#I'm also not even going to touch on how fucking BAD it is for the environment

[dreamersparacosm]

jeon jungkook - off the record (part eight)

part eight ; no further questions

warnings ; none

prompt ; in which you’re paired with your insufferably charming ex-academic rival turned coworker to cover a congressional scandal, and suddenly, professional boundaries becomes the only thing holding you two apart.

note ; surprise!! it's here a day early because i'm feeling festive in honor of the blackpink concert today (and if by chance any lone soul is also going... 😏) there is SO MUCH to fucking unpack in this chapter. we're talking major cracks in the armor for oc, and jungkook's protective side makes an appearance. his anger is rooted in his respect for her, and it is so beautiful to see, especially since all oc wants is to be seen. jungkook's yearning in this chapter is 11/10 like the man would probably combust into thin air if she touched him willingly. free my bro from the shackles!!! she guards and deflects, he observes and protects... oh they go together real bad. if you can catch all the times oc crashes out internally because she's like why do i feel weird about him, i'll give you a virtual hug 🫂 enjoy, angels!

series masterlist here

playlist here

wc ; 11.3k

“Sorry about that. What were we talking about?”

The sickly sweet smile spread thin across your lips doesn’t do much to deter Jake. In fact, he returns it with a pearly white grin of his own and you swear you see a sparkle deflect off his two front teeth.

“Work problems with Jeon?”

“That seems to be the common theme these days.” You scan the bar desperately for a bartender. Any bartender. Even one who looks like they learned mixology from a YouTube tutorial would be preferable to continuing this conversation sober.

“You two always fight like that?” 

“We don’t fight,” you quip. Which… technically would be true if you don’t count the daily verbal disagreements and whatever the hell just happened in that hallway. Your eyes begin averting around the bar frantically.  “We engage in professional discourse.”

Jake’s eyebrows migrate toward his hairline. “Professional discourse? Is that you call it when someone drags you from some good conversation?”

Finally, a bartender with a man-bun and dead eyes approaches and you nearly launch yourself across the bartop.

“Vodka soda. Strong.” 

The bartender doesn’t question your request and nods as if this is completely reasonable. It probably is, considering he works in the heart of the West Village. 

You ignore Jake’s piercing gaze. “Unless Jungkook’s name legally changes to vodka soda, I don’t want to hear about him again.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugs. You have a feeling this topic won’t actually be shelved so much as temporarily tabled. 

God, Jungkook has scrambled your brain like Sunday morning eggs. You don’t want to decipher any of what he said back there. What do you think I mean?

You think he means he’s having a psychological break. 

Jake is a perfectly good man. A successful, attractive, normal person who wants to have dinner (yes, a dinner!) with you because you are interesting, not because you’re some pawn in a game happening in Jungkook’s head. 

The bartender slides your drink across the bar and you snatch it up as quickly as a thief would a million dollars. 

“So,” you start, taking what qualifies as a therapy sip. The vodka burns down your throat.  “How’s it like living here? I mean, it has to beat living on Columbia’s campus.”

Jake’s face lights up like someone just asked him to recite his resume, and based on your college experience, is probably his favorite topic of conversation. 

“It’s incredible. My apartment in SoHo is sick—I think I told you this—but the energy here is crazy. Like, in DC, I’m sure you’re always playing politics but here… here you can make a difference.” 

You nod like a broken bobblehead, although the phrase “make a difference” makes you want to ask if he’s planning to solve climate change with his journalism. Like, is he filming a segment for Disney Channel’s Pass the Plate or something?  “That’s sooo cool. The Times has such a great reputation.”

“Best in the business,” he declares. Alright, calm down, that title is reserved for CNN… not the icky Times. “You know, my editor told me I have an instinct for finding the stories that matter. I once got a story from a tip I cultivated six months ago.”

“Wow… six months? Serious dedication.”

For some reason unknown to every deity in the universe, the word dedication triggers a Freudian slip in your brain. Jungkook’s face when he said he took the Fox job because he knew you’d be on the Hill too. The way he’s been following your work, except now you’re wondering if maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t professional at all—

No. Stop. Jake is standing right here, being normal and interested in you. 

“That’s what real journalism takes. Patience. Strategy.” He leans in closer and you catch a whiff of his cologne. It’s sharp, not warm and inviting in the way that always lingers around—

You swallow thickly, derailing that train of thought before it reaches its destination. 

“Totally agree.” Is it 100 degrees in here, or is that just you? The vodka must be mixing poorly with whatever adrenaline is coursing through your body. “You can’t stumble into great stories. You need to know how to position yourself.”

“While we’re on the topic of positioning,” Jake continues, “I actually stumbled across a piece of your work the other day. The one about the municipal elections. You have a lot of really smart takes.” 

Take that, Jungkook. You published that piece three months ago, and it was hardly your most groundbreaking work, but Jake not only read it, but remembered. 

“Thanks. My stuff isn’t exactly Pulitzer material like yours, but—”

“Are you kidding?” he exclaims incredulously, eyes never leaving your face. “You tied the budget vote to the nominee’s answers during the debate. Really smart reporting.”

You’ve always known you were the smartest woman alive. He doesn’t have to tell you twice. You’ll be riding the coattails of this high all the way back to DC.

“Though I have to say…” he pauses, mulling over his next words. The veins in his bicep flex as he combs his hand through his hair. “Surprised Jeon didn’t write an article about those elections in retaliation.”

There it is again. Jake, inserting Jungkook into your conversations like some kind of virus. 

“Why would he?” you ask, trying to keep your voice as light as possible. “We don’t work for the same network.” 

“You know how he gets. I mean, wasn’t he in all your classes?’ 

All of them. That’s what happens when you have the exact same major. 

You give Jake a tight-lipped smile in return and play with the straw in your drink. 

“Plus, working in the same building, covering the same stuff…” Jake trails off. “You didn’t get a chance to tell me what those interesting dynamics are like before he snatched you right up.”

You can’t give Jungkook the satisfaction of being right. It would violate every principle you’ve ever held about your own judgement, your ability to read people. But the more Jake keeps redirecting every talking point back to Jungkook, the more the traitorous voice in the back of your head starts whispering that Jungkook isn’t entirely delusional. 

It’s just that… you don’t really remember Jungkook and Jake being nemeses. Sure, you were too busy obsessing over your own academic death match with Jungkook to notice much else, but you feel like “sworn enemies” would’ve registered on your radar. Jungkook was busy enough stealing your thunder, and now he wants you to believe he found time for another rivalry?

You want to ask what the fuck their beef is about, but you know better. 

So you opt for an awkward laugh instead while letting your eyes roam the bar. Jungkook has resumed his post at the table with Pink Blazer, and they seem to be enthralled in conversation. Maybe she understands what he means when he asks cryptic questions like ‘what do you think I mean?’

Maybe she speaks fluent Jungkooknese. 

“So where do you want to go to dinner?” you blurt out, desperate to steer the conversation anywhere else. 

He cocks one eyebrow like you just suggested robbing a bank. “Dinner?” 

“You mentioned dinner earlier. I’m pro dinner. Huge fan of eating.”

“Yeah?”  His expression shifts slightly. “Hm. How about Rao’s? My family keeps a table there and it’s pretty exclusive. My dad became best friends with the head chef back in the 90s when he was still doing real estate in the city, and now we have an open invitation whenever we’re in town, which is sick because the waiting list is usually months long and it’s so fucking good…”

You tune out the rest of his long-winded answer about family connections and culinary networking, because Pink Blazer has put her hand on Jungkook’s arm. 

You’re not jealous. God, that would be embarrassing and irrational. But it’s fascinating to watch someone show genuine interest in him. 

Kind of the way Rosalie did before, but still. Weird. 

“[Y/N]?” 

You snap your eyes back to Jake. He's staring at you expectantly. “Yes. Rao’s. Totally down for that.”

“You sure? You seemed distracted.” 

“I’m not,” you let the words tumble clean from your mouth. “Just… daydreaming about pasta.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He straightens his shoulders and takes a fortifying sip from his drink. “So… this might be random, but do you happen to know if Fox is hiring?” 

What the fuck? 

The shock on your expression must be pretty damn evident, because he starts backpedaling like he’s trying to avoid falling off a cliff. “Not in like, a weird way or anything. I’m just curious about the job market. ‘Cause you know, I love New York, but Fox has some strong political coverage. And I like the Hill.” 

“But Jungkook works there,” you contend. “And I don’t really think you two are the biggest fans of each other.”

He laughs and it quite literally sounds as if it was manufactured in a factory. “Damn, that obvious?”

About as obvious as a neon sign.

“Kind of.” Your eyes are burning daggers into Pink Blazer. You take another sip of your vodka soda as she swishes her perfect jet black hair over her shoulder. 

“Well, the feeling’s mutual,” Jake says. “He’s never been my biggest supporter either.” 

There are red sirens blaring in your head. A smoke detector with dying batteries. A high-pitched whine of warning. Jungkook might be right. The possibility makes you want to sob and throw up and curl in a corner.

“And why is that?” you ask, aiming for nonchalant but landing near suspicion. 

“Just some boring ass college drama.” He waves his hand like he’s swatting away a fly. “Literally not relevant at all. Not even worth getting into.” 

“Must be pretty relevant if you keep bringing him up every five seconds.”

His mouth gapes open as if you just announced you’re a mind reader. He probably wasn’t expecting you to catch onto his obsession with bringing up Jungkook. 

“I dont—I’m not.” He takes a breath. Regroups. “Look, I’m more curious about Fox. It’s not personal.”

“Right, right…” You take a sip of the watered-down vodka in your hand and catch a glimpse of the time on someone’s phone at the bar. 10 PM. This night has aged you ten years. “So curious you’re basically asking me for his biography.” 

“I don’t think I’m the one obsessed with him,” Jake accuses abruptly. You want to throw your drink at his stupidly symmetrical face. 

“Excuse me?” 

You barely register the words leaving your mouth. Your feet are screaming in these heels, you’re nowhere near drunk enough to be having this conversation, and now Jake is implicating you are the one with the obsession problem. This is animal cruelty. 

“I mean, come on. He dragged you from our conversation and you just… went with it.” He seems eerily amused by this. 

“I did not ‘go with it.’ If you haven’t noticed, he’s like, the size of a mountain. Did you want me to challenge him to an arm wrestling match?”

Your body is rejecting this notion. Tomorrow, you’ll wake up with hives all over your limbs and red eyes. 

“I’m just saying.” he pauses, “You’re not exactly innocent either.”

This can’t be the guy you had a crush on in college. That Jake was sweet and thoughtful and didn’t make you feel like you needed a shower after talking to him. 

And also, even if — and if is a strong word — you let yourself be dragged by Jungkook into a bathroom hallway, it’s not like you had much of a choice. 

“Whatever.” You chug the rest of your drink, eyes watering upon impact. “If you’re so interested in Fox, you can ask Jungkook yourself. I’m sure he’d love to help you out.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” He seems happy to nip that topic in the bud, moving on like a shark who’s caught a whiff of fresh blood. “So when were you thinking for dinner? This weekend?” 

The thought of sitting across from Jake at some fancy restaurant, listening to him talk about his family’s connections and Jungkook, makes you want to fake your own death and move to a small island where no one has ever heard of journalism. 

There’s bile rising in the back of your throat, blisters forming on the back on your heels, and you feel like shit. 

You want nothing more than to crawl in bed and silently stare at the ceiling. 

“How about… I’ll just text you and we’ll figure it out?” You slam your empty glass on the bartop with enough force that the bartender flinches.

“Do you even have my number?” He asks, blinking incessantly. 

You’re already adjusting your top, calculating the fastest route to the exit. “I’ll ask around.”

“I can just give it to you right now—” 

“No, really,” You brush him off, one foot directing towards the exit. “I’m resourceful. I’ll figure it out.”

“But that doesn’t make any—”

You’re done. You’re so done with this night you could write an essay on doneness. You weave through the crowd that has magically tripled since you arrived, past couples arguing and girls who are definitely too young to be in this bar.

You keep walking. You walk right past Jungkook, right past Pink Blazer, and the bell above the door signals your exit into the brisk night air. 

Outside, there are a pack of underage boys arguing about their fake IDs with the bouncer. You would trade your entire set of problems for theirs right now. At least their biggest concern is whether their Missouri driver’s license will get them a beer.  

You want to scream into the New York City void, and curse every god known to mankind while you’re at it. This city has always been exactly what you expected it to be. Always treated you with the same indifference.

You can feel the bouncer eyeing you, and you know it’s time to leave. It was probably time to go home the minute Jungkook pulled you into the hallway, but you must’ve been feeling masochistic tonight. 

Okay, what are your options?

The West 4th train stop is only a two minute walk. Totally doable. 

You take precisely one step forward in that direction before the sharp pain stamped onto the back of your shoes returns with the intensity of a thousand tiny demons stabbing your feet. Why did you choose today, of all days, to break in heels from Nordstrom?

New plan. 

You unlock your phone, open up the Uber app, and punch in your hotel address. The price of an UberX glares back at you like a medical bill you can’t afford. Who’s paying these prices? Are there people out there casually dropping $45 to go uptown thirty blocks?

You’re not exactly living paycheck to paycheck, but this is highway robbery. There can’t be a single New Yorker who looks at these prices and thinks, “Yes, this is such a deal.” 

Perhaps you should hitchhike barefoot for 40 blocks. That seems like a good idea—

“[Y/N]!”

Jungkook’s frantic voice slices through the night air, has your entire body whipping around. Damnit, those flutters are back. 

He’s rushing out the bar, bulldozing past the group of underage boys. His jaw is just as tight as it was when you left him in the hallway. Under the night sky, his features appear darker and sharper. 

“What do you want, Jeon? I’ve had a long night.” You’re all kinds of defeated. 

He rakes his fingers through his hair, chewing his lip. “You can’t just walk home alone. This is New York City.”

You scrunch your eyebrows. Hm. Here you thought he’d be thrilled to watch you get mugged on the streets of Manhattan.

“I’m not walking. I was going to Uber.” 

You’re doing no such thing, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

You lift your feet out of your heels for a moment of relief, and the sigh that escapes you is audible from space.

Jungkook stops mid-argument as he peers down at your feet before traveling back up to your face. He doesn’t say anything for a beat. 

Then asks,“Are you in pain?”

“Does it matter?” Your sigh is dramatic this time. Just so he really knows how done you are with everything. 

“Want to switch shoes?” And he’s not even going to wait to hear your response, because he’s already bending down, nimble fingers working the laces. 

“Wait—no, stop.” You clutch his arm and pull him upright, ignoring how solid his bicep feels under your palm. “I'm totally fine.” 

“I’ve watched you do that weird foot thing at least four times tonight. You’re not fine.”

He probably can’t see it under this minimal light, but blood drains from your face. “It’s fine. Let’s just.. Let’s just go home.” 

You realize now how weird that sentence sounds when strung together. Like you have a home together. A shared space waiting for both of you. And that thought… it does nothing to kill the butterfly situation. 

“Did you already call the Uber?” he questions innocently. You almost feel bad about lying. 

Shit. 

“No. I… I was..” 

Telling him you were waiting for surge pricing to go down is so mortifying you would rather explain your browser history to your grandmother. 

But his face softens. The crinkles around his eyes fall flat. A tiny smile plays upon his lips. 

The truth pours out of you like water from a broken dam.

“Not yet. I was waiting for the prices to go down.”

“Well, how much are they?” He pulls his own phone out of his back pocket. Preparing to solve your problems.

Great. Now he thinks you’re financially irresponsible on top of whatever other character flaws he’s taken note of over the years. 

“Jeon,” you groan. “I don’t need you to order me an Uber home.”

“It’s not just for you.” He purses his lips, tilts his head. “Am I not staying at the same hotel?”

Right. That. 

“Okay, great,” you chirp. “So I’ll continue my plan to hitchhike, then.”

He takes a step nearer, as if to block your theoretical escape route. “Why can’t you just get in the car with me?”

You cross your arms over your chest. A mistake because you look like a defiant toddler. “I’m not letting you pay these outrageous prices. It’s insanity. I should write a strongly worded letter to the mayor. Who’s the mayor again?”

Jungkook is smiling at you while you rant, and it’s a real one that tugs at your heart. Starts in his eyes, travels to his lips like spilled sunlight. The kind of smile someone would probably want to spend the rest of their life seeing. 

“How about we make a compromise?” The glint in his eye lingers.

You exhale a long breath. “I don’t believe in compromises.They're a sign of weak moral character.”

“Just this once?” 

What do you have left to lose at this point?

Your face must give your surrender away because he barrels on before you can object. “We’ll walk a few blocks north until the surge pricing chills out, and then we’ll split the Uber home.”

“Perfect—”

“And I’ll carry you piggyback so your feet don’t hurt.”

Your brain malfunctions to the point where you’re surprised smoke doesn’t start floating out of your ears. A mental image of Jungkook carrying you through the streets of New York — your arms hugging his broad shoulders, face close enough to his neck to breathe in the scent of cedar, to map every freckle that travels below the collar of his button-down — makes you think unspeakable things. Makes you think you’ll never let go even when the prices go down.

“That’s not really necessary.”

You’re also a little concerned about breaking his back. You’re not exactly made of air.

“Bro, you’re starting to piss me off with all this limping around.” He gestures to your reddening feet. They’re starting to resemble small balloons. “What, you think I can’t carry you?”

That’s exactly what you think, but admitting it feels cruel.

“No, I just—”

“I go to the gym. I bench press more than you weigh.” He says it with such finality that your argument ceases to exist. 

Before you can mount a proper dispute, he turns away to face you, back on display. He has wide shoulders, and you can see the ripple of back muscles through his button-down. He really doesn’t need to do this. But he is, and his motives are being questioned by every logical part of your brain. 

“Are you planning on dropping me or something? Is this all part of some master plan to give me a traumatic brain injury so I never have to compete against you again?”

“[Y/N].” His tone is firm. Hands inviting, open and willing, awaiting your weight to occupy them. “If you keep overthinking this, I might drop you on purpose.”

“Fine, fine.” you huff. “But if I end up as a sidewalk pancake, I’m haunting you forever.” 

First, your hands find the apex of his shoulders, digging into the warmth of his shirt. You feel the ridge of his bicep, the veins underneath. A pit of fire rages in your stomach, travels down to your core, uninviting and unfamiliar. A lot of uns. 

He bends down a little more to latch onto the backs of your thighs, wrapping your legs around his waist. Your feet are dangling in the air. Fully airborne. 

Every point where your body intertwines with his feels like stepping into sunlight after weeks of rain. Your hands clasp together in front of his face, snug tightly around his neck. His scent engulfs your nostrils, vodka and bergamot and clean soap. The proximity sends your brain into a tizzy.

“You secure back there?” he jokes, but his voice cracks a little at the end of the question. 

“Ay ay, captain.” 

“Off we go.” He begins walking down the street, and you instinctively wrap your limbs tighter around him. 

There’s a blissful silence between you, and it’s comforting. You two are almost never in silence. It’s always the verbal equivalent of a fencing match, swords poking at every nerve-ending inside you. But now it’s like the swords have gone dull, and the referee has blown their whistle. 

You bite your lip hesitantly. “You can let me know if I get too heavy.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He continues his trek down the moonlit street. A group of girls walk past, and you catch them doing a double take at Jungkook. One of them even slows down to get a better look. For a moment, a feeling of pride swoops through you. They’re ogling him, you realize, and you’re here attached to him like a human necklace. 

You rest your chin atop his shoulder. There’s an inappropriate urge to place one of your hands in between his button down, to feel the warm skin underneath, maybe trace over the lines of his chest tattoo you glimpsed earlier. When did he start working out, anyway? 

“Freshmn year of college,” he says, “I take my health pretty seriously.”

Oh crap. You said that out loud?

“Oh. That’s… that’s cool.” Your face feels like it’s been set on fire. “How often do you go to the gym?”

“Like six days a week,” he replies, casual as ever. 

You didn’t know he possessed discipline. You always thought he simply floated around the universe, above everyone. Like dandelion seeds in the wind — effortlessly landing where he needed to be. 

Turns out you were wrong about that. 

You’re coming to find out you were wrong about a lot with him. 

He stops at an intersection, waiting for the walk signal. The momentary pause reminds you of tonight’s events, and why you even ran out of Fiddlesticks in the first place.

“I’m still mad at you, by the way.”

“Really?” He scoffs. “You’re currently clinging to my back like a koala, so ‘mad’ is a strong word, don’t you think?”

The so-called anger evaporates into the New York sky. 

You want to ask about the hallway interaction, about Jake, about everything. But as of right now, you think you just want to be a girl getting carried by her archnemesis down a crowded city street.

“How was the rest of your night?” he questions. It’s gentle.  

“It was fine.” You don’t dare admit he was right about Jake. “The drinks were trash.”

“Too strong?” He grimaces.

“Very. The bartender must be going through it.”

“Man bun guy? Yeah, no one puts their hair in a man bun unless they're manic.” His fingers dig into the fabric of your pants and your brain stops all neural function momentarily. 

You laugh. “What do you have against man buns? They’re hot.” 

He inhales sharply. “I didn’t peg you for a man bun kind of girl.”

“I’m not. I just think some guys can pull it off.” It’s true. Like, for example, Jared Leto. Smash.

“Hm.” 

It’s silent again for a few more minutes. Peaceful. Comfortable. Your head bounces against his shoulder gently with each step, and you feel the drowsiness settling in. 

“Still doing okay back there?” he asks after a few more blocks. 

You yawn in response. “Unfortunately so.”

“Good.” Jungkook hikes his hands higher up on your thighs for better support. “Don’t you dare fall asleep on me.”

“I’m not going to fall asleep.” you protest, forcing your eyes to stay open. 

As you mobilize further uptown, the city is bustling. With families, with couples holding hands, with friends laughing loudly. All these people living their own separate lives that will never intersect with yours. Each carrying their own stories, their secrets, probably their own piggyback ride memories. 

You peer over at Jungkook; the moles on the back of his neck, the chestnut hair that clings to the nape. You’re now learning he has his own set of stories too, layers you’re only just beginning to peel back. And each one you uncover, the more you realize, they’re worth reading too. 

“Jungkook?” 

Your own voice surprises you. 

“Yeah?” 

“You were right. About Jake.”

“Oh.” He pauses, chooses his next words deliberately. Jungkook’s shoulders shift under your palms. “I didn’t want to be right about that.”

“Really?” You can’t keep the disbelief out of your tone. “Figured you’d be doing victory laps around Manhattan right about now.”

“I know I was… I know I—look, I didn’t want to be right about him. You don’t deserve that.” His sigh wracks through his whole body. 

A knot in your chest loosens, one you didn’t even know was there. “I kind of thought you spent most of your time plotting new ways to make my life miserable.”

He laughs, a husky sound that rumbles against your chest where you’re pressed against him. “[Y/N]. That’s not what I think about you.”

“It’s not?” Your hug around him tightens even more. 

“Trust me. It’s not.” 

“Careful,” you tease. “I’m going to start thinking you like me, Jeon.” 

The smile creeps into his voice when he responds, “Would that be such a terrible thing?” 

No, no, it wouldn’t.

And that’s enough of an answer to the rest of your questions tonight. 

By the time you make it back to the hotel, it’s way later than your normal bedtime. But at least your feet aren’t throbbing in pain, and the Uber only set Jungkook back $10. You swallowed your pride when you saw the price instead of insisting on paying him back, so there was growth. 

The room is silent except for the sound of the air conditioning whirring. You and Jungkook hardly shared words in the car ride; not for any reason in particular besides the comfort of sitting in silence. After spending your entire day talking, it was nice to just exist. 

You also spent a lot of the drive thinking about Jungkook. About the way his hands felt splayed across fabric. About his thoughtfulness on every aspect of you. About a dozen other things, honestly. 

But if you think about it for too long, you go down a rabbit hole you really don’t want to go down.

You rummage through your duffel bag, searching for the pajamas you remember folding with care. They should be right here, nestled between your emergency granola bars and three extra phone chargers. You packed like the apocalypse was en route, so they must be buried.

“Hey, I’m gonna change in the bathroom,” Jungkook announces, his own pajamas in tow. 

You make a vague humming noise, elbow-deep in your luggage disaster zone.

The door clicks shut, and you continue to dig. You know you brought them. Buried somewhere beneath the collection of ‘just in case’ items. Coincidentally, you never needed those things. 

“Bathroom’s all yours.” Jungkook’s footsteps pad across the carpet. You hear the rustle of sheets as he settles into bed, and you don’t know why your heart does this weird thing where it skips a beat and races to catch up. Maybe because you realize you’re soon also going to occupy the bed. Together. 

Okay, one more sweep and you’re certain your pajamas will show up. 

Except they don’t, and you come to the crushing realization that you never packed the pajamas. They’re sitting on your couch back home, wondering what they did to deserve abandonment. 

Sighing, you slump back on your heels and turn to Jungkook. He’s lying in bed, propped against the headboard with his phone, scrolling through TikTok. The light from his phone illuminates his face, catching the curve of his smile as he watches some video. He’s changed into a black t-shirt that makes his shoulders look broader than they did in that button-down.

This is exactly the kind of domestic scene your brain doesn't need right now.

