills his senses, and he can’t stop a small smile from creeping across his face when you take a seat next to him. he takes a sip, the delicate flavor enveloping his taste buds, leaving behind a delightful aftertaste that lingers long after the tea is swallowed.

“—thus we require a substantial amount of time, speaking of which, anything on your end dan feng?”

he finds himself watching you out of the corner of his eye. “imbibitor lunae…?” and it’s almost impossible for him to tear his gaze away from you.

“hello? dan feng?” he snaps back to reality, blinking a few times before processing the initial question. “a-ahem, yes. darling, could you pass me the report?” he says, turning to your side.

the room falls silent, and a shocked gasp escapes from baiheng's mouth before jingliu clasps a hand over it; jing yuan shifts in his seat, exchanging a bewildered glance with yingxing.

“hm..? did you forget to bring it?” his tone is soft and gentle, a stark contrast to the shocked expression on everyone’s face. “are you alright my dear? your face is quite red, do y—”

before he can finish, you manage to find your voice, trying to mask your embarrassment with a strained smile. “no, i didn’t forget the report, and i’m perfectly fine… though our friends might need a minute to recover.”

baiheng, still wide-eyed, blurts out, “hold on, are you guys… in a relationship?”

dan feng blinks in confusion ”oh, did i forget to mention that part?” —to which you hear someone across the table audibly facepalm.

you sigh, voice strained but laced with amusement, “i can’t believe you never told them we got married.” your words are followed by the sound of a cup shattering on the floor.

“wait… since when are you guys married?!” you pat jingyuan’s back, trying to stifle a laugh. “since last year.”

“seriously, and you never thought of telling us.”

“it was an honest mistake, yingxing.” dan feng replies, crossing his arms defensively.

baiheng shakes her head, “an honest mistake? like forgetting to water your plants, not like forgetting to tell us you got married!”

“well congratulations, i suppose. though a heads-up would’ve been nice.” jingliu manages a wry smile, though she internally cringes at baiheng’s exaggerated (or not) reaction, opting to just let her be.

"sorry, it slipped my mind.” dan feng's nonchalant shrug only serves to further fuel jingyuan's irk, his eye visibly twitching; yingxing lets out a groan, still reeling from the revelation. you can’t help but chuckle softly at the scene unfolding, taking a sip of your tea.

“you weren’t planning to tell us at all?!”

"honest mistake." you can tell he’s just teasing his friends by the way a small smirk appears on his face as he attempts to hide it behind his teacup. (you nearly had to restrain baiheng as she tried to leap over the table.)

well, it seems like you’re not going to get anything done today.

#BLADE

+ easy, just buy me a nice ring and leave the lying part to me.

please. if you had a penny for every time blade almost exposes that you’re dating, you’d have three pennies. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened thrice.

the first time was when he received a call from you while in the car with firefly. he answered almost immediately, without realizing that wearing earphones does not necessarily mean he isn't able to be heard in real life, just that others can’t hear what he’s listening to.

“went to boomerville n the locals said they knew u” —silverwolf, probably.

second was when someone confessed their feelings to you, and he “instinctively” jumped in to say you have a husband. "what husband? i don't see a ring on your finger." so now, that same man won't stop asking you about this so-called “husband” (that doesn’t exist).

and third time, well we’ll see.

“are you sure you don’t want me to kill him.”

you huff out in annoyance, “this wouldn’t even be an issue if you hadn’t mentioned i had a husband.” sighing, you push yourself off the bed and turn to face your boyfriend.

“...that aside, how exactly do you plan on handling him?” blade raises an eyebrow, a hint of amusement in his gaze. “easy! just buy me a nice ring, and leave the lying part to me.”

if blade hadn’t seriously considered taking care of the man before, he certainly seems determined to do so now. “hey what’s with that reaction…”

blade’s eyes narrow as he takes in your response. “a ring huh, what are you going to do with it?” you roll your eyes, trying to stifle a smile. “what else? pretend i have a husband.”

he sighs, “is this really the best solution you can come up with?” (he really doesn't like the idea of you having a husband…that isn’t him, fake or not) “yup!” you reply with a grin, “i’ll be eagerly awaiting the ‘surprise’!” with that, you plant a quick kiss on his cheek and swiftly exit the room.

oh you’re lucky he loves you. (even though this is totally, 100% his fault)

—

“hmm, bladie? why the sudden interest in jewellery?” kafka smirks, curiosity dancing in her eyes. blade chooses to stay silent, picking out the most expensive ring; and kafka’s expression only broadens with amusement as she watches his intense scrutiny of the display.

“planning something special, are we?” she teases, leaning closer. “or are you just trying to impress someone?”

blade finally glances up, his face inscrutable. “just taking care of business.” he replies tersely, slipping the ring onto the counter along the pile of designer jackets.

“right… well, i’ll be interested to see how this turns out.”

—

“what?” the man in front of you asks, his confusion evident.

you tilt your head slightly, trying to gauge his reaction. “you seem surprised. did you think i was joking?” you casually brush a strand of hair away, subtly flaunting the ring to him —and to any onlookers; trying not to crack a smile when you hear a loud gasp followed by a flurry of hushed whispers.

he grits his teeth, clearly embarrassed and humiliated by the commotion. “i didn’t expect you to be married… especially since you never wear the ring.”

“or is it that you’re not all that attached to your husband?” the audacity of this man… just as you’re at a loss of words, a firm hand grips the man’s shoulder from behind.

blade yanks the man back, and away from you. “you’re pushing your luck.” the sudden motion causes the man to stumble, his face pale with a mix of surprise and fear.

“w-who the hell are you?!” the man’s voice trembles as he tries to regain his composure. meanwhile, you notice a crowd beginning to form around you, with some people eagerly pulling out their phones to record the escalating drama.

“leave, now.” you can tell blade’s patience is wearing thin, dangerously so.

the man’s eyes narrow in defiance. “why should i? you’re the one to talk when you’re hiding behind a disguise.” blade pins the man with a steely gaze, his intense stare making the man stiffen under its weight.

but what you didn’t expect was for blade to turn around, remove his mask and letting it dangle from one ear; he then raises your hand to his lips, placing a tender kiss upon it.

the man’s face immediately drains of colour, and the crowd around you erupts into a cacophony of gasps and murmurs. you’re not sure whether he's more shocked by blades' bold gesture or by the fact that a notorious criminal is standing right in front of him. (its the latter)

the man, now visibly shaken, scrambles away, yelling out a “sorry!” before disappearing into the crowd. blade pulls you away, ignoring the flashes of cameras and ducks into a nearby alley.

the next morning, you wake up to a barrage of notifications on your phone. you discover the group chat flooded with messages from your friends.

“@barcodewrist @[you] explain yourselves”

“Bladie, so that was what the ring was for~”

“bro i cant believe this old ass man has rizz”

you quickly type out a message asking for context, in which you only receive a link from silverwolf. as you click in, you can’t help but wish you can unsee what’s on the screen.

“‘YOUR NAME’, IDENTIFIED IN ASSOCIATION WITH STELLARON HUNTER ‘BLADE’: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE. BOUNTY SET AT 3.5 BILLION.” and attached below is a video of what transpired yesterday.

“great” you mutter under your breath, “not only am i dating a wanted criminal, now i'm one too.” you shoot a quick message to the group chat “any tips on staying out of trouble when your boyfriend’s a fugitive? asking for a friend... and my sanity.”

on the bright side, at least you’ll be greeted by a very pleased blade, now publicly acknowledged as your husband —oh and don’t question the second ring on your finger.

#JING YUAN

+ stop you're not allowed to smile at me like that. / like what?

how do i even start. he’s so smug, please throw a rock at him and wipe that “:3” off his face.

you really do sometimes wonder if jing yuan ever truly intended to keep this relationship a secret, especially by how he practically transforms into a lovesick puppy whenever you’re within a 10 meter radius.

goodluck because he's also such a tease, an insufferable one. despite that, you can’t deny there’s something endearing about how he always seems to light up when you’re around, his constant teasing remarks making it harder to stay mad whenever you call him out for being “too lax”.

after all, he may be a headache, but he’s your headache —one that comes with a hefty dose of affection and a penchant for making every single moment spent together memorable.

being the general’s secretary, and his lover isn’t an easy job.

you’re focused on the task before you; reviewing documents, scheduling meetings, coordinating logistics for high-stakes missions —ensuring no crucial information slips through the cracks.

but you can’t help but feel a pair of eyes boring into you. it’s a subtle sensation, a weight that pulls your awareness away from the task at hand. you glance up from your desk, only to be met by jing yuan’s gaze, fixed on you with an intensity that makes your pulse quicken.

“jing yuan, what are you doing?” you ask, but he doesn’t answer. though a smile slowly spreads across his face as he continues to watch you. his overwhelming stare makes it difficult to concentrate…

and worse? he looks utterly and hopelessly in love.

“stop, you're not allowed to smile at me like that.” the words come out softer than intended; he leans in slightly, the warmth in his expression only deepening.

“and why not?” he asks, his voice carries a hint of amusement. the twinkle in his eyes suggests that he knows exactly what he’s doing, and it only adds to your annoyance.

“because” you reply, trying to sound exasperated, “you’re looking at me as if you’re in love with me or something!” —and your handsome face makes it impossible to focus.

jing yuan’s smile only widens, clearly enjoying your reaction. “is that so? i didn’t realise my smile had such an effect on you.” (you hope his pants catch on fire because he’s obviously lying about being unaware of the effect his presence has on you)

“and i am in love with you.”

that, in fact, did not ease the fluttering in your chest. “shh!” you quickly cover his mouth with your hand; you hold your grip for a moment longer, feeling the warmth of his breath against your palm.

“hmm… so i can't even look at my beloved partner now?” his voice comes out slightly muffled and distorted due to your playful assault on his face. you give his cheek one last, harsh pinch before finally letting him go.

you heave a sigh of relief once you’re sure no one heard anything, you loosen your grip but keep your palm resting on his face. with a playful pinch, you squeeze his cheek. “you tease!” you furrow your brows, though a small smile tugs at your lips despite your effort to remain stern.

you shake your head with a smile, “do you have any idea how hard it is to stay focused when you’re looking at me like that?” the admission slips out before you can stop it, and you feel a flush rise to your cheeks.

“i know,” he replies with a grin, “and i wouldn’t change a thing.”

jing yuan rests his chin on his hand, his elbow propped up on your desk; the warmth of his gaze and the cheeky grin on his face makes it hard to stay frustrated at him.

“you’re impossible,” you say with a mock scowl, though your tone carries a lighthearted edge. “but it’s also hard to stay mad at you.”

he chuckles softly, clearly pleased with your reaction. he leans in a bit more, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “oh? then would you like to head out—”

“you wish.” you cut him off with a deadpan look, “that stack of papers has been sitting there since this morning, and it’s not going to magically sort itself out.”

you gesture toward the mountain of documents on your desk, which has only grown throughout the day. he sighs, settling himself comfortably into the seat beside you. you pick up your pen as you try to regain your focus again amidst the lingering warmth of his presence.

this time, you really do consider throwing a rock at him when his head falls on your shoulder as he dozes off just five minutes later.

but hey, at least he makes it clear that he’s head over heels for you, even if it comes with a side of embarrassment, and a few near heart attacks.

MASTERLIST ; EVENT M.LIST

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butyoudidthis4what · 1 month ago

Text

No Man's Land Part 3

Jack Abbot x F!Reader

You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here!

25.1k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: mentions of blood, mentions of guns/shootings/gunshot wounds, mentions of suicide/suicidal ideation, CPR, mentions of jack's injury and losing his foot, anxiety about partner's safety, angst (kind of), very emotional, probably incorrect description of medical events, potentially incorrect medical descriptions/knowledge, reader wears Jack’s clothes, self-hate, Robby has been to therapy, fighting/arguing (no raised voices), unprotected PIV sex (BC implied with their committed relationship), allusions to sex and oral sex, discussion of end of life wishes, descriptions of nightmares, discussion of someone dying in front of reader, panic attacks, vomiting (very brief, not reader), discussion of scars/wounds, grief, mention of UTI, myrna, reader likes candles, Jack is the best, 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, not really proofread.

Summary: Healing is hard. Emotions abound. Somehow life goes on. [Author continues to suck at summaries.]

AN: I am so sorry this took so long 😅 The vignettes have a bit of a different feel here because the way we are moving through time is much different and on a larger scale. But each vignette 'happened' before the scene it precedes. Part 4 is already like 75% of the way done so it will not be as long of a wait, I promise 😭 I know some wanted it all at once and I'm sorry it isn't, but I can offer as an apology the fact that because we're getting another part we're getting more content both in Part 3 and in Part 4!! Also I promise Quiet Part 2 is next up after Part 4. Thank you all so much for your patience and support and for reading!! Your replies and likes and reblogs mean so so much to me and I know we're all busy so I really appreciate you taking the time to read whatever it is I do here ♥️

After the housewarming party, life is good. You and Jack are still home together while you recover, in love and soaking each other in and planning France and dreaming out loud about your wedding. And healing. Individually and together.

Things get harder though.

You’re both in therapy, yes, but you’ve been through a lot in the last month and a bit, and an hour a week only does so much. You’re both struggling, struggling a little harder now that the kind of honeymoon period of you getting home from the hospital has passed.

You and Jack talk about it sometimes, about how things feel harder in a way all of the sudden now that you’re not focusing on being home finally and getting your place painted and all moved into. You think it’s just because you have lost some of that distraction. The reality of what happened starts to sink in deeper. Especially because things are ostensibly returning to normal but not really.

Because normal isn’t being at home together while you’re recovering. You’re back to that hospital feeling of waiting. Waiting for you to recover enough for the next step to get taken. Jack going back to work. You going back to work. The return of your true new normal.

So things get a little harder, emotions more intense. Some days it feels like you guys are taking more steps backward than forward. But you’re taking those steps in whatever direction together and you have each other and are in love and that’s all either of you need at the end of the day. Each other and your love.

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

It’s day four.

Four days now you’ve been in a coma. Four days with no signs of waking up soon, even after they weaned you off the meds that had been keeping you under to help you heal. No twitch of your fingers or toes, no flutter of your eyelashes, no little grunt, no breathing over the vent. Nothing. Just you laying there in a hospital bed. Technically still alive and with him, but are you really?

Jack stretches out. He hasn’t left the hospital since you got shot. Literally has not set foot out of the building, hasn’t gone to the roof or out into the ambulance bay or gone through the main doors to stand on the street.

Dana brought him in clothes and toiletries. She brought some for you too, telling Jack that you’d want them as soon as you were awake. Half of Jack wanted to scream at her for tempting fate like that, now that she brought them there would be no use for them because you’d never wake up.

And half of him wanted to just sob into her because he knows that as much as she did bring them for you, she brought them for him. To give him the option of smelling like you, or just smelling your shampoo to smell you for a second. To give him a shirt of yours to keep near his head when he tries to get an hour of sleep. It helped once. He was actually able to grab a couple of hours.