Because now you’re thinking about things you probably shouldn’t be. You’re thinking about what side of the bed he likes to sleep on. If he sleeps with one pillow or two. If he snores. If he likes to sleep in total darkness or with a lamp on. If your bodies will be compatible in the same space of a bed. If your head would fit on his chest. 

“You okay over there?” 

He’s looking at you with a dazed expression. He’s caught you staring at him like he’s straight out of a MoMA exhibit. Given the direction of your thoughts, it’s probably not far off.

“Yeah, I just…” You sheepishly rub the back of your neck. “I forgot my pajamas at home.”

He raises an eyebrow quizzically. “You don’t have a thorough packing list you check five times before leaving?���

“No, do you?” 

“No, I'm a dude. I throw stuff in a bag and pray I remembered underwear.” 

You give him a look that could wilt flowers. “Okay, fine. I do have a packing list, but I fear I only checked it twice instead of my usual five.”

He seems pleased that he got something right about you. Setting his phone aside, he gives you his undivided attention. “So what do you need from me?” 

Ideally? For his hand in helping the earth open up and swallow you whole. But the universe seems committed to testing every boundary of your comfort zone since the moment you met Jungkook, so here you are. 

You stand up, crossing your arms defensively. “Do you happen to have anything I can borrow?”

A sly grin unfurls across his face. “Are you asking to wear my clothes?” 

“This is not by choice,” you rush to say, though you’re not sure why you feel the need to clarify the obvious. 

“Right, because if you wanted to wear my stuff, you could’ve just—”

“I want to die.”

“—I bet it would look great on you—”

“Jeon, please. I’m dying of embarrassment.”

“Can someone actually die of embarrassment? That feels too good to be true.” He’s enjoying the hell out of this. 

“Please,” you plead. “You know I never ask for anything.”

The shit-eating grin doesn't fade. In fact, it triples in size. “Do you have a preference? Top or bottom?”

“Jungkook Jeon.”

The use of his full name elicits a chuckle, a sound that does nothing to help your internal chaos.

“Fine, fine.” He throws back the covers and gets up. “I’m sure I have something.”

He stalks across the room toward his luggage. His shoulder blades shift with each movement — wow, you really, really need to stop noticing these things — and your eyes can’t seem to peel themselves away.

Jungkook whips around suddenly. You nearly give yourself whiplash trying to pretend you weren’t just caught staring at him for the second time in ten minutes. This is going to be framed in the Guinness Book of World Records for ‘most obvious staring’. 

In his hand, his Columbia sweatshirt is scrunched up into a wrinkled gray ball. You can make out the Proxima Nova font. 

“So this is basically all I’ve got,” He’s apathetic about it. As if it should be your pleasure to wear his dirty sweatshirt to sleep. 

You don’t know why your body has such a visceral reaction to wearing that particular sweatshirt. It’s just fabric and letters. But there’s two thoughts that linger in your brain and battle for dominance. 

The sweatshirt has been worn. It smells like him. 

It’s also from Columbia, the school that forced you two together and pushed you apart.

It’s symbolic, almost. 

“I’m not wearing that to sleep,” you utter, complete seriousness in your tone. 

“Well, what other option do you have?” He’s dumbfounded. 

You scramble to think of options. They’re slim to none. “I’ll… I’ll sleep in my blazer.”

That quite literally sounds like the most uncomfortable night of your life, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Jungkook’s signature devilish smirk appears. “Your other option is to sleep naked… which I’m not opposed to, by the way.” 

Your stomach is clenching around itself like it’s a stress ball.

Nope, no way. It's either a Columbia sweatshirt filled with memories and layers of Jungkook you’re starting to uncover, or….

“Give me the fucking sweatshirt, Jeon.”

He tosses it across the room with perfect aim, and you catch it reflexively. You’re beyond desperate to change and go to sleep and rid yourself of all memories from this night. 

It feels as though you’ve lived a hundred different lives today, none of them recognizable as your own. 

Shuffling into the bathroom, you lock the door shut tight and look at yourself in the mirror. Staring back at you is a girl who barely recognizes herself anymore. Hair mussed, makeup smudged, eyes hooded from exhaustion.

Of course, you can chalk this up to sharing a room with someone who has tortured you for eight years. 

You change into the sweatshirt, and the minute the soft cotton settles over your cool skin, you feel warm inside, a fuzzy feeling nestling itself into your chest and making a home. The sweatshirt falls just above your knees — long enough where it’s still modest, short enough that you won’t trip over yourself walking back into the room. 

The smell is fragrant. It’s everything your nostrils know about him; the strong scent of bergamot, cedar, mixed with a fabric softener that bleeds into every piece of clothing he owns. 

It smells utterly and completely like him. It smells like the first day of Public Policy. It smells like the infamous Ethics debate of sophomore year. It smells like seeing your name under ‘valedictorian’ and his under ‘salutatorian.’ It smells like seeing him on your first day at CNN. It smells like White House Prom. Him, him, him. 

There’s a rock sitting in your stomach that’s heavy. Suddenly, the sweatshirt feels more suffocating rather than comforting. 

You rip open the bathroom door, nearly wipe it clean off the hinges. Jungkook has resumed his post in bed, scrolling through his phone with occasional quiet chuckles at whatever videos are entertaining his bird brain. 

When you fully step into the light of the hotel room, though, his phone screen goes dark. He places it down on the mattress, looks at you, and you watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down. 

His eyes are traveling—from your bare legs to the way your hands are hugging the edge of the sleeves.

Acknowledging you, in his clothes. Taking inventory of it. 

A wave of self-consciousness courses through you. You can’t find a single word in the English dictionary to say to him. Not a single quip. You just walk over to the bed, get under the covers, and avoid all eye contact. 

But he’s still eyeing you, possibly waiting for you to say something. 

Actually, there is something you should probably get out of the way. 

Considering there was no conversation about sharing the bed, you need to re-establish rules. 

You remove a pillow from under your head and plop it down in the center of the mattress, giving it a few aggressive fluffs. Then you reach over and snatch one of his too. “[Y/N]—”

“What, you thought bed privileges came free of charge?” You continue your pillow arrangement project. “You didn’t even ask for my permission, now that I think about it.” 

“I need permission to sleep now?” His voice climbs several octaves in disbelief. 

“Not permission to sleep. Permission to share my space.” You tuck the covers around your pillow barrier to ensure there's no accidental limb contact. 

“Your space?” He sounds genuinely offended now. “Do you not recall Monroe booked this room with CNN under my name?” 

Ah, perfect. You’ve managed to restore the natural order of bickering. Your safe space.  

You tut. “Uh, uh, stop it right there. That does not make you an honorary CNN employee.”

“Like I’d want to be.”

“Moral of the story here is,” You settle yourself deeper into the fortress of the comforter. “We have a clear line. These pillows represent an invisible line that cannot, under any circumstances, be crossed.”

“And what happens if I cross it?” he challenges.

You splutter. Is he planning on testing this boundary? “Then you’ll be sleeping in the hallway with the ice machine for company.”

“Wow,” He shakes his head in mock disappointment. “I carry you ten blocks through Manhattan, and this is the gratitude I get."

“Were you expecting some kind of cuddle session as payment?”

“I was expecting to be treated like a human.” he retorts, arms crossed over his chest vehemently. 

“This is as good as it gets, Jeon,” you firmly say. “If you so much as even breathe in my direction, I will smother you with this commemorative Hilton pillow.”

“So generous. Remind me to nominate you for a Peace Prize.” He picks up his phone again, ignoring your pillow wall and placing his elbow directly on it. 

You roll your eyes and snap off your bedside lamp, plunging half the room into darkness. His light remains on, which you’re 90% sure is an act of passive aggression. 

But five minutes of tossing and turning prove that sleep is going to be elusive tonight. Between Jungkook’s intermittent giggles at whatever TikTok rabbit hole he’s fallen into, and your flashback reel of the evening, it feels impossible. 

You smush your face deep into the pillow. “Do you need to watch your videos on the highest fucking volume?”

“Is volume control part of your sacred pillow wall treaty?”

Curse the day Jungkook Jeon was born. 

“No it’s not, but I need to sleep.” you say, letting exhaustion bleed into your voice. “Please.”

There’s a soft sigh, followed by the click of his phone screen going dark. His body shimmies into the blanket even more. You’re on your way to thank your guardian angel when you hear, “How do you think tomorrow will go?”

Tomorrow. The tomorrow you’re supposed to be getting rest for. The day that's rapidly approaching while you lie here wide awake in a hotel bed with your supposed archnemesis.

“Can we talk about this when we wake up?” Your words come out muffled against the pillow. 

“Sure.” A beat of silence. “I’m just worried about Monroe.”

He’s like a broken vinyl that you can’t get off the record player. 

“Why?” You don’t lift your face from the pillow sanctuary. 

You can’t fathom why you’re feeding into this conversation right now. You know you’re tired. Your whole body is detesting the fact that your eyes are still open. 

“Delgado isn’t going to show mercy tomorrow. Not after today’s performance went so well for her.” 

You turn to face the pillow barricade. You’re certain that on the other side of it, he’s also facing the pillows. 

“She handled herself well today,” you say into the darkness. “She looks competent and she didn’t give too much away. I, for one, am proud.” 

It’s eerily quiet in the room for a moment. You hear him take a gulp of air, hoarding the oxygen in the room as if he’s preparing himself to admit something. 

“I just don’t want to let her down.”

It’s honest. More honest than you expect him to ever be. 

But there’s this thing you’re learning about Jungkook. He’s extremely observant. He understands people. Builds these complete pictures of who someone is beneath their surface presentation. Gets to know them to their core and files it away in some part of his brain for later use. 

And even this late at night, it’s annoyingly admirable. 

“We won’t,” you confirm. “I have zero intention of going easy on him.” 

You can hear the smile creeping into his voice. “Even if it’s bad journalism ethics?”

“Especially if it’s bad journalism ethics.”

Silence settles between you like fresh snowfall, soft and encompassing. 

The light on his side clicks off and your vision goes black. Bathed in unadulterated darkness. The world feels so far away.

“Do you think I should mention something about Delgado’s eyebrows?” Jungkook asks the void. 

You laugh wholeheartedly, the sound bubbling through you like someone shook a bottle of soda in your chest. “Maybe we save that for plan Z.”

Quiet descends again. Here in the darkness with a boy who has nothing in common with you besides a mutual hatred for Delgado and an inexplicable ability to get under each other’s skin. 

“Can I ask you something?” His voice is tiptoeing the pillow wall. 

“You’re gonna ask whether I say yes or no anyway,” you joke. But nothing’s really funny. Not anymore. 

“What actually happened with Jake tonight?” 

Outside the window, you hear the commotion of Times Square. A bus honks as it drives by, faint lights from the LED screens paint thin lines across the ceiling. 

Something inside you loosens. You want to tell him the truth. He’s been honest with you tonight. Maybe he deserves your honesty.

After all, if Jake really is his nemesis, there’s probably something in the nemesis-nemesis contract regarding in-laws of nemeses. 

“He asked if Fox was hiring.”

Jungkook shifts under the covers.

“I told him he should talk to you. Then I left.”

“Oh.”

“Yup.” You pop the ‘p’ for dramatic effect. “So congratulations, you were right. Turns out I’m not irresistibly charming after all. I’m a stepping stone.”

“You’re not a stepping stone.”

“I might as well be. I mean, the man stood there and invited me to dinner as a networking strategy.” The mortification hits all over again, making you want to dissolve into the mattress. “This has to rank in the top ten most mortifying moments of my existence.” 

“He’s a dick.” He sighs like he lost an internal battle, then adds, “Not every guy who talks to you is going to be trying to get to me, you know.”

“I hope not. You’re my bad luck charm, Jeon.”

Jungkook laughs at that, a blithe sound that rattles the inside of your chest. “Nemesis, bad luck charm… what’s next?” 

“I’m thinking plague.”

“I’ll make sure to stay far away from you on your quest for a boyfriend.” He chastises. 

You let out an undignified snort. “No quest here. I’d rather adopt ten cats and become the neighborhood witch.”

“Right. Miss Workaholic Who’s Too Busy Changing The World One CNN Article At A Time.”

The room is serene, with its minimal light and hum of background noise permeating through the sound barrier of the window. The world outside isn’t privy to the way your heart hasn’t stopped skittering around wildly in your chest since you put on this Columbia sweatshirt. 

“I really need to sleep," you announce abruptly. Staying awake means thinking. And you really, really don’t want to do that. “This has been the longest day in recorded history.”

“Already turned off my light,” he murmurs.

You’re certain that if an intruder walked into the room, the whites of your eyes would be their guide. 

Despite needing to sleep, your body craving an ounce of respite, you can’t seem to get comfortable. 

You lie there, rigid as a board, staring up at the ceiling like you’re practicing for your own funeral.  

You wonder what position Jungkook is sleeping in. Or if he’s also awake. Or if he’s thinking about Jake and the disaster of your romantic instincts. Or about how you’re drowning in the scent of his sweatshirt. 

The silence stretches until you’re convinced he’s drifted off, and then it’s not quiet anymore, because Jungkook’s voice is resounding off the walls. 

“Sophomore year, Jake made this really disgusting comment about you. Sexual. Completely out of line.” His words come faster now, like he needs to get them out before he loses his nerve. “I lost my shit and punched him. Almost got suspended for a week. And then he spent the rest of college trying to one-up me in every class we shared—like that time in Professor Litman's Statistics seminar where he somehow managed to edge me out by half a point just to prove he could.”

Wait. What?

Did you hear that correctly?

Jake. Jungkook. Him fighting for your honor when you weren't even there to witness it.

First of all—fuck Jake. What an absolute waste of oxygen. 

Second of all—Jungkook. Your jaw has completely detached from the rest of your face. 

He beat someone up because of you. You are the reason Jungkook considers Jake his nemesis. And as someone who holds that title in Jungkook’s life, you understand how significant that designation is. How seriously he must have taken whatever Jake said. 

“Oh,” you swallow thickly. “Thanks. I think”

“It’s fine. He’s a dick.”

That much has been thoroughly established. 

You can’t think of much else you want to say, so you don’t try.

You just need sleep. Need to let unconsciousness wash away this night and wake up with some semblance of clarity. 

When you were little, you would make your parents check under your bed for monsters every single night. You had to get reassurance that nothing was lurking in the shadows, waiting to grab your ankles the moment you got comfortable. Classic childhood terror — the creature hiding out of sight, ready to drag you into some nightmare dimension. 

You remember one particular night when you saw a shadow on the wall that looked exactly like something from a horror movie. You thrashed in your bed and cried until your parents came to investigate. 

By the time they rushed into the room, you were a blubbering mess. You thought it was your final moment on earth. 

But your mom had simply reached out and adjusted the closet door, and the terrifying shadow vanished. Just clothes hanging on a hook. A figment of your imagination. 

Lying in this bed with Jungkook, you feel like someone adjusted the closet door. Removed the jacket from the doorknob to reveal that the creature you'd been so afraid of was never really there at all. Something harmless beneath it. 

Everything you thought you knew about him feels like shadows on the wall, projections of your own making.

It’s strange how quickly you nod off into sleep with him right there beside you, in the city that once felt like a chasm between your two worlds. 

And sometime in the middle of the night, when your fingers accidentally mesh with his and your legs intertwine, it’s an unconscious thing. Something you nor him will remember when the sun rises over the city skyline.  

Neither of you move away.

To your surprise, Jungkook doesn’t snore in his sleep. 

He also doesn’t thrash around like he’s fighting invisible demons. You were half-convinced that all men spend their nights restraining themselves from releasing the lies they’ve accumulated during waking hours.

You wake up at the crack of dawn, early enough that the sky is still more gray than blue. Early enough to race downstairs and throw yourself at the mercy of the hotel concierge for that room swap she promised you. 

You’re in his Columbia sweatshirt when you approach the front desk, looking exactly like someone who just had the most earth-shattering sex of their life. 

When she hands you the new key with a concerned expression, you don’t acknowledge it. She’s seen your kind ten thousand times before. You sprint back upstairs, shove your belongings into your bag, and escape before the sun finishes climbing over the horizon.  

Your new room on the 11th floor becomes your sanctuary for the next few hours. There’s two very important tasks at hand: 1) removing Jungkook’s sweatshirt from your body before burying it in a corner of the room and 2) taking the longest, hottest shower of your life. 

Your brain is all Delgado now. Yesterday’s events are officially banned from your brain. 

Either way, when you do finally encounter Jungkook a few hours later under corporate lighting, you are no longer thinking about how he sleeps or him punching Jake or how the scent of him could even linger on a sweatshirt for so long. 

“Sleep well?” His voice appears directly behind you. You leap forty feet back, almost launching yourself into orbit. 

At least now that you're in separate rooms, you didn't have to endure another awkward Uber ride together. You paid for your own transportation like a big girl.

“Best sleep of my life,” you reply, dripping with sarcasm. 

“That good?” He tilts his head, studying your evident undereye bags. “Because you look a little… frazzled.”

“I always look frazzled before a press briefing,” you inform him primly. 

His expression shifts into something more focused. “This one’s important.” 

“Very.” You avert your eyes away from his. Eye contact after sharing a bed with someone feels like navigating a minefield. Especially when that someone happens to be your nemesis of eight years. 

“Shall we head to our seats?” He gestures towards the middle row, where you two plan on staking out. Monroe’s team had given you complete autonomy on seating strategy for Delgado’s press conference, because casual observing is key.  

You roll your eyes at his forced sweetness and go, “Ladies first.”

He laughs and slides into the row, right next to a bouncing NBC Correspondent. He must be no more than the age of 22, fresh out of college and full of life. He definitely doesn’t have a nemesis who’s ruining his sleep schedule. 

Sitting down next to Jungkook, you flip open your notepad. Your notes for Delgado look sparse compared to Monroe’s research. After all, you’ve never interviewed him directly. You just know him from fragments of Monroe’s account. Snippets of stories you’ve read on news outlets. It’s been tough maintaining objectivity when every piece of information online paints him as a saint, but Monroe’s is the polar opposite. 

“We’re tag teaming this one, right?” you ask Jungkook mindlessly. 

He peers sideways at you. “Like old times?”

That causes you to glance up. Your heart lurches like its forgotten how to beat properly. Old times. 

You snort. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Me demolishing you while you scramble to catch up?” he offers with a grin that’s borderline criminal. 

“You wish. I think you mean me mopping the floor with you.”

“I’m ready to rip this guy to shreds.” He leans back in his chair, stretches out his legs like he’s settling in for entertainment. 

“Oh, yeah?” You tilt your head skeptically. “With what notes?”

He taps his temple. “Everything I need is stored right up here, baby.”

You scrunch your nose in disgust. “You’ll need more than that empty vault you call a brain to get through this.”

“You might be surprised what this empty vault can produce.” 

“I somehow really doubt that.”

He leans closer into you, lips almost brushing the shell of your ear. “Wanna bet?” 

Everything stops. Record scratch, freeze frame, complete system malfunction. He knows exactly how much you love competing against him—it’s hardwired into your DNA. College was four years of elaborate bets and increasingly ridiculous stakes. You once got as far as getting him to replace your dorm room carpet after scoring higher than him on the Political Science midterm by two points. 

You squint at him. “Terms and conditions?”

“Whoever asks the best question and gets the best answer wins”

“Wins what, exactly?”

He pauses thoughtfully. Mulls over the options in the empty vault that is his brain. “The loser has to admit—out loud, to the winner’s face—that they did a great job.”

Oh, how you would love to hear these little two words from his mouth. 

“You are so on, Jeon.”

You extend a hand for him to shake, and when his fingers close around yours, it’s like every nerve ending in your body just remembered it exists. Heat shoots through your arm and spreads through your nervous system like wildfire. You yank your hand back so fast you nearly dislocate your own shoulder. He awkwardly coughs. 

Dear brain: please shut up. Please cease all functions related to remembering how peacefully he sleeps, or how his sweatshirt felt like a security blanket, or anything else that remotely involves Jungkook—

“Shit. He’s here.”

Your attention whips to the front of the room, where the sound of footsteps emerging from the entrance door announces the arrival of Delgado. 

You’re not sure what you expected him to look like in person. You’ve probably crossed paths with him unknowingly—the Hill operates like a small town where everyone’s roaming the same buildings—but he looks more composed standing in front of a bunch of overeager correspondents. He looks completely professional. Cufflinks rolled up just right, charcoal blazer fitted to perfection. 

You’ll give him this much—he’s relatively attractive. He has this sort of rugged look going on, with a beard to match. He’s clearly buff underneath the blazer. 

He approaches the podium, settling into the chair and adjusting his mic. His movements are a lot more fluid than Monroe's. Unbothered. Where Monroe almost felt like she was performing damage control, Delgado moves like the world should feel grateful for his presence.

He clears his throat into the mic and looks off to the side at his team, like a king addressing his subjects. They nod at him encouragingly. “Thank you all for coming. I’ll take questions now.”

There’s a pause. A shift in the air as every correspondent’s heart rate increases, adrenaline flooding the room. A sharp inhale of breath. And then you’re off to the races. 

Both yours and Jungkook’s hands shoot up in synchronization, along with approximately fifty others. 

“Politico?” One of Delgado’s team members points into the sea of people. An older guy scrambles to his feet, shuffling his notes around frantically before smiling up at him. “Senator Delgado, how’s your garden coming along this season?” 

The crowd erupts in polite laughter, and Delgado joins in. Your eyes widen a little when the strategy becomes crystal clear. Humanizing the man. And it’s not even subtle. It’s blaring in your ears. 

You wonder if Politico got a phone call about which questions would be most appreciated today.

“It’s thriving. I’ve expanded into vegetables this year. I’ve found that tomatoes prefer summer planting rather than autumn, though that’s probably obvious to anyone with more gardening sense than I had starting out.” Another round of laughter ripples. Dude’s a hoot. You resist the urge to check if anyone’s buying this folksy bullshit. 

You catch Jungkook’s eye and see your own skepticism reflected back. He quirks an eyebrow that screams, really? vegetables?

The next question comes from Washington Post. “Senator, what’s your favorite variety of tomato to grow?” 

They’re really laying it on thick. 

“Heirloom varieties mostly. There’s something satisfying about growing something that’s been around for generations, you know? Connects you to the land.” Delgado’s smile could power a small city with its wattage. 

You lean into Jungkook to whisper, “I’m going to vomit.”

“Save it for after we destroy him,” he murmurs back, though his jaw is tight with barely contained irritation.

The third question comes from New York Times. Some guy who also got the memo on keeping things fun, flirty, and fresh. 

“Senator, any plans to share gardening tips with your constituents?”

You’re starting to think the entire press conference was scripted by someone with a pathological fear of journalism. Delgado’s team is probably high-fiving backstage over this vegetable deflection plan. 

“Well, I’ve always believed in the importance of connecting with people over simple, everyday things,” Delgado responds. “Maybe I’ll start a newsletter. ‘Cultivating Democracy,’ or something like that.”

More laughter. Are you in a sitcom?

Finally—thank you, Journalism Gods—someone from Wall Street Journal breaks rank. 

“Senator Delgado, regarding the allegations about your relationship with Senator Monroe, do you have any comment on the timeline that’s been established? Like when this relationship began, per se?”

The temperature in the room drops twenty degrees. Delgado’s folksy smile falters before snapping right back into place. 

“I’ve addressed this previously,” Delgado says. “Senator Monroe and I have worked together professionally for years. Any personal relationship developed after was purely friendship. If she thought it was more than that.. she was mistaken.”

Bullshit. Capital B.

But what strikes you isn’t just the lie—it’s how comfortable he looks telling it. 

You lean to Jungkook again. “Notice how he’s not the one getting asked about maintaining professional standards?”

“Or whether his judgment is compromised,” Jungkook adds, hushed. “Funny how that works.”

The next question comes from left field. “Senator, do you think Monroe has been unable to work with you due to this?”

“Not at all,” he chuckles. “I’m a professional. We can separate professional matters.”

The hypocrisy is so undeniably there that you could physically reach out and grab it. Monroe got screamed at when she walked out, about her credibility, her judgement. Meanwhile, Delgado gets to talk about his garden and how cool and calm he is about all this. 

Your hand shoots up, and you try to not elbow Jungkook out of the way. 

“CNN?” 

Jungkook’s obviously disappointed. Aha.  

Clearing your throat, you inquire, “Senator Delgado, regarding the credit card purchases that have surfaced when you were with Monroe—expensive dinners, hotel charges, weekend trips—how does your team plan to address what appears to be a pattern?”

His eyes flicker at you. A sign of vexation. He inhales, adjusting his cufflinks. “Am I not allowed to have dinner with a colleague? Senator Monroe and I spent many late nights together working on legislation.”

You’re not done. 

“How many late nights would you estimate?” 

Pairs of eyes turn towards you. A follow up question isn’t standard practice in press briefings.  

“The professional amount,” he spits back. 

Sure. If you count ‘professional’ as dinners at restaurants that require reservations six months in advance, weekend getaways to Martha's Vineyard, and champagne that costs more per bottle than a vacation home in the Hamptons, probably. 

“Senator, these receipts span months,” you continue. “They include charges at jewelry stores, resorts, and a couples massage package in Napa Valley. Could you clarify what legislation required spa treatments?”