It’s not the same though, because those products haven’t mixed with your body chemistry to become the unique scent that is you. But it’s better than nothing. Because until Dana had brought it in for him he’d forgotten what you smelled like.

He’d forgotten what you sounded like too. The sound of your voice, the way you say his name. The way you say you love him. Your laugh. He just couldn’t hear it in his head. He cracked on day three and listened to a voicemail you left him, watched a video of the two of you that you’d taken one day. It was comforting to be able to remember what you sound like and what you look like when you smile, to have those little pieces of you back in his mind. But it was also a devastating reminder of what he might lose.

Your things, the voicemails you’ve left him and the videos and photos you’ve taken together might be all he really has left of you at the end of this. The realization had made him dry heave a little.

Robby walks in as Jack is stretching, hands him a coffee and a brown bag. Breakfast. “You have to eat if you want the coffee or else it’s just going to shoot up your heart rate and give you more anxiety.”

Jack looks at him almost blankly as he sits down in the chair on the other side of your bed across from Jack. “I’m still a doctor, you know?” The words hit Jack. “A fucking shitty one apparently. I can’t even fix her. This shit is what I do and I’ve saved so many people but the one fucking person who actually matters.” Jack shakes his head. “And nothing.”

Robby cocks his head at him. “No doctor could fix this Jack. She’s in a coma. You’re making sure she gets the best care possible. That’s all anyone could do for her right now, doctor or not.”

Jack waves Robby off, takes a sip of the coffee but makes no move for the bag. It earns him a look from Robby that he ignores. They sit in silence for a bit. It’s hard to come up with things to say. But Robby knows Jack needs to start thinking about it. It’s still very far down the line but it’ll be better for him to start thinking and coming to terms with it now, Robby thinks.

“Jack.” Jack pulls his eyes off you and over to Robby. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

Deep down Jack knows exactly what Robby’s question means. But he doesn’t let himself go there. He can’t. Robby will have to spell it out for him. “What I’m going to do about what?”

“What you’re going to do if down the line she heals physically but doesn’t wake up?” Robby says quietly, as though saying it lower will make it somehow less painful, pull less of a reaction from Jack.

“What the fuck is that? Why the fuck would you even bring that up?” Jack snaps at him. While you were awake after surgery you’d signed a healthcare proxy giving Jack the authority to make treatment and end of life decisions for you. It had been just in case. Better to have it because then you would never need it right? Wrong. “We’re so the fuck far away from that. She’s not even healed. You and Dana are the ones that keep saying ‘it’s only been four days Jack give her time’ and now you’re coming at me with this bullshit?”

“I’m not coming at you with anything. Just asking a question because maybe it’s better to start preparing now for something you’ll never have to do than to be unprepared.” Robby shrugs.

Jack doesn’t say anything, just looks back at you. He scoots his chair closer so that he can hold your hand. You’re just so goddamn still. It’s unnatural. Even the way you breathe is, it’s mechanical. Chest rising and falling in time with the clicks of the vent.

“I know that I don’t really know her, Jack, and certainly don’t know her well. But just from the little bit of time I have been able to get to know her I don’t think she’d want this Jack. Not indefinitely. I don’t think she’d want machines keeping her alive.” Robby watches Jack carefully as Jack takes in his words. Devastation is quickly covered by anger.

“I don’t fucking care. She should wake the fuck up then and not leave this to me. Not make me fucking kill her.” Jack knows his anger at you is misplaced and a cover for how much this conversation is hurting him. Anger is just easier to deal with than heartbreak and grief right now. He sees Robby go to speak. “Just fucking don’t Robby. Don’t. You’re right. You don’t fucking know her. And I don’t care. I don’t fucking care if she wouldn’t want it because I need her. And having her here with me like this is better than not having her at all.” Jack knows how selfish he sounds, how selfish he’s being.

Robby doesn’t say anything, waits until Jack glances over at him, tilts his head and raises his eyebrows, asking him ‘really?’ without a word.

Jack sighs and looks back over at you shaking his head. “No,” he whispers. “She would hate it. We fucking talked about it once, way before this when it was on some show or movie we were watching. It would be cowardly and selfish of me to keep her here like this forever, just so that I wouldn’t have to deal with completely losing her and could live in a perpetual delusion that she’ll wake up tomorrow.” Jack gives a short and hollow laugh through his nose. “Right before I left to go down to the ED and help, we… argued isn’t the right word, but I don’t know what is. She mentioned it, her dying. That if she had already died, in the OR or at the courthouse then I could be properly grieving, and I cut her off but she was going to say that I could be working towards moving on.”

Jack feels guilty for getting angry at you, for being selfish. He knows you’d understand and wouldn’t care and wouldn’t want him to feel guilty but it doesn’t help. He swallows thickly and then takes in a deep breath, squeezing your hand, praying you’ll squeeze it back, even just a little.

“But there’s no moving on from her.” Jack shakes his head as he looks down at you. “The problem is that I don’t think I’ll be strong enough to do it. To sign the damn papers,” Jack admits, voice wet with the tears lining his eyes.

Robby nods slowly. “You are now and you will be then, if that then does ever come. You will because it’s for her. And I’m not sure I’ve ever seen two humans love each other as much as you do, the way you do. She would do anything for you. And I know you’d do anything for her, no matter how much it killed you inside. So I know that if that day ever comes you’ll be strong enough to sign for her, to do that for her.”

Jack’s silent for a minute, trying not to give into the urge to grab your shoulders and shake you awake. “I don’t know Robby. I don’t know how to talk to her like this. I try, but I just never know what to say other than I love her and please come back to me and please don’t leave me alone. And I hate it. She deserves more. For it to not be about me,” he whispers, stands and runs the back of his bent index finger over your face like he’s trying to memorize you. As if he hasn’t already. He’s teary, voice small and raw from all the tears he’s already shed. “So how do I let her be taken from me? How do I give her up, give up on her, tell her it’s okay to let go? How do I stand there and fight all my training and every instinct and just watch her die and know it’s my fault?”

Robby has to take a minute to compose himself because his heart aches for Jack. It’s hard to see your best friend, your brother, contemplating losing the love of his life. Even though all of Jack’s questions are rhetorical he answers the last one.

“You don’t,” he says simply. “You get in bed with her and you hold her and find it within you to talk to her. Tell her all of your favorite memories together. Tell her what she means to you. Tell her you love her. And you stay there in bed holding her until she’s gone.”

Jack takes in a shuddering breath as he sits back down in his chair. “Hope seems so worthless and useless right now even though it’s all I feel like I have left.” Jack grabs your hand again, brushes his thumb over your knuckles. “I hope I never have to sign those papers.”

Robby sniffles a little, not crying, just emotional. “That makes two of us, brother.”

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

“I think you should consider leaving your engagement ring here.” You and Jack are planning more for your trip to France, making packing lists. Well, you’re on the computer planning and making lists and Jack is chopping up ingredients for dinner.

It’s been four days since the housewarming party. You feel like Jack has been more stressed lately, more on edge. Looking at you like he’s terrified of losing you again, like he did at times in the hospital and the first two days you were home.

“Why?” You pout at him from the stool you’re sitting on at the kitchen island. “I want to wear it and show it off and take photos with it on while we’re in France!”

“I know,” Jack hums lowly, his eyebrows raising a little as he focuses on chopping. “I worry about it getting stolen, you getting assaulted for it or something, especially in Paris.”

“But walking around with it on in Pittsburgh is okay?”

He sighs at you. He kind of hates that you said that because now it’s all he can think about. Whether he has put your life in danger for a third time by getting you a nice engagement ring. Because he’s already done it twice. When he didn’t check you over in the trauma room before letting you go and going to help Robby, and when he left to go down to the ED and wasn’t there to notice you going septic and throwing a PE.

You’re the only one who would notice him stiffen the way he does, it’s so slight. You feel bad. You know he’s been struggling more the closer he gets to going back to work and having to leave you alone. Even starting with half shifts. And you know he’s struggling to talk about it with you because he doesn’t want to burden you with it or make you feel any guiltier. You’ve both fallen into that habit a little bit.

“I really don’t think anyone is going to try to steal it off me or assault me to get it when I’m walking around with you.” You raise your eyebrows at him and give him a knowing smile, wait for him to lift his head to look at you once he’s finished chopping. He does.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He points the knife at you teasingly and holds your gaze for a moment before grabbing something else to chop and getting back to it.

“But I don’t want to leave it here Peter!” you almost whine. It makes Jack chuckle to himself a little. “I don’t want to argue about it, but I really want to take it. I like showing it off, like everyone knowing I’m yours.” That makes him look up at you again and you smile at him and nod encouragingly. You can see the possessive look in his eyes, the way he breathes a little bit faster thinking about it. But he just clicks his tongue on the back of his teeth at you and shakes his head as he looks back down. “Okay, how about a compromise?”

“A compromise?” Jack echoes.

“Yes. A compromise.”

There’s a beat where neither of you talk, only the sound of the knife hitting the cutting board. Jack pauses his cutting and looks up at you. “Are you gonna tell me what the compromise is?”

“I’m thinking of one,” you grumble, knowing how satisfied he’s going to be.

“Oh,” he draws the word out teasingly, “she suggests a compromise before she even has one!”

“I’ll come up with one, just give me a minute,” you huff. Jack hums at you again, keeps chopping. “Okay, yes! I have one. What if while we’re in Paris or whatever bigger cities or places you’d prefer I wasn’t wearing it on my finger you wear the ring around a chain on your neck? Even on the same one as your dog tags if you’re bringing them. People are much less likely to try to snatch it from your neck and run, plus it’ll always be covered by your shirt unless you’re going to start wearing deep v-necks, which I doubt.” You smirk.

You watch Jack’s eyes slide from you to the wall behind you and glaze over. It’s clear he’s going back somewhere, you just don’t know where or why or what happened. The smirk slides from your face as it twists into concern.

He goes to say something but stops as your words fully process. Wear the ring around a chain on his neck. Like he did at your funeral.

Jack drops the knife, it falls out of his hand and clatters a bit as it hits the counter. “Jack?” you whisper, your heart rate picking up.

The nightmare plays on fast forward in Jack’s head, every emotion he felt when having it slamming into him all at once and making his head spin. With the massive flood of epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol all those emotions cause his body to release, Jack’s turning and leaning over the sink to be sick.

It’s all too much.

“Jack!” You’re off the stool and over by him in a second, rubbing his back. “Hey,” you murmur, “it’s okay, you’re okay.” You have no idea what’s going on with him, but have a feeling.

Jack shakes his head at you as he dry heaves a few more times, trembling like nothing you’ve seen from him before. “I’ve got you.” Your hand keeps rubbing circles on his back soothingly and it’s simultaneously comforting him and burning him, because it’s all too much. There are too many emotions.

You were dead. He was at your funeral. It was so real.

Tears start to stream down his face silently as he rinses the sink and his mouth. “We can get you to bed, okay? I’ll make you some broth if you feel up to it.”

He can hear the anxiety in your voice, the worry for him, your love for him. He loves it, he does, truly, but it almost makes it worse because you were dead. And if you were dead, if you had really died, he wouldn’t have this. He wouldn’t be in sweatpants and an old shirt at home chopping things to make dinner for the two of you while you sit in the kitchen to be with him and plan your trip. You wouldn’t be rubbing his back and so worried about him. You wouldn’t be taking care of him and offering to make him broth.

You simply wouldn’t be.

Jack shakes his head and sniffles. He turns to you and your eyes widen when you see him crying, pain and a heartbreaking and agonizing sorrow etched into his face that threatens to bring you to tears. You immediately know what this is about. He doesn’t need to say anything. He’s not ill. But you’re not sure how to support him, what to say, what exactly is wrong. “Jack what’s-”

You’re cut off by him crumbling in front of you, grabbing at your forearms to pull you closer as he slides down the base cabinets to the floor, bringing you down with him. “I,” he tries to choke out, “I, I…” He shakes his head again.

He can’t speak right now, and you know it. “Okay, it’s okay,” you tell him as you reach for him and pull him close to you as you press your back against the cabinet, letting him almost lay on you.

Jack buries his head in your chest, careful not to press into your still healing sternum too hard, and clings to you, both arms wrapped tightly around you, one diagonal up your back, hand clinging to your shoulder for just a second before it slides over to your neck, two fingers pushing down.

He’s looking for your pulse.

“Oh, Jack,” you whisper, your own voice thick with tears now. “I’m here. I’ve got you baby.” You hold him just as tight, let one hand find his hair and run your fingers through it, scratch at his scalp at times, kiss the top of his head and nuzzle your nose into him in hopes of soothing him. Sometimes you rock a little, but you’re not sure if that’s more to comfort him or yourself.

And you whisper little words of reassurance and, you hope, comfort to him. “I’ve got you.” “I’m here.” “You’re okay.” “I love you.” You hold him and let him weep into you. Let him keep his fingers pressed into your pulse point. Let him cling to you like you’re the only thing left in the world, because to him you are. You’re his whole world.

It kills you, seeing him like this, hurting this badly. This deeply. You know it has to do with what happened, know that it’s been building up in him for a long time. That he hasn’t said anything about it, not because he was trying to hide it but because he just couldn’t. And you understand that. A whole lot.

“Here baby,” you murmur at one point, try to move his head a little which just makes him sob harder and hold you closer. “Shh, I’m not going anywhere, just trust me, okay? I think this will help.” You try again and this time he lets you move his head, lets you turn it to the side and move it over and then pull him back to your chest, keep your hand on the side of his face, thumb brushing along his cheekbone. He’s confused until he hears it.

The rhythmic beating of your heart in your chest.

It makes him tremble against you harder, clutch at you tighter. But you don’t care. You wouldn’t care if he held you so hard it hurt. You’d take on all the physical pain out there without a second thought and genuinely smile about it if it would take away Jack’s pain.

It starts to pass the longer Jack is in your arms, ear to your chest listening to your heart beating, fingers pressing into your skin feeling your heart beating. It calms him. He quiets, reduced to only sniffles and hiccuped in breaths and swollen eyes and an ache so deep in his chest he’s not sure it can be fixed. But you’re with him, still holding him on the kitchen floor and brushing at his cheekbone and scratching at the nape of his neck and kissing his curls and whispering soft words of reassurance to him.

You’re here. You’re in your shared apartment. You’re alive.

You have to be, right? The sound of your heart beating and the warmth of your chest and your voice whispering quiet words to him has to be real. It would make sense for you to come up with the idea of him wearing your engagement ring on a chain around his neck all on your own as a compromise. It doesn’t mean he’s still in that nightmare and just starting to realize it. It means the two of you just think alike. Right?