He looks visibly irritated. “I don’t recall the details of every business expense, but I can assure you all personal costs were handled separately.”

Someone needs to stop you, but no one dares to. “The receipts suggest otherwise, Senator. In fact, they show a pattern that directly contradicts your own timeline and denial of Monroe. How do you reconcile that?” 

Now you’ve got him by the balls. The rapid-fire click of cameras fills the silence. 

Delgado’s team member swoops in at the eleventh hour. “CNN, I think we’d like to move on to a different news outlet now, if that’s alright?” 

You smile widely. “That’s more than enough of an answer for me.” 

Your hands are shaking, but you keep them folded in your lap. No one can see that except for you, and probably Jungkook. His eyes are on you, penetrating you beyond just your skin.

“Next question?” A team member feebly yells out. 

“Fox?”

Your head swivels toward Jungkook, who rises from his seat and adjusts the collar of his button down. “Senator Delgado,” he begins, “yesterday Senator Monroe faced extensive questioning about her own innocence and misconduct, and even her own fitness for office due to this relationship. I believe someone asked just a few minutes ago about her ability to work with you. My question is simple: why haven’t you been asked the same thing?”

Delgado blinks rapidly. “I’m sorry, what are you implying?”

“Nothing, Senator. I’m directly asking: do you believe your own judgement has been compromised by this relationship? And if not, why should the standard be different for Senator Monroe?”

It’s brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant. Jungkook just called out the double standard, and Delgado can’t deny it without looking like a hypocrite. 

“I don’t think that’s a fair characterization—”

“With respect, Senator, it’s not a characterization. It’s a question. Do the same standards apply to you that were applied to your colleague, and do you feel that the media has portrayed that accurately?” 

You can see the panic. The fear. His team is exchanging panicked glances, realizing they prepared him for gardening questions but not for his male privilege being called out.

“I believe,” Delgado enunciates each syllable, buying time, “that both Senator Monroe and I are maintaining professional integrity.”

“Interesting,” Jungkook continues smoothly. “Because yesterday Monroe was asked about a level of innocence she was trying to maintain through all this. Should the public be asking you the same question?”

You’re pretty sure everyone in the room has stopped breathing. You included. 

“Let’s move on from Fox,” A team member interjects sternly. Her eyebrows are pinched together so tightly they’re basically touching. 

Jungkook nods and sits down, “No further questions.”

Oh my god. If he wasn’t Jungkook, you would lean over and kiss him. That was incredible, that was electric, that is exactly what journalism is fucking made of—

“Hey,” Jungkook taps your knee, jolting you out of your haze. “Did you write any of that down?”

Did you? You have no idea. You were too busy watching him dismantle Delgado piece by piece. 

“Uh, yeah,” you lie. “Yeah, totally.”

He nods, smiling to himself before saying, “That’s one point for me.”

You start scribbling as the Times starts rattling off questions, none as jarring as Jungkook’s. The room cycles through other outlets, each question increasingly more mundane than the last. You flip through your notepad to try and find your next query.  

There’s no way you’re letting Jungkook claim victory without a fight. His question may have been good, but your whole brand is asking questions where it hurts. 

Your hand shoots up again, and his team member deflates before reluctantly calling on you, “CNN?” 

Delgado’s eyes find yours, and there’s hostility burning in them now. 

Good. Angry politicians make mistakes. 

“Senator Delgado, the intern who discovered you and Senator Monroe together has reportedly been offered a position at a lobbying firm with ties to your office. Can you confirm if you or anyone on your team facilitated that job placement?”

Okay, you may have taken it too far. This is about potential witness tampering, hush money, an abuse of power. Enough to get him impeached.

Delgado’s face goes through several color changes before deciding on red. 

“That’s—that’s completely inappropriate. That’s speculation,” Delgado spews.

“It’s not, Senator. I have proof.” His eyes track your mouth. “The intern received the offer three days after the story broke. So, I’ll ask again: did you facilitate that? To keep them quiet, maybe?” 

His composure abandons ship. He grips the mic like he wants to climb over it. 

“Who the hell are you?” His voice cracks in fury. “You have the nerve to throw around accusations with no proof. You are a journalist with no boundaries!”

Your stomach drops like an elevator with severed cables. The breath catches in your throat, refusing to move in or out. Because now you’re not a correspondent asking real questions—he’s deduced you to an uppity woman who doesn’t know her place. 

“I-I—” 

God, you are a failure. Words have completely abandoned them when you need them most. Say something, [Y/N.]

“—incredibly unprofessional and a shame to CNN—”

“Hey.”

You know that voice. That’s not your voice. 

That’s Jungkook’s voice. 

He’s standing now, hands clenched into fists at his side. His knuckles are turning a ghastly white. There’s imaginary smoke puffing from his ears. 

You look up at him in dread. Great. He’s going to join the party and agree with Delgado that you’ve overstepped, that Fox would never allow such reckless questioning. This is the end of your career. 

“You do not get to speak to a journalist like that. You cannot speak to her like that.” 

Excuse me?

“She is asking completely inappropriate questions—”

“No,” Jungkook cuts him off, “she’s asking questions that you know the answer to but answering them would mean it’s true. And that is no excuse to speak to a correspondent like that. Don’t you dare ever speak to her like that again.”

Did you enter an alternate universe? What is going on?

You blink rapidly, swallowing thickly. The bile rising in your throat tastes like shame. You might cry. 

You’ve never seen Jungkook so mad in your entire life. You’ve seen him happy, you’ve seen him annoyed, you’ve seen him when he’s competitive, but this emotion? This blind rage? Protective anger? This one is new. And this one’s all for you. 

Delgado falters, looking around desperately. A team member leaps from her chair. “I think that’s enough questions for today. Thank you all for your time.”

Jungkook falls back into his chair, chest heaving. You can see him working to rein in whatever storm is still raging inside him.  

You want to say something—thank you, or some acknowledgement—but your throat is vacuum-sealed shut. All you can manage is closing your notepad with shaky hands. 

“Are you okay?” 

His voice penetrates the ringing in your ears.  

“Yeah, I’m good.”

His face searches your features for something. Maybe clarity. Maybe a sign that you’re actually okay. 

Truthfully, you’re the least okay you’ve ever been. 

You keep staring at your notepad. Someone is going to have to peel your body off this chair. 

“I’m sorry he spoke to you like that,” Jungkook’s voice is soft. The same one he used on you last night when you told him what Jake said to you. 

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

You nod slowly. It’s really, spectacularly not. 

People are shuffling out of the room in hushed whispers and sidelong glances in your direction. You are so embarrassed. In a room full of your peers, you’ve been made to look a fool. 

“Fuck that guy,” Jungkook blurts out, and you finally laugh. It’s a choked sound, because you’re pretty sure there are tears collecting at the edge of your eye. 

He doesn’t push for more conversation. He begins to get up and gather his things, preparing to join the exodus at the exit. 

But before he turns, he looks down at where you’re still seated, and goes, “Great job.”

masterlist + ask

taglist ; @somehowukook @lovingkoalaface @moroe-blog2 @almatiarau @hanamgi @yooniepot @strawberryberrygirl @rossy1080 @libra04 @kenzierj11 @senaqsstuff @dtownbae @xumyboo @bellefaerie @chimchoom @satisfied18 @arcanekookz @vintagemoonsstuff @brokebitch-101 @taolucha @songbyeonkim @oopscoop @mochibites00 @whatevevrerr @lessthantmr @nesha227 @mar-lo-pap @jazzyb22 @lachesismoonmist @indyuhhhhh @sky-23s-world @swimmingweaselzineegs @jiminshi20 @khadeeeeej @withluvjm @anishasingh1233 @jksusawife @btstrology @youphoriajk @jadestonedaeho7 @diamondjeon @sharplycoldpaladin @annafarrr @tteokbokibyjk @prxdajeon @tatzzz-25 @magicalnachocreator @younhakim29 @purplelanterns @134340-kr @amarawayne

[iamthatonefangirl]

IT'S TITLED BREAKDOWN??? that's it you're gonna kill me right now

"And yet somehow he had become the only place you felt safe." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

"The sooner you were done with the job, the better." girl do you not realize how much this is going to hurt him even if he doesn't find out you're fbi. that will probably hurt less.

“Omission is lying, James.” ...hypocrite... NO IM KIDDING

“You brought me into this" she's right, james.

“I didn’t run away then,” you continued, quieter now. “I could have but I didn’t. I won’t do it now either.” oh god this already hurts and I just KNOW it's going to hurt so much fucking worse. you're too good at this. who gave you the right girl

"How much he loved you" okay now I'm getting to thinking. we can fall in love with anyone, right? but like... what if we don't actually know who they are? everything she's done and said is a lie. like. he knows a fake version of her, and from his POV, he hypothetically wouldn't even be able to say that she's a good person because... well... to him, she's not. like. if he knew she was fbi is what I mean. but hypothetically if/when he finds out, then it's going to fucking BREAK him for a lot of reasons, but even though he 'loves' her, he doesn't know her. so now I'm just being really philosophical because what does it mean to truly love someone. clearly she's falling in love with him, knowing who he is and what he does. but he has no clue. so like,,, ignore me rambling whatever

"Didn’t know that while he was letting his walls down, letting you in, you’d been crawling through his life like a ghost with an ulterior motive." YES THIS IS PART OF WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY I fucking love this phrase idk it gives me chills

“I love you. No matter what.” more of me being philosophical... we know she's lying for the sake of him opening up, but it's also interesting because to him, she doesn't know him. she doesn't know who he is, what he does, in his eyes, but he's so depressed and broken that he wants to feel what it means to be loved. and he's not acting in his right mind because he 'loves' her too and is so desperate to keep her, to have her love him. but of course, we know that she knows all of it, and obviously it's all a lie, but we also know she's falling in love. and that's what he doesn't know is that she does know and does actually love him regardless. anyways fuck me i'm ranting again

"You wanted to tell him everything. To confess. To throw the whole mission away and be just a girl in love with a man who shouldn’t love her back." girl I want you to do this also but you might end up dead in the bottom of the lake.

"Between a badge you worked your entire like for and a man who loved you." again, I say... what is love and how can love be real if you're fronting a fake persona.

also hg you're gonna be in so much trouble with your job... if james doesn't kill you and decides to be with you... he's literally gonna have to hide you AND himself wtf 😭😭😭😭😭 you're literally becoming a dirty cop 😭😭😭😭😭😭

"He laid you down on the bed like you were something precious, something breakable." lowkey can't wait for the mad hateful punishing sex you're gonna get when he finds out... 🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

„Gonna go a little rougher today, baby. Is that okay?” HEHEHEHE

“Not until you come on my mouth.” oh yes sir

“I’m not fuckin’ done with you yet.” oh i just moaned

"He was using your body like he owned it—because he did." fuck now i'm being philosophical again because this is so hot and she's not even doing this for the job. she just plain wants this and she knows it and ugh

"It all wasn’t fucking real. His words, his praise, his touch. You weren’t his. You weren’t her." OUCH PAINFUL REALITY CHECK.

“You don’t pretend to be someone you’re not,” 😬😬😬

"But he didn’t see you." "He’d probably kill you." GIRL EVERYTHING I BEEN SAYING

"He’d never hurt you. But what if you gave him a reason to?" this hurts so bad I'm nauseous oh my god

“Me and you. Even if the world burns down around us, you and I—we’ll be fine. Because I’ll make sure of it.” fuck oh my god

HELP ME. oh my god. I love this story so much and I absolutely love your writing more than I can put into words. I'm literally in shambles right now this poor girl is losing it and he literally might kill you.

Illegal

mob!bucky barnes x fbi!reader

summary: You’re an FBI agent sent undercover to get close to the most dangerous mob boss in the city. But the deeper you go, the harder it gets to remember which side you’re really on.

word count: 9,4k

WARNINGS: 18+ explicit content, MDNI— disclaimer: contains dark themes. read at your own discretion! for all the tags/warnings, please check series masterlist since it may contain spoilers. smut in this chapter; dirty talk, praising, oral (f receiving), rough sex, PiV, unprotected sex, overstimulation, breeding.

Chapter Three — „Breakdown” | Previous

The next morning hit harder than you expected.

You’d barely slept. Maybe a couple of hours at most. Your head had been too loud, your heart too wired, nerves completely shot. And now the sunlight spilling across the sheets felt more like a spotlight than a comfort.

Three days.

Three fucking days to give Mike something.

You sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the floor with your elbows on your knees, fingers pressed against your temple like that would stop the pounding in your skull.

You were running out of time.

And you had nothing.

No passwords. No access. No leverage. Just a man who slept in your bed and kissed your neck and told you he liked how you smiled when you were annoyed. A man who let you steal the blankets and didn’t even complain. A man who was supposed to be your target, your job, your way in—

And yet somehow he had become the only place you felt safe.

And that scared the shit out of you because you were never supposed to feel anything.

You went downstairs. In the kitchen, James was already up—mug in hand, hair still damp from the shower, dressed casually. Just sweats and a T-shirt.

He looked at you and smiled. “Hey,” he murmured, voice still rough from sleep. “Didn’t hear you get up.”

You forced a smile. “Hi…”

He walked toward you slowly and pressed a kiss to your cheek, one hand grazing your waist and it was so fucking gentle. So real.

Your chest tightened.

You couldn’t keep doing this. You had to find something. Anything. And fast.

Because this—whatever this was—it was already too dangerous. The sooner you were done with the job, the better.

He walked back to the stove and stirred something lazily in a pan. You weren’t even sure what—eggs maybe, or something fancier.

You sat down at one of the stools, chin resting on your hand as you just… watched him.

You hadn’t planned to.

But you did.

The way his brow furrowed in concentration. The way his shoulder muscles moved beneath his shirt when he stirred. The calm steadiness of him.

And the way the metal arm glinted—polished steel catching the morning light, like something out of a different world.

You hadn’t meant to stare. But your eyes traced the shape of it. The way it connected to the flesh of his shoulder. The careful precision of each piece, designed not just for function but for him.

You wondered how long he’d had it.

What it had cost him.

How much it still hurt.

And before you could stop yourself, the words just came out:

“Can I ask you about the arm?”

The question hung there for a second—soft but solid. You saw the change in him immediately.

He stilled. Spoon paused in the pan. Shoulders going tense.

He didn’t turn. Didn’t meet your eyes. Just said, low and quiet, “Accident.”

That was it. No details. No opening. Just a wall.

You nodded slowly, even though he wasn’t looking. “Okay.”

And you meant it. You didn’t press. You just sat there in the quiet, letting the silence stretch between you, heavy but not angry. He saw your nod from the corner of his eye. Registered it. Breathed in.

But after a minute or two, something in you twisted. The silence wasn’t sharp, but it lingered, and your stomach started to knot.

You didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable.

“I wasn’t trying to be weird about it,” you said, voice low. “I just… I’ve never seen anything like it before. And you never talk about it, barley touch me with it… so—”

“It’s fine,” he cut in gently. Not harsh. Just final.

You looked down at your hands, thumb tracing circles over your palm. “Right. Sorry.”

He finally turned his head, just enough to glance back at you over his shoulder. His features had softened. A breath slipped out of him—tired, maybe even a little regretful.

“You don’t have to tiptoe around me, you know,” he said. “Just… some things are harder to talk about.”

You met his eyes for half a second and gave a small nod. “Okay.”

He went back to stirring whatever was in the pan. You sat there in the quiet, watching the light from the window catch on the curve of his shoulder.

He plated the eggs and toast, slid one across the island to you, then leaned on his elbows across from you—watching.

You were still quiet. Still tracing that same invisible circle on your palm, still chewing on the inside of your cheek like maybe that would keep your thoughts in line.

“…Did I upset you?” he asked after a long pause.

Your head snapped up. “No. No, of course not.”

Your answer came fast—too fast—and your voice pitched just slightly too high. He noticed. Of course he did.

He just nodded, eyes still on yours. „You look sad,” he murmured.

That made your throat tighten.

You blinked a few times, trying to shake it, trying to rearrange your face into something calmer, lighter. The last thing you needed was him seeing how tangled up your head was. How close everything was to slipping out.

“I’m fine,” you said, a little too softly. “Just… tired.”

He nodded again, didn’t push further. He sat down next to you, quietly digging into the breakfast he made, the scrape of fork against plate the only sound filling the kitchen.

You barely touched your food. You just kept looking at him.

Your eyes lingered too long—on his hands, on the way his jaw tensed when he chewed, on the quiet focus he carried like second skin. It was clear he wasn’t going to talk unless you pried it open.

He wouldn’t tell you what he did. He wouldn’t tell you shit. But you weren’t stupid and maybe it was time he knew that.

So you straightened your spine, softened your tone, and placed the mask gently back over your face. Just enough. Just right.

“I think I know what your job is,” you said quietly.

His fork paused halfway to his mouth. Then he slowly set it down on the edge of his plate.

His eyes flicked toward you, sharp and unreadable. “What?”

“I’m not stupid,” you added, steady this time.

The shift in the room was instant. No raised voice, no movement, just stillness and tension.

His expression didn’t change, but everything in him was alert now. Controlled.

“What do you think you know?” he asked finally.

You shrugged a shoulder, keeping your gaze fixed on your plate. Nonchalant. Casual. Dangerously close to the edge.

“I’ve seen the signs. You don’t talk about work. You don’t have set hours. Sometimes you leave in the middle of the night. That bruise on your jaw last week? Definitely not from ‘bumping into a cabinet.’“

He was silent.

You looked up, just once, met his eyes. “I think you’re involved in something… off the books.”

His brow ticked—just barely. Then, finally, he spoke. “Be careful with that kind of talk.”

It wasn’t a threat. But it wasn’t not a warning either.

You nodded once. Not backing down. „Are you gonna lie to me again?” you asked softly.

He stared at you for a moment. His eyes flicked across your face, like he was trying to read you in return.

“I never lied,” he said at last.

You tilted your head. “Omission is lying, James.”

Another silence. This one longer. He looked away.

“Talk to me, James. Please.”

You didn’t mean to sound so desperate—but it came out that way. Soft, pleading. Honest.

He still didn’t look at you. Just stared at the far wall like there was something there only he could see. His shoulders were tense. Jaw locked.

So you tried again, voice lighter this time, almost joking, but not really.

“Are you like… a drug dealer or something?”

He let out a breath that was half a laugh, half something darker. Bitter. Empty.

“A drug dealer,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Jesus.”

“Well?” you prompted, but gently. “You won’t tell me, so I have to guess. And you do own a night club. That would make sense.”

He leaned forward on his elbows, fingers clasped tight in front of him. The muscles in his forearms flexed, and your eyes caught again on the metal one—solid, silent, strange.

“I’m not a fucking dealer,” he muttered. “I don’t push shit to kids.”

You swallowed. “Okay… then what?”

He didn’t answer. Not immediately.

Then, quietly, almost like it wasn’t meant for you at all, he said, “I do things people don’t want to talk about.”

Your stomach flipped. “And by people, you mean—”

He cut you off with a sharp look. “I’m not telling you.”

“But I’m already in it,” you said, and your voice broke a little. “You brought me into this. I’m in your bed, your house, your life. You don’t think I deserve to know who I’m actually with?”

He winced at that but still didn’t speak.

You pushed your plate away, appetite gone.

“Do you kill people?” you asked quietly, as if that wasn’t the very reason you’d ended up in this mess to begin with.

His silence was answer enough.

You felt your breath catch. Your fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

Then finally, finally, he turned to you—eyes shadowed, voice low. „I do what I’m told,” he said. “I do what needs to be done.”

„So you do kill them?”

„Don’t ask me that!” He yelled, the snap made you flinch.

But you didn’t back off. ‘Why not? You kill people, but hey—at least you don’t sell drugs to teenagers, right?’ you scoffed.

“Because if you think I’m a monster, I won’t blame you,” he said, flat and honest. “And I’m not gonna sit here and try to convince you otherwise.”

He stood up. Pushed the stool back and started pacing—one hand dragging through his hair, the other clenched into a fist at his side. He didn’t look at you. Couldn’t.

You watched him.

Watched the tension ripple through his shoulders, his spine, his jaw. The way he moved—sharp, agitated, like he couldn’t quite breathe right. Like the walls were closing in.

He muttered something under his breath. You didn’t catch it.

You stayed quiet.

Because you could see it—clear as day—this wasn’t just frustration. It was fear. Not fear of you… but fear for what this meant. Fear of what you might think. What you might do. That you’d pull away. That you’d leave. That you’d look at him differently now.

You stood slowly, fingers curling around the edge of the counter for balance—not because your legs were weak, but because your guilt was starting to crawl up your spine like ice.

“I was suspicious of this for a week now,” you said, voice low but steady. “Since I saw you hiding a gun in the drawer. You thought I was asleep but I wasn’t.”

He froze.

After a moment he turned to look at you fully, jaw clenched, eyes searching yours. You saw the flicker of panic there—sharp, flickering just beneath the surface like a fuse about to burn out. Shock, yes. But more than that—fear. Fear of what you’d say next. What you meant by it.

You didn’t stop.

“I didn’t run away then,” you continued, quieter now. “I could have but I didn’t. I won’t do it now either.”

And it was like something in him cracked open.

His shoulders dropped an inch, like someone had just pulled the weight of the whole damn world off his back. His mouth parted, but he didn’t speak. Couldn’t. He just stared at you with this look—this fucking look—that made your throat tighten and your heart twist.

Because all the fury and frustration in his expression melted. Gone in an instant. And what was left behind wasn’t anger.

It was something raw. Something aching. A softness that broke you a little because it shouldn’t have been there. You didn’t deserve it.

You saw how much he cared. How much he loved you—even if he hadn’t said the words out loud yet. It was all right there, shining in his eyes like sunlight through smoke.

And god, it ruined you because he didn’t know the truth. Didn’t know who you really were.

Didn’t know that while he was letting his walls down, letting you in, you’d been crawling through his life like a ghost with an ulterior motive.

You felt it rise in your chest like nausea—this grief, this shame, this bone-deep ache for what he didn’t know.

Because he was standing there, heart open, looking at you like you were something good.

And you were lying to him.

You were still lying to him.

He took a step forward. Then another. Until he was right in front of you, crowding your space, his chest nearly brushing yours.

His hands came up slowly—carefully, like he wasn’t sure he had the right—and then he cupped your face in his palms. His touch was warm, gentle. Steady. Like he was grounding himself in you. Like if he let go, he might fall apart.

“I wanted to keep you out of this,” he said, voice rough. “I tried to keep you out. From the second I met you.”

Your eyes burned.

“I didn’t want this life touching you. Didn’t want the blood, the danger, the shit I’ve done to ever touch you. I just… I wanted you to be safe.”

You swallowed hard, your voice barely above a whisper. “It’s okay.”

He looked at you, searching your face like he didn’t quite believe it.

And then you said it again—quiet, trembling, too rehearsed and yet too honest.

“I told you I love you, didn’t I?”

His breath hitched.

You saw it hit him—like a blow to the chest he hadn’t braced for. And god, it killed you. You were manipulating him again and it made you sick. You were so fucking sick of yourself.

You blinked hard, trying to steady yourself, pushing another manipulative thought through your throat. “I meant it,” you whispered. “I love you. No matter what.”

And he let out a breath—shaky and wrecked—his forehead pressing against yours as his hands slid down to your neck, his thumbs brushing your jaw.

You hated yourself. For using these words again. For turning something real into part of the game.

He leaned forward and captured your lips in a kiss. It was careful and certain.

His thumb brushed the side of your face, featherlight, grounding you in the here and now. You could feel the calluses on his fingers, the faint tremble in his breath. His forehead rested against yours as he pulled back just an inch. Just enough to look at you.

His voice was low. Unsteady, but honest. “I love you too.”

And just like that, your heart cracked clean in half.

Because he meant it. You could see it, clear as day, in the way he looked at you. Like you were the safest thing in his world. The one piece of his life untouched by blood or regret.

You didn’t deserve it. Not when every second you spent wrapped in his arms was built on a lie.

Still, you couldn’t stop the way your chest swelled at his words. Couldn’t stop the ache blooming deep in your gut.

He loves you.

And you love him. You know that now. You cannot deny it. God, you love him and it’s fucking destroying you.

Your throat tightened, but you forced yourself to stay still, to breathe. Your fingers curled into the hem of his shirt, gripping it like an anchor, like if you held him hard enough you could keep the truth from rising up between you.

“James…” your voice cracked.

He didn’t pull away. Just searched your eyes with his own, like he was trying to read every fear and flicker of doubt off your face.

You wanted to tell him everything. To confess. To throw the whole mission away and be just a girl in love with a man who shouldn’t love her back.

But instead, you stayed silent as the guilt continued to slice through your ribs.

James brushed his lips over yours one last time, slower now, like he didn’t quite want to pull away.

With a sigh, he leaned back. “I should shower,” he murmured, glancing at the clock. “If I don’t move now, I’m gonna be late.”

You weren’t done with this conversation but you needed a break so you nodded, not trusting your voice.

He lingered a second longer—eyes scanning your face, as if he didn’t want to leave you like this—but eventually he gave you a small, reassuring smile and turned toward the hallway, raking a hand through his hair as he disappeared into the bathroom.

And then it was just you.

You and your fucking thoughts.

You sat back down on the stool, eyes locked on the dark swirl of coffee in your mug like it held the answers. But all it offered was silence. Heavy. Suffocating.