You aren’t sure how long you end up sitting there on the floor together, his head pressed against your chest. It doesn’t really matter. You know he’s really starting to come down when his fingers no longer press into your neck to feel for your pulse. “I’m here if and when you want to talk,” you whisper. You don’t expect anything back from him and aren’t hurt when he remains quiet.

Eventually Jack pulls his head from your chest and looks up at you. After a few seconds of eye contact he pushes himself up and sits with his back against the base cabinet next to you. He wipes off his face with his hands and once he’s done, one of your hands immediately finds one of his and squeezes. He needs it. Little things like a hand squeeze from you to remind him that you’re still here with him. Eventually he lets his head tilt and rest on your shoulder. You turn your head, give him a lingering kiss to the temple and then rest yours on top of his.

And then you just sit like that. For as long as he needs. Even when your ass goes numb and back stiffens a bit. You stay just like that with him.

Jack loves the way you don’t press him. You don’t ask if he’s okay, or if he wants to talk about it, or tell him gently to talk to you. You just let him be as he comes back to himself fully. And he knows it’s not because you don’t want to talk about it or don’t want him to talk to you about it but because you understand that sometimes there is simultaneously too much and nothing to be said. So you let him be.

After a while Jack takes a big breath in and slowly lets it out. You feel him pull his head a little so you lift yours up and look over at him as he looks at you.

He looks wrecked in a way you’ve never seen before. Eyes red and swollen, lips a bit swollen too. Mouth set and lips pulled just the slightest bit down, hair fluffier and more askew than normal because of how much you’ve run your hands through it. His shirt is wrinkled, part of the neckline darker than the rest of the shirt from his tears. He looks haunted.

But mostly it’s the way he’s looking at you that really shows how wrecked he is. You’ve seen Jack look at you a lot of ways, with a lot of different expressions, especially recently with everything that has happened. Happy, sad, like he’s amazed and can’t believe you’re alive, like looking at you hurts him a little because it reminds him of what he almost lost and who he couldn’t protect.

But you’ve never seen Jack look at you like this. He’s looking at you like he can’t believe you’re alive, but not in an incredulous, happy sense. Jack’s looking at you like he truly cannot believe you’re alive, is scared to believe it even for a second. Like he doesn’t trust the world that you are in fact alive, doesn’t trust himself and his ability to know whether you’re alive. Like you’re a hallucination or a mirage, or a ghost who has been living with him and he’s just realizing it. Like you’re a dream he’s about to wake up from.

“I…” Jack tries to start, voice raw, as unsure and questioning and wrecked as he looks. He just keeps looking at you like he’s about to come back to reality and you’re about to disappear right in front of his eyes, just cease to exist.

He shifts and leans off the cabinet, gets closer to you and takes your face in his hands. Jack holds your gaze how he loves to do, lets his eyes burn into yours as though they’ll give him the answer to whatever question it is he can’t speak.

You lean your head into one of his hands a little and then Jack’s kissing you, pressing against your lips hard at first like he was bracing to just move through air and never actually find your lips. It’s short, his head pulling back from yours for a second to look you in the eyes again before his eyes drop to your lips.

Glassy eyes look back up at you, questioning. You nod slightly, because of course he can kiss you. And he does.

Jack pulls your head back towards his as he leans in, both of your mouths opening just slightly. He takes the opportunity, licks into your mouth and starts devouring you, his head moving slightly with each kiss and slip of his tongue back into your mouth.

It’s greedy the way he kisses you, nose smushing into your face as you both start to breathe hard, the sound almost lost in between the noises of pleasure you pull from each other and the pops of your lips with each pass. Jack kisses you like he doesn’t believe you’re real. Like each kiss might be the last one he’s ever able to give you, like it’ll never be enough, like he’ll never have enough of you. It’s not something you’ve ever felt from him before. You can tell he’s scared in a way but you aren’t sure about what exactly.

He keeps kissing you but his hands drop from your face to grab at the hem of your shirt, start sliding it up your body, stopping to pop the clasp of your bra as he works the shirt up and eventually over your head, helps you shrug your bra off. You expect his lips to return to yours immediately but they don’t.

Jack stands as he tosses your shirt and bra to the side, hands reaching down for you and helping to get you up on your feet. Before you can say anything his hands are on your hips and his lips are back on yours. He walks you backwards to the kitchen table until your ass bumps into the edge of it. Without breaking the kiss he moves his from your hips and blindly wipes off the table, sending some mail and books and whatever else happened to be there clattering to the floor.

He finally breaks the kiss to give you a chance to breathe and so he can check there’s nothing on the table. “Jack,” you breathe out with some surprise. He grabs your hips and helps you sit on the edge of the table before stooping to bring his face back close to yours.

“Please,” he whispers against your lips, “please. Please, I need this.” He pushes his lips to yours once again, licking into your mouth once again. “I need to feel you.” He feels your hands at the hem of his shirt and moves apart just enough for him to get it off and throw it to the floor. “I need you.” It’s pleaded, desperate and needy, but not erotically so.

“Of course, always.” You let him support you as he leans over you and guides you down until your back rests against the table. “You have me, you always have me.”

It’s quick then, the way he tears off your bottoms and then his. You wrap your legs around him as he leans back over you, chest to chest and kisses you again, like he can’t get enough, like each kiss is a surprise he wasn’t expecting to actually get. He grinds himself into you as he does and you respond in kind, tightening your legs around him and letting your hips buck as much as they can against him to search out more friction. His hands roam your body, pressing into you to feel as much as he can, groping at your breasts and squeezing your hips as his lips stay on yours.

“Fuck,” he groans into your mouth, hand sliding between the two of you to feel how wet you are for him. “Can you take me like this?”

“Yeah,” you pant softly, “yeah, please Jack.” You wrap your arms around his neck, hands tangling in salt and pepper curls you adore.

He shivers at the way you say his name, his lips leaving yours so he can look down at you as his fingers run through you and then over his cock to slick himself up as much as he can. “I need to know you’re real and still here. I need to be close to you.”

Jack notches himself in you and then moves to rest on his forearms with his hands holding your face, forehead resting against yours before he finally pushes himself into you slowly. His voice cracks with emotion part way through the needy and relieved groan he draws out as he pushes in.

“Oh Jack,” you moan as you take a breath in and feel it catch in your throat.

Once he bottoms out Jack stills, the two of you panting against each other’s lips until Jack’s are claiming yours once again. He stays still, lets himself relish in the way you taste and how you feel around him, so tight and warm and fluttering as you adjust to taking him with no real preparation.

Jack finally draws his hips back slowly and steadily pushes himself back in with a grunt. “You okay?” Even with as out of his mind for you as he is, how desperate and needy and frantic he is to have you he’s still checking in on you. Would rather die than hurt you, especially like this.

“Yes,” you breathe, “yes, Jack please. Need you.” Hearing that you need him has Jack pulling his hips back again, faster this time before snapping back in.

From there it’s all feral need and grunts and groans as Jack tries to be closer to you, to consume you, to be one with you. His strokes are hard as he tries to get as deep inside of you as he possibly can. His pace varies, keeps you on your toes, but it’s not deliberate this time. It’s Jack chasing what he needs from you however his body tells him, however feels right at that second. At some point one of his arms slides under your back, his hand wrapping over the opposite shoulder so that you tilt to the side just a little and he can pull you down onto him as he fucks you so hard your last clear thought is of concern he might break the table.

Your hands tug at his hair, nails draw up his back when he starts mouthing at your neck, kissing and sucking, lips passing over the scar from your central line again and again. He rests his cheek against yours leaving his mouth near your ear allowing you to hear every little noise your body pulls from him. Jack is fucking you with pure need but it’s not an erotic need like it is sometimes when you tease him or he’s been thinking about you all day. It’s intimate. Jack needs you. He needs you. All of you.

Only you.

You’re so lost in the haze of pleasure that it takes you a moment to realize your cheek is wet where your and Jack’s touch. You realize he’s crying. “Jack?” You moan his name so sweetly for him, lace it with all the concern and worry and need you have for him.

It makes him let out the smallest sob and breathe in hard through his teeth, shake his head a little against yours. He pulls his head from yours and looks down at you, hips slowing but not stopping. “Tell me you’re here,” a fresh wave of tears roll down his face and hit your cheeks. He’s unfairly beautiful when he cries. “Tell me this is real. That you’re real.” A few of your own tears slip out the corner of your eyes and roll down towards your ear. “Please,” his voice cracks, more of his tears joining your own on your face, “please be real. Please tell me you’re here and real and with me.”

You do. Over and over and over until his lips are back on yours and consuming you in a different way now. More confident, more convinced you’re real and here with him and letting him fuck you on your kitchen table to soothe himself and fix something inside of him he didn’t realize was broken.

Letting him take solace from every part of you.

One hand slips between your bodies and with how well he knows you it’s not long before Jack has you soundless with pleasure for a moment as your orgasm crashes over you, voice coming back to moan out little whispers of his name, veiled pleas for him to take anything and everything he could ever need from you.

And so Jack does. Lets himself give in and lose himself all the way in you, your name groaned with a relieved intensity you’ve never heard from him before, lower and more gravelly than usual right at your ear.

Jack works himself through it before stilling and resting his forehead back against yours, the two of you panting softly as you come down, bodies hot and sweat sheened and sticking together. “I love you,” Jack whispers, eyes opening and finding yours before kissing you, chaste but lingering. Just to feel you.

“I love you too,” you murmur against his lips when you’re able, hand running through his hair and scratching at his scalp. Jack kisses your lips again and then your chin, down your neck and to your central line scar, lingering there before kissing down to the highest part of your thoracotomy scar. “Bed?”

Jack nods, lifts himself off of you and pulls out gently. He steps back and helps you up and off the table. “I should take care of all this.” He nods to the kitchen.

You shake your head and grab his hand. “The carrots and potatoes can live there overnight and it’ll be fine. We can order something from bed.” You squeeze his hand and pull him gently so he starts walking with you.

Jack pulls back on your hand before you can get in bed, flicks his chin towards the bathroom. “Go,” it’s not an order, just a reminder. “We don’t want my… whatever that was to be the reason you get a UTI. You really don’t need that right now.”

You smile at him gently and nod. Even after all the emotional turmoil he just went through, still is a little bit from what you can see in his eyes, he’s still thinking about you and your well being and keeping you healthy and safe. “You’ll get in bed?”

He nods and drops your hand, sits on the edge and takes his prosthetic off as you go pee. He’s leaning against the headboard and staring into space when you get into bed. You slide up next to him so that your legs touch and lean back against the headboard, let your hand rest on his thigh and give it a little squeeze so he knows you’re here for whatever he might need.

“When you were in a coma,” Jack starts, voice strained and raw, “I started having nightmares.” He rests his hand on top of yours. You close your eyes and bow your head a little, heart sinking. “Some weren’t completely awful. But the one I got the most…” he trails off and shakes his head, grows quiet again.

“You don’t have to tell me,” you remind him softly, lean your head over and kiss his bare shoulder.

“I know, but I want to. At least enough to explain what that was.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, Jack.”

“I know but I want to tell you.” He pauses for a second. “The worst, and of course most frequent, one was where you died in the OR. And I had to hold your lifeless body and somehow force myself to walk away from you. In the nightmare I’m thinking back on that while I’m sitting at your funeral.” You blink away tears because you can’t even imagine the level of pain that must have caused him. Multiple times. “The details, I… They don’t really matter, right now. In the nightmare I wore your engagement ring, the one that never got to go on your finger because I never go to ask, I wore it on a chain around my neck.”

“Oh fuck Jack,” you cringe, closing your eyes and squeezing his thigh tight and hating yourself. “I am so fucking sorry.”

Jack finally turns his head to look over at you. “Don’t be. Seriously. You had no way of knowing.” You appreciate him saying it but it doesn’t stop the guilt that builds inside of you. You were the reason he had the nightmare in the first place and now you’re the reason he had to go right back there. “So when you, when it got brought up, it just made it all hit me again, all the emotions from that nightmare and it made me panic almost. That this wasn’t real, that you weren’t. And I lost it a bit and so I did whatever that was and then needed to be as close to you as possible.” He shrugs a little. “I needed to know you were real.”

Jack’s hand slides under yours and picks it up, laces your fingers together and squeezes. You feel vaguely lightheaded by his admission and then berate yourself and feel guiltier for thinking about yourself when this is about Jack and him still needing you. “I,” you try to find words to say, “I’m sorry,” Jack shakes his head but you continue, “I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that must have been.” You pause and have to look away from him for a moment, can feel his eyes remain on you. “Or maybe I can, to some extent at least, and that’s why I’m sorry and wish I could take it all away from you, make sure it never happens again.”

“That one has only happened once since you’ve been home. The first night.” You feel a little relief at that, are able to look back up at him. “They’ve kind of changed though, honestly. It’s not holding your dead body in an OR anymore, it’s walking in the door from work or the store or wherever and finding your dead body on the floor or in bed or wherever. Complications. Something else random. Freak home deaths I’ve seen roll through work before.” He lets go of your hand to bring his hand to your face again. “I wake up and have to convince myself you’re here. I’ve gotten quite good at the art of taking your pulse on your wrist without you waking up.” He gives a little laugh through his nose, trying to infuse a little lightness. It doesn’t work. If anything your lips pull down a bit. “Sometimes I just lay awake for a while watching you breathe. Sometimes I cuddle up to you a bit closer to feel your chest rise and fall against mine. Sometimes I fall asleep counting the beats of your heart while I feel your pulse.”

You take in a shuddery breath, trying so hard to focus on him and helping him and being here for him and not on the way this is all your fault. “Do you want to talk or for me to just listen?” You don’t want to force him to truly discuss this with you if he’s not in the headspace right now and it won’t surprise you if he’s not.

Jack thinks about it for a second. “Listen, please.”

“Okay.” You nod at him. “I’m not saying this to start a conversation when you just told me you wanted listening but I just need to make sure you know. You can do whatever you need to do Jack. When you wake up from one. Wake me up. We can talk, we can just sit together, whatever you need, okay?”

He nods, pulls his hand from your face to wipe away the couple of tears that have fallen down his own during this conversation. “Actually when you shifted us earlier, in the kitchen. Pulled my head to your chest so I could listen to your heart. It helped a lot. I just didn’t want to hurt you, before. With your chest healing.” He tries to laugh softly at himself.

You give him the best smile you can manage with all the guilt and self-hate swirling inside you. “You can roll me into whatever position you want so you can listen anytime.” You know he’s trying to keep the conversation light because he knows how hard hearing it is for you. But that’s not fair. You should be the one trying to keep it light for him, should be taking care of him. “We could get you another stethoscope to keep on your nightstand,” you offer. “Then you could really listen whenever you wanted.”

He gives you a little more of a laugh at that and it makes your small smile become a little more genuine. “Could, yeah. But I like having my head on your chest, feeling you. I think it probably helps ground me in its own way.”