What the hell were you supposed to do now?

Your chest ached with the weight of it all. The room around you felt too still. Like even the air knew something had shifted.

You were an FBI agent. On a mission.

You had three days to give Mike information before the whole thing burned.

And instead? You’d fallen in love with a goddamn criminal.

Your hands clenched in your lap.

This wasn’t some little mistake. This wasn’t you slipping up, missing a clue or losing a tail. This was you crossing a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. You let him in. You let yourself fall. Somewhere between stolen kisses and sleepy mornings tangled in his sheets, you forgot what side you were on.

And now?

Now you were trapped.

Between loyalty and feeling. Between a badge you worked your entire like for and a man who loved you.

You blinked hard and stared down at the floor. Your heart was pounding, wild and sick with the truth.

You were supposed to bring him down.

But all you could think about was how he looked at you.

Like he’d give you anything.

Like you were the only clean thing in his world and now you had to destroy him or destroy yourself.

Great. Fucking great.

You sat there for another second, heart hammering.

He’s in the shower.

Your eyes flicked toward the hallway. You could hear the faint hiss of the water running, muffled behind the bathroom door.

Do something.

Your legs moved before your mind fully caught up. You stood, careful not to scrape the stool, not to make a sound. The quiet was deafening now, like the walls were holding their breath with you.

You had no idea how long he’d be in there—ten minutes? Less? You had to move fast.

You slipped into the bedroom first. Nothing new. Nothing he hadn’t let you see already. His drawers were filled with plain clothes, worn t-shirts, socks rolled in pairs. Nothing unusual. No ledger. No hidden phone. No proof.

You checked the night stand again. You dropped to your knees and slid the drawer open again, slower this time. Empty.

Your fingers were shaking.

This wasn’t like the movies. There was no perfect folder marked CRIMES tucked under a lamp. No damning document left out by mistake.

You exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over your face.

Or is there?

You looked at the bed. The space under it. You’d checked it. You were sure you’d checked it.

You tried again. Under the bed, your hand sweeping against cold floorboards..

And there it was.

A slim black folder, tucked all the way at the back. It hadn’t been there before. You were sure of it.

Your pulse kicked hard.

You pulled it out carefully, spine rigid, fingers barely brushing the cover before you opened it.

It wasn’t much.

A few printed sheets, some kind of internal record. Wire transfers. Codes. A list of names you didn’t recognize. Dollar amounts that made your stomach twist.

Not enough context to tell you what this was, but enough to know it mattered. Enough to tell you that James wasn’t just keeping secrets—he was hiding them deep.

You reached for your phone with shaking hands, snapping picture after picture. Page by page.

You’d send it to Mike later—when you were home. When you had an excuse to be alone.

It will buy you some time.

———

He drove you back to your apartment like he always did. Same soft goodbye. Same casual kiss to your cheek. Same lingering look when you got out of the car.

Your heart thudded all the way up the stairs.

Once inside, you locked the door behind you and didn’t bother turning on the lights. Just tossed your bag on the couch and crossed the room to your desk with quick, purposeful steps.

You pulled out your phone.

Opened your laptop.

And suddenly, your hands were trembling.

Get it together.

You plugged the phone in, waited for the prompt, then dragged the photos over—one by one. Transaction logs. Wire details. Names. Numbers. The folder’s contents now digitized, preserved in perfect clarity.

You opened a secure channel and attached the images in a fresh email. No body text. Just the subject line:

Found this. Now get me more time.

You stared at the screen for a second longer than you should’ve. Then you hit send and leaned back in your chair, heart pounding.

The room was dead quiet. Just the hum of the refrigerator. The faint buzz of your laptop’s fan.

You’d bought yourself a little more time, not only to complete the job but to figure out the mess you’re in.

And your feelings.

Your goddamn feelings.

———

Evening came fast.

The second you stepped into his apartment, his hands were on you—needy and hungry.

He didn’t bring it up.

Not the conversation, not your questions, not the way your voice had cracked when you told him you loved him. He didn’t ask what you’d been thinking while he was in the shower, or why you were quiet in the car.

He just kissed you.

Pressed you back against the door and kissed you like you were oxygen and he was drowning.

And you let him. Let him pull your coat from your shoulders, let him press hot kisses to your neck, let his hands roam your body with a desperate kind of reverence.

He took your hand, wordless, and led you to the bedroom. He laid you down on the bed like you were something precious, something breakable. Climbed over you slowly, bracing himself with his forearms as he hovered above you, the weight of his body never fully touching yours yet, but his presence—God, it was everywhere.

His eyes searched your face. Open, soft, hungry.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day, baby,” he murmured, voice low and rough. His metal fingers brushed a strand of hair from your cheek. “Couldn’t get you outta my head.”

You stared up at him, heart pounding, lips parted.

There was so much in his eyes—want, yes, but also relief. Like he was grateful you were still here. That you hadn’t run when you could’ve. That you were still choosing him, despite everything.

He leaned down and kissed you slow and deep. His lips moved over yours and when you kissed him back—when your hands slid up his sides, when your hips shifted against his—he groaned softly into your mouth.

His body settled heavier against yours, and you could feel it—how hard he was for you already, how much he wanted this. You tilted your head, let his mouth travel down your jaw to your throat. He sucked a mark into the skin there, just below your ear, like he needed to brand you, to make sure you remembered who you belonged to.

He trailed kisses down your chest, over your sternum, between your breasts, his stubble dragging just enough to make you gasp. When his mouth closed around your nipple through the lace of your bra, your back arched instinctively.

“James…” you whispered, your hands in his hair now, tugging, anchoring yourself.

He looked up at you, pupils blown wide. That soft desperation still flickered beneath the surface, but now it was drenched in need.

His breath was warm against your skin, chest rising and falling a little quicker now. His voice came low, almost strained. „Gonna go a little rougher today, baby. Is that okay?”

Your stomach fluttered—no, twisted—in the best kind of way. That drop, that heat pooling between your thighs already aching for him. And God, the way he was looking at you—like he needed this. Like he needed you like this.

You nodded fast, eyes locked on his. “Yes. Oh fuck—yes.”

His jaw flexed like he’d been barely holding himself back.

He groaned, deep and guttural, and surged back up to kiss you again—harder this time, mouths crashing together with a hunger that had your head spinning. His hand—warm, calloused—slid down to grip your thigh and hiked it up over his hip, pulling you closer, grinding into you.

“Been thinking about how tight you feel around me,” he growled against your lips. “How you sound when I fuck you right.”

He tugged your shirt over your head, not bothering to be gentle. Your bra and jeans followed fast, and then he was kissing down your chest again, biting softly now, a little harder than before—marks blooming across your skin like he wanted to stake a claim.

His metal hand—cold, precise—slid between your legs, pressing against the heat there through your panties, and you gasped, your hips bucking up for more.

“Look at you,” he murmured, watching your face like it was art. “So fucking wet for me already.”

The cool press of metal between your legs made you jolt—eyes flying open, breath catching sharp in your throat.

Because—fuck. It was that hand.

The one he never used like this. The one he always kept back, always held away.

You’d mentioned it just this morning—tentative, careful—not even thinking he’d take it in. But now… now that hand was touching you there, moving slow, dragging the cold pads of his fingers over the heat between your thighs like he was proving something.

Your mouth parted in a soft gasp.

His eyes were locked on yours.

“You said I barely use it,” he murmured, voice rough, full of something dangerous and aching. “That true?”

You blinked up at him, dazed, nodding faintly. “I didn’t mean—”

He cut you off with a kiss. Slow. Firm. His metal fingers kept working between your legs, brushing over the fabric, just enough pressure to tease but not enough to satisfy.

You let out a soft, desperate sound when he dragged the flat of a cool finger right over your clit, even through your underwear. Your hips bucked—instinctual. Automatic.

Then the teasing got worse. Better. More unbearable.

He circled his finger over the damp spot, slow and deliberate, watching the way your body reacted to the contrast—the cold metal against the burning heat of your need. He didn’t push your panties aside yet. Just kept working you over through them.

The friction was maddening.

You squirmed, breath hitching, fingers curling into the sheets. “James…”

“Feels good?” he asked, dragging it out like he didn’t already know.

You nodded, almost frantic. “Y-Yeah.”

“Didn’t think you’d like this,” he murmured.

You looked up at him, breathless. „I do—fuck. I do,” you whimpered. “I want all of you.”

His jaw clenched, his eyes went darker, and finally he slid your panties aside.

“You’re gonna fucking feel all of me, baby,” he said, voice low and gravelly. “Every inch.”

His fingers lingered for a moment longer—just enough to make your legs shake—before he shifted down the bed, dragging his mouth along your thigh as he went. A trail of heat in the wake of his lips, open-mouthed and hungry.

You barely had time to register it before he hooked his hands under your knees and pulled you down toward the edge of the bed with a force that knocked the air from your lungs.

He dropped to his knees and looked up with eyes blown wide and dark.

He pressed his mouth between your thighs like he’d been starving for it. Like it was the only thing he’d been thinking about since this morning. The heat of his tongue, the deliberate way he licked into you—slow at first, slow and thorough, as if he was savoring every second of it.

Then deeper. Rougher.

One of his hands slid under your ass, gripping your hip—metal fingers cold and anchoring—while the other splayed over your thigh to hold you open for him. And fuck, you didn’t stand a chance.

“James—” Your voice broke. Your head dropped back against the sheets. “Oh my God—”

He groaned into you like he felt it—like your pleasure was his own.

His tongue worked you over in rhythm—pressing flat over your clit, then dragging down, licking back up with maddening focus. Every movement precise. Practiced. Worshipful.

Like he was trying to tell you without words how badly he needed you, how much he wanted you, how much it killed him that he couldn’t give you everything.

But this? This, he could give you.

“You taste so fucking sweet,” he murmured against you, voice rasping and soaked in heat.

You moaned, trembling under him, and reached down to bury your hand in his hair—gripping tight as he sucked gently on your clit, tongue swirling, fingers digging into your skin like he couldn’t get close enough.

He was relentless.

And when your legs started to shake—when your hips arched and you whispered his name like a prayer—he only pressed in harder.

“James, I want you, please—” you gasped, breath breaking against the air. “Please—”

He looked up at you from between your thighs, mouth slick, jaw tight.

“Nu-uh, baby,” he rasped, voice low and firm. “Not until you come on my mouth.”

Your whole body clenched at the sound of it. At the way he said it like it wasn’t a request but a need to feel you fall apart on his tongue before he let himself have more.

He gripped your hips tighter and buried his mouth back between your legs, moaning low as he licked into you again—this time with purpose.

No teasing now. No patience.

Just him, devouring you like it was the last thing he’d ever do.

Your hands flew to his hair again, your hips bucking helplessly against his face as his tongue circled your clit and dragged slow, wet strokes down your center. The soft scrape of stubble, the cold press of his metal hand anchoring you in place—it was too much.

You were already so close, already unraveling. He knew it. He could feel it.

“Come on,” he murmured against you, voice almost gentle despite the way he was wrecking you. “Just like that, sweetheart.”

Your whole body tensed, thighs clamping around his head as the orgasm hit you hard and fast, your back arching off the bed as his mouth stayed on you through every wave of it.

He didn’t stop. Not until your body finally sagged against the sheets, your chest heaving, legs trembling around him.

Only then did he finally lift his head—lips swollen, chin glistening, hair messy and wild—and crawl up your body with that same dark heat in his eyes.

“You’re gonna let me fuck you now, yeah?” he said, voice like gravel. “Wanna be inside you so bad, baby.”

You barely had time to nod before he was kissing you—hard, hungry, teeth scraping your bottom lip. You tasted yourself on his mouth, felt the roughness in the way his hands grabbed at your waist, dragged you down the bed like he owned you.

This wasn’t slow. It wasn’t sweet. This was fucking feral. It wasn’t making love anymore, just pure fucking.

He didn’t waste time—just reached down, ripped your panties off, lined himself up, and pushed inside in one deep, brutal thrust that punched the air right out of your lungs.

“Fuck,” you cried out, nails digging into his shoulders, eyes squeezing shut.

“Too much?” he asked, voice strained, though his hips didn’t stop rolling—deep, punishing, fast.

“No,” you gasped, breath hitching as your legs wrapped around his waist. “God, no—don’t stop.”

He grunted, hips snapping into yours, fast and rough, the sound of skin on skin echoing through the room. You’d never seen him like this. Never felt him like this.

There was no careful build-up this time. No drawn-out foreplay, no slow rhythm. This was possession. Desperation.

His metal hand gripped your thigh, fingers squeezing almost too tight, holding you wide open for him. The other hand fisted in the sheets by your head, muscles flexing as he drove into you harder, deeper—like he was trying to bury himself inside you and never leave.

“You feel so fuckin’ good,” he panted, forehead falling to yours.

You could barely form words. Could barely think. Every thrust knocked your thoughts loose—pleasure sparking hot and fast, building again already.

He knew exactly how to move, how to grind his hips just right, how to drag a broken little moan from your throat every time he slammed into you.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he muttered against your skin, his voice rough and low and ruined. “Always take me so well, baby.”

You whimpered, thighs trembling as you felt yourself getting close again, too fast, too much.

“James—fuck—I’m gonna—”

“I know,” he growled. “Give it to me, sweetheart. Come on.”

And you did. God, you did—back arching off the mattress as that second orgasm ripped through you, your moan breaking into a cry as you clenched around him, your whole body trembling beneath the weight of it.

But James didn’t slow down. Didn’t even give you a second to breathe. Instead, he pulled out, chest heaving, voice wrecked when he said—

“I’m not fuckin’ done with you yet.”

And before you could even process it, he grabbed your hips, flipped you onto your stomach like you weighed nothing, and hauled your ass up until you were on your knees, face pressed into the pillow, spine curved just right for him.

You gasped at the sudden change, fingers gripping the sheets, still reeling from your orgasm when you felt him behind you again, thick and hard and ready, dragging the head of his cock through your slick folds with deliberate pressure.

“James—” you barely managed, breath caught somewhere between a plea and a moan.

“You said I could be rough, baby,” he rasped, leaning over you, his chest against your back, lips brushing your ear. “Want me to stop?”

You whimpered. „No, god—please—”

He slammed back into you in one sharp thrust, making your vision white out behind your eyes, your mouth falling open in a silent scream.

“Fuck,” he groaned, dragging back only to drive in harder. “You’re still so tight for me, angel.”

And you were gone. So far gone for him you didn’t care that you could barely think. That your legs were already shaking. That he had a fist tangled in your hair and his other hand gripping your hip so tight you’d probably bruise.

You’d let him do anything. He was using your body like he owned it—because he did.

You were barely holding yourself up anymore—arms trembling, body slick with sweat, tears pricking at your eyes from how deep he kept hitting, from how much it was. You were already wrecked and he just kept going.

“James—” you sobbed, your voice hoarse.

“I know, baby,” he groaned, not slowing down. “I know. You’re so fuckin’ sensitive now, huh?”

You nodded—or tried to—but your face was still half-buried in the pillow, your hands gripping the sheets in a death grip as he dragged another moan from your throat with the next deep thrust.

“But you’re takin’ it,” he murmured like it was the most sacred thing in the world. “So good for me. My sweet girl… always so good for me.”

His metal hand slid around your waist, down between your thighs again, fingertips brushing your swollen clit—and you cried out, the stimulation too much.

Your body jolted, tried to shy away, but he just held you tighter, grounding you with his weight, with the low, filthy praise pouring from his lips.

“Shh, I got you,” he breathed, his mouth against your shoulder. “One more, baby. Just one more for me. You can give me that, can’t you?”

And somehow, you could.

Because it was him. Because his voice—gravelly, reverent—made you feel like you were something holy. Like the way you fell apart for him was worship, not weakness.

“Fuck, that’s it,” he groaned, when he felt you start to clench around him again, your walls fluttering with the edge of a third orgasm. “That’s my girl. My perfect fuckin’ girl.”

You shattered for him a final time, mouth open in a silent cry, body convulsing beneath him—overwhelmed, overstimulated, undone.

He didn’t let go of you. Didn’t let up with the praise. He held you close as you fell apart, chest pressed to your back, voice ragged but soft as he kissed your shoulder and murmured, “So proud of you, baby. So fuckin’ proud.”

He was still fucking you through your high, deep and steady, one hand gripping your hip tight, the other splayed over your stomach to keep you grounded. Every thrust sent a new wave of pleasure crashing through your already wrung-out body.

You felt his weight, his cock, the heat of his skin against yours. It was overwhelming and perfect, and somewhere between the way he filled you and the way he whispered your fake name like a promise—you broke.

Fake name.

It all wasn’t fucking real. His words, his praise, his touch. You weren’t his. You weren’t her.

Your voice came out ragged, cracked, helpless.

“Fuck— I love you, James,” you gasped, unable to stop it now. “Fuck, I love you so much.”

You didn’t even realize you were crying until his rhythm faltered.

He stilled. His hand slid up your side, slow and trembling, and he leaned forward, pressing his chest to your back, mouth at your ear. Still inside you. Still holding you like you were the only thing keeping him upright.

“Oh, sweetie…” he breathed, and it sounded like something reverent.

You turned your face just enough to look at him over your shoulder, your eyes glassy, your lips parted.

“God, I love you too,” he whispered, “So fuckin’ much it scares the hell outta me.”

His metal hand was gently stroking through your hair, soothing and slow. You whimpered softly, your body still trembling, so full of him, but you didn’t want him to pull away. Not yet.

“Gonna let me come inside you?” he asked, barely a whisper. “Let me fill you up, baby?”

You nodded—instantly, breathlessly. “Yes,” you whispered. “Please, James… please.”

His hips started rolling again, slow but so deliberate now. His thrusts lost rhythm, getting sloppier, more urgent, chasing the edge with low curses and growls pressed into your skin.

„You’re mine, you hear me? Fucking mine.” You gasped when he stilled, buried as deep as he could go, his hands gripping you tight as he came inside you with a guttural moan. The warmth spread through you, and you felt everything—the way he clung to you, the way his body trembled, the way his breathing was so uneven.

After a while, he finally moved, carefully slipping out of you and collapsing beside you with a satisfied groan. His arm snaked around your waist instantly, tugging you into his chest like he needed to feel every inch of your body against his.

You didn’t resist—how could you?

Your muscles still trembled from the aftershocks, your heart pounding hard enough to echo in your ears. And his touch? His warmth? It grounded you.

His metal fingers brushed gently over your bare hip, then up to your ribs. His other hand cradled the back of your head, fingertips threading into your hair as he kissed your temple. Slow. Tender.

“I wasn’t too rough… was I?” he asked quietly, his voice a low, hesitant murmur against your skin. You felt him tense slightly behind you, like he was bracing for something—uncertainty coiling just beneath the surface.

You shook your head immediately, almost instinctively, and turned in his arms so you could look at him.

“No,” you whispered, breathless but certain. “God, James… I loved it.”

A breath escaped him—half-relief, half-disbelief. He searched your face, eyes still heavy-lidded but so full of warmth. That flicker of worry in his expression softened, his lips tugging into a tired, crooked smile.

“You sure?”

“Positive.” Your fingers reached up to gently touch his jaw. “You made me feel so good. You always do.”

His smile deepened, lazy and satisfied now. He leaned in and kissed you again—slower this time. Sweet. His lips moved over yours like a thank-you and an apology all at once.

“I’ve never had anyone like you,” he said softly, brushing his nose against yours. “Never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

You could’ve cried again.

Instead, you tucked yourself against his chest.

You wanted to bury yourself in this moment, just rest, go to sleep. But conversation from earlier still was there in the back of your mind.

So, you tilted your head up to look at him. His eyes were half-closed, relaxed in a way you only saw in moments like this—soft and so very him.

“James…” your voice was quiet, almost hesitant, “Are we gonna talk about it? What we talked about this morning?”

His jaw tensed just slightly, but he didn’t pull away. Didn’t shut down.

He sighed, long and low, and opened his eyes fully to meet yours. “What do you wanna know?” he said, voice raw. No deflection, no charm. Just honesty.

Here he was—guard down, heart cracked open, still holding you like you were something precious.

You hated yourself, you figured it out already. But now that hatred only grew bigger.

You hated how good he was to you. How safe you felt in his arms. How much you wanted all of this to be real. But more than anything, you hated what you were about to do. Because no matter how real it felt, it didn’t change the truth.

You were still an an agent on a fucking mission. It was insane to you how often you had to remind yourself that.

Still undercover. Still reporting to Mike.

And James… he was the target.

So you swallowed down your guilt, curled a little closer to him, and whispered, “Everything.”

He huffed out a breath, like your request physically weighed on him. His fingers flexed against your lower back before he stilled again.

“You know I can’t tell you everything,” he said, not coldly—but like someone who’d been holding onto secrets for so long, it physically hurt to loosen his grip.

You nodded, lips twitching into the smallest, saddest smile. “Then tell me whatever you can.”

He stared up at the ceiling for a second, jaw working. And then—finally—he spoke.

“I didn’t want this life,” he began, voice low and steady. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My dad got caught up in shit before I was even outta high school. I thought I could get him out, fix things. But it was already too late by then. The debts, the people… it was all tangled.”

You listened, barely breathing.

“I started helping. Running errands. Doing the grunt work. It was supposed to be temporary. Just long enough to make sure my mom could keep the house. But one day turned into a week, a month… years.”

He looked down at you now, and there was something raw in his eyes. “By the time I realized I was in too deep, I was already the guy people answered to. Already had blood on my hands.”

He didn’t flinch when he said it. Didn’t try to make himself the victim. He was just telling you the truth, as ugly as it was.

“I tried to keep it clean. Nothing I couldn’t sleep through. But the longer you’re in this world, the harder that gets. Sometimes people don’t leave you a choice.”

You said nothing, just reached for his hand beneath the sheets. Held it.

His voice dropped further. “Fuck—I never wanted you to know,” he sighed. „I know I couldn’t keep this from you forever, but—”

“But I know,” you cut in gently, your fingers brushing over his jaw. “I know.”

His eyes searched yours, like he was waiting for your judgment now. But it didn’t came.

You leaned in, your forehead resting lightly against his. “I know what kind of man you are,” you whispered. “Because you show me. Every time you touch me like I’m something precious. Every time you take care of me without saying a word. Every time you get soft around me, just a little.”

His breathing stilled.

“You don’t pretend to be someone you’re not,” you continued. “You don’t hide it. And somehow… that makes it worse. Because it means I see all of you. And I still can’t walk away.”

Your voice broke just slightly at the end, but your hand stayed steady on his skin, tracing over his cheek.

„I love you so much,” he whispered, his eyes a bit glassy, although a weak, sad smile was forming at his lips. „You have no idea how much you mean to me.”

You felt your heart ache. Burn.

Because you meant every word. You did see him. You saw all the pieces—the hard edges, the soft ones, the danger, the loyalty, the violence, the tenderness. You saw them all and still found yourself falling.

But he didn’t see you.

Not really. Not the version of you that still wore a badge deep under your skin. Not the one who tried to desperately unlock his phone just to find some evidence. Not the version who’d photographed his files that same morning, who’d sent them off with shaking hands and sick guilt curdling in your stomach.

He didn’t know. And if he did?

He’d probably kill you.

„I love you too.” You finally answered, returning the smile. It was forced but there.

You stayed quiet. Let him wrap his arm tighter around your waist. Let him bury his face into your neck like he needed to be close to you just to breathe.

And you clung to him just as tightly—because maybe you needed it too.

The guilt didn’t leave. It pulsed in your throat. Sour and hot.

Because what he saw—this version of you he trusted, kissed, held close after giving you every broken, guarded piece of himself—that woman wasn’t real.

At least not entirely.

———

The morning light was pale when it crept through the windows, spilling soft gold across the bedroom. You stirred slowly, eyes blinking open against the brightness, your body sore in a way that made you blush if you thought too long about it.

James was still there. Still asleep beside you, holding you, his chest rising and falling in a quiet rhythm against your back. Warm. Steady.

Safe.

But the second you remembered where you were—what you were doing—the comfort cracked. A slow, creeping panic began to coil in your chest again, the way it always did when things got too quiet.

The guilt slithered back in like it had been waiting. The weight of that dishonesty felt unbearable in the daylight. Your throat tightened. Your eyes burned.

Fuck.

You turned onto your side slowly, curling inward on yourself, like maybe if you made yourself smaller the feeling would pass. But it didn’t. It grew sharper. Louder.

You didn’t want to cry. God, you didn’t want to cry. But your chest was already rising too fast, your face pinching like it was bracing to fall apart. Eventually a sob escaped your lips.

“Hey…”

His voice was quiet. Sleep-rough and warm. You hadn’t realized he was awake, or maybe your whimper woke him up.

You felt him shift behind you, his hand moving up your arm. Gentle. Steady.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice still low. Not accusing. Just concerned.

You shook your head quickly, kept your face turned away.

“Nothing,” you whispered, too fast. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t believe that. You felt it in the silence. He sat up slowly, then leaned over and kissed the back of your shoulder. You could feel the tenderness in it. The quiet way he tried to offer comfort without asking for explanation.

“I’m here,” he said softly, like it was simple. Like it was obvious.

And god, it made your eyes sting worse.