“Makes sense.” You rest your left hand on his chest, push down a little extra hard with your ring finger so he can feel the band that lives there now. “Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy and that you didn’t have to. And I want to do whatever I can to help you because I don’t want you to suffer.” You stop yourself from adding the because of me that you want to so badly.

Jack picks up your hand, brings it to his lips palm first and kisses the band of your engagement ring before flipping your hand and kissing to the side of it the best he can with the setting. He brings your hand to the side of his face and covers it with his as he leans into it. “You always help. Even when you’re just laying there asleep and don’t know it.”

You give him a little smile and laugh through your nose, try your best to take his words to heart because you know how much he means them. Jack knows you’re struggling, he can read you like a book. But he senses that you don’t want to acknowledge it so he doesn’t bring it up.

His stomach growls then which makes you laugh a little more and he huffs. “Ruined our moment.”

“Nah,” you shake your head and pull your hand away and rub his stomach, push off the headboard to sit up more. “What do you feel like? Can’t have my man going hungry.” The smile you give him is genuine, all the way to your eyes this time and it makes him mirror you, that smile of his you love so much pulling onto his face.

He widens his eyes at you for a second and raises his eyebrows and you already know what he’s about to say. “You.”

“Yeah, I walked into that one,” you click your tongue at yourself. Jack gives you a smirk. “I don’t think I’m going to be filling enough for that-”

“I could go for seconds. Thirds, even.”

“Mm, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but no.” You boop his nose and the way he scrunches his nose at it is so cute you could bite him. “Real food first. Me later, if you’re good.” He raises his eyebrows at you with a little smile. “What would you like? I’ll order.”

“Feisty. I’ll take it. Be so good for you so I can have dessert.” He nods all saccharine and put-on grin that makes you roll your eyes at him playfully. He thinks for a moment and then says the name of your favorite restaurant.

You tsk at him and give him a really? look, but you’re smiling still, grinning, in fact. Like an idiot. It’s so sweet and so Jack, just one of those little casual ways he shows he loves you.

“Whattt? I can’t want that?”

“You can, but I don’t think it’s really your first choice, right now.” You shake your head a little as you speak. You start to slide out of bed and Jack whines, grabs at one of your arms.

“Where are you going?” he pouts at you.

“Gotta go get my phone so we can order, baby.”

His pout lessens fractionally. “Alright, but hurry back.”

“You’re very cute when you’re clingy,” you giggle at him as you get out of bed. He goes to make a smart comment back that he isn’t clingy but stops. He is right now and he doesn’t fucking care. He’s allowed to be.

Jack has a favorite restaurant, just like you. Several, actually but you know the one that really tops the list. But you’ve also deduced that Jack has a favorite comfort restaurant that’s different from his favorite favorite. And you know what his favorite comfort meal from that restaurant is. So you add it, pick something for yourself and order it to be delivered before walking back into the bedroom with your phone.

“Took you long enough,” he teases as you come into view. “What were you doing?”

“Ordering.” You toss your phone at him as you slide in and he unlocks it, reads it over.

He swallows thickly and looks at you with glassy eyes. You make him feel more loved than he could ever possibly deserve, knowing him that well without him having ever said a word about it and doing it for him without asking. You give him a soft smile when you turn to look at him. “Okay?”

“More than,” he whispers. “Thank you.” He pulls you closer to him so that you’re cuddling chest to chest, gives you the sweetest, simplest kiss. It’s everything. “You know,” he hums, starting to push you on your back. “I think you’re my appetizer and dessert.”

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

“How about the day we met? We consider that our first date, it’s our anniversary,” Jack suggests.

You and Jack are lounging on the couch together, half watching your show and half discussing wedding things. You’re not making any real plans, just thinking and dreaming out loud with each other.

You can’t help but tease him. “Is that because you only want to have to remember one date?”

He shoots you a look. “No.” He wags his head at you as he says it. “I just thought it was kind of sweet. That’s our day, you know? And it falls on a Saturday that year.” He waves his phone that’s open to the calendar app at you.

You grin at him. “You’re a romantic, Jack Abbot.” You’re crawling into his lap as you sing it, running your hands up his chest to hold his face so you can cover it in kisses.

“So you’ve said.” Jack moves his head and chases your lips with his trying to get a kiss on the lips. “Multiple times.”

“Because it’s true,” you mumble against his lips as he kisses you, running your hands through his curls.

“Yeah, yeah.” He playfully waves you off as you settle on his lap perpendicular to him, one of his arms resting against your legs, hand spread over the thigh closest to him. His other hand rubs up and down your back absentmindedly. “You thought about where?”

“Mm,” you hum, look down at your engagement ring, “not so much. You?”

“Yeah,” he nods, squeezes your thigh. “I was thinking the bookstore.”

Your eyes come up from your ring and look at the wall in front of you for a second before looking at Jack. He can’t be serious. You open your mouth to say something, but close it as you struggle to find the words.

“I didn’t expect speechless but I knew you’d love the idea.” Jack smiles. He uses the hand rubbing at your back to gently grab the back of your neck and bring your face close to his as if he’s going to kiss you. He drops his voice and lets a breath of hot air fan over your lips. “I’m fucking with you,” he murmurs before pulling his face away a bit and releasing you, letting his hand come down to your back again, a huge self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“Jack!” He laughs at the shrill tone of your voice and the way you swat his chest playfully.

“I really had you there for a minute,” he laughs as you fake pout at him. “But something I love about you is the way you were thinking so hard of a way to let me down without hurting me.”

“You did!” You huff at him. “I was sitting here thinking how am I going to explain to him that while I love our bookstore it doesn’t say wedding venue, nor do I want our wedding to be a near recreation of our first date with a bunch of extra people with us!”

Jack chuckles a little more. “I haven’t really thought about where either. Hard to think of where before you have a date to know the season.” You nod and hum, he makes a good point. “I only have one wedding requirement. And it’s not even really the wedding.”

“Oh?” You raise an eyebrow at him in intrigue. “What’s that?”

“I plan the honeymoon.” Both of your eyebrows raise at that and you cock your head at him. You don’t know what you expected him to say, but it wasn’t planning the honeymoon apparently. “And you don’t get to know where we’re going until we’re at the gate about to board.”

“How will I pack?” You look slightly stricken. “Jack, I love you and I trust you with my life, truly, but packing-”

“I’m going to give you,” Jack cuts you off with an oddly reassuring smirk, “two packing lists. You’ll make two piles. Once you’ve left to go get ready I’ll put one of the piles into a suitcase. That way I get my surprise and you’ve packed for yourself.”

You blink at him for a moment. “Jack,” you whisper, swallow hard and will away the tears you can feel forming. “You have this all planned out just to surprise me?”

“I thought you might like the idea, but it’s okay if you don’t.” He nods to emphasize that part. “But if we do decide to do it this way we’ll still talk about places of course, it’s not like I don’t want any input from you. I’ll just be the final decision maker.”

“No, I love it.” The laugh you give him is breathless. “It makes me feel so loved and taken care of. It’s hard to wrap my head around.” You lean into him to give him a deep kiss. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“I think the general idea came to me a couple weeks after I knew I wanted to marry you.”

You beam up at him. “That long?” Jack nods. “Wow.”

“Did you have a moment?” Jack asks you. You furrow your brows at him and shake your head slightly to ask him to explain. “A moment when you knew you wanted to marry me. That you knew you’d say yes if I asked. It’s okay if you don’t, honestly.”

“Of course I do!” You click your tongue at him. You let out a short laugh. “It actually wasn’t long after yours. Like two-ish weeks later, maybe? Things had been adding up, there were lots of things. This was just the first moment where I really consciously thought it.” You smile at him, wrap one arm around his neck so your fingers can scratch at the back of his scalp and nape of his neck how he likes.

“You had just worked I think five nights in a row helping cover shifts. We hadn’t spoken on the phone that day, but exchanged some texts in the morning before you got home and went to sleep. And I could tell just from them that you were so beyond exhausted. My day, well. It was probably the worst and hardest day I had ever had at work and I felt so selfish but once I was able to leave I just went straight to your place. Without asking. So I knock and wait, get ready to leave because I know you’re asleep but then you open the door in your pajama pants, you’d clearly just woken up. And you give me this little ‘Hey Doll, come in’ as you open the door. I was frozen by that point. You took one look at me, grabbed my hand, pulled me inside and sat me on your couch and then disappeared. At some point you came back and gave me a tight hug, kissed my forehead and said ‘I’ve got you.’ And the next thing I know you’re stripping me and getting me into the bath you’d apparently drawn. You sat on the floor next to the tub with me. I still hadn’t said a single word to you at this point. Not even hi. And then you start talking to me. Just talking. I don’t remember about what. But you knew just from looking at me that I needed help getting out of my head. And as I listened I finally found my voice and was able to say I was sorry. You asked why and I said something along the lines of I was being selfish and knew you were exhausted and shouldn’t have come and made you do all this just because I had a bad day. And then you said, ‘Don’t apologize for needing me. Ever. For anything or for any reason. The day will never come where you need me and I am too tired for you.’ It wasn’t a big deal or a huge declaration. Just a casual fact you were stating. You knew what I needed just by looking at me. You didn’t care that I didn’t say a word to you while you did all this stuff for me. You didn’t ask what was wrong or for me to talk to you. You just met me where I was. And as you were helping me out of the bath and drying me off with a towel I just had the thought. I want to marry him.”

You wipe a few tears from your eyes. “Sorry, that was probably way more of a story than it needed to be to answer your question.”

“Don’t apologize,” Jack murmurs. His eyes are glassy just like yours, a bit red. He gives a soft laugh. “I just feel kind of bad now that I didn’t give that much detail.”

“Don’t.” You shake your head at him. “I promise, if I had been down on one knee on this floor that story would have been a whole lot fucking shorter.”

That makes Jack laugh properly which makes you laugh properly. You turn a little and slide your arms around his neck to hug him, his arms sliding around you in return and holding you close.

You nuzzle into his neck and then pull back for a kiss, let Jack deepen it as he begins moving to get you on your back on the couch, propping himself up on his elbows on top of you to keep too much weight off your chest and abdomen. You have to break apart for air but Jack goes straight to your neck, kissing and sucking and pulling all those pretty little sounds from you that he loves.

“We have a date,” you whisper, hands tugging at his curls a little.

Jack pulls back from your neck to look down at you, both of you grinning at each other. “We have a date.”

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

You and Jack walk into the Pitt together. He needed to grab some stuff and sign a few things and was going to have Robby drop it all off so he didn’t have to leave you. You haven’t been outside much since the shooting. But you convinced him that you guys should go together, that it would be good for him to see people. As long as he would drive you guys, which he would of course.

Jack was weary at the idea. You seemed to be struggling a bit harder lately and he worried something about being in the Pitt specifically might be too triggering for you. He knows that you have a lot of unresolved anxiety and guilt about what happened still. And that, while you’ve spoken generally about feeling guilty for putting him through all of this, you, like him, struggle to talk about it with him because you see it as burdening him or guilting him.

But you reassured him that it would be fine. You’d been back to the hospital since everything for follow up appointments. Not to the Pitt, but if the hospital didn’t completely trigger you why would the Pitt?

You feel a little twinge of something as you walk through the ambulance bay doors, the ones you’d come through that day. Jack can tell and he squeezes your hand, stops and pulls to the side. “You sure about this? We can leave, right now.”

You shake your head. “No, no I’m sure. It’ll be good for me. I’m okay, really. It was just a little second of something.”

He eyes you for a second but nods and starts walking you further in. It’s busy, nobody notices either of you as he leads you over to the break room. “You want to wait here? Shouldn’t take long. You can check the fridge. Anything with Robby’s name on it you can steal.”

That makes you laugh, helps you relax. “I’ll wait here, yeah. Go do your thing, Dr. Abbot.” You wink at him.

Jack lets out a little chuckle and shakes his head. “Don’t even start with me, Doll.” It makes you giggle as he leans down to kiss you. “I won’t be long, okay?” You nod at him, take a seat as he walks out.

You scroll on your phone for a few minutes before your curiosity gets the better of you. You walk over and peek out the window of the door. It’s constant movement right now, people barely acknowledging each other as they rush to get somewhere else. You open the door and step out, just to look around.

Before you’re even really aware of it you’re standing in front of one of the trauma rooms. That trauma room. The parts you can remember play in your head. Hugging Jack, Robby calling him over, you realizing what had happened and calling to Jack. And then nothing. Standing here you can only imagine what it must have been like for Jack, for him to have seen where you were shot and then watch you collapse. And then you made him live in the hospital with you for weeks. And now you’re making him stay home with you. Sometimes your guilt makes you feel like his jailer.

Jack chats with Robby at the desk while he fills out one of the papers, gives whatever info it is HR so desperately needed to process all his leave correctly. Robby’s mid sentence when Jack spots you just in the corner of his eye, turns to see you standing in front of the trauma room. Jack leaves without a word to Robby and strides to you.

“Hey,” he calls out as he gets close so that he won’t scare you when he steps in front of you and puts his hands on your arms. He sees that your eyes are a little glazed over when he gets a good look at you. “Why don’t you come over to the desk with me, yeah?” He’s not going to ask you why you were there like you’re a child who needs to explain yourself to him. He’s just going to redirect. “Yeah?” He asks again as he cups your face with one hand.

“I just wanted to see. I, I got… curious. Just wanted to watch.” You explain anyway. “And then I was here.”

“That’s okay, Doll. You can sit at the desk with me, yeah?”

You look around. There’s a chair against the wall a bit down, not facing the trauma room. “I’ll sit there. If that’s okay. Then I can watch.”

Jack glances over. “Yeah, that’s fine, that’s okay.” He walks you over to it, squeezes your hand. “I’m almost done, I promise.”

Being away from the room and back in Jack’s space snaps you back a little. “Okay, Peter.” You smile at him before he walks away.

After a few minutes sitting there by yourself a woman rolls her wheelchair up to you. “And who are you that they’ve got sitting in time out?”

You glance around for a second to see if anyone’s coming after her and when nobody does you figure fuck it, and answer. “I’m Jack, um, Dr. Abbot’s fiancée.”

“Oh you lucky girl,” the woman smirks at you. “I’m Myrna.”

“Oh!” You smile widely at her. “Yes! I’ve heard a lot about you from Robby!”

“Have you now? Fruitcake’s talkin’ about me outside of this shithole. I knew I had that cocksucker wrapped around my finger.”

“Fruitcake?” You laugh. “That’s what you call Robby? Fruitcake?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “He loves it.” Myrna gives you a conspiratorial wink. “He pretends it doesn’t, but I know it makes him feel things.”

At the desk Robby looks up, sees you and Myrna talking and you laughing. “Oh that’s not good.”

“Hm?” Jack raises his brows and then looks up. He smirks. “Not for you, but I think it’s going to be pretty funny for me.” Jack signs the last form and they both walk over to you. You and Myrna quiet as they get closer.

“Myrna, are you harassing Jack’s fiancée?” Robby asks sternly, crossing his arms.