You rolled toward him before you could stop yourself, burying your face against his chest as if you could hide there from all of it—the guilt, the lies, the truth.

His arms wrapped around you without hesitation. Just held you. One hand stroking through your hair. He just stayed with you like that, breathing slow and steady, like he knew exactly what you needed before you could ask for it.

“I’m here, baby…” he murmured again, quieter now, lips brushing against your hairline. His hand never stopped moving—slow strokes through your hair, his palm cradling the back of your head like you were something fragile.

You didn’t speak. You couldn’t. Your throat was tight, choked full of too many things you couldn’t say.

James shifted, just enough to lean back and look at you. His hand slid from your hair to your cheek, thumb brushing beneath your eye, catching the tears that had begun to spill without permission. Your crying got even louder, messier.

“Hey…” he whispered, tilting your face up toward him. “Sweetheart… you’re worrying me now, baby. What is it?”

Your lashes fluttered, your breath hitching again when you met his eyes—so soft, so concerned, so full of something you didn’t deserve.

He looked at you like he ached to understand. Like if he could take whatever pain you were carrying and shoulder it himself, he would do it without question.

His brows pulled together.

“Was it… was I too rough with you last night?” he asked, voice almost breaking. “Because if I was—fuck, baby, I didn’t mean to—”

“No,” you shook your head quickly, clutching his wrist where he held your face. “I told you, it was good…No, James. That’s not it. You were perfect. You are. I just…”

You trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. You didn’t have the words. Or rather—you had too many, and none of them were the truth you were allowed to say.

He exhaled slowly, forehead pressing to yours.

“Is it what I told you?” he murmured. “About… my work. What I do?”

You didn’t respond. He took the silence as guilt. As fear. As something inside you shifting away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “I didn’t want to drag you into that part of me. I tried not to. But I guess I knew it was only a matter of time.”

Your lip trembled. „It’s not that, I—”

He cupped your face more fully, thumbs stroking your cheeks, grounding you.

“Hey, look at me,” he said gently, eyes searching yours. “You’re safe with me, alright? I’d never hurt you. I promise you that. I just…”

He faltered, the words catching in his throat.

“I don’t wanna lose you.”

And fuck—those five words nearly broke you.

Because you wanted to tell him he wouldn’t. You wanted to say that he was safe with you, too. That you weren’t going anywhere. That this—whatever it was—meant as much to you as it did to him.

So instead, you leaned in, pressed your cheek to his chest, “I know. It’s not that— I just… I’m scared, James. Of everything.”

Your voice cracked on the last word.

You felt his lips press to the top of your head, warm and lingering. His arms wrapped around you like he thought he could protect you from the world if he just held on hard enough.

But he was part of the world you were scared of.

You shut your eyes and let yourself feel the way his heart beat steady beneath your ear. One of his hands slid up and down your back, slow and soothing.

“I know things are messy,” he murmured against your hair. “And I know I’ve dragged you into a life you didn’t ask for. But you don’t have to be scared of me, baby. I’d never hurt you.”

I’d never hurt you.

Those words lodged deep in your chest like splinters.

Because that’s what you were afraid of.

Not just losing him if the truth ever came out—but what he’d become, what he’d do if he found out you weren’t who he thought you were.

He’d never hurt you.

But what if you gave him a reason to?

You swallowed hard, tears burning hot at the corners of your eyes again. You curled your fingers into his side, clung to him like you could carve this version of him into your memory.

Because this James—the one who held you like this, the one whispering soft reassurances into your skin—this version loved you.

And if he knew? If he found out who you really were, why you were here?

Would he still?

You didn’t know. And the not-knowing was eating you alive.

But you couldn’t tell him that. Not now. Not ever.

So you just pressed closer, burying yourself in his warmth, trying to shut your mind off. Trying not to break right there in his arms.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured again, voice low and steady. “Whatever it is—whatever’s got you all twisted up in your head—I’ve got you, baby.”

And fuck. You almost wished he hadn’t said that. Because it made it so much worse.

You didn’t answer. Just let your hand slide along his chest, gripping the edge of the blanket like it could anchor you to something real. Anything that wasn’t the swirl of dread in your stomach.

He must’ve felt it—how close you were to unraveling. And maybe he didn’t understand why, maybe he thought it was something else entirely, but still… he tried.

“Hey,” he said softly, and his tone shifted, lightened, like he was pulling you out of the dark with him. “You remember that old couple from the diner I took you to for breakfast a few days ago? The ones who were practically yelling at each other about eggs?”

Your brows pulled together as you looked up at him, confused through the haze of your tears.

James smiled a little, brushing his thumb gently over your cheek. “You joked that’d be us in fifty years. You glared at me and said, ‘If you ever mess up my breakfast order like that, I’ll walk.’”

A soft laugh slipped from your throat, wet and tired. You remembered. You were teasing him back then, still trying to gain more of his trust but none of it mattered now.

“Because she asked for scrambled and he brought her poached,” you muttered, your voice small. “It’s a crime.”

“It is,” he agreed solemnly. “Unforgivable, honestly.”

Another quiet laugh. You shook your head and wiped your eyes with the back of your hand.

James shifted to look at you more fully, propping himself up on his elbow. “We’re gonna be okay,” he said, more seriously this time. “Me and you. Even if the world burns down around us, you and I—we’ll be fine. Because I’ll make sure of it.”

You looked up at him—messy hair, sleepy eyes, that gentle smile—and for a second you almost believed him.

“You know…” you murmured, your fingers absentmindedly tracing a line across his chest, “I always wanted to live on a farm one day.”

James blinked, then let out a small laugh, rough and low. “A farm? For real?”

You smiled, eyes still puffy from earlier but somehow lighter now. “Yeah. Like, a quiet little place. Chickens. A goat, maybe.” You looked up at him, sheepish. “A big garden. Away from all this chaos and noise.”

He raised a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You feeding goats and planting tomatoes—now that’s a picture.”

“Oh, shut up,” you laughed, swatting at his side. “I could do it.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” he teased, grinning now. “Just didn’t expect my city girl to say farm of all things.”

You shrugged, your smile soft. “It’s just… peaceful. It always sounded like peace to me. Waking up early, sun on your face. Nobody calling. No running. Just… life. Real life.”

James was quiet for a second, looking at you like he was seeing something new. Something delicate. Something real.

“I get it,” he said finally, voice lower, more thoughtful now. „Told you, I like the quiet.”

You didn’t say anything just smiled, lost in thought. And maybe that was the first time you let yourself speak about the future like it was yours. Like it wasn’t something that could be taken. Like it could include him.

Even if it was all a lie underneath, it still felt good to dream with him like that. Just for a little while.

Chapter Four soon… 💸

series tags (tysm for all the love and support, If you asked to be tagged and I didn’t tag you—you’re crossed out—it means I couldn’t for some reason 💔): @iamthatonefangirl @muchwita @its-in-the-woods @taqmari @opheliabbarnes @rabknowstheend @pineapplechuncks @infinitepersuasion @sweetesharley @adalvsseb @miss-chuchu @nandanandada @globetrotter28 @whorunthemfworld-girls @madlyinlovewmattmurd0ck @ruexj283 @xamapolax @bloodmocha @castawaycreature @wakemeornot @lilylilyyyyyy @rue963 @miirasarchive @fleurenoir @figtreesandmoonlight @steph88x @starstruck-cowgirl @okaytrashpanda

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⋆⁺₊✧ SERIES MASTERLIST

⋆⁺₊✧ MAIN MASTERLIST

[darlingbabyboo]

Can you do some study session HC for dating Chifuyu Matsuno?

I added some other characters because I wanted to fill it up a bit! Sorry for doing this so late I'm so fucking lazy.

Study Session Hcs with the Tokyo Revengers Boys!

I love ma boy Chifuyu so much and I would do anything for him

With that little tidbit aside, I think Chifuyu is probably one of the best people to study alongside! He's so sweet and supportive and I couldn't imagine anyone better

Whenever you're insecure he always make sure to reassure you "baby, I tutored Baji, this is no sweat." And if that's not reassuring, I don't know what is

Not to be rude to my man Baji but he needs all the help he can get in school

And I think it's also semi-canon that he assisted Kazutora with bettering his writing considering he was in jail for most of his formative years so he has experience as a tutor and a willingness

Since you're his partner and not one of his delinquent friends, he's also very soft with you compared to his friends

"It's okay, just try again." He massages your shoulder, leaning in to press a kiss against the side of your side, "you got this." Baji and Kazutora are exchanging matching looks of disgust as they recall Chifuyu screaming at them for not understanding a problem five minutes ago

You're his favourite and he's not afraid to share it

He's also so sweet even if you don't perform how you'd like on a test

"Hey hey, it's no problem, let's grab a bite to eat, 'kay." He soothes, bringing you to him, "and if you don't feel better then we can do something- anything else okay?" He's not going to stop trying until your frown is turned upside down, he can't stand when you're upset :(

Mitsuya Takashi

Second best boy when it comes to study sessions

The only thing that Chifuyu has over Mitsuya is that he has patience for others, Mitsuya does not careeeee

He knows the depths of Toman's stupidity and he truly does not want to touch that subject with a ten foot pole

Just because he's a nice guy does not mean he wants to willingly torture himself

You on the other hand...

You could be the stupidest mofo in the world but he loves you so much that he'll try anyways

He values any time the two of you spend together so he considers these sessons special

He would probably be the type to help you while he's doing something else

Like he'll ask you a question while he's cooking or smth

He gets so happy when you do well and is so proud of you

Will never take any credit no matter how much he did because he truly believes you could have achieved it by yoursellf

"Don't," He interrupts when you try to thank him, "you did all the work, you're incredible."

Baji Keisuke

Oh my god who let this happen

He's actually so fucking stupid I can't I still love you

He tries so hard but he can't process anything for the life of him

School makes absolutely no sense to him

He probably ends up screaming at the textbooks or something while you watch with an eyebrow raised

He gasses you up so much though because you're genuinely the smartest person in the world in his eyes

"How do you know that?" He says in awe. You laugh at his admiration, "it's on the first page Kei." "You're a fucking genius sweetheart."

No matter what you got on a test, don't feel too bad, because Baji definitely got a worse grade.

"How did you spell your name wrong?" "I was under a lot of stress, you had to be there."

If you get a bad grade on a project that you worked hard on, Baji will threaten your teacher

"I don't think you understand how easy it is to light a car on fire" "Kei please don't burn down my teacher's car"

Hanma Shuji

I don't even know how to express how bad he is

Like if Baji is bad, Hanma is indescribably worse

First off, you did not invite him, he invited himself by breaking into your room

He does not give a fuck about school and hasn't been in a classroom for years

You ask him for help and all he can do is offer to steal the answer sheet yes

He makes it a personal game to distract you

Lips will always be on yours, whether your lips are locked, his lips on your shoulder or some blessed forehead kisses you are not safe

He will cling to you like a demon and not move until he's satisfied, classwork be damned

He's ragebaiting you because it makes him hard the little freak

I love him so much, why is he like this

If you fail, he is killing your teacher

No hesitation, he doesn't give af what you say, they're dying

"Shu that's insane!" "Sure, sure, now where did you say he lived baby?"

Keep begging to keep him alive it's feeding his boner

Manjiro Sano (Mikey)

Study date bro this is a nap date now

He's essentially useless, he offers just because he wants to sleep next to you

As soon as you get into your room he's knocked out okay

And he's clingy asf to you he will not let go of you

You think he cares about his grades he stopped going a long time ago honey

If you try to move he wakes up and guilts you into staying next to him

He needs your warmth don't you get it???

If you get a bad grade, he has the nerve to act surprised, how did that happen?

"But we were studying so much together?" "Who is we Manjiro?"

Little bitch

Izana Kurokawa

He's so fucking mean y'all

Do not invite him to a study session bro you're better off without him

If you don't answer right away, he gets pissed off

Okay he loves you so much and he would do anything for you

But he struggles with patience okay

"What'd you put for number 2?" "I think it's C" "You think?"

He's not nice at all and will probably make you feel worse

Do not tear him away from these study sessions though he needs you

He loves being around you so much and he's only hard on you because his chances for education have been squandered and he only wants the best for you

When you do well on tests he's literally so happy and celebrates so much

"I knew you would get it darling, you worked too hard not to."

He's just a cutie y'all

[bxriles]

your not better then me bc you write your fics and I use ai to help me with writers block and scenes. stop being a gatekeeper. ai is a tool and ppl like you need to get over yourselves. you call us grifters when your the real one who is just mad that ai fics are better than ur badly written ones

I am not saying that I am better than you because I choose to actually write while you choose to enter a prompt into a generator. You are the one who said that. Not me.

What I am saying is that the act of you entering a prompt into a program and having the program generate an entire fic/chapter/scene/book/whatever for you that you did not write does not make you a "writer" or "author" in a traditional sense. If that sounds harsh or hurts your feelings, I do not know what to tell you. You did not write that scene. You wrote a prompt and entered it into a program and let the program write the scene for you. I guess(?) you can argue that you're a "writer" because you wrote the prompt that you entered into Chat GPT or whatever the fuck people use, but writing a few words/sentences for a prompt is very different from writing a narrative.

What I do not understand is why tech bros and AI fanatics have this weird obsession with being lauded as authors and artists and creatives when they clearly do not care about the labor behind *being* those things. Creatives do what we do because we love the process. Would I love to be a full-time author who is on the NYT best-seller list every week? OF COURSE!! But that's not why I write. I write because I love the act of writing and I would argue that 99.999% of creatives feel the same way. I don't really care if someone considers me a "writer" or not. I know I'm a writer because that's what I do. I write. AI fanatics INSIST on being considered writers when they're not even writing. I just don't get it. (Note: I'm using writing as an example because that's my creative outlet of choice. This of course also applies to artists/photographers/other creatives.)

Finally, that is not what grifter means. Per Merriam Webster: "grift" is to "to obtain (money or property) illicitly (as in a confidence game)." I am not obtaining any money or property by being Anti Generative AI. So no, I am not a "grifter" because I hate gen AI. AI grifters are the people who use AI to spew out books in a matter of minutes that they then post on Amazon to turn a quick profit.

[yearningforthelearning]

Not sure what I'm on but I'm churnin this shit like budda

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Thank God he was wearing shorts. Also, thank God for sewing and the fact that I know how to, because his fit was a little…tight for me. 

Particularly in the chest area.

I mean, seriously, he has the body of a stick bug, so I shouldn’t be surprised.

After that whole debacle, I followed him to where he had made camp. “You’re lucky I recently killed another deer. I was going to use its hide for a different project, but I guess we can make some clothes for you.” He had the most shit eating grin that ever ate shit or grinned.

Little bastard.

“Careful or I might just keep this and leave you in your tighty-whities!” I was still speaking in English. Whoops.

“Oh, I almost forgot-! Rebuilding society. Think we can finally finish our conversation about it? It’s not like I’ve been waiting for a suuuuuper long time or anything.” I grinned, overjoyed to have Senku back so I could yap his ear off.

He chuckled and looked at me with – well, I don’t know, actually. I have a hard time reading him sometimes. And I am 3700 years out of practice. Whatever, not important. “Not yet. Soon, but first we need to get used to staying alive. It’s just you and me, Sunspot. Adam & Eve.”

“Oh, well, that won’t be too hard, sweetness. First, though, I need to see what I’m workin’ with.” I could feel my heart beating out of my chest with excitement.

As bad as the situation is, keep on the sunny side. This is another thing I learned growing up. Can’t live right otherwise. So, for now, I’m gonna immerse myself in this world, primitive and unknown. I have what I learned growing up and from Senku, whether he realizes that or not, and with both of us I’m sure there’s a solution to be had. “Well, you’re in luck since we’re here. Welcome home, Sunspot.” He parted some bushes and into view came a fairly decent tree house.

We’re doing better than I thought. “You did this?! There’s no way. Who else is awake, are you hiding them?” I joked and faked looking around for a hidden person.

He laughed. Genuinely, like he used to. “You’re looking at him! Senku the Strong, that’s what they called me back in the day.” He flexed his non-existent muscles for me like a bodybuilder.

“Okay, strongman, let’s get to work on those clothes. I can’t bare to be blinded by your pasty body any longer!” I began marching towards the tree hut, focused on getting up that ladder.

I forgot that neither of us were really wearing underwear. “You better wait for me to get up there first you perv…” I said pointedly at him, earning a glare from the pale scientist.

“One, no one is here to care about that stuff, two – you literally cried all over me butt-ass naked less than twenty minutes ago, and three- I am not a pervert!” he seemed to be very heated about that last point.

But he was right. I did in fact cry all over him naked as a brand-new baby, and it wasn’t even a pretty cry. It was one of them snotty, red-faced, choking cries. Like a toddler having a meltdown. “Oh nooooooo a pretty girl cried on me! What ever will I doooo. Oh woe is me!” I mocked flippantly at him.

“Pretty girl? Where?” he jabbed right back.

“Oh, did the petrification fuck up your eyes too, Mister Neutron?”

“..Like Jimmy Neutron?”

I couldn’t hold in the laughter that came. There we were, giggling like high school kids (which we are but man it doesn’t feel like it), falling on our asses weak from the joy. When we were able to calm down, we both kinda just lay there. I finally took a good look at his face, too, and noticed cracks. ‘Cracks?’ I wondered, reaching out in a daze to touch them. Were they like tattoo ink, smooth and soft in our skin, or were they voids, pitted like scars and rough from the thousands of years we were petrified? My fingers met soft skin, surprising me a bit. “I thought they would be pitted..” I mumbled, a little bummed about my discovery.

They do look really cool, though. “Last time you did something like that I caused you to bleed profusely. What are you doing?” Senku asked, almost in a whisper.

Why were we whispering? This moment feels.. closer than we usually have. I feel like I’m trying to climb a fence I shouldn’t be climbing on, and if I lean too far, I’ll be stuck in there with something I’m not sure I could face right now. Ignoring that thought, I explained. “Your face has these… cracks. I thought.. maybe they were real cracks. I wanted to touch them.”

“You have them too, you know.” He was closer now.

Odd. He wasn’t that close a second ago. Then his hand was on my leg, and I swear I could hear my heart in my ears. I looked down and gasped. “These are way worse than yours…” I was in awe at the designs on my skin.

Paying no attention to the hand that was still on my leg, I started tracing my cracks with wonder. Why did our bodies react this way? Does this mean I was so damaged I nearly broke all over my lower half? Or does it have some sort of significance to me as a person? I mean, Senkus are on his face where his brain is. It would make sense if it correlated to what we are passionate about in some way. So, what does that mean for me? I loved travel, people and cultures. I loved love and everyone around me. I wanted to help whoever I could, even if it meant ignoring myself. I started to pull up the tunic, trying to see how they covered me, where they would end. But they didn’t. They kept going. Just as I, obliviously as I always was, went to remove the tunic and see I was stopped by a firm grasp on my wrist. I turned my gaze to Senku and his red cheeks. He sure does blush a lot recently. “You trying to give me a show?” He quipped and stuck his pinkie in his ear, feigning nonchalance.

But I knew.

Clearing my throat, I quickly stood and hustled my way up the ladder. Can’t have something like that happen; we’ve got more important matters at hand. “You got shit to sew with, boy?” I hollered down to him, and I got a grumpy “You’ll see them, girl.” In response.

I then wasted no time in throwing off his clothes. “I’ll be down soon! Let me know if you need anything up here!”

I hurriedly found the leather and sewing supplies he had mentioned and got to work.

I began to draw out a basic pattern using charcoal, and then cut the pieces up with a stone knife placed nearby. I then, with a few little mishaps, sewed my creation together.

“Annnd done! Easy enough to make a halter top and some shorts, as well as some shoes like Senku has. I even had enough to keep a strip to tie my hair up!” I said happily to myself, humming along to a song from when I was younger that my dad would sing to keep my mind busy.

“What does Senku have?” I heard from behind me.

“Clothes!!” I beamed and showed off my new outfit, proud of my handiwork in such a situation.

He nodded in approval. “Good, now that is settled, we move on to the next order of business. Survival.” I sat in front of him and listened intently as he paced and worked out his thoughts verbally.

“Here’s the run-down. I’ve been awake for two months now. So far, I’ve been keeping myself going by rationing food, filtering water, staying just smart enough not to get myself killed by falling tree or hungry beasts. Real cutting-edge survival science, I know.” He kneels in front of me, opening a rough little notebook made entirely of animal skin with rough little charcoal drawings and notes on each “page”.

“I’ve been running chemical trials, focusing on nitric acid production. It’s the key, or at least the closest thing we’ve got, to reversing petrification. Long story short? The stone shell acts like a biological stasis and the nitric acid eats through enough of it to re-trigger organic function without frying the body.” He turns to me, that electric look in his eye when he gets into a new topic he hasn’t experimented with before.

“Okay. Good start. I’m not good with the sciency stuff like that, but damn do I know how to survive and build from scratch. So, you deal with the big brain shit and I’ll get to ensuring we have stability here. I’ll need some help but I’m sure someone else will be woken up soon if there’s a pattern following this. I mean, I only woke up like two months after you so we may have to wait a bit but that’s no worry. My biggest concern is stable food, lots of firewood and maybe a wall on that shelter up there so the cold cant get in so easily. Not only that, but I really want to know what happened to Japan during these 3700 years. I need to dig a test pit to see how far it’ll take to get down to subsoil, maybe we have some artifacts hidden in the dirt or there’s some proof of humans who somehow managed to make it out alive..” I was rambling at this point, ignoring Senku and wandering around camp.

I looked at everything, to his little science hut filled with birds to the structure of the treehouse itself. I explored the surrounding area to see what the plants and wildlife were looking like. Thankfully I was also obsessed with medicinal plants, too. It started because of my ma and her knowledge of the mountains from when she was a girl. I took what she knew and expanded on it, learning tinctures and salves and what plants can do what if processed just correctly. Not only that, but maybe there was a garden that self-pollinated and we can find some wild crops that mutated from the crops we had been used to in the 21st century. That would mean we could have a garden, which could lead to sustaining us enough to where I can expend the energy into finding livestock to solve our meat issue.

I started writing out my thoughts in the dirt, using a stick I had found. After all, the best way to plan is to write it out and see what I’m working with. I’m not the best at keeping a stable train of thought, so this will help, and Senku can chime in if he sees something that may be over our heads. I started by listing the number of plants I knew Japan had, edible or not, which is around 8118, with maybe upwards of 1000 of these are edible. I then made three separate columns: food, medicine, or death. We are around what used to be the Kanagawa prefecture, or at least I hope so, since that’s where we were petrified, so I’m going to use that to narrow down what I can find in the immediate area.

We could probably find some Kogomi if we get lucky, making a nice little dish with those wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe I can even find some Itadori to cook up the shoots of! Those things, while invasive, would probably be one of our saving graces if we can find a patch of them. “Oi, Senku! What stuff have you collected so far?” I hollered, jumping out of my skin when I heard a voice above me. “No need to shout, you foghorn. I’m right here.” he was thinking hard as he looked at my (kinda shitty) roadmap.

“Well, what I’ve got is a lot of nitric acid and some salt I pulled from seawater. I also have some animal snares, crude earthenware to store nitric acid and other things in, basic stone tools and rope, but that’s about it. I’ve been running on fumes these past two months, barely having enough steam to keep myself up. Luckily, with you here, our chances just went from astronomically impossible to stupidly hard, but doable.” He mused, looking at my road map still, with his finger tapping his chin.

“So, we have the basics, aside from food and fresh water.” I sighed.

“Ten billion points to you.”

‘Yippie! I guess that means it’s time to get to work.’ I stood, letting Senku know I would be in the perimeter of the area, and turned to what I thought was East. I’m not the best with direction, but I think I can figure this out. I didn’t want to go too far out, not sure what animals are lurking about after all this time. Can’t bite it right off the bat, that would be humiliating.

I went about 20 feet out from the perimeter of the clearing, examining everything I could get my eye on. Right off the bat, it’s like a goldmine out here! I guess after that much time…

I think it just hit me just how long its been. Again. I shut down earlier, but now, I was alone. I was free to scream in this empty place, even if Senku thought I was crazy for it. I’m still human. My chest is tightening on me, my breathing becoming frantic and my vision being blurred by raging hot tears. I bolted in whatever way I thought was just away and I simply broke. Down.

Why did this happen to us? Why were we, just two teenagers, the only two people seemingly on this earth? I may never see my family again, never see my friends from back home. Everything is gone and all that’s left is me, who, admittedly, isn’t the best at remembering things I didn’t particularly care about, and forgetting stuff I knew just as easily! I was passionate, but talent was not something I think I have. Hypothetically, yes, but in practice? I’m just a 16 year old girl, from an entirely different country at that! I start to fully sob at this point, wailing to the now dimming sky, no words but pure emotion came from me. Have I really been out here for that long? Wasn’t it mid-day when I came out here?

Body shaking, heart racing, my eyes gazing upon a sky so beautiful it nearly took me out of it in shock. “Woah..” I breathed, falling onto my back in awe and exhaustion. I suppose maybe I was being a little dramatic, but honestly sometimes a guy needs a little rage sesh. I think I’ve earned it at this point. I’ve also earned dinner, which I pray I can find on my trip back. That is, if I remember how to get back.

And it’s not like I’m completely alone, I suppose. There’s Senku. Oh, right.

Senku.

I forgot about him. I hope he’s not worried about me-

Wait what am I saying? This is Senku, he’s not gonna worry “one millimeter” for me. He can wait until tomorrow, at least. I say that because I was, for lack of a better term, melting down for so long I wandered and paid no attention to where I was going. And it was now dark. With no streetlamps or anything. True darkness. I really screwed myself. Welp.

I stood, wiping my face best I could with the limited visibility I had. I found a tree leaf, that I prayed was an actual tree leaf, and used it at a tissue. That didn’t work to well, but, as luck would have it, I tripped into a chilly as fuck stream I couldn’t see. So, I may be wet and super cold since its still a bit chilly out, but I also am able to clean my face with what is probably some of the freshest water I’ve ever touched.

I got to work, cleaning my entire body because there’s no better time than the present, and did my best with just water that felt like the buckets of titanic water at tourist attractions I had been to as a kid. I couldn’t even see myself hardly cause there was no moon tonight. Just me and the stars.

I finished quickly and threw on my clothes as a sort of protection from the breeze. I sighed again. I wanted to call out, but didn’t want to be found by anything that may be lurking out there. I looked to the sky, finding the North star and following it. ‘Maybe it’ll get me to some higher ground so I can see where I’m going’ I thought hopefully.

I was dead wrong. I felt like I was walking in circles. I let out a groan and figured I could just sleep out here tonight and figure a way back tomorrow. I felt my way along until I found what I thought was a nook under the roots of a tree. I then curled up into myself and dozed off into the most uncomfortable sleep I’ve ever had, at least, I assumed it would be.

Senku

I can’t believe I’ve found her. I’m still reeling. If I were a more emotional guy I’d probably be tearing up with joy right about now.

But I’m not, and the logical thing to do is get her some clothes that aren’t mine. ‘Not that she looks bad in them..’

I was getting ahead of myself again. Snap out of it, Senku.

I focused forward, leading her to the camp I’ve only recently made feel like an actual home. Then, I smirked, “You’re lucky I recently killed another deer. I was going to use its hide for a different project, but I guess we can make some clothes for you.” I was grinning evilly and trying hard not to laugh.

“Careful or I might just keep this and leave you in your tighty-whities!” She was still speaking English, so she’s ten billion percent still bothered by everything that happened. Can’t blame her, though. Then, she suddenly perked up.

“Oh, I almost forgot-! Rebuilding society. Think we can finally finish our conversation about it? It’s not like I’ve been waiting for a suuuuuper long time or anything.” She was obviously doing her best to ignore what she had just done, forget the vulnerability she showed to me.

That’s okay, it’s more logical to keep her from being upset anyway so I won’t bring it up. I chuckled audibly and gazed at her, trying my best to hide the worry I was feeling for my lab assistant. “Not yet. Soon, but first we need to get used to staying alive. It’s just you and me, Sunspot. Adam & Eve.” Oh, cringe.

Why did I say that. She’s totally gonna be weirded out.

“Oh, well that won’t be too hard sweetness. First, though, I need to see what I’m workin’ with.” No way she actually quipped back.

“Well, you’re in luck since we’re here. Welcome home, Sunspot.” I parted the bushes and vines to show her my humble settlement.

Totally not holding my breath for her approval.

Ten billion percent illogical.

She seems impressed. I breathe out in relief. Then, opens that mouth of hers again.

“You did this?! There’s no way. Who else is awake, are you hiding them?” She pretended to be looking for someone else, maybe hiding away to scare her like on a prank tv show. What a goofball. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to make her smile in return, and so I did my best bodybuilder imitation and said, “You’re looking at him! Senku the Strong, that’s what they called me back in the day.”

She giggled at my rare show of aloofness, and then began marching towards the tree hut, focused on getting up the ladder. “Okay, strongman, let’s get to work on those clothes. I can’t bare to be blinded by your pasty body any longer!” I’m wounded beyond repair.

She made a face that I couldn’t quite read, and added “You better wait for me to get up there first you perv…”

I glared. No way she thought I’d upskirt her!

“One, no one is here to care about that stuff, two – you literally cried all over me butt-ass naked less than twenty minutes ago, and three- I am not a pervert!” Okay, Senku, calm down. She was probably just kidding. Why are you so worked up over this?

A snarky and mischievous grin came onto her face. “Oh nooooooo a pretty girl cried on me! What ever will I doooo. Oh woe is me!” She was moking me.

Best to fight fire with fire, as they always say. “Pretty girl? Where?”

“Oh, did the petrification fuck up your eyes too, Mister Neutron?”

I blinked. “..Like Jimmy Neutron?”

Both of us broke into giggles, finally easing the tension from the earlier display of raw emotion. We fell onto the grass, like so many times before in what felt like a different life altogether, and everything was as it should be again. That’s when I noticed the stare. She was locked on to my face, in a daze like she usually gets into when shes in her head, and I can see her reaching but I’m not sure whats happening. Her hand touches my face and shocks of electricity seem to erupt fro where she touches me. “I thought they would be pitted..” a quiet mumble came from her. So that’s what shes thinking about.

“Last time you did something like that I caused you to bleed profusely. What are you doing?” Why was I whispering?

She thought on it a bit, and responded just as quietly, breathless even. “Your face has these… cracks. I thought.. maybe they were real cracks. I wanted to touch them.”

“You have them to, you know.” I inched closer to her face, not even thinking twice about our proximity.

Not one millimeter.

Nope.

Nor about how I was touching her leg and how soft and warm and –

She was right. I am a pervert. What’s gotten into me? She gasped when she noticed, drawing my attention away. “These are way worse than yours…” she was in oblivious awe,

Ignoring the fact that I was touching her leg still, I watched as she started tracing her patterns, slowly inching the tunic up and nearly startingto take it off. I, being suh a gentleman, can’t let this happen of course. I grabbed her wrist, praying my face wasn’t as red as I thought it was. “You trying to give me a show?” I stuck my pinkie in my ear, pretending its not bothering me in the slightest.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About her.

She started up the ladder, turning back for a brief moment to question “You got shit to sew with, boy?”

Boy? Boy? “You’ll see them, girl.” I snipped.

I was then pelted in the head by my tunic, and I happily put it back on. It was still kind of chilly out, still early in the spring.

“I’ll be down soon! Let me know if you need anything up here!”

I climed up to watch her work. She didn’t say anything, so I assumed she knew I was there, but I was wrong.

I forgot she was naked, for one. Still, I stayed like the pervert in training I seem to be becoming. But watching her work is so hypnotizing, I just couldn’t help myself.

“Annnd done! Easy enough to make a halter top and some shorts, as well as some shoes like Senku has. I even had enough to keep a strip to tie my hair up!” She practically sang, never breaking tune of whatever song she was humming.

“What does Senku have?” I spoke up, perking up at the sound of my name on her lips.

“Clothes!!” she beamed as she proudly stood and twirled, showing off her hard work.

Cute. “Good, now that is settled, we move onto the next order of business. Survival.” I started pacing in front of the now seated woman, who is ever so patiently waiting for my thoughts to come tumbling out.

“Here’s the run-down. I’ve been awake for two months now. So far, I’ve been keeping myself going by rationing food, filtering water, staying just smart enough not to get myself killed by falling tree or hungry beasts. Real cutting-edge survival science, I know.” I kneel before her, pulling out and opening a rough little notebook made entirely of animal skin with rough little charcoal drawings and notes on each “page”.

“I’ve been running chemical trials, focusing on nitric acid production. It’s the key, or at least the closest thing we’ve got, to reversing petrification. Long story short? The stone shell acts like a biological stasis and the nitric acid eats through enough of it to re-trigger organic function without frying the body.” I can feel myself getting hyped up. This is exhilarating.

“Okay. Good start. I’m not good with the sciency stuff like that, but damn do I know how to survive and build from scratch. So, you deal with the big brain shit and I’ll get to ensuring we have stability here. I’ll need some help but I’m sure someone else will be woken up soon if there’s a pattern following this. I mean, I only woke up like two months after you so we may have to wait a bit but that’s no worry. My biggest concern is stable food, lots of firewood and maybe a wall on that shelter up there so the cold can’t get in so easily. Not only that, but I really want to know what happened to Japan during these 3700 years. I need to dig a test pit to see how far it’ll take to get down to subsoil, maybe we have some artifacts hidden in the dirt or there’s some proof of humans who somehow managed to make it out alive..” She was going on and on in that special way she does, focused and tuned out of everything around her.

I can’t deny getting like that from time to time, either.

She began wandering around, and after a while she was writing out her thoughts in the dirt, using a stick I had laying around the encampment. I watched as she wrote out plant names and did crude drawings for them, linking them up to a shabby map of Japan she made from memory. The gears in her head are turning, I can practically see steam pouring out of her ears.

“Oi, Senku! What stuff have you collected so far?” Damn is she loud.

“No need to shout, you foghorn. I’m right here.” I was committing the roadmap to memory. “Well, what I’ve got is a lot of nitric acid and some salt I pulled from seawater. I also have some animal snares, crude earthenware to store nitric acid and other things in, basic stone tools and rope, but that’s about it. I’ve been running on fumes these past two months, barely having enough steam to keep myself up. Luckily, with you here, our chances just went from astronomically impossible to stupidly hard, but doable.” I was tapping my chin now, glad to be out the red even a little more.

“So, we have the basics, aside from food and fresh water.” Her shoulders drooped and she let out a sigh.

“Ten billion points to you.” I turned to look at her.

She then let me know of her plan to go explore and began on her way, and I made a note that she went South. She’s pretty awful at directions, no matter what she wants to believe. I chuckle, thinking back to the first time we had properly hung out.

This girl Is so weird, why is she following me all the time? It was a sunny day in the throes of summer, hot and humid and sticky as ever. That girl was following me again and I have about had it with her sneaking around, as if that’s good enough to even be considered sneaking. More like comically hiding in very obvious places. “Why don’t you just come say hi?” I shouted at her, and she perked up like a stray dog.

“Hi! It’s nice to meet you! I really want to be your friend if that’s okay. I don’t know anyone yet and I just moved here from America in southwest Virginia because my dad found a job out here but he hasn’t taken me to meet anyone and I’ve seen you around and I thought you seemed interesting and I really want to study you!” she spoke a mile a minute and even sonic the hedgehog couldn’t make sense of what she was saying, in broken Japanese she was obviously only just learning.

Wait. Did she just say study?

“What do you mean, study?” I was intrigued.

She smiled proudly, as if no one ever bothers to ask. “I’m going to be an anthropologist! I need to know everything I can about people and you, my dear boy, are perfect for the task. You’re an outlier and I want to know why. So, be prepared for a lot of me. We can be friends, or I can be a creep, your choice.” She was blunt and overly honest too, and her voice has this weird twang that I could only pinpoint to old westerns or southern belles in media.

I want to study her, too. She certainly was an outlier too, and an eye for an eye is always best, I think.

A scream tore me out of my nostalgia, pain and rage and hurt all mixed in at once. I guess she was continuing what she cut off so abruptly earlier. I think I’ll go and make sure she doesn’t get too lost, at least. She’s the type to go dying right after coming back with her luck. Though, not like I can say anything, given my track record.

I find her not too far from the clearing, but she was moving fast. She was running, legs pumping with all they could and her eyes fighting to see through the tears. I watched as she tripped and stumbled over twigs and rocks and roots, never once making a sound to alert her to my presence. Eventually, she stops, and seems to realize how long its been. Its getting dark and chilly, I honestly should go and get her, but of course, she starts bathing in pitch darkness just cause she tripped into it. Is she asking to get a cold or what! I’ll have to scold her later..

Thankful for the darkness so I couldn’t see her nakedness, I nearly sighed with relief when she sounded like she was getting dressed and settling down for the night. Why I decided to do this next thing is beyond me, but still, I did. I felt my way to her, making sure she was sleeping, and I curled up behind her, moving her so her head was using my chest as a pillow and I had her fully held in my embrace. I sighed and rested my chin atop of head, her soft hair tickling my nose.

‘This is just so she doesn’t freeze to death out here. I need her, for Science. This is the only logical solution, after all.’ I was rambling in my head, not noticing that I, too was slowly drifting off in a way I hadn’t done since before. Before everything had been ripped away from me. From us.

I hope she was sleeping as well as I was about to. 

Self Insert Senku fanfic

Idk what I'm doing. Haven't even thought of a name yet. Check it.

Edit: I thought of a name.

From the Ground, Up ↑ Senku x Self-Insert

*Nondescript Character – This is a Self-Insert fan-fiction. A nickname is used for the main character, and she has little physical description outside of clothes, height, and hair. Bits of fabricated background given to drive plot.

Introduction

I awoke to the blaring screech that was my awful, horrible, evil, not- good alarm, and the bustling sound of life in the outside world. Too much to wake up to in my opinion. But beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. At least it was nice out and I was awake on time for once. I stood from my bed, shutting my window and turning off my alarm, which I kept on the other side of the room for motivation to get out of the bed. I stretched, yawned, and went to start my morning routine of brushing my teeth, throwing my hair into a banana clip, and getting my uniform on as quick as possible because I’m usually (always) late. Breakfast isn’t a worry, but coffee is for sure so I always make a quick latte with instant espresso before I go on my way.

Making sure to double check I have everything I need, I rush out of the door that I have locked and triple checked. In fact, I rush out so quick I nearly ruin said coffee on the shirt of some poor passerby that I barely even bother to look at as I’m shouting an apology and rushing past. Until a familiar voice rang out and stopped me in my tracks, “Good morning to you too, Sunspot.”

His tone was leaning towards annoyed, but the amused smirk gave away his true thoughts on my, ah, hasty greeting. “Suppose I wasn’t as late as I thought…Sorry for nearly running you down, Senku..” I sheepishly laughed out.

I was greeted with an eye roll and a protein bar shoved in my hands. “Eat, we both know that latte is all you’ve got for breakfast.”

“Well, aren’t you just such a sweetie pot pie to bring me breakfast-and even greet me at my front gate! To what do I owe this honor, oh great and all-knowing Senku-sama.” I spoke, my Appalachian drawl coming out more near the end of my sentence, and I went into a deep bow.

I got but a snort in response and a shove- playful but also a reminder of our current mission (that is-not being late for school). I rolled my eyes and began eating the protein bar with a happy hum. Thank goodness it was chocolate peanut butter-this guy knew my tastes well and I was not complaining one bit. Ever since I came here, around 2.5 years ago, I somehow ended up determined to make the grumpy teen my closest friend – to get in where few can. Not quite sure why, but usually when I get this feeling they always end up being a very good friend, and for now it seemed intuition was on a winning streak so far. So I followed him. Studied him – all in the name of science, of course, specifically anthropology. That’s my specialty, if we are comparing me to Senku in an academic sense. He was an interesting subject to observe, and it was an added bonus I got a good friend out of it too. Never pays to be alone in a place you’re unfamiliar in, that’s what my dad always told me, and thankfully I made friends quicker than I could say my first greeting. All because of this strange boy I decided to ‘study’. After all, he was the most un-human human I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Anyway- back to the point. We were close. Besties, one might say *note: Senku WILL NOT say this. She is delusional..or is she? 0.o*

And now, here he is, nearly three years later, awaiting her with sustenance. Oh, how I would swoon if it were any other guy – because isn’t free food just the dreamiest, but unfortunately this one for sure has an ulterior motive behind the simple breakfast gift. I still took it, I just know what’s coming. Always be prepared for any situation. “So, my dear boy, what can sensei help you with today? This couldn’t just be because you missed my pretty face so much that you made up a reason to be here?” I teased with a grin, walking backwards on the street, oblivious to legit everyone around me.

The slightest twitch could be seen in his eye, and was that some red on the tops of those ears of his that I saw? “I need your help with a project – specifically relating to rebuilding society from scratch. Think you can spare that ditzy brain of yours?” he said this almost with an air of nervousness, but I’m not really sure why he’d be nervous. It’s just me, after all.

But something didn’t seem quite right-why is the smartest guy I know asking my opinion on something he could probably crank out in like thirty minutes before school or something? Maybe I should play along out of curiosity.. but first, I must take my toll for him trying to be tricksy with me. “My help? Surely you know the book basics and advanced topic better than even I do- why ask me for help?” I tried to sound genuinely confused, which I suppose wasn’t hard since I was, admittedly, confused to a degree.

Its not like it’s a hard topic, truthfully. A ten-year-old could do this project.

His face just got stormy, like he himself didn’t know the answer to that, and shrugged nonchalantly. “Okay, spill it. What’s your angle for this project.” Right into business mode, because you really couldn’t ignore a friend in need, even if it was some sneaky bullshit.

“I wanted your opinion since you take into account emotions and behaviors more than I would. Not only that, but you have such a great grasp on the super small things I may overlook somehow.” He said casually, but you caught something he was trying to hide.

Fidgeting. A nervous trait not seen coming from the cool and calculated Ishigami Senku, not ever in these past 2.5 years. Not only that, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes either. ‘What gives?’ I wondered. “Okay, okay, you know I’m a sucker for flattery. You’ve got me hooked. Do we have a starting scenario for why we are rebuilding everything? Details, man I need DETAILS!” I got a bit overexcited and may have shouted near the end of that, whoops.

Sorry to everyone’s ears, I guess. He grinned, that fire coming back and whatever random nervousness that had been there passed as quickly as it came. Maybe it was just some weird coincidence, whatever. Not my business. You know what my business is, however? This project that Senku got me all hyped about. That I won’t be able to stop thinking about until it’s done. That I was so wrapped up in that I had no idea we had arrived and I was following my good buddy into the science club, where he goes every morning. I only did find out when I ran smack into a sturdy frame, that being Senkus stronger-than-I-thought chest. I grabbed my slightly hurting nose to dull the pain from me walking full force into this poor man, and muttered out a distracted “Ah shit, sorry, I was in my head again.”

He simply chuckled and went back to his whatever machine. He’s probably told me what it does at some point, but I usually forget pretty easy. Only thing I got room for in this noggin is anthropology/history/archaeology related. And cooking recipes. Lots of them.

Yes, it’s true, I have a Senku-level obsessive passion. Anything historical is my heroin, and even fake scenarios that involve human culture and the possibility of using historical knowledge gets me drawn in. And drawn in I was, because I was getting as much as I could from him. “Location of origin I am assuming will be Japan, or is there a specific starting-er, restarting-location that I need to consider? How many people are left, how many men, women, children and elderly are there? How many sick and injured? Did this happen from something like a war or some sort of a freak event? What technological-ah!” I was cut off from my rambling by a super soft and warm and did I mention soft? hand over my mouth.

Senku shut me up! How rude! I puffed and crossed my arms. “You were getting ahead of yourself-one question at a time Sunspot. Take a breath.” Senku was gently chastising me-though he had a good point.

Senku was smart, not superhuman. He can’t take my verbal vomit and turn it into results sadly. However, no one silences my greatness. So, doing an experiment of my own, I licked his palm. Result? Palm removed from face hole. Success! I cackled (think wicked witch of the west) and ignored the slight glare I got from our buddy in green. I heard a mumble, unsanitary or whatnot, but I was already tuned out of our interaction. I was back in my head over this world rebuilding project-thoughts going faster than a greased pig in a senior prank-and I truthfully forgot this was even for Senku. At this point, the project was mine, and maybe Senku could spruce it up a little with his big brain when I was done. Maybe. Then, a thought hit me. “When is this due?” I turned to him, his small bit of fluster not going unnoticed by me.

“We have some uh…time. It’s not due for a while, I hope, so don’t worry about that. You know how I am with these things.” His tone was blunt, but once again I noticed the red tipping his ears, and he said ‘I hope”, did he forget or something? Maybe he’s getting sick? I get closer, climbing on a stool to become eye level with him, and then I use an old trick my ma taught me for fevers. I, before he can know what I’m doing, place my lips on his forehead, much to the shock of literally everyone. Including Senku. “Hmm..you don’t seem to have a fever..”

I was ignoring his now very red face to look into his eyes and throat, looking or any signs of illness. “What the hell are you doing?” he practically pushed me away and right off the stool, my ass hitting tile and my chin hitting the desk on the way down. 

“Ow you dirty son of a bitch-I was checking if you had a fever!!! Your ears keep turning red and I thought you might be coming down with something. I’ll not check on your health again, that’s for sure.” I was holding my chin from the throbbing pain, I’m pretty sure I bit a slight hole in my cheek, too.

Then I tasted blood. Well, shit. I stood, dusted myself off, and spit into the nearest lab sink. That’s a lot more blood than it should be. Gross. I quickly rinse it down the drain and turn to my now admittedly less red lab buddy. “You made me bleed dumbass.” I grumbled through the lots of slobber and blood pooling in my mouth.

Shouldn’t this have kinda stopped? The blood seems to be getting worse and its becoming really hard to talk, which is basically all that I do. I try to think of what I can do, but there already a hand outstretched with a small piece of clean cloth. “Put it on the wound, and apply steady pressure for the next fifteen minutes. That should stop the bleeding.” Damn, not even a sorry?

Still, he was kind enough to help and I would not refuse. I slur out a thank you and very gracefully (ha) hold the cloth to the wound in my face. Yeouch. “You’re lucky I grew up the way I did or I’d probably be in tears right now.” I grumbled.

“Just make sure to rinse with saltwater- or a one-to-one ratio of hydrogen peroxide multiple times a day, especially after meals. Just don’t swallow em’.” He then started explaining everything I had asked before I had fallen.

Totally not pushed.

Anyway.

How the hell did he remember that? Maybe he is superhuman. “Anyway,” he started “Origin location? Yeah, I’m assuming Japan, obviously. Probably somewhere in the Kanto Region would be ideal, but you can go about that part as you please. Population wise, maybe around 120, but I’m not sure how they would have survived. Remember those birds I had been studying? Well, I-!” He was cut off by a loud Bang as the door to the classroom we were in slammed against the wall. In came Taiju, loud and boisterous as always.

“LISTEN UP, SENKUUU!” I nearly fell again from the surprise! “Theres no stopping me! It's gotta be today! After five long years of having feelings for Yuzuriha, I’m finally gonna confess my love!!” Everyone tensely looked over to us, or rather him, as he (very dramatically, might I add. Bro is the biggest drama queen I know) turned around from the machine he had in front of him-wait. Machine? The hell did that come from? Has it been here the whole time? Am I that oblivious? He then responded. “Interesting…Very interesting.” And with a deadpan look and a flat voice, “I’ll be cheering for you so hard from here in the science lab that my vocal cords will snap.”

I snorted. Like hell he would. Taiju didn’t get the memo, though. “Oh yeah? Thanks, Senku!” he was so happy, honestly it was adorable. Like seeing a kid look at their first Christmas tree. Senku liked to ruin these moments, though.

“Silence. I won’t cheer even one millimeter for you, you big oaf.” That was harsh.

“Wait, so which is it?!” Taiju bellowed.

“A fool who takes five whole years to say anything is the epitome of absurdity. So, allow me to provide you with a method so rational it’ll kill you.” He turned around from his doohickey holding a beaker, filled with a semi clear liquid.

“This will send your pheromone production into overdrive. Basically, it’s a love potion. Your success is ten billion percent assured if you drink this!” he said this, mind you, with the most evil scientist madman look I’ve ever seen.

“No fuckin’ way..” I was in awe. Love potions with science? Sneaky but intriguing. Senku ignored you, his gaze locked on Taiju who was staring intently at the beaker.

Then, he dumped it into the same sink I had spit in. Bad day for that sink, huh? With the look of an anime protag, he spoke. “Thanks, Senku, But…No thanks! I can’t go and cheat my way into her heart.” And just like that, he left, determined as ever.

“Was that really a love potion, Senku?” One fo the nerdy, blushing boys asked.

He gave them a look like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course not. Its just ordinary gasoline,” he used a lighter and the sink burst into flames. “I produced it from plastic bottlecaps.”

‘Really bad day for the sink.’ I thought with a slight snort. “Just think about the atomic structure of polyethylene, you fools! It’s merely long gasoline molecules chopped up by a few hydrocarbons. Simple enough to understand.” He had that look on his face he got when explaining something to me. ‘ The idiot stare..’

Then it dawned on me. “Wait, what if he drank that? You’re so mean to the poor guy.” I pouted at him.

He chuckled. “I was ten billion percent sure he wouldn’t drink it. He’s an honest fool.” His eyes revealed the fondness he held for the young man, they always betray him.

He pulled out two energy drinks, handing one over to me. “Well aren’t you full of surprises today!” I chirped, taking it gratefully and with a smile.

Our attention was then pulled to the chattering students at the window, all of whom were staring at a very nervous Taiju and obliviously sweet Yuzuriha. “I bet you 100 yen that he’ll get totally rejected.” Said one boy.

“Five hundred says she’ll reject him.” Said another.

“Put me down for a hundred!”

But Senku broke the cruelty like it was a stick of pocky. “Ten thousand yen says she’ll accept him contrary to expectations.” A small smile was on his face as he watched them.  

“Aw, aren’t you a big softie~” I giggled, but a look of shock from Senku made me stop in my tracks.

Next thing I knew, I was pulled close into Senku (huh?), his grip almost frantic and borderline possessive, and darkness. ‘Well, not much else I can do I guess. Freak out never, plan always. Might as well work on what Senku asked me to, we may need it after all.’