“Not at all Fruitcake!” You answer for her. “We were just having a little chat.”

Robby lets out a big sigh as Jack laughs. “See man, I told you. Not good for you, funny for me.”

“Actually, we were talking and Myrna is free, Robby. She can be your plus one to the wedding! You said yesterday you were still looking!”

“That sounds perfect!” Jack smirks, clapping Robby on the shoulder. “I’ll let you see my vagina again for free Fruitcake,” Myrna offers, raising her eyebrows at Robby.

Robby lets out another sigh and hangs his head. “The roof doth beckon.”

You and Jack laugh while Myrna swats at him. “Ready Doll?”

“Yeah.” You look at Myrna. “It was lovely meeting you Myrna, I look forward to seeing you again.” You turn your attention to Robby, disguising your smirk with a warm smile quite well. “Bye Fruitcake!” You lean up and give Robby a quick kiss on the cheek as Jack snorts a laugh and holds his hand out for you.

As the two of you walk away you hear Myrna giving Robby more shit.

“How come she’s allowed to kiss you on the cheek, cocksucker, but when I try you threaten to call the cops?” You and Jack laugh with each other as you walk out the ambulance bay doors to go back home.

That night Jack thinks it’s a little strange, how long the shower has been running. And how it doesn’t sound like you’re in it. There’s no pause to the water raining down on the tiled shower floor, no slaps of water hitting against the floor suddenly when you step to rinse your hair or body, no muffled rain sound when you let yourself stand under the stream and soak. Only the uninterrupted sound of water raining from the shower head onto the tile.

He glances at the alarm clock on his nightstand. You have to have been in there for at least thirty minutes. Jack looks back over at the bathroom door. It’s unnerving. Something is wrong.

He gets off the bed, shirtless and just in his sweatpants. You guys had been winding down for the night before you decided to shower. He tries the handle. It’s unlocked. There’s an unspoken rule between the two of you that you can enter without asking if the door is unlocked.

“Doll?” Jack calls to you softly as he opens the door.

It’s like you don’t even hear him. Jack finds you in only your underwear staring in the mirror at your scars, one hand hovering over the bottom of the long laparotomy scar running up your stomach, another over your mouth, tears streaming down your face. Being at the Pitt today pushed you over some edge you didn’t realize you were so close to.

He knows now that you were using the sound of the shower to hide your muffled sobs.

His eyes run over each of your scars, starting with the one up near your neck from your central line, that one fading quicker with how small it is, especially in comparison to the others. From there his eyes move down until he hits the scar from your thoracotomy. He traces the line with his eyes before he finds the laparotomy scar and lets his eyes drag along it. And then his eyes move over to the more circular scar. The bullet hole.

“Doll, sweetheart,” Jack keeps his voice low as he walks into the bathroom. He steps over to the shower first and turns it off. Even that hardly seems to get through to you. He sees your eyes leave yourself in the mirror and flick to him for just a second. The tears start to fall harder.

Jack walks up behind you so that his warm, bare chest presses against your back, his hands resting on your hips and lips kissing at your neck. Not teasing, just loving, soft and sweet and trying to soothe you when he knows words are only going to go so far.

“What if you can never look at me the same way again?” You finally whisper, moving your hand from your mouth.

You can see his brows furrow and a look of confusion fall over his face. “What do you mean?”

“I know you’ve kissed all of them, that you did the first time we had sex again after what happened. But I see you looking at them all, all the scars, whenever one is visible. And so what if you can never look at me the same way again, especially when they’re visible. What if my body is just always a reminder of one of the worst days of your life? A visual reminder that sends you right back there, that just, that just tortures you!” You let out a quiet sob. “What if that’s all you can ever see when you look at me?”

Jack takes in a deep breath and you can feel his chest press into you a little more as he does. He catches your eye contact in the mirror. “Doll,” he murmurs, “I think that you misunderstand why I look at your scars whenever one is visible.” Jack slides his hands from your hips around your front in a kind of backwards hug, pulls you back closer to him a bit.

Your chin trembles a little. “Oh?”

He nods. “Will you turn for me? Sit on the counter?” Jack tilts his head a little so that it rests against yours. “You can say no and I’ll still tell you of course. You know I just like my eye contact.” He says it with just a hint of a smile and self-teasing tone to try and get you to smile.

And it’s small, but it works. Your lips pull up just slightly for a second. You chew on the inside of your cheek for a second before you turn around and let him help you get you up to sit on the edge of the counter.

“Thank you.” Jack steps between your legs and leans down to kiss your forehead. “You want me to grab your shirt?” He’s cognizant of the conversation you’re having and the fact that you’re topless, scars on display. You give him a little nod and he grabs it from the pile of your clothes you made to the side of the door. “I say your shirt, but I really mean my shirt, don’t I?”

You’d been wearing one of his old shirts that’s a bit oversized on him, soft and worn in and smelling like him. You stay quiet and nod. Jack’s heart almost throbs in his chest at how much he hates seeing you like this, this upset. Your tears have stopped now though. Little victories. Once it’s on he rests his hands on the tops of your thighs, rubs his thumbs in what he hopes are soothing circles.

“Your scars don’t remind me of one of the worst days of my life. Looking at them doesn’t send me back to the hospital or torture me. Pretty much the exact opposite.” This time it’s your brows that furrow. “They’re a reminder of what happened, sure. Of what I almost lost. But it’s that part that’s important. What I almost lost.”

“You know what you didn’t have in any of my nightmares?” Your eyes widen a little because you know what he means, what he’s going to say. “Scars. You only had wounds, fresh, stitches still in them. No scars.” Jack squeezes at your hands. “When I was in that operating room holding your dead body, you didn’t have any scars. So your scars, looking at them, when I look at them, they don’t torture me or send me back to one of the worst days of my life. They tell me that you’re alive. They remind me how hard you fought to stay here with me. They remind me how strong you are. They remind me that you’re here with me, healing and living.”

Jack moves his hands from your legs and sets them on the outside of each of your thighs on the counter, hunches over a bit and leans on them as he moves forward to kiss your forehead again. You bring your arms up and set them on either side of his neck, fingers playing in the curls at the nape of his neck.

“Your scars are proof that you’re alive. And so your scars will never be anything less than one of the most beautiful and important and comforting things I could ever look at.” He says it so seriously, so firm and settled, looks you straight in the eye as he says it. It makes a few tears slide down your cheeks again. “Second only to your face and you in general, okay?” He nods as he says it.

He brings a hand up to wipe away the tears that have fallen. “Can I give you a kiss?”

You nod as a couple more tears fall. Jack takes your chin between his thumb and index finger and tilts your head up so he can kiss you. It’s gentle, soft and sweet and lingering as he just holds you there. He pulls back but then goes back for another quick one.

Both you and Jack are surprised you haven’t started fully bawling into him, but there’s something in your chest that stops it from coming out like it needs to. You couldn’t describe it if you tried.

“Bed? Or you wanna shower?”

It takes you a moment to answer. Not to decide. Just to answer. “Just bed, please.”

“Of course, Doll.” Jack steps back from between your legs and helps you get off the counter safely before taking your hand and leading you back to your shared bed. You both slide in and Jack takes his prosthetic off and gets an arm around you, pulls you into him as he leans up against the headboard.

You let him, let your head rest on his chest and let his arms wrap around you and let him hold you close as you think about everything he said. You believe him, you do. You know he would never lie to you and when you think about it all it makes sense. You just wish it were the same for you. Wish you could look at them and feel something, anything other than crushing guilt.

Because for you they’re a reminder of a traumatic event but more than that they’re a reminder of what you put Jack through. What you continue to put him through now as you try to heal physically and mentally.

Sometimes, maybe a lot of the time recently, you go back to that place. That place where you just wish it would stop, be over for the both of you. Wish you hadn’t made it out of the OR or the courthouse. That place where your brain tells you that Jack would be better off without you, that it’s unfair of you to ask him to do this all with you, that he’s only here with you still because he feels some sort of weird responsibility for what happened to you, that even if he doesn’t think he could, he would survive losing you and he would properly grieve and he would move on and find someone else. Someone who’s less work, less of a burden. Someone who’s better. That it wouldn’t even be that hard.

The rational part of you knows that those thoughts aren’t true. That Jack is here because he loves you, more than anything, that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. That he would not survive losing you or properly grieve or move on. That if he knew he would tell you that you’re not work at all, not a burden, that he could never do better. That he had an entire nightmare about having to bury you and it hurt so bad that even weeks later when he thought about it he was physically sick and broke down in the kitchen.

Jack doesn’t push you, just like you never push him. He does get worried though. He hates to see you cry but this silence is somehow worse.

“You wanna go to the bookstore tomorrow?” He asks it just to ask. Just to fill the silence and help distract you and maybe keep you out of your head. Or from getting further into it.

You can feel the vibration of him speaking as your head rests on his chest. “Hm?”

He kisses the top of your head. “Bookstore tomorrow?”

“Maybe, yeah.” It’s an odd answer from you. “I don’t know.”

Jack nods slowly. “It’s okay to not know. And I’m here if you want to talk or have me listen. Whatever you need.”

You hum at his words. “I don’t know anything anymore Jack,” you admit.

You feel his arms hold you a little tighter. He doesn’t understand and something about the way you say it scares him a little. “What do you mean?”

The something in your chest that was blocking everything from coming out starts to crack. “I don’t know,” you whisper, high pitched and cracking. “I don’t know how to do this.” You pull away from him and move so that you’re sitting next to him with your legs crossed so that you can face him.

“I know I’m in therapy. And I know it helps. And I hate to think about what I’d be like without my therapist.” You shrug, chin trembling and tears lining your eyes as you look at him. You look so sad and it kills him.

“But I still don’t know how to do this Jack. How to heal, how to grieve. I don’t know how to heal the tremendous guilt I feel. And everyone says to let myself grieve and what the fuck am I grieving? I don’t have anything to grieve. I didn’t lose anything! Not like you. It’s not the same as what you went through. You lost a piece of yourself. I happened to get shot and spent time in the hospital and yes I almost died but I didn’t lose a piece of me. And so I don’t know what I’m grieving and I don’t know how to grieve or what I’m grieving or how to heal from this… this amorphous concept. This thing, that just happened to me. This event. And I shouldn’t need to! I shouldn’t need to grieve or heal. There’s nothing there. I don’t have anything to grieve or heal from, and I shouldn’t be like this! And I’m not trying to throw what happened in your face Jack, I’m not, I promise, and I’m not for a second saying you somehow had it easier because there was a more tangible thing to grieve, if anything it’s the opposite, you lost a piece of yourself and I lost nothing. You had so much to grieve and heal from, you needing to grieve and heal and struggling that makes sense. I lost nothing. I don’t even know what I have to grieve. I don’t know.”

All the tears in your eyes spill over at once. You bring your shoulders up to your ears in a held shrug. “I don’t know, Jack.” He’s never heard you sound so small. Not even that ‘okay’ you gave him in the hospital was like this. The guilt and shame and embarrassment all flood you, make it hard to look at him. “I didn’t say anything even though I’ve been struggling because-”

You shake your head, try to wipe some of the tears off your face, look down at your hands in your lap. “I just don’t know how to do this, whatever this is. And it’s like recently I’ve lost all the words to even try and begin to explain how I feel or felt. I lost all the words.” You force yourself to look back up at him because when you admit this and apologize you need to be looking at him. “I lost all the words and my head got so fucked up that I didn’t know how to ask for help, from anyone.”

Jack catches the change in tense. You had said you don’t know but now you’re saying you didn’t, like somewhere along the way in this conversation, this admission, this time with him, you found the words again.

You shake your head a little as more tears slip down your cheeks. You whisper now, voice thicker than he’s ever heard with emotion. “Not even you. I didn’t know how to ask you for help Jack.” You try to hold back a small sob through your teeth. “And I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I just didn’t know, I wanted to, I just couldn’t. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-” You’re cut off by the wracking sob that you’re finally able to let out as that something in your chest shatters.

“Okay, shh.” Jack shushes you softly as he reaches for you while you let yourself fall forward into his chest, rolling on your side slightly to get your legs stretched out as he pulls you on top of him and cradles you against his bare chest. He isn’t shushing you to get you to stop, only for the comfort of it.

Jack hates this. He hates seeing you suffer so thoroughly. He hates the way he can’t hug you and put you back together, the way he can’t fix this for you, can’t take away your pain. Can’t take on all of the pain for you. Jack believes you when you say you didn’t know how to ask, knows that you weren’t trying to hide it from him, just like he wasn’t trying to hide his shit from you.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, kissing the top of your head. “It’s okay. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He repeats it as he continues to hold you, rocks with you at times like you did with him. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” “I’ve got you.” “I’m here.” “You’re okay.” “I love you.” One arm keeps you close, his other hand rubbing your back in circles. He knows there’s very little he can do right now except hold you through it.

With time, you run out of tears, exhaust yourself out of crying and just sniffle and hiccup into Jack. He keeps holding you, doesn’t push for more from you.

“It’s just so hard.” Your whisper breaks the silence after a good five or so minutes.

You can feel Jack nod. “Talk or listen?” he whispers.

You try to think about it. You’re not really sure what you want. “I don’t know,” you admit, “I’m sorry, I don’t know.” You try to stop yourself from getting worked up again, the reality of one more thing you don’t know hitting you hard.

“Shh,” Jack soothes you, “it’s okay, you don’t need to apologize and you don’t need to know. It’s okay. I promise.” His hands rub up and down your back and he kisses the top of your head. With how escalated you are right now he thinks eye contact will be too much so he just holds you tight as you are. “I’m going to talk. And if you want me to stop, just say so, okay?”

You nod. Jack takes a breath in as he tries to think of how to start and how he wants to say what he has to say. “You don’t ever need to apologize for struggling and not knowing how to ask for help.” There’s a pause as Jack realizes how guilty he feels about that. He knows he can’t focus on himself right now. You need him. “I think maybe we need to try and find something that you could do, that both of us could do honestly, that doesn’t require words but would let the other know we needed help. So then we don’t need words and can still get help.”

“Probably, would be good, yeah,” you mumble against him.

“Good. We’ll figure something out, promise.” He’s quiet for a moment to give you the chance to say you’ve talked enough for the night, but you don’t. “As for the other part, I know and understand and hear you when you say that you don’t know what you’re grieving and that you don’t have anything to grieve. But Doll, you do. You have so much to grieve, so much you are grieving even if it’s hard for you to see or understand right now. There doesn’t have to be some tangible loss like a foot or a person for you to have something to grieve. I hate it, and I wish that I could make it different and better for you, but you did lose a piece of yourself.” Jack feels new tears wet his chest but you don’t ask him to stop or make a noise so he continues. He knows he’s not what’s making you cry. That it’s just hard to hear and realize. “You lost a piece of yourself the moment that gun went off, and the moment you watched someone die in front of you,” he addresses the one thing you don’t talk a lot about because you’re not ready yet. It took a while for you to even be able to tell him. “And the moment,” he has to take a breath to steady himself because it’s still so hard to say, “the moment that bullet hit you, and when you almost died and over weeks in the hospital. All of those things take something from you, even if it’s not something tangible. You’ve lost a piece of yourself. And you’re grieving the person you were before you lost it. You’re grieving the you who didn’t know this type of violence, the you who didn’t know what it felt like to be shot, or what it felt like to be drowning in your own blood, or what it felt like to be septic or what it does to you to watch someone die in front of you or how it feels to see reminders of what you went through permanently on your skin. You’re grieving the person you were. And you’re grieving other things that I don’t know because I’m not in your brain. But those ones I said, those are ones I can see you grieving and struggling with and I hope it doesn’t feel like I’m being condescending or trying to define your grief for you, because I’m not. I’m just trying to tell you what I see in the hopes that it’ll help you be able to see, or give you a starting point.”

You shake your head against his chest. You know he’s not doing any of that, he didn’t even need to say it but you find it sweet that he did. “I know,” you sniffle. “I do. And it does help and somewhere deep down I know what I’m grieving, all of those things. Some things I probably can’t articulate. I just feel like I don’t know how to grieve. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to grieve obviously but I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s all the guilt making me feel like I don’t deserve to grieve or heal and should be stuck in this weird limbo forever or what. I just don’t know how.”

You both sit with your words for a minute. “I wish I had answers,” Jack finally murmurs. “But I’m not sure if anybody really knows how to grieve.” He tries to think of more to say that might be comforting or helpful. Before he can you speak.

“I got you all wet and snotty, I’m sorry.” You lean off his chest a little and put your hand under your shirt and bring it up to try and wipe him off. Jack understands you. You’ve talked enough for the night.

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay,” Jack laughs softly, grabbing at your hand to get you to stop. “Two of the most benign bodily fluids I’ve had on me, and they’re yours. Plus, I think I’ve done the same to you recently.”

“That’s different.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” he shakes his head, gives you a little tap on the ass.

“It’s true!” you protest. “I was wearing a shirt. You’re not. That’s different.”

“Still.” He knows you’re technically correct. “I did the same to you. And I’m pretty sure I cried tears onto your face while we were, you know… at the table.”

You burst out laughing. “While we were at the table? That’s what we’re calling it?”

“It’s not incorrect.” He shrugs, beaming just from hearing you laugh and being the one to pull it from you.

“Well, actually, I think it was more you were at the table. I was on the table,” you point out.

Jack shakes his head and smiles at you. “Prepositions are overrated.”

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

You and Jack don’t argue often. But you’re humans. Humans who went through a major trauma together. And humans aren’t perfect. Individually or as a couple.

Neither of you even remember how it started. And you’ve somehow moved far, far away from what you were initially discussing and starting to bicker about. But you’re here now and things are escalating into a kind of argument. Even with the escalation you never raise your voices at each other, never yell. Still. It’s neither your nor Jack’s finest moment.

Jack has never pressured you into going outside. He knows it’s still hard for you, knows how much it scares you. But he also knows that you really need to and that it’s never going to get less scary. He knows that he needs to go outside but doesn’t want to leave you, feels like he can’t leave you or something will happen like when he left you that time in the hospital. And you know that you need to go outside. It’s just so scary. You were shot. You’ve put Jack through so much, and when you think about outside you think about what if something else happened, when will it be too much for him, you can’t keep asking him to do this.

Jack isn’t pressuring you to go outside but he does ask. Again. In the space of minutes.

“I don’t want to, Jack.” Your tone has a snappy edge to it. You’re getting frustrated. At yourself more than Jack.

“You’re going to have to go outside eventually, Doll. For more than me driving you to a doctor or therapy or the bookstore.” Jack tries to keep his tone even. He’s getting frustrated too, also more at himself than you. Something about his words stings when you know he doesn’t mean them to, know it’s because you’re escalated and more sensitive in a way. The way he says it makes it seem like he’s not doing those things with you, just driving you somewhere. Chauffeuring you. Like he doesn’t want to be doing it. “Around the block, please. Nothing major. I’ll be with you the whole time, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

You shake your head from where you’re sitting on the couch, knees coming up to your chest. “I don’t want to. Asking me eight more times isn’t going to change my answer.”

“I’m worried about you!” Jack stands across the living from you in jeans and a shirt. Actually dressed compared to you in lounge clothes that are effectively pajamas. “I’m not trying to pressure you,” you can’t help the little face you make at that, “I’m really not, I promise. I’m just worried. You need to go outside. Get some fresh air. You’re holding yourself hostage here. You’re holding me-”

Jack stops as soon as he realizes what he was about to say. But he knows from the look on your face that it’s too late. And he’s right. It hits you like a slap to the face, far worse than he even realizes or could imagine. Because you’ve never really explicitly or in any detail told Jack about the guilt you have from effectively asking him to do all of this with and for you, about how guilty you feel that his entire life has been turned upside down and that he was confined to the hospital and is now confined to home because of you, because you’re scared to go outside. About the guilt of feeling like his jailer. Or hostage-keeper, apparently.

It’s a silent type of panic. One that pulls a band around your chest and stomach making it hard to breathe and sends adrenaline through your veins to chill your fingers and toes and has tears hitting your eyes.

“Doll, I didn’t-”

“No, Jack, finish the goddamn sentence.” Your voice is eerily calm now. Jack takes in and lets out a breath, tilts his head and goes to speak. “No Jack. Finish the fucking sentence.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know that. I wasn’t thinking when I said it, phrased it like that.” Jack sighs, running a hand through his hair.

“Phrased it like what? Like you resent me? Like you’re getting tired of me? Of having to take care of me?” You’re pushing some of his buttons now, a little more deliberately than he had initially pushed yours.

Jack clenches his jaw and tries to breathe through his hurt and rising frustration. “I don’t resent you, nor am I getting tired of you or having to take care of you.”

“You just feel like I’m keeping you hostage in your own home?” It’s cold, the way you say it. Icy. The guilt eats away at you. You hate yourself for what you’ve put him through.

“You won’t even try, Doll! I know you know I need out of this house and you won’t even try!” A push back at your buttons. Jack knows that it’s not a matter of trying. He knows it’s not that simple. Just like you know he isn’t growing tired of you or caring for you.

“You won’t try leaving me alone,” you fire back. “I got fucking shot and I don’t want to go outside. So why don’t you try just leaving me here alone if you want to go outside that badly?” That one really hits a nerve, harder than you realize because Jack hasn’t directly expressed just how guilty he feels about what happened when he left to go down to the ED that time in the hospital. How fucking responsible he feels for what ended up happening, for you almost dying. How he thinks it’s completely his fault and could have been prevented, easily.

“Because the last time I left you alone you ended up coding in front of me and coming a centimeter and a half away from dying!” Jack takes a quick breath. He hates himself for what he let happen to you. “You don’t even know what you don’t fucking know! I watched my best fucking friend intubate you and do CPR on you and shock you. I watched them crack your chest. I have seen your literal fucking heart.” That’s all new information to you and it makes you hate yourself a little bit more even though you know that wasn’t Jack’s intention. “I have sat by you while you were in a coma for five fucking days, all because I-”

You cut him off before he can finish his sentence. All because I left you and so I wasn’t there to notice you getting sicker and to feel your fever before you went septic and threw a PE.

“Oh well I am so sorry Jack, that I went to work and got shot and almost died-”

“Don’t.” The way he says it is almost dark, low and deadly serious, face set and eyes piercing the thick tension between you. That’s the line for him. The almost flippancy in your tone.

Jack holds his hands up. “I need air.” You don’t say anything as he walks over to the entryway and puts on his shoes. “I love you.” He puts his hand on the door handle and pauses.

“I love you too.” The door opens, Jack walks out and it shuts, key turning the deadbolt to lock a few seconds later.

The sudden quiet of your apartment is what seems to bring you back down. You take a gasping breath in as everything you said to him sinks in. You bring a hand to cover your mouth, tears wetting the back of it. You’re pretty sure you’ve never hated yourself more.

You stay there on the couch, are stuck there really, unable to bring yourself to move. All you can do is cry and think about how to apologize to Jack. You start ruminating and edging toward panic thinking about whether he’ll be able to forgive you, whether you guys will be able to work through this. You know it’s panic and that you guys will be able to. That both of you said things you didn’t mean and that were designed as jabs at the other. But yours feel so much worse than anything he said to you. Even when Jack forgives you, you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to forgive yourself.

Jack takes a couple of steps away from your apartment door but stops. He can’t. He can’t go any further. He knows he needed air and was right to step out and get some and help diffuse things between the two of you because that conversation was not going anywhere. But his fear is still there. So he walks back and slides down the wall right to the side of your door, convinces himself that this way he’ll hear you fall, if something happens. He’ll know.

Sitting in the quiet brings Jack back down too, gives everything he said to you the chance to sink in. He runs his hands over his face and through his hair before bringing the heels of his palms to his eyes and pressing in. He’s pretty sure he’s never hated himself more. He gets panicky too, it gets hard for him to imagine how you could ever accept his apologies, how he could ever make this right. He knows that you’ll forgive him, and that you’ll work this out. He just doesn’t know how he’ll forgive himself.

Neither of you even cares what the other said to you. Not really. Both of you can hardly even remember what the other said to you now, in part because it doesn’t matter. It was said out of frustration and hurt and a deep grief, none of it was meant. Things just boiled over. And in part because all you can remember is the terrible things you said to the other.

Jack doesn’t sit there long. It can’t be more than twenty minutes. You’re on your feet the second you hear the door start to unlock, walking closer to it and trying to wipe the tears from your face quickly. Jack pushes it open and looks at you, looks just as devastated as you feel and you hate it. He walks in and closes and locks the door.

“I’m so sorry.” You both say it at the same time and it makes you smile a little at each other. You’re both moving then, walking towards one another until you meet and pull each other into the tightest hug.

“I was so out of line Jack, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.” Jack can feel your tears wet his neck and it makes him squeeze you a little tighter.

“I was too. Way out of line. I didn’t mean it either. I’m so sorry, Doll.” Jack kisses the top of your head.

The anxiety hits you a little harder being in Jack’s arms for some reason and you start to tremble. “I feel so awful, and I promise the tears aren’t manipulative or for guilt or to distract, I’m just so sorry and I hate myself for what I said and I don’t want to lose you.”

Jack frowns to himself. He’d like to have a strong word with whoever made you feel like you have to explain your tears. “I promise you that I never, for even a second, thought that. Now or any time in the past. I don’t want you to hate yourself, but I get it because I hate myself too right now. I don’t want to lose you either.”

A few tears of Jack’s own slip down his face as he says it at the thought. “You’re not going to lose me,” you whisper.

“And you’re not going to lose me,” he whispers back. “Let’s go to bed.”

You pull away from him a little. “We can go out, if you just give me a couple of minutes to change-”

Jack shakes his head. “I don’t want to go out right now, I just want to be in bed with you, holding you close.” Jack brings a hand to your face and cups it, brushes some of the tears away. “I’m just as insecure as you are right now. Just as shaken. And not by anything you said. By myself, for what I said.”

You lean into his hand. “How do you always manage to do that?” Jack raises his eyebrows to seek clarification. “Read me so well. Know how I’m really feeling.”

He shrugs, like it’s simple and obvious. “You’re my favorite book. I’ve got you so well memorized you’re an easy read.” You give him a sad nod and look down at his chest. “Hey,” he guides your head back to look at him when you don’t resist. “That was so cheesy and deserved at least a pity laugh.”

You give him the smallest one through your nose. You love this about him, it’s one of the ways he takes care of you when you’re upset, tries to make you laugh a little when appropriate to help distract your mind. Usually it works. You’re just a little too shaken yourself for it to right now.

“I,” you try to find the words. “I’m not upset or shaken by anything you said either. I just want to make sure you know that.”

“I do.” Jack nods. “Honestly Doll, I barely remember what you said to me. All I can hear in my head right now are the things I said to you.”

You give a slightly bigger laugh through your nose. “Same. I can only hear myself, only remember my words.” You know you’re preventing him from getting you in bed where he wants to be, but you have one last thing to say. “I don’t want that to ever happen again Jack, I don’t ever want to hurt you like that again, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, and I don’t want to hurt you or say things like that to you ever again. But right now, I think we hurt ourselves more than we hurt each other.” He leans down and you share a kiss, three actually, each one lingering, an apology, forgiveness given and declaration of love from both of you to the other. “We’re going to figure it out, okay? I promise.”

Jack’s promise is how the two of you found yourselves here. Couples therapy.

It wasn’t one person’s suggestion. After the argument the two of you had been talking in bed, trying to work some of what you each said out. You both talked about your own therapy and it just kind of dawned on you both at the same time and you both agreed, easily, even laughing together when you said it at nearly the same time.

You stand outside the office with Jack. You hate the term, feel like it implies something. But nothing is wrong between the two of you. Just the opposite. After your argument you both knew you needed guidance on navigating your guilt and healing as a couple, not just as individuals. Both of your therapists had recommended the same couples therapist when asked, one who specializes in helping couples who have gone through an acute traumatic experience together.

Nothing changed after the argument. You were both clingy the rest of that day and for a few days after. If anything in some ways it made you guys feel stronger as a couple. But at the same time neither of you ever want it to happen again.

So here you are. You know it won’t make you as individuals or partners or your relationship perfect because that’s impossible. And you both know you’ll hurt each other again as you heal from this and move through life together because you’re human. Neither of you expect perfection.

Jack squeezes your hand as you stand there. You squeeze back, hard as you let out a big breath.

“Preventive medicine,” Jack reminds you. You’d admitted to him one day how much the term couples therapy freaked you out and how you knew it was stupid and nothing was wrong with you guys or between you guys but it still freaked you out. Jack had suggested calling it preventive medicine, asked if that might help. You weren’t sure you were sold but knew you’d pick apart any potential name for it and preventive medicine was better than couple’s therapy to you for some reason.

“Nothing is wrong?” Sometimes you just need reassurance from him. He’s always happy to give it.

“Absolutely nothing. I’m not mad or upset with you. I’m not hurt. I don’t resent you. I love you. More than I did yesterday, less than I will tomorrow, whatever the fucking saying is. We’re okay. I promise. And if we’re ever not, if we ever even get remotely near being on the same planet as not being okay I will tell you.” Jack kisses your forehead. “This is a good thing. It’s smart. They tell people to do this before they get married even when one of them hasn’t just been shot and almost died.”

You smile at him, soft and a touch somber, but a smile nonetheless. “I know. And thank you. I’m sorry, I know I’ve been so insecure and worried lately and asking for so much reassurance.”