Senku

It’s 7:43 a.m.

I’m standing outside of her apartment, as I had been for ten minutes now, a protein bar in one hand and a slight grimace on my face from the sun in my eyes. The morning was hotter than I was hoping, but at least she doesn’t seem to be running late today. My hypothesis was proved when a very familiar over-caffeinated hurricane of a girl came rushing out her front door and right into me, nearly spilling her latte on my very clean white shirt. She didn’t even glance at me as she apologized and kept going. ‘Still unprepared and on autopilot I see.’ I chuckled. “Good morning to you too, Sunspot.” I shouted, an amused smirk tugging at the corners of my lips.

She skidded to a stop and turned to smile sheepishly at me. ‘Of course she would try to play it off.’ I thought with a snort.  “Suppose I wasn’t as late as I thought. Sorry for nearly running you down, Senku..” her voice, a slight twang of what I want to say is embarrassment ever so present.

She laughs again. Nervous habit of hers. I roll my eyes and hand her the protein bar. “Eat, we both know that latte is all you’ve got for breakfast.” She takes it with a grin like I had just gifted her a massive feast.

“Well, aren’t you just such a sweetie pot pie to bring me breakfast-and even greet me at my front gate! To what do I owe this honor, oh great and all-knowing Senku-Sama.”

There it is. That drawl. That ridiculous way of speaking she slips into when she’s teasing or flustered. I give her a light shove to keep her moving. We’re going to be late. Again. Not that I care about any of our classes, but punctuality matters.

She hums as she eats the bar – chocolate peanut butter, her favorite, not that I’d ever admit to remembering that on purpose. How I can recall her snack preferences but she can’t even remember her class schedule is beyond me.

 It’s been 2.5 years since she moved here. She’s an Anthropology nerd, talks a mile a minute about Neolithic kinship systems and symbolic behavior. She decided I was worth ‘studying’ for her own weird reasons, but it never really bothered me. Honestly, she’s... tolerable. Smart, if chaotic, and kind of interesting from a scientific standpoint. Annoying, but…the kind you don’t mind sticking around. She’s one of my closest friends at this point, honestly, but I’d rather be caught dead than admit that out loud.

“So, my dear boy, what can sensei help you with today? This couldn’t just be because you missed my pretty face so much that you made up a reason to be here?”

I twitch. Just slightly. Definitely not blushing.

“I need your help with a project – specifically relating to rebuilding society from scratch. Think you can spare that ditzy brain of yours?” I wanted her perspective on what would happen if we turned out like those birds I keep finding everywhere. Not entirely sure why I lied about the origin of my question, it’s not like me to panic even slightly.

But, ever the perceptive girl, she squints at me. She’s suspicious. Of course she is. She knows me too well.

“My help? Surely you know the book basics and advanced topic better than even I do-why ask me for help?”

I shrug, but I can feel the weight of her gaze. Damn it. She’s studying me now, not even hiding it. I felt it then-fidgeting. Something I hadn’t done since middle school chemistry club. “I wanted your opinion since you take into account emotions and behaviors more than I would. Not only that, but you have such a great grasp on the super small things I may overlook somehow.” I wanted to be casual, but for some reason I felt my ear heating up.

And just like that, she was hooked. I knew that would work, flattery always gets her. As if she had read my mind, “Okay, okay, you know I’m a sucker for flattery. You’ve got me hooked. Do we have a starting scenario for why we are rebuilding everything? Details, man I need DETAILS!” Her shouting scared away a nearby flock of birds, but she kept her focus on me.

Even if I had just been flattering her to say yes, it’s still true. She sees things that I ignore. People stuff. The glue of society. I need that if I want to build a blueprint that’s more than just technology and dreams.

And now, she’s practically bouncing with excitement. I grinned despite myself, relief washing over me. Nervousness? Gone. She didn’t suspect a thing. Before I knew it we were already at the science club. She didn’t even realize until she walked face-first into my body. Literally. “Aw, shit. Sorry, I was in my head again.” She rubbed her nose while I stifled a laugh.

She was already talking again, rattling off questions faster than most people could breathe. “Location of origin I am assuming will be Japan, or is there a specific starting - er, restarting - location that I need to consider? How many people are left; how many men, women, children and elderly are there? How many sick and injured? Did this happen from something like a war or some sort of a freak event? What technological - ah!”  I clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Breathe. One question at a time, Sunspot.”

She puffed up like a cat in the rain. Then – God help me – licked my hand.

Disgusting.

Effective.

I snatched it back with a scowl. “Unsanitary.” I muttered. She cackled like a cartoon villain and danced back into her brain again, already chewing on the hypothetical world we’d build. I barely had to explain anything. She was already too deep into it.

Then, she paused. “When is this due?”

Uh-oh.

“We have some… time,” I said flatly. “It’s not due for a while, I hope. Do don’t worry about that. You know how I am with these things.”

Why was I so nervous? I feel like an idiot. She squinted at me. Climbed onto a stool. Her face was close – too close – and before I could ask what she thought she was doing she leaned in and…

Kissed my forehead? What?

I pushed her back instinctively, harder than I meant to. She fell to the floor with a thud and cracked her chin on the table next to us. “Shit!” she hissed. “Ow you dirty son of a bitch-I was checking if you had a fever!!! Your ears keep turning red and I thought you might be coming down with something. I’ll not check on your health again, that’s for sure.”  She was clutching her chin in what I can only assume was pain. Then, I noticed something.

Blood.

Great, now I’ve injured the Anthropologist. Not gonna hear the end of this one. “Just make sure to rinse with saltwater- or a one-to-one ratio of hydrogen peroxide multiple times a day, especially after meals. Just don’t swallow em’.” I mumbled.

She then stood, dusted off, and spit into the nearest lab sink. That’s a lot more blood than I was expecting, and now I feel even worse. She turns to me and says “You made me bleed dumbass.” Slurring through the blood and spit.

I handed her a cloth, biting back my own guilt. “Put it on the wound and apply steady pressure for the next fifteen minutes. That should stop the bleeding.” She grumbled but took the cloth and my advice, easing my worry just a bit.

“Anyway,” I started “Origin location? Yeah, I’m assuming Japan, obviously. Probably somewhere in the Kanto Region would be ideal, but you can go about that part as you please. Population wise, maybe around 120, but I’m not sure how they would have survived. Remember those birds I had been studying? Well, I-!” I was rudely cut off by a loud Bang at the door- Taiju standing proud and very nervous.

“LISTEN UP, SENKUUU!” Beside of me, a certain girl nearly fell for the second time today.

 “Theres no stopping me! It's gotta be today! After five long years of having feelings for Yuzuriha, I’m finally gonna confess my love!!”

I turned to face him, taking my attention off the machine I had been patiently tinkering with before he bounded in. “Interesting…Very interesting.” Deadpan.

“I’ll be cheering for you so hard from here in the science lab that my vocal cords will snap.” I said without blinking.

I sheard a subtle snort beside of me.

Taiju wasn’t as good at catching on like she was. “Oh yeah? Thanks, Senku!” he was like a kid in a candy store.

“Silence. I won’t cheer even one millimeter for you, you big oaf.” I rescinded my support as fast as I had given it.

“Wait, so which is it?!” Taiju cried in confusion.

“A fool who takes five whole years to say anything is the epitome of absurdity. So, allow me to provide you with a method so rational it’ll kill you.” I turned towards him more, holding a beaker filled with gasoline and my best evil grin.

“This will send your pheromone production into overdrive. Basically, it’s a love potion. Your success is ten billion percent assured if you drink this!”

“No fuckin’ way..” she whispered next to me. ‘Gullible.’ I had to hold back a chuckle myself. Instead, I kept a steady and unflinching gaze on Taiju.

Then, he dumped it into the same sink she had spit in earlier. With a look of utter determination, he spoke. “Thanks, Senku, But…No thanks! I can’t go and cheat my way into her heart.” And just like that, he left, kicking up dust in his wake.  

“Was that really a love potion, Senku?” One of the other guys in science club asked with obvious nefarious intentions written all over his stupid little face.  

“Of course not. It’s just ordinary gasoline,” I used a lighter and the sink burst into flames. “I produced it from plastic bottlecaps.”

“Just think about the atomic structure of polyethylene, you fools! It’s merely long gasoline molecules chopped up by a few hydrocarbons. Simple enough to understand.” I snorted and gazed at everyone with a look of superiority – I knew they wouldn’t understand that.

“Wait, what if he drank that? You’re so mean to the poor guy.” Sunspot pouted next to me, disappointment obvious in her eyes.  

I chuckled. “I was ten billion percent sure he wouldn’t drink it. He’s an honest fool.” I then pulled out two energy drinks, handing one over to my lab partner.

“Well aren’t you full of surprises today!” she practically sang to me in response, taking the drink happily.

Our attention was then drawn to the chattering students at the window, all of whom were staring at a very nervous Taiju and Yuzuriha. “I bet you 100 yen that he’ll get totally rejected.” Said one boy.

“Five hundred says she’ll reject him.” Said another.

“Put me down for a hundred!”

“Ten thousand yen says she’ll accept him contrary to expectations.” I hated their doubting him, even if he was loud and stupid sometimes. Those two were ten billion percent in love with each other.

“Aw, aren’t you a big softie~” she giggled from beside of me, but I couldn’t even register it before I grabbed her and pulled her close to me in an instinctive act as an eerie green light descended over everyone as far as I could see.

Until I couldn’t. It was dark. And all I had were my thoughts to keep me company. So, I started counting.

[deerest-deer]

thinking really hard about logging into my old tumblr acc after being gone for like a year and a half cause i stumbled upon a post that led me to my old mutuals and i teared up a lil </3 but also i feel so ashamed i left without saying a word to anyone aaaa

[running-in-the-dark]

it's so funny when I rewatch a show but with a new/different/additional crush. like I'm rewatching the librarians with my partner right now and it just feels soo different lol

[cuntwrap--supreme]

Lol. Lmao even.

[musical-chick-13]

:) :) :) :) :)

[my-thirteenth-reason]

kicking my feet and giggling (<- just got apologised to)

[ambreiiigns]

if dazai's smart he locks up chuuya in jail and makes sure fyodor doesn't even Look at him if that mans gets his hands on corruption we're Done. not that chuuya would make an attempt at killing him after knowing all this ig but still. he might snap you know how he snaps sometimes he gets carried away :)

[emeraldincandescent]

Post on my dash about medical debt reminded me of the time tumblr saved me two grand. I don't think I told y'all about it because I am out of the habit of posting everything I do on tumblr lol

So. Last December, I had a bad cavity filled, and about a week later, I woke up with half of my face paralyzed. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, freaked me the fuck out. Fortunately I had some level-headed Discord friends who a) told me what Bell's palsy was so I could look it up and b) reminded me to call my dentist for an emergency appointment. Dentist was also pretty sure it was Bell's palsy, but urged me to go to the emergency room to get checked out, because one-sided facial paralysis is also a possible indicator of a stroke. And you don't fuck around with strokes.

Bell's palsy, if you, like me of 6 months ago, don't know, is a harmless paralysis/muscle weakness on one side of the face that can be caused by a variety of things. It usually goes away on its own after a few weeks but also you can speed up the process with steroids.

I was pretty sure I was not having a stroke, because I'm Red Cross first aid certified and I know the symptoms of a stroke, and while one-sided facial paralysis is one of them, I didn't have any of the others. Also, I had quit my shitty job in October, which meant I had a shiny new marketplace health insurance plan and hadn't even touched my deductible. But I called my parents from the car and they urged me to get checked out and promised to help me pay off the emergency room bill if I needed it, because they're good people and they love me even if they drive me crazy sometimes. So off I went to the nearest emergency room.

Emergency room staff also didn't think I was having a stroke, because I waited ALL AFTERNOON, periodically having a new person come up to me and ask me to smile, hold both arms out to the side, press down on their hands, and tell them what month and year it was. (They don't ask who the president is anymore. Hmm, I wonder why.) One guy had me drink a cup of water while he watched. I cannot stress enough that I did not have any medical tests other than a physical examination: no CT scans or MRIs, no IV drugs or blood draws, nothing.

I get diagnosed with Bell's palsy and given a prescription for Prednisone. And then they give me a phone number and tell me to talk to this person about administrative stuff. So I call, and the dude on the phone verifies my name and date of birth and insurance information, and then he says, "It looks like your copay today is going to be $2400. How would you like to pay?"

I am, to this day, kind of impressed that he didn't even stutter over that number, but I assume working in a medical call center drains your entire soul. At this point, it's about 7pm, and I've been in the hospital since 2pm, and I'm stressed because half my face doesn't work, and I know that I can't afford $2400 because I quit my shitty job with nothing lined up back in October. But, I still remember every tumblr post I've ever read about health insurance and the medical system and how you can negotiate down a bill. I am not looking forward to this process, it sounds like a pain in the ass, but the alternative is paying $2400, so I say the magic words: "Send me an itemized bill."

I kinda expected the guy to try and get me to pay up front, but he just says "Ok" and finishes up the process. I get discharged, go to the only open pharmacy at that time of night to get my Prednisone, have the pharmacist tell me the prescription isn't written right and he can't fill it, go home, and have a screaming sobbing meltdown because I have used up every single milligram of cope in my entire body. (I got my steroids eventually, and the Bell's palsy cleared up in a couple weeks.)

A few weeks later, I get the bill in the mail. I brace myself and open it...

$300.

Turns out, after going through insurance and processing and everything, they couldn't actually find $2400 worth of stuff to charge me for. Shocking! Who could have predicted!

I might have been able to argue it down even more, but I was fed up with entire thing, so I paid the $300 just to be fucking done with it. Sometimes the cheapest way to pay is with money.

What if I had paid that $2400 up front? Do I think they would have been like, "Oh, oops!" and refunded me $2k? Well, possibly, but I am not optimistic.

So, thank you to everyone who has ever posted about navigating the US healthcare system on tumblr. Because of you, I knew how to handle this situation even when I was tired and stressed.

Don't forget to ask for an itemized bill, folks.

[ms-demeanor]

Do you have thoughts about the changes to Firefox's Terms of Use and Privacy Notice? A lot of people seem to be freaking out ("This is like when google removed 'Don't be evil!'"), but it seems to me like just another case of people getting confused by legalese.

Yeah you got it in one.

I've been trying not to get too fighty about it so thank you for giving me the excuse to talk about it neutrally and not while arguing with someone.

Firefox sits in such an awful place when it comes to how people who understand technology at varying levels interact with it.

On one very extreme end you've got people who are pissed that Firefox won't let you install known malicious extensions because that's too controlling of the user experience; these are also the people who tend to say that firefox might as well be spyware because they are paid by google to have google as the default search engine for the browser.

In the middle you've got a bunch of people who know a little bit about technology - enough to know that they should be suspicious of it - but who are only passingly familiar with stuff like "internet protocols" and "security certificates" and "legal liability" who see every change that isn't explicitly about data anonymization as a threat that needs to be killed with fire. These are the people who tend not to know that you can change the data collection settings in Firefox.

And on the other extreme you've got people who are pretty sure that firefox is a witch and that you're going to get a virus if you download a browser that isn't chrome so they won't touch Firefox with a ten foot pole.

And it's just kind of exhausting. It reminds me of when you've got people who get more mad at queer creators for inelegantly supporting a cause than they are at blatant homophobes. Like, yeah, you focus on the people whose minds you can change, and Firefox is certainly more responsive to user feedback than Chrome, but also getting you to legally agree that you won't sue Firefox for temporarily storing a photo you're uploading isn't a sign that Firefox sold out and is collecting all your data to feed to whichever LLM is currently supposed to be pouring the most bottles of water into landfills before pissing in the plastic bottle and putting the plastic bottle full of urine in the landfill.

The post I keep seeing (and it's not one post, i've seen this in youtube comment sections and on discord and on tumblr) is:

Well-meaning person who has gotten the wrong end of the stick: This is it, go switch to sanguinetapir now, firefox has gone to the dark side and is selling your data. [Link to *an internet comment section* and/or redditor reactions as evidence of wrongdoing].

Response: I think you may be misreading the statements here, there's been an update about this and everything.

Well-meaning (and deeply annoying) person who has gotten the wrong end of the stick: If you'd read the link you'd see that actually no I didn't misinterpret this, as evidenced by the dozens of commenters on this other site who are misinterpreting the ToU the same way that I am, but more snarkily.

Bud.

Anyway the consensus from the actual security nerds is "jesus fucking christ we carry GPS locators in our pockets all goddamned day and there are cameras everywhere and there is a long-lasting global push to erode the right to encrypt your data and facebook is creating tracking accounts for people who don't even have a facebook and they are giving data about abortion travel to the goddamned police state" and they could not be reached for comment about whether Firefox is bad now, actually, because they collect anonymized data about the people who use pocket.

My response is that there is a simple fix for all of this and it is to walk into the sea.

(I am not worried about the updated firefox ToU, I personally have a fair amount of data collection enabled on my browser because I do actually want crash reports to go to firefox when my browser crashes; however i'm not actually all that worried about firefox collecting, like, ad data on me because I haven't seen an ad in ten years and if one popped up on my browser i'd smash my screen with a stand mixer - I don't care about location data either because turning on location on your devices is for suckers but also *the way the internet works means unless you're using a traffic anonymizer at all times your browser/isp/websites you connect to/vpn/what fucking ever know where you are because of the IP address that they *have* to be able to see to deliver the internet to you and that is, generally speaking, logged as a matter of course by the systems that interact with it*)

Anyway if you're worried about firefox collecting your data you should ABSOLUTELY NOT BE ON DISCORD OR YOUTUBE and if you are on either of those things you should 100% be using them in a browser instead of an app and i don't particularly care if that browser is firefox or tonsilferret but it should be one with an extension that allows you to choose what data gets shared with the sites it interacts with.

[slimepuparibaba]

18+ NSFW CALEB HEADCANON, HEAR ME OUT! IF YOU ARE A MINOR THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING DO NOT TOUCH THIS WITH A 90-FOOT-POLE

ALSO I SOUND LIKE A MADMAN BUT HEAR ME OUT OK JUST... JUST HEAR ME OUT--

caleb gets worse and more depraved the longer sex goes on

HEAR ME OUT. JUST... JUST HEAR ME OUT.

The more he has you, the less restraint he has. by the time you're spent, he's PROBABLY STILL GOING SO LONG AS YOU DON'T ASK HIM TO STOP OR YOU DO NOT USE THE SAFE WORD (he abides by safe word and is heavy on consent, never assume otherwise)

It'll start with him on top of you, probably being rough (because let's be so real here Caleb is a freak and you are too), doing the usual, he'd encourage you to squirt, to cum, he'd whisper how filthy you are and how you're so perfect for him. he'll ask if you're aware about the size difference between you and him and how he could easily crush you, how he could ruin you for anyone else (oh but you would like that, wouldn't you baby? is probably what he'd ask)

I'M SAYING HE GETS WORSE AS TIME GOES ON. LET ME COOK HERE—HE GETS EXPONENTIALLY WORSE AND MORE UNHINGED THE LONGER THE SEX CONTINUES.

you think you're getting overstimulated? man's trying to get his cock milked over and over again, he's AIMING to be overstimulated. he wants to feel the warmth, the tightness, he wants to merge your flesh into one because HE IS THAT OBSESSED WITH YOU—

at some point he'd lose it entirely, start rambling about other things you could do.

"want me to tie you up, huh? use that little baton from when we first reunited, that thing in interrogations? oh you want that soooo bad don't you? want a collar around your little neck, want me to leash you and drag you around the room? you want me in uniform, want me to be gloved, spank you for misbehaving? how about i use my evol, fuck you against the wall, the ceiling? zero gravity even, drag you down on my cock? or maybe you wanna resonate, huh? wanna hear the disgusting things i think about, feel the way i feel whenever i thrust in and out of you?"

YEAH HE RAMBLES MORE THE LONGER THE SEX GOES ON. BECAUSE HE'S LOSING HIS GODDAMN MIND.

like he will start spouting out the most depraved thoughts he has of you the longer it goes, confessions spilling from his mouth. he's good at restraining, really, he is, but the longer he's inside you, the more of you he's tasted, THAT MAN? GONE. RESTRAINT? BYEEEEEEE

because you feel so good, and now his moans are turning into full on whimpers, and the moment you start seeming tired, and the moment he knows you've been going for WAY TOO LONG, he'll start bargaining

"I promise this'll end in seven minutes, just seven more minutes, need seven more minutes in heaven with you please please, please just please—"

and then when you PASS that seven minute mark (he's so invested), he finally becomes so whiny and apologizing

"I'm a filthy dog, they're right, I'm a disgusting mutt, I'm a beast, I'm a gross pervert, all I want is to take you and break you and rebuild you and mold you, I want you all to myself, I want to keep you here forever and fuck you like this forever, fuck, I'm a selfish disgusting bastard, I can't—"

he'll start raving on and on about how addicted he is, how he can't live without you, how you feel so good that he can't breathe, how he wants to stay right there with you, never leave, keep you there, breed you, and how he knows that he's a gross, disgusting pervert who's so honed in on fucking you out of your mind because it feels too good, he loves you so much, he needs you, he CRAVES you, but he's such a disgusting person and you're a divine being that's giving a sinner like him a chance--

Promise when he comes down from his high or you say the safe word that he'll return to normal and probably regret pushing it too far, ask if he did too much, etc.

he'll give you aftercare, he'll help you if you feel wobbly, he'll apologize over and over again for pushing your limits, say that you did so well and thank you for putting up with him...

...just... just know if you encourage him he will get even worse and you are in trouble

This man needs to be restrained and he would gladly BE restrained cuz the moments restraints are off and he gets a piece of you, KNOW HE WILL GET EXPONENTIALLY WORSE

(and if you're into that you should rile him up actually)

[minbon]

🐰 JJK Fics 🐰

a.k.a. the fics that introduced me to a whole new obsession.

or in other words... i thought i was never into jjk, but these fics proved me wrong 😩😩😩

°°°°°°•

One Night Stand by @buryhny (ceo!jk, a,f,s, pregnancy, slowburn) ["wanna go upstairs?"]

Sweet & Spicy by @ktownshizzle (fluff, idol!au, strangers to ?) [“Are you also on the menu?”] (this is a drabble to K's T&C)

Play pretend ! by @frmisnow (smut, angst , fwb) ["Fuck, I think I like you"]

Just a Veil by @jjungkookislife (430 words BUT the angst in here???) ["You would never be Jungkook’s bride."]

Navigating Tides by @jjungkookislife (exes to lovers, a, f, s) [“Let’s make up for lost time.”]

RUN [ I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII] by @neonlights92 (arranged marriage, gang au) [“I suppose I should welcome you to the family, ...Mrs Jeon.”]

Colour Me In by @taegularities (fwb, fake dating, college!au; f, a, s) ["I need you to be my boyfriend. Please.”]

Ruin you (ft. kth) by @taegularities (established relationship, fwb; f, a, s) [“Do you really want that so bad?”]

Mature by @jiminrings (angst, fluff, f2l) ["What I'm not okay with is that you didn't even give me the chance.” ]

fifth wish by @jiminrings (a,f, unrequited love (at first)) [“For us to never see each other again.” ]

how long will we fall by @jiminrings (soulmate au, unrequited love (at first), a, f) [“What happens if your soulmate doesn’t want you?” ]

Chasing Cars by @oddinary4bts (brother's best friend, s, a, f) [“You fucking touch her, you’re dead.”]

tolerate it by @back2bluesidex (angst, breakup) [Yes. Yes you are not her. ]

Poison by @back2bluesidex (s, a, unrequited love) [“I pick my poison and it’s you.” ]

and they were roommates (ft. kth) by @hoseok666 (college au, sloooooowburn) [“Hi, new roommate!”]

WINE Series by @hoseoksluna (smut) [“If I were to have a glass of wine with you.. Then, there would be no party to go to.”]

Little Juice (WINE drabble) by @hoseoksluna (smuuuuut) [“You must be thirsty after all that dancing”]

Mutual help by @personasintro (fakedating au, slow burn, a, s, f) ["Can you pretend to be my girlfriend?" ]

Pour up (ft. kth) by @jungkxook (smuuuut) ["Pour up, baby girl.”]

Maid for you (ft kth) by @forgottenpasta (smuuuut, dvp) ["Will you let me clean you up, doll?”]

Just Friends by @kinktae (bf2l , s, f, a) ["You just love to run your mouth, don't you, baby girl?"]

Clandestine by @junghelioseok (f,s, brother's bestfriend) [“I knew you were into me.”]