“I’ve been the same,” Jack reminds you. You hum and shake your head as if to question him. “I have been, at least a little bit. And you give me reassurance. You don’t mind. You say you’ll give it to me as much as I need it, never take it personally because you understand. The same is true for me. I will give you however much and whatever type of reassurance you need as much as you need whenever you need and I will never take it personally. I understand too. I’d rather you ask than live with worry that could be soothed by asking, yeah?”

You nod. “Yeah.” You lean into Jack for a second and take in a deep breath. “Alright. I’m ready. I don’t know why I even had to stand here and become ready, but whatever.” Jack smiles to himself because he loves when you do that kind of self-commentary. “You ready?”

“I’m always ready for anything with you Doll.”

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

Jack is obviously the first of you to return to work. It’s not something either of you are looking forward to really. In a sense you both are because it checks off another box on the return to normalcy. But you’re not looking forward to being alone and Jack isn’t looking forward to leaving you.

The two of you talk and decide he’ll start with half shifts, give you both some time to adjust back into things. He had been working days but he thought maybe nights would be better until you were back to work, you’d be asleep when he was gone that way. You were fine with it and so that’s what he worked out with Robby.

It’s strange sitting on the bed watching him pull on black scrubs that have been folded so long they’re a little creased. It’s been a long time since you last saw him in scrubs. It makes you smile because it reminds you of life before the shooting. And he still looks incredibly, incredibly fucking hot in them.

“What?” He smirks as he looks at you after pulling his scrub top on over his undershirt.

“I didn’t say anything!” You give him a look of mock offense. You really are doing your best to temper your anxiety about tonight.

He narrows his eyes at you a little and walks to stand in front of where you’re sitting on the edge of the bed. “You didn’t have to say it. I could just feel it.”

You lean your head forward onto his tummy and rest your forehead there for a moment before looking up at him. “That so?” He gives you another smirk and nods. “I’m not allowed to appreciate how good you look in scrubs anymore, Dr. Abbot?”

Jack steps back and takes your hands to pull you off the bed. “Of course you are. Doesn’t mean I won’t tease you about it.” He uses one hand to hold your face before leaning in and kissing you, hard, a little bit of tongue. Just because he can. He pulls back just far enough so you can see each other and gives you another smirked smile before kissing your forehead and releasing you.

The two of you walk back into the front room together, and you sit on the couch and fidget with your fingers while Jack looks through his backpack to make sure he has everything he needs. You grab your phone, try to distract yourself with it so he doesn’t feel you staring at him the entire time. You don’t want to make this any harder for him. Both of you know the other is just as anxious.

Jack glances down at his watch. He needs to leave. The urge to pull out his phone and call Robby to say he can’t make it in is immense. But he, and you, know that this day has to come eventually. He walks over and sits next to you on the couch. “You gonna be okay?” He grabs one of your hands in his to help ground you, get you to focus on him.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright.” You try to give him a brave smile but you’re not sure how well it lands.

“I want you to call me or text me if you need anything, okay? I mean anything. If I have to leave early then I have to leave early.” His eyes flit around your face trying to make sure he’s reading every little bit of you. “And if for some reason I don’t answer the phone, call the hospital, yeah?”

“I know Peter,” you murmur, bring his hand up to your face and lean your cheek against the back of his hand. “I’ll be okay though. Really. It might be hard at first but I’ll probably just end up falling asleep and then you’ll slip into bed beside me before I even know it.”

“I really hope so, Doll.” Jack leans in and kisses your forehead, lingers for a moment before he pulls back and looks back down at you. His brows are creased, mouth just slightly pulled down, eyes a little wider than normal. He’s concerned, worried about you. You hate seeing him like this. You know part of it goes back to his nightmares about coming home and finding you dead.

“It’ll all be okay in the end. You’re coming home to me.” You manage to give him a real smile, as small as it is, and it visibly helps him relax.

He’s able to return it. “Yes I am. Always.” He stands up and you follow, walk him over to the door.

“Text me when you get there, yeah?”

“Course. And you text me during the night if you need, okay?” You nod at him, give him another little smile as he pulls his backpack over one shoulder. He pulls you close to him in a tight hug, kisses the top of your head before letting you pull back and kissing you. “I love you. So fucking much.”

“I love you more,” you murmur before stealing another kiss. Normally he’d argue with you, but tonight he lets you have it.

Jack opens the door and steps out and you close it behind him. You both know that if he turned and looked at you he probably wouldn’t end up going in. He waits to hear the deadlock before he takes a few steps away. He has to stop though and just breathe for a minute before finally setting off.

You lock the deadbolt and then rest your forehead against the door, one palm flat on it. Tears hit your eyes and you feel so fucking ridiculous about it. Like some clingy, codependent fiancée who can’t stand to be away from her man for more than ten minutes. You try and remind yourself that this is okay, you’re allowed to feel what you’re feeling and you being upset isn’t because you’re clingy or codependent. It’s because you went through a major trauma and are healing and it’s your first time truly being on your own since you were shot. You know this won’t last, that it won’t always be like this, but in this moment it feels like it will and it overwhelms you.

Your hand itches to undo the deadbolt and dart out after him, beg him not to leave you. But you can’t do that. This is something that has to happen. So you pull yourself from the door and head back to the couch for a second before getting back up to go do the dishes from dinner. You thought it might be a good distraction. Instead it just reminds you that he’s not here doing them with you.

Your phone dings as you finish loading the dishwasher and washing the pan that can’t go in it. It’s Jack letting you know he got to work. He keeps typing, and you chew on your lip as you wait to see what he’s going to say.

J - I just want to let you know that it’s slammed here tonight so I’ll probably be busy and not around a ton. But I’ll check my phone often even if I can’t always reply. So text me if you need to, or call me or the ED. I love you.

Your heart falls at his words and some part of you feels selfish for it. It’s good. It’s good for him to be there and be busy and have that distraction and get back to normal. It just sucks you won’t have him to talk to much. You had tried to prepare yourself for this, tried to operate under the assumption that he wouldn’t be around much but a part of you, apparently a big part, still held onto the hope he would.

There’s also the unspoken meaning of the Pitt being slammed. The chances he’ll get off on time are probably slim to none unless some miracle happens. You try to tell yourself it doesn’t matter. You’re going to be asleep anyway. But will you really?

Jack is anxious to get a text back from you, glancing at his phone nonstop while Robby goes over the board with him. This was exactly what he did not want to happen. He didn’t want it to be slammed. Busy, fine. He appreciates the distraction it brings. He’d still be able to respond to you more even if not as frequently as he’d like. And slammed means the chances of him getting off in six hours are a fraction above non-existent. He knows you know that too.

He also knows that he’s the lucky one out of the two of you. He can’t afford to be distracted here. So he has to do some kind of compartmentalization. It doesn’t mean he won’t miss or worry about you constantly. He will. He just has to force himself to stay present where he’s at. His inability to be distracted here is itself a distraction from his anxiety and missing you.

It feels selfish. He knows that you don’t have the same luxury at home, if anything it’s the opposite. You have to try and find things to distract yourself so that you don’t end up getting too into your head. He knows that sometimes you struggle to come up with ways to do that, or that you think of ways but can’t convince yourself to do them. He gets it. He’s been there himself. And up until now he’d been there to distract you when you couldn’t do it for yourself. But now he’s not.

So he’s anxious as he waits for a response. He knows you’re just staring at your phone trying to think of what to say. He’s trying not to think about the likelihood of teardrops hitting the screen of your phone and magnifying whatever they fall on. He’s trying not to think about what you look like when you cry like that, completely silent with the tears slipping down your face.

You’re looking down at your phone enough that the first tear to roll off your face hits the screen. You shake your head at yourself. You need to get a grip. It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. Jack will be fine.

You - I’m glad you made it there safely. Thanks for letting me know, I hope the night isn’t awful. Let me know when you’re on your way home. I love you

Jack feels better for about half a second when your name finally flashes on his screen. But then he reads your message. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back for a second before looking back down at his phone. He can feel your dejection through the phone. For his part Robby gives Jack space, doesn’t comment on it, intercepts a couple of people who want to welcome Jack back. It takes Jack a moment to decide on what to reply. He knows that it doesn’t matter what his reply is, it’s not going to make anything better.

J - Of course. Don’t forget you have a couple new books on the kitchen table and all of wedding pinterest and the knot to explore. I love you more

His message does manage to pull a little laugh from you. He’s so sweet, your Jack. Reminding you of things you could do to keep yourself occupied and distracted. You look around the kitchen and take in a deep breath, try to hype yourself up.

It’s going to be okay. You’re going to do this and be fine and Jack will be so proud of you. You can do this. You grab your laptop and settle on the couch, put a show you like on and start looking through pinterest like Jack said. It goes well at first. Until you see something you really like and go to turn your computer and look over at Jack to show him. The realization hits you then that you’ve only ever done this with him.

Fine. That’s okay. You have books. You turn the TV off and go look through the stack, pick one out and curl back up on the couch. Reading also goes well at first until it finally hits you that you’ve been staring at the same page for quite a while now because it’s hard to see through your tears. You set the book down and feel so defeated. You want to be okay so badly, for Jack and for yourself. But it seems the more you try to be the more you aren’t.

You check your phone. 7:47. Nothing from Jack, not that you expected anything, especially since effectively no time has passed since his last message. You don’t know why you can’t do this, why it’s so hard. And that just makes you more upset.

You get up once you start sniffling from the tears and just take yourself to bed, curl up in a ball on it with a box of tissues and let yourself cry. You grab your phone several times, have to fight the urge to call him and plead for him to come home. You have to fight the urge to get up and grab an uber and show up at the ED. The only good thing about crying is that it’s exhausting, and the swelling of your eyes makes you feel even more tired. And so you slip under without even realizing it.

When Jack finally gets a second to check in and look at his phone sometime around 10:00 he’s a little surprised to see nothing from you. It’s unlike you. Normally you’ll text him often throughout your day, even if he can’t reply. Just little things. What you’re doing. Something funny that happened or that you saw. A photo of something that made you think of him. A moment on a show he doesn’t watch but that you want him to see. But then he realizes the problem with his thinking. Normally.

Normal at this point is synonymous with ‘before you were shot.’ Because nothing has been remotely normal since then. It’s all been temporary. The hospital was temporary. Him being at home with you was temporary. Even his half shifts are temporary. And you both want normal back. But it’s not. And even when it is you both know it’ll be different, and that’s okay. A new normal is okay. But you’re not there yet and so, Jack realizes, thinking about what you’d normally do is futile and deceptive. He is surprised he hasn’t gotten anything wedding related though. He thought you’d take him up on that suggestion, go on pinterest, send him things you find and like.

J - Finally have a second. You doing okay?

Before he can even start to wait for your reply Parker is grabbing him for help with a patient and his phone is back in his pocket. He tells himself he’s just been moving a lot and so that’s why he hasn’t felt his phone vibrate with your message. But when he pulls his phone out at 12:23 and there’s nothing from you he can’t help the pit of dread that starts to form in his stomach.

Flashbacks of nightmares play in his head. You dead on the kitchen floor. You dead in your bed. You dead on the couch. He stops himself. You must be asleep. You just fell asleep early. Hell, maybe you took some sleeping meds just to make it easier for yourself and were asleep before his last text. That has to be it. Even though he’s sure you won’t see it, because you’re sleeping, he sends another one with the news you both saw coming.

J - Hope you’re sleeping well. I’m going to be stuck here past 1. I’m hoping for 3/3:30, at most 4. I promise as soon as I can get out I will. I’m sorry. Love you

You wake with a start, covered in cold sweat, heart racing, chest heaving. It takes you a minute to fully come to. You had a nightmare. You were back in that courtroom with gunshots deafening you as you tried to hide. And then that body collapsed in front of you just like it did that day but this time you do recognize the person when their face rolls towards you as they bleed out, eyes fluttering closed.

Jack.

You think you woke up before you even got shot, though you’re not sure. You’ve never been able to remember exactly when it happened. All you know is you saw Jack’s face and Jack’s blood and then mercifully woke the fuck up. You take a second to try and come down, look over at your phone and see it’s just after 2:00 and Jack’s messages. Your heart is crushed a little by the disappointment of him being home late even though you expected it. If he had gotten off on time he’d have been here, might have woken you getting into bed, might have stopped you from having that nightmare and that image of him seared in your brain. You know it’s not fair to put that on him and you aren’t, you don’t blame him. You just can’t help but think it.

It’s what makes you burst into tears, again. Your disgust at yourself for even coming close to thinking about blaming him. And then you’re crying about all of it. Tears of anger at yourself, tears of frustration with yourself, tears of despondency about getting better, tears of panic from seeing Jack in your nightmare, tears of sorrow that he’s not home, tears of disappointment with yourself that you couldn’t do this one night, tears of confliction about being alive. You wear yourself out again.

But this time you don’t go back to sleep. Instead you get up and take a shower to rid yourself of the sticky cold sweat that covers you. You hold some ice to your face once you’re out, hope it’ll help with the swelling of your eyes and lips enough that Jack won’t notice, especially in the dark. You toss the copious tear soaked tissues in the bathroom garbage and put the tissue box back where it was so that Jack won't see anything amiss and crawl back into bed. The exhaustion of crying pulls you under again.

Jack’s out at 3:13. He hates it. He’s still on edge because still nothing from you even though he didn’t expect anything. He lets you know he's on his way home anyway. He cannot be home and have eyes on you soon enough. The drive is at least short at this time of night. There’s no lights on when he opens the door. Part of him is relieved because that would make sense if you were sleeping. But part of him is just put more on edge by the darkness. He doesn’t let himself think about it much, drops his backpack and gets his shoes off quickly and then is heading for your room.

As much as he wants to, he doesn’t turn the overhead light on. He can make out your form on the bed so he steps over to the bathroom and reaches in to flick the light on, leaves the door open to give him just enough light in the bedroom to look at you. Normally the sight would turn him on, immensely. It still does, he can feel it. But tonight that’s overshadowed by the way it breaks his heart because he knows what it means.

You’re curled up on his side of the bed, head on his pillow, wearing one of his shirts and holding another close to you, clutching it to your chest really. He lets out a slow breath through his nose as he takes you in. His brows furrow a little. He’s not sure if it’s the lighting or if your eyes and lips are really a little swollen. He makes himself let go of the thought for the moment so that he can grab a pair of pajama pants and just get in bed with you.

When he walks in the bathroom properly it hits him. It’s a bit warmer than your bedroom, a bit more humid. And the smell. It smells like he just showered. Which means you showered recently and used all of his products so that you’d smell like him. It’s so sweet but it hurts, that he wasn’t here when you so clearly needed him. He tries to set that aside and not feel guilty, think about and apply what you guys have learned in couple’s therapy but it’s hard. And it gets harder when the pile of white catches his eye and he sees all of the tissues in the trash can. It wasn’t the lighting. The swelling is real. You cried. A lot.

You’re not sure what wakes you but when you force your eyes open you realize the bathroom light is on which means Jack is home. It’s the first time you’ve smiled since he left. “Peter?” you call softly as you get out of bed to walk to the bathroom. Jack’s out of his scrubs in just his pajama bottoms.

“Hey, I’m sorry Doll, I didn’t mean to wake you.” You shake your head at him, meeting him at the doorway to the bathroom.

“I’m just glad you’re home.” You push your lips out for a kiss he happily gives you. “Missed you. Were you okay?”

“I was yeah. Being slammed was good at keeping me distracted." He frowns for a second because he knows how not the case that was for you. He leans in for another kiss. "I missed you more,” he murmurs against your lips, hands finding your waist.

You hum back against his lips as he kisses you again. “I’m going to let you have that only because I was passed out most of the night.”

Jack nods at you. But you can tell from the speed of it that he knows. You just give him a little shrug to tell him you know he knows.

“Why didn’t you call?” It’s soft. He’s not angry at you or upset with you in any way. Just curious. You look away from his eyes down at his bare chest and give another little shrug. “Did you need me?”

“I was okay… eventually,” you admit. One of his hands finds your chin, gently pushes it up to see if you’ll move your head up to look at him. You don’t resist so he tilts your chin up.

Jack gives you a small smile and keeps his voice low and gentle and he hopes comforting. “That doesn’t answer my question.” The hand still on your waist gives it a small squeeze. “You can be okay and still need me, or trying to convince yourself you’re okay and still need me, or trying to be okay and still need me.” He raises his eyebrows a little at you.

You look at him for a beat and then let out a big sigh, lean forward and into him a bit so that your forehead rests against his chest. “I hate it when you do that,” you grumble against him.

“What’s that?” He leans down and kisses the top of your head.

You move your forehead off his chest but plant a kiss there before looking back up at him. “See right through me,” you murmur through a watery smile. “I don’t know how you’re so damn good at it.”

“Well,” Jack nods slowly, “in your fourth year of med school they pull a couple of students aside, obviously the ones they think are the best since I was one of them, and they teach us x-ray vision.”

You let out a huffed laugh but smile at him. “I really thought I was about to learn something about med school.”

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?!” He gives you his best surprised face.

You roll your eyes at him and laugh a little with him but it quickly turns into trembling lips and you shaking your head.

“Okay baby, come here,” Jack whispers, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you close, one hand finding the back of your head and holding your face against his chest.

“It was so bad Jack, it was so bad,” you choke out through a strangled sob. “And I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to cry into you tonight or this morning or whatever the fuck it is. I just want to get in bed and be with you.” You sniffle and try to pull yourself together.

“I know.” He rocks you just a little, presses his lips to the top of your head and lets them linger. “But we can be in bed together and you can be crying if that’s what you need.” As he speaks he flicks the light off and settles one hand on your hip and slowly begins walking you backwards toward the bed.

“I’m tired of it being what I need,” you mumble. At least you’ve managed to stop the tears. You turn once your knees hit the back of the bed so that you can slide in, Jack following you once he has his prosthetic off. “I just…I had a nightmare.”

Jack cringes as he settles and holds his arms open for you. “I’m so sorry.” He knows all too well how much they can rattle you and fuck you up for days. How long it can take to get them to a point of only happening a few times a year. How much therapy and EMDR he’s had to do to help with his over the years. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You sigh as you curl into his side and drape your top leg over his, rest your head against the crook of his shoulder. The hand of Jack’s arm that’s now behind you starts rubbing your back up and down. “I was back there. In that courtroom on that day. And it was all the same and as much as that sucked it was fine. But then I got to the part where that woman collapsed in front of me and died but,” you have to pause and try and get yourself closer to Jack. “But it wasn’t her. It was you.” Jack’s shifting onto his side a bit more at that and pulling you closer into him, pressing the front of his body against yours. He positions you so that you can rest your ear up against his chest. “And unlike her you rolled your head to look at me as you were bleeding out and then I woke up.”

You hear the click of Jack’s jaw as he opens it to say something. But it never comes, instead you just feel his head shake a little. You let yourself focus on the beat of his heart underneath your ear, the warmth of his skin. “I’m so sorry,” he finally whispers. “I know it’s not my fault but I am so sorry that you had to experience that Doll.”

You shrug a little. Apparently you’re all out of tears for the night. You’re too tired for them. And here in Jack’s arms with his heart beating under your ear it’s not so scary. There’s an odd sense of calm that fills both of you. You feel kind of bad, like you've taken this for yourself, haven't talked about how he did at work. But you know there's time. “Don’t be,” you whisper, turn your face a bit to nuzzle into his chest. “At least I didn’t have to live through your funeral. I’ve got that goin’ for me. More than you can say.”

He can feel your lips turn up in a smile against his chest. And he has to let out a laugh at it too. Because you’ve hit a point where you can start to make small jokes about what’s happened, what you’ve both been through. Because it’s all so miserable and horrific that if you guys don’t laugh you’ll cry. After a second you pull your head from his chest and look up at him. He looks so amused with his wide closed lip smile, shaking his head at you slightly that you have to bite your lip to stop from laughing. But that makes him crack and start properly laughing and so you do too.

You guys laugh until it hurts, until the smallest tears slide out the corners of your eyes. “I’m sorry, that was probably so insensitive of me-”

“No,” Jack keeps laughing, “no. No, Doll that was so fucking needed, fuck me. The laughing feels just as cathartic as crying right now.”

“I agree,” you giggle as you both start to wind down. You lean in to kiss him and Jack keeps you there, nipping at your bottom lip and tugging at it a little when you try to pull away. “Needy,” you murmur teasingly.

“For you? Always.” You lay there and kiss. Kiss and make out in bed pressed against each other simply because you want to feel close and because you can. It’s not leading anywhere as good as it feels and as wired as it makes both of you. You can feel him growing hard against you and yourself growing wetter for him but you’re both content to stay like you are.

Eventually the kisses slow. You’re both sleepy, and between snuggling with each other and all the kissing it’s quick to catch up with you. Just as you both start to nod off you think of something. “Hey Jack? Maybe no more night shifts.” It’s all sleep slurred and in that drowsy tone you get that he finds particularly adorable.

He laughs a little through his nose. “No more night shifts,” he agrees, just as groggy.

When you wake up the next day Jack is able to get in touch with Robby and switch things back so that he’s on days again. Something about the daylight makes it a little easier for you, and you don’t seem to have any nightmares when you sleep snuggled into Jack. The next time he goes to work for half a day shift sucks still, but significantly less than that first half a night shift. Each time it gets a little bit easier, even when Jack is finally back to regular twelve hour shifts.

And then eventually it’s your turn to go back to work. It’s not just going back to work, it’s going back to the place you were shot. Both of you are on edge. Jack hates the thought of you having to go back there, it sends his anxiety through the roof even though he knows logically it’s probably the safest courthouse in the entire country right now with all the heightened security.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you?” Jack asks you for probably the tenth time this morning alone.

“I’m sure,” you call to him from the bathroom as you finish getting ready. Jack appears in the mirror behind you, stopping at the doorway of the bathroom. You look at him in the mirror. “It’s okay, I’m ready. I can do this.”

You sound more like you’re trying to convince yourself than you are Jack. “You can call me. If you need anything.”

“I know,” you nod, “I promise I know and that if I need you I’ll call.” You turn to look at Jack and start walking towards him. Half of you feels ready for this, is craving the normalcy that being at work will bring. The other half knows you’re probably not quite ready. You haven’t even been by the building to expose yourself to it.

You pick at the breakfast Jack made you, stomach churning too much to feel hungry and making it hard to swallow anything down. He doesn’t comment on it as he sits at the table across from you working on today’s crossword, isn’t going to pressure you into eating more or potentially make you feel bad by calling you out on it. He gets it. He didn’t eat much dinner the night he went back to work for that one half a night shift.

It’s going to put your shoes on where you really start to let yourself realize how not ready you are for this. You stare down at them for what feels like ten or so seconds but is in reality close to a full minute. Jack knows because he glances at his watch after the first few seconds pass and you don’t move to put them on.

Finally you force yourself to and grab your bag. You take in and let out a deep breath and ignore how shaky it is as Jack walks over to you. He doesn’t want to smother you in reassurance and reminders you can call him or end up letting an ask for you to stay home slip out. “Have a good day Doll. Call if you need and I’ll be here waiting for you when you get home. I love you.”

Jack leans down and kisses you, one that lingers followed by a bunch of softer pecks. “I will,” you nod. “I’ll see you tonight.” You put your hand on the door handle and open it a little. “I love you more,” you smile up at him. He lets you have it this morning.

As you walk out the door and close it you know immediately you’re not ready. Jack knows you aren’t ready. But you try anyway and he doesn’t try to stop you because this is something you need to do for yourself.

It doesn’t take too long to get there, the commute is generally fairly easy even though it’s busy. You walk up to the courtyard of the courthouse and stare at the entrance. It feels like you can’t breathe and you’re aware of how badly your hands shake. Your heart races as you try and tell yourself you just need a minute and then you’ll go in.

But everything just gets worse. All you can hear is screaming and gunshots, taste that metallic flavor of adrenaline, and smell sulphur and smoke. You can’t do this. You so cannot fucking do this.

You get yourself back enough so a trembling hand can get your phone out of your bag, unlock it and hit Jack’s name. He answers on the first ring. “I’m not ready Jack, I can’t do this, I, I, I’m stuck outside and I need you, please come, I’m sor-”

“Doll,” Jack interrupts you. “Turn around.”

You do and standing at the edge of the courtyard is Jack.

He hangs up his phone as he starts moving to you, shoving past a couple people with a distracted excuse me because he just needs to get to you. He knows that you don’t want to fully lose it here, not with the potential for people you know or work with every day to see. And Jack doesn’t want it for you either. He knows you hate crying in front of people, that it took a while for you to be able to cry in front of him.

“I’m here,” he’s saying as he gets to you, arms reaching out before he’s even all the way there to start pulling you into him. “I’m here, I’ve got you, you’re okay.” Your hands slide around his waist and clutch at the back of his shirt as you close your eyes and press the side of your head to his chest.

You breathe him in, smell your laundry detergent and his body wash and him. You focus and let his heart beating become the only thing you can hear. The metallic taste in your mouth starts to fade.

“Ready to walk?” Jack whispers as he feels you start to calm down. You nod against him and so he lets go of you. A hand finds your lower back and starts directing you over to a bench outside of the courtyard facing away from the courthouse.

You both sit and he pulls you as close as possible, wraps the arm closest to you around your waist to keep you close as you rest a hand on his knee. Jack brings his other hand across his body and rests it on top of your hand, laces your fingers together from above.

Jack doesn’t pressure you, doesn’t ask you for details or if you want to talk or what exactly happened. He just sits there with you holding you close. You tilt your head and let it fall onto his shoulder. He tilts his head and his lips press against you where they can reach before he lets his head rest on yours lightly.

“I feel so ridiculous,” you murmur after a while.

Jack squeezes your hand. “Why?”

“I knew the entire morning I wasn’t ready. I just wanted to be so bad so I didn’t listen to myself.”

“I know. I knew,” he murmurs. “But that doesn’t make you ridiculous. Just human.”

“You knew?” you whisper, pull away to look at him. “How?”

“You told me as much with your eyes and the way you hesitated before you did anything related to getting ready this morning.” He squeezes your hand. “Before picking up your hairbrush and putting your bra on and picking up your mascara, that type of stuff. Your hand hesitated for just a second or two before you grabbed whatever it was. And then when it took you as long as it did to get your shoes on I just had an intuition or gut feeling or whatever you want to call it that I should be here.”

“You didn’t try to stop me?”

“No,” he shakes his head and gives you a small smile. “It was obvious that you needed to do this. Come here. Try. Get yourself back in front of this building. You needed to do it for yourself and I wasn’t going to interfere with that, no matter how badly I wanted to stop you so you wouldn’t hurt. You needed to do this. My role is to support you and help you with your healing. Not to dictate how you do it.”

You take in and hold a long breath before letting it out through your nose and shaking your head a little. “You’re way too fucking good for me.”

Jack gives you a look. “Not even gracing that bullshit with a reply,” he parrots the phrase you love to use back at you.

You give him a little eye roll and a smile. “I just should be better, Jack. I should be able to go back and get back to normal. But then I got here and it’s like it was yesterday.”

He nods slowly. “I think it was yesterday in a sense, Doll. This is your first time even being in front of the courthouse since it happened. That’s one. Two,” he pauses to take a breath and look down and away from you for a second. “A very, very smart woman,” he looks back up at you with a small smile, “once told me that 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’re quiet for a few seconds before you let out a huffed laugh through your nose. “I can’t believe you just used my own words against me twice in a row.”

Jack clicks his tongue and shrugs. “I can be a real dick sometimes can’t I?”

You roll your eyes at him again and lean back into him. “Maybe. But you’re my dick, so it’s okay, I’ll allow it.”

That makes him roll his eyes at you and chuckle. “Yeah, I’m your dick, alright. I’m glad to hear you’ll allow it,” he teases.

“I’m actually quite impressed that you remember that entire little speech I gave you,” you admit after a few minutes.

“Repeated it to myself a lot. Still do. Well, really in my head you’re saying it to me and I hear it in your voice. So I guess I have you repeating it to me a lot.” He pauses. “It’s important to remember.”

“I suppose it is.” You pull away again to look up at him. “Thank you. I love you.”

“Always, Doll.” The kiss he gives you is quick yet ardent. “I love you too.”

There’s a lull as the two of you just sit on the bench and exist together, soak in the sun.

“You wanna go to bath and body works?” Jack breaks the silence. An amused smirk pulls on your face as you pull away to look up at him. “Candles are on sale. $12.95. And they just released a bunch of new scents.”

You know he’s offering and that he keeps tabs on when they’re on sale and when new scents come out because he knows how much you enjoy candles and the fun of smelling them. You bite your lip and look up at him all dreamy. “You’re perfect, you know that?”

“Nah,” he shakes his head and stands up, offers you his hand and helps you off the bench so you can head to the store. “Just in love.”

You take a bit more time for yourself before you try going back again, go and sit outside the courthouse with Jack and alone. And the next time you go back to work Jack goes with you, holds your hand all the way up to the employee entrance. He gives you a kiss goodbye and holds the door open for you, watches you for a second before he lets the door close. He waits outside on a bench for a bit, just in case you decide you’re not ready again and need him. But you don’t. And so Jack smiles to himself as he gets up and heads back home.

Normal. Things are finally starting to get back to normal.

But, as it turns out, normalcy is a fragile thing. And so things are finally starting to get back to normal.

Until they aren’t.

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

Thank you so so much for reading, I hope it was okay!

Part 4 is out now!

Part 4 will be out soon!! This weekend for sure! And then we're straight into Quiet 2 which I am so fucking excited for! I have many many plans! How many exclamation points can I use in a row!!!!!

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