••••••°

H A P P Y R E A D I N G (~°○°~)

[erwinsvow]

𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐛𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 — 𝐣.𝐚.

summary: you're too young for me and this is wrong and i'm supposed to be teaching you float around jack abbot's head. but every time, knowing that he shouldn't, he still leans in to kiss you.

word count: 17.9k

tags: first year!reader (but no age mentioned + she has a stupid nickname), illicit workplace relationship, lots of guilt/we shouldn't do this (mostly from jack), yearning/pining, shea's version of slowburn and a bubbly reader and much too much dialogue, regular hospital talk/mention of injuries/death and fourth of july special scene <3 maybe out of character for the other doctors but i tried my best!, smut (fingering, orgasm denial, dirty on-call room sex, creampie because.. duh).

note: based off of the intern baking for jack during his bad week blurb, also known as i can't help myself

jack abbot stares at you, then down at the containers in his hand filled with cookies that you baked for him after he spent the better part of a week yelling at you, and then back at you. 

and then he laughs for the first time all week and wonders to himself—what the hell am i going to do with you?

because truly, you are something else. jack’s seen you in passing during day shift sign-offs at seven pm, and occasionally walking to the lockers a touch early. reflecting back, while placing the yellow tupperware into his own locker, he thinks he’s even seen you as early as six-thirty in the morning some day, if not most days.

he can’t resist—who told you about his sweet tooth, he’s not actually sure—but he opens up the lid. just like you had told him before you walked away to start your shift, the round chocolate-chip cookies don’t have any sea salt on them, not that he minds.

he bites into one and chews on it while trying to remember what else he knows about you—all that comes to mind is your teary eyes day before last when he yelled at you over something he can’t remember right now.

it hadn’t been that big of a deal—there was a patient presenting with disrupted kidney function and you hadn’t discontinued their nsaids on your initial evaluation. the solution, usually, is a stern conversation and to inform you for next time. no ibuprofen for the guy with bad kidneys, something you would have figured out in the next hour even if they hadn’t immediately caught it.

but for some reason (he knows the reason, he thinks grimly) he had yelled instead. raised his voice, caused a scene. every nurse nearby had looked up and started whispering—and he knows how the gossip goes in this place.

even ellis had intervened and dragged you away, glancing back to give him a look something akin to what the fuck, man? 

because he doesn’t yell—it’s not hardwired in him to do so. he was raised in a loud house but he’d almost looked to avoid it everywhere he went, trying his hardest to not become like his father in that way. 

the realization that he never yelled when his wife was still alive hits him like a slap to the face every time. he can’t help it, and he’s sure everyone justifies it for him. even when he’d yelled at you and you’d stood in front of him like a kicked, teary-eyed puppy, he hadn’t realized he’d done it again—taken out his frustration on the nearest thing. he’s sure that parker’s with you in some corner, telling you how he usually never yells and it’s his week from hell and you’ll see the real abbot next week. 

that doesn’t take away from the fact that he made you cry, though. 

nor does it erase the fact that you made him cookies. quite frankly, delicious cookies. maybe the best ones he’s ever had. soft and chewy and made with semisweet chocolate chips. before he realizes it, it’s seven pm sharp and he’s eaten the whole thing, shoving his go-bag into the locker carefully on top of the container you gave him and going out to join you for sign-offs.

and he doesn’t realize it either, not until you stare at him for a moment too long, garnering a cough from mckay as she tries to tell you about the patients from the chairs, the ones that you’ll be following up on and taking care of for the rest of the evening. 

there’s chocolate smudged on his fingers, and he’s licking it off, trying to pay attention to robby—who looks at him confused, and then glances at you, and turns back to jack almost… knowingly—while you’re paying attention to him.

and jack, well, everyone knows about jack’s staring thing. they call it just that—he has a problem with overdoing eye contact. he doesn’t know when he picked it up, though he’s sure it’s another one of those military attributes he pretends he doesn’t have. what he does know is that he’s always been able to tell when someone’s looking at him, like you are now.

jack turns his head just to look in your direction for a moment and he finds you already facing in his direction. your gaze quickly goes from his eyes to his fingers and then back to cassie, and he doesn’t have to be near you to know that you’re flushed.

then he stops himself—he doesn’t have any business digging around in your thoughts, wondering what exactly made you look away, was it the fact that he turned to look or that he already knew you were staring—and for the first time all night, he tries to pay attention to robby.

fuck. is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of your time on nights? resisting the urge to turn and lock eyes with you, to make sure you’re there and make sure you’re looking, even when he knows you are? 

no, no. he’s not that guy. he’s not the guy who obsesses over the nice, pretty intern and accepts her cookies when he’s the one who made her cry to begin with. 

you have a place in this hospital, and it’s to learn and grow and better yourself under his guidance, not stay nestled in his thoughts that linger somewhere between inappropriate and really inappropriate.

no, what jack wants to do is get you alone somewhere quiet so he can apologize, and make sure that you believe him. 

rarely does jack abbot get what he wants.

you’re talking with mckay still, going on about something at a mile a minute, in more of a carefree tone that he’s never been on the receiving side of. every time he’d spoken to you the previous week, he’d been angry and you’d been dejected. it’s not how teaching is supposed to be, especially not jack’s teaching. he’s always been proud of how he treats residents, how they flourish under him, how they end up liking nights like john and parker did. 

he catches the ending half of your conversation with cassie.

“-but the recipe doubles really, really easily, so if you make them and you feel like you want more, because, i mean, i made them for a bake sale once-”

“and it’s always a crowd pleaser?” cassie asks, tilting her head at you, looking as focused as jack has ever seen her. he doesn’t know the context, though he’s sure it has something to do with harrison and his school. 

you, on the other hand, are completely engrossed in the conversation. as though cassie’s son and his school’s bake sale are the most important things on the planet.

“always! it’s so good. but just make a test batch—it’s so easy. half the recipe, try it out, and then if you like it, you can use the extras to let people try it before they buy it-” you’re interrupted, parker calls out your name somewhere in the distance.

the day shift has began to filter out. robby pats jack’s shoulder firmly before muttering i’m outta here, but jack stands frozen in place, wanting for some reason, to hear the end of your conversation.

he didn’t know people could be so passionate about baked goods—but he guesses it makes sense. for you, that is.

“actually, that’s not a bad idea. you sent me the recipe already?”

“yes, i texted it. but i can email it if you want, or i-”

jack actually laughs—you’re so eager to get cassie this recipe. he thinks you have more energy right now than he’s had all day.

he hears cassie thank you, and he gets a glimpse of you beaming at her, a bright, pretty smile, before the charge nurse calls out his name and his shift really starts. 

shen jumps on with him and he sees you somewhere in the distance, probably running through your game plan for some patient in the chairs with ellis. you smile brightly at her too, and for the first time in a long time, jack has a thought that he deems in the category of uncontrollable. 

he’s a disciplined guy, always has been. thoughts don’t consume him like wildfire, rather they run through a series of checks and balances before he even fully thinks them. last week his system had been all off, leading to you getting yelled at in the first place, and right now, the whole thing seems like it’s gone haywire, focused on one thing in particular.

what does he have to do to get you to smile at him like that?

+

the night shift is a place of routine. jack wants to get you on a trauma with him, wants to show you what he’s like when he’s of sound mind and not thinking about how last week, a couple of years ago, he had the worst day of his life. and then a couple years before that, another worst day of his life. 

he has an overpowering urge to show you what he’s like on a normal week. he can even picture it in his head—handing you gloves and asking you questions that help you run the trauma, to get you in the habit of approaching the cases like he does. the questions are to make you believe in yourself—if you know the answers, you could have run this whole thing by yourself. if you get something wrong or don’t know, he throws in an easier one next time. 

you might be a little worried at first but you’d get the hang of it. and then, after the patient was stable and he got to tell you good job, you’d do it. smile at him, beam up at him like you’ve been doing to the others. the kind that makes your eyes light up, makes little lines crinkle in the corners of your face, lets him see your lips—well, that’s not important.

what is important is that you realize that jack abbot is there to help you, not to make things worse. that’s the side of him he wants you to see.

but unfortunately, the night shift is a place of routine. interns are on chairs, getting every move double-checked by a senior resident. there’s enough hands on the day shift to allow first years to jump on every incoming but nights are not nearly as well distributed.

so, you and jack fall into a routine—you both show up early for your shifts, walk to the lockers together in silence. sometimes you stare and he catches you, and other times you catch him. you think about asking him what he thought about the cookies, or if you can get your tupperware back, but then you stay silent and head out into the chaos.

one day at six forty-five, he sees you looking at him while mel is trying to tell you something that you are decidedly not paying attention to. after he looks your way, you turn back to her and start profusely apologizing.

he turns back to robby, missing half of what he said. 

“you okay?” robby asks, gaze flickering towards jack, and then back at you, somewhere in the distance. jack nods. “how’s she been doing?”

he doesn’t have to say your name for jack to know who he’s talking about.

“fine. good. i haven’t gotten much of a chance to teach her, so-”

“right. teach.” robby says it and looks at jack differently—as if he’s amused. 

“what?” jack snaps, suddenly irritated by the line of questioning.

“nothing. this week’s probably gonna be her last on nights, just so you know.” before jack can respond, robby puts his hands up in defense. “don’t shoot the messenger. apparently we’re supposed to be cycling interns and r-twos so they all get to experience nights. something about equality and fairness. i don’t know but you can read the memo.”

“fairness?” jack grumbles, though it’s mostly to himself. he’s annoyed, and he knows why, and he doesn’t like the reason why. “they used to put us on nights for three months at a time and the only memo i ever got was too bad.” 

“careful, jack,” robby says, a little too sing-songy for his current mood. “you keep talking like that and she’s gonna think you’re an old grump.”

jack glares up at robby, wanting to reply but nothing biting comes to mind. 

“you have a good night, jack,” robby says and jack mutters back a yeah, yeah. he turns to watch robby leave, but somehow, his gaze still ends up back on you, like it always does. it’s harder still throughout the course of the night, nerves somehow taking over him every time he wants to tell you to drop whatever patient’s hand you’re stitching and jump on this trauma with him. 

the vision he’s been chasing, aimlessly at that, seems further and further away as the hours pass each night. your shift is filled with first degree burns and sprained ankles and kind-of, sort-of allergic reactions, when it should be spent by his side, learning everything he has to offer you before you’re back with the day shift.

because that’s why he’s so invested in making sure you’re on a trauma with him—because of how much he has to teach. parker and john haven’t said a bad thing about you, and even the day crew during passing exchanges—nothing besides wondering how you have so much energy at seven am without a cup of coffee in your system. 

that is why he’s so invested—right?

on your last shift of nights for this block, you show up a little extra early. you think you can avoid jack by doing so, but he comes early too, wanting to catch you alone, if just for a moment. 

you walk with your hands filled with more tupperware that he recognizes. the very same containers are sitting on his countertop right now, the contents mostly eaten. he doesn’t want to finish the last of your cookies even though they’ll get stale soon. and why that is, he pretends to not know the answer.

he follows you into the break room at six twenty-five while you open the lids and set out napkins. 

“oh,” you say, surprised when you hear the door click behind you. you didn’t think anyone would have noticed you sneaking in there. “dr. abbot-”

“listen, kid, i need to-” jack’s eyes, without intending to, fall from your confused expression to the table in the room. you have more cookies—maybe snickerdoodle—in the containers. “what’s this for?”

“it’s my last day on nights.”

“so you made cookies?”

“it’s to thank everyone,” you ramble on, like you have to justify the idea to jack. “for being so patient with me. interns are already so annoying and then on top of that when they’re not sleeping. i just thought it would be nice. and there’s no nuts or chocolate so it’s more allergy friendly, you know. i-i’m gonna stop talking now.”

“no-” he says, too quickly, and you look just as confused as ever. your eyebrows knit and your mouth opens a bit and he stares at you, while you stare at him. in fact, jack wishes you wouldn’t look at him like this—cute and confused and too nice for your own good. “no, i mean-” 

what does he mean? what he really wants to say is please don’t stop talking, but all that comes out is—

“that’s…nice. i’m sure they’ll appreciate it. and interns, well, they’re supposed to be annoying. that’s how you learn.” jack pauses, thinking he’s done well, that this is a good place to stop. “not that you’re annoying, that’s not what i-”

“thank you, dr. abbot,” you supply, smiling at him. and god, if it isn’t exactly how he thought it’d be—your bright smile feels like it sends a halo of warmth over the person you’re looking at, and this time, it’s lucky him. your face changes too, the confusion and concern melt away and are replaced with sheer joy, like you’re thankful for every bumbling word in a fairly awkward conversation. 

he’s never been like this, he thinks, or maybe the confidence that surged through him during every trauma had nestled somewhere permanently, constantly hitched along into his real life. he’s never considered himself a don juan but he’s not a stranger to women either—and he certainly doesn’t stutter through sentences and backtrack because he’s worried he’s offended you. that doesn’t happen to him. it’s never happened to him.

but he supposes, taking in how you smile with your entire face and what else he can do to get you to stay smiling, that there’s a first time for everything.

“you were saying something? when you came in?” you ask.

“yes, uh-” 

damn it. what was he saying? he can’t remember. it’s distracting—you, the cookies, your radiant smile, all of it. especially when he thinks about a week ago today, when you were standing in front of him with your wet eyes and wobbly chin, when he was angry about something he can’t even piece together right now. right—the apology. 

“i just wanted to apologize for my behavior last week. i-i hope you-”

but before he can finish the sentence the door opens. it’s dana.

“jack, robby’s asking for you. three incoming mvc’s and mckay left early for something with her son and no one else is here yet, and-” she stops, glancing between you, jack, and the cookies on the table. “hey, kid. you jumping in?” 

you glance to jack when dana asks that, big eyes staring at him for permission. you really shouldn’t have done that, because he thinks you’re only making all the rest of this much worse, whatever he’s been pushing down and burying for the last week that seems determined to hit the surface today. 

“tell him we’re coming,” jack says, and though he had more to say to you, he has to stop for now. on the walk to the trauma bay, jack recaps how he runs through traumas with you. he ties your gown while you pull gloves in his size, and then the ones in your size.

when you hand him the gloves, he gets a look into your eyes—pretty, nervous, excited. in that order.

“what do we have?” jack asks, and trail behind him momentarily, taking a big breath before walking out and following him into the trauma bay. robby jumps on the first ambulance with heather and leaves the second to you and jack. you see frank and mel walking towards the third one, still driving up.

the paramedic starts rattling off the vitals and the patient keeps speaking over him, thrashing up and trying to crane her neck despite the c-spine collar wrapped around it. 

you know what you’re trained to do in these situations—listen to ems, treat the patient, figure out what she keeps interrupting for after you’re positive that she’s not going to die on your table. but some part of you just can’t let it sit like that. you can’t stand when someone thinks you’ve ignored a part of their sentence, much less ignore them entirely.

“wait, wait,” you tell the paramedic as they’re wheeling the gurney into one of the trauma rooms. all around you, the nurses have started their work, setting up iv’s and rolling in portable x-rays. they set aside blood and wait by the phone to call for the surgical consult or to clear up ct as soon as you and jack decide the patient needs one.

“excuse me?” he replies, turning to look at jack with an expression that asks are we listening to her? and even jack looks at you a little confused while you get closer to the patient, until you’re in her line of sight and she stops moving so much. the noise around you will never fully go quiet, but it dims down for thirty seconds.

“you have to stop moving so much, ma’am. what are you trying to say?”

“i really think we should-” the paramedic interjects, but you snap your head towards him, trying to figure out how to say shut up without really saying it.

“can you please, just give me a second?”

“my daughter, my daughter, she’s hurt, please-” she responds, not thrashing anymore, just crying.

jack looks between you and the patient for a moment. this case is surgical—she practically went through the windshield. there’s glass that needs to be removed, a concussion, possibly a chest tube, and an airway if she crashes. 

“you guys need hands in here?” you hear trinity ask from somewhere behind you.

jack knows you have a choice here, and he thinks, for a moment, you’ll tell her to find the daughter while you finish this trauma with him. it’s for your own learning, your education. it’s to show you what the some of the worst outcomes from car accidents look like, things to check for in the future even if your patient looks fine.

“i’m gonna find your daughter, okay? but i need you to stop moving so they can take care of you. because she needs her mom, too.” you turn to santos, and trinity jumps in while you walk out. jack catches one glimpse of you before turning to his patient, laying still and compliant, crying silently. 

an hour later, most of the day shift has gone home. trinity even stops at bed 19 where you’re suturing the little girl’s arm while she drinks a juice box and waits for a head ct in case she has a concussion too. 

“when is it gonna be my turn on nights? abbot is so cool. i put in the chest tube and got to bring her up to surgery.”

you get an uneasy feeling in your chest thinking about someone else on nights with jack in your position—not the yelling, but rather the apology he never got to finish. how sincerely he looked at you when you left to find the daughter instead of finishing up with your patient—maybe it was a mistake. maybe he’ll be upset with you, but it doesn’t matter, since it’s your last shift, anyways.

“and those cookies are fantastic. alright, thanks bubbles. i’ll see you back on days.”

“bubbles? wait, those cookies weren’t for you-” you call out after her, but she walks away without responding. you turn back to the little girl.

“there’s cookies?”

“yes,” you sigh, taking your seat again. her arm is nearly done, just needs a bandage. dad is on his way, the social worker is informed, and someone should be coming over to take over to watch her until ct is ready. “i can give you one after your dad gets here, if he’s okay with it. but for now you have to rest.”

she asks you if her mom is going to be okay, and in truth, you don’t know the answer. you should, but you don’t. you excuse yourself when one of the nurses gets there to monitor her, and try to find parker so you can move onto the next. 

jack must be in another trauma, because you don’t see him anywhere and though you’re not eager to get yelled at again, you do need to finish the conversation from earlier.

and you need your tupperware back.

you end up seeing six patients, getting four of them ready to be sent home and two waiting for beds upstairs and consults that are taking far too long. parker pulls you aside while she chews on one of your snickerdoodles.

“can you do nights more often? these cookies are great, bubbles.” 

“okay, when did this catch on? i know trinity likes her nicknames but this is the first time i’ve heard it. also, what the hell does it even mean?”

parker looks at you with a tilt of her head.

“seriously?”

“bubbles? maybe something like, i don’t know, crybaby, i would have understood.” you pause, hesitating, and then glancing up from the screen you’ve been staring at, your half-assed attempt at a proper note. “wait, how long has she been calling me that?”

“since your first day. but it doesn’t sound like nearly as much of an insult as it used to.”

at least parker will give it to you straight.

“can i ask you something? about dr. abbot?” you don’t know where the surge of confidence comes from, but you think you need to ride the wave to some answers before your shift ends. you glance at your watch while parker does the same. almost midnight.

“i’ll give you five minutes. by the way, he was in the break room if you want to ask him directly.”

“really?

“yeah. shoveling down cookies. you’re gonna give him pre-diabetes.”

“really?” and it’s hard to hide your smile, entire face lighting up. “it’s my favorite recipe. well, second favorite, i guess. my roommate in medical school had a nut allergy so i always made snickerdoodles for her, but those brownies i made for him are probably are my actual favorite-”

parker’s expression changes.

“you made him brownies?”

“yeah?” fuck. “it-it was to apologize. for last week, the nsaids thing.”

“he yelled at you.” she pauses, staring at you a little more quizzically. “he made you cry.”

“he was having a bad week?” you offer sheepishly. 

“right.” another pause. “what was your question?”

“i don’t remember. i’m gonna go see a patient now.” you save the contents of your note and decide to finish it later, during the three am lull with a hot cup of coffee and a cookie if there’s any left.

your question was going to be disguised with a ramble of some sort, asking ellis if she thinks jack abbot is the type to apologize for yelling at her or if there was something else he was going to tell her before those traumas came rolling in.

but lucky for you, you get your answer. four am, in the break room, running a little late on finishing your notes, behind on a schedule that you had invented in your own head. the last patient you saw had been really frightened of the hospital, as well as a language barrier that you had to wait thirty minutes to find a translator for at this hour.

you need a coffee, a cookie, and a computer to finish your notes. and then you need to leave the night shift and not be stuck in the hospital with jack abbot for twelve hours.

though there’s a smile on your face when you open the door, at the very idea that jack liked your snickerdoodles enough to shovel them down, or whatever parker had said. you look up and your smile gets replaced with surprise at the man standing in front of you.

it’s mental beetlejuice, or something. every time you think about him, boom, there he is. facing the counter, pouring black coffee into his steel gray tumbler.

“oh. hi.” how can you be so shocked that he’s in here? it’s four am with no incomings and it’s really not that big of a department. you passed the other two doctors on with you on the walk here—parker at central talking to a nurse and shen at a computer eating a granola bar.

“hey, kid. coffee? just made a pot.”

“yes, please.” you walk over, fetching your yellow mug from the cabinet. you glance at the table—your containers empty save for the crumbs of cinnamon sugar on the bottom. “was gonna have a cookie too. i should have made more.” jack pours you a cup and then hands you the creamer and the sugar. you notice that his own coffee is drunk just black though.

“it’s john, i’m telling you. he’s got a sweet tooth worse than mine. and don’t let parker fool you. i saw her in here three times tonight.” jack takes a seat in one of the chairs, but first he pulls one out for you.

you sit down and smile, laughing at his comment.

“well, she said that you were in here shoveling them down, so, i don’t know who to believe.”

“she said that?” you nod, taking a sip of your sweet coffee.

the coffee in the break room is notorious for being just fine. it’s never great, or even just good, it’s just fuel. but it tastes a lot better today.

“i’m gonna plead the fifth on that one.” 

you laugh again. you look over, realizing there’s one cookie left in the container.

“one left. but you can have it,” you say, the caffeine and this conversation doing wonders for your energy levels. “i had a bunch at home earlier today and i make them all the time, so-”

“nah, kid. we’ll split it.” jack breaks it in half and slides it towards you on a napkin, and you smile at him again—warm, generous, compassionate. 

a lot of big words to describe the smile of a resident he just got to know better this week, but he can’t turn it off. the radar in his head alerting him that the person he’s been thinking about for hours is sitting in front of him now, nibbling on half a cookie.

“that was a nice thing you did, earlier. with the mom and the daughter. she was completely compliant after.”

“i figured. i can’t believe the paramedic didn’t listen to her the whole ride in, though.” you take another sip of coffee before putting your mug down on the table. “not that he did something wrong. i know he was trying to help and they’re trained to focus on the patient and all that. but she was moving around in a c-collar, so i figured-well, i’ll stop rambling. they said the surgery went good so that’s all that matters, i guess.” you go quiet, taking another bite just so you stop yourself from talking too much again.

“both things can be true. he should have listened and he did his job. how’s the daughter?”

“good, good. i gave her stitches and she had some minor cuts. i think the mom thought she was bleeding a lot worse. dad’s with her, so…” 

“you had the chance to jump on the trauma but you left to take care of the kid.” jack doesn’t say it with any sort of tone, presents it to you plainly, like a statement.

“is this the part where you’re gonna yell at me?” you blink up at him, worried again.

“no, no. i just-” he pauses, thinking about his words carefully. he smiles, like he’s about to laugh. “it’s just the sort of thing i can’t teach, so-”

there’s a knock on the door, and you audibly sigh. is it the worst thing in the world to ask for some privacy for five minutes in this place, to be able to finish a conversation with your attending for once?

it’s john.

“incoming. three minutes out. aw, man, are those the last of the cookies?”

you do get to jump on the case with shen and abbot, though the man isn’t in bad condition at all. took a spill on his kid’s toys and bruised his tailbone, but his wife called for an ambulance. he waits for a head ct and x-ray and the room clears out, and you wonder if you’ll get a chance to finish out your conversation with jack abbot.

you don’t.

he stays behind to tell robby something and parker and john usher you out for a celebratory latte—decaf, obviously—to finish your first small taste of nights. you carry your empty containers in the tote bag you brought them in, and realize you didn’t even get a chance to tell him to bring your containers back.

(whether you want the containers or an excuse to talk to him again, you don’t know. it’s a can of worms not worth opening now that nights are done—though you’re sure he must have finished the contents by now. the idea of your yellow tupperware sitting on his counter or his kitchen table, well… it leads your mind to wonder about other things.

what does his place look like? did he sit on his couch with brownies and farmer needs a wife, like you had suggested? what about in his bed? jack doesn’t seem the type to have a television in his bedroom, or the type to eat in bed, though sometimes you’ll make an exception for dessert, and maybe he can be convinced.

and then you cut the entire thought out of your head, because it’s downright unprofessional and you have no business spending time wondering about his bed or his couch or anything else. stupid tupperware. and what’s even worse is going home with the realization you might not get to find out what jack was going to say to you in the break room, either time.)

+

if you ask a hundred emergency room doctors what the worst day of the year is, you’ll get a hundred different answers. halloween, thanksgiving, and new year’s are all up there. 

but jack abbot’s answer has never changed—fourth of july. 

a day littered with sunshine, grilling, and sparklers. to any emergency medicine specialist, it’s more about sun-poisoning, choking on hot dogs, and burn injuries from at-home fireworks. the hospital is flooded with back-to-back traumas, ranging from people passing out at the beach in the afternoon to full body burns by the evening.

you had always predicted the worst part is how a lot of the injuries are on children. they’re the ones left unattended while mom and dad drink themselves silly or let them play with firecrackers on the pavement, assuming they’ll be fine. you’ve done two emergency medicine rotations in school and you think you know what the fourth will be like, that you’ll be unnerved the entire day by the sound of crying children and trying to hold back anger on the irresponsible parents.

but walking through the doors of the hospital on your second week back on days, you realize you really don’t know much. 

like, for example, that jack abbot walks in beside you and mel at six forty-five. you look at him confused, and then turn to mel, who doesn’t match your expression but is also confused, you’re sure. jack is quick by the lockers—takes off his backpack and heads straight back out. 

mel speaks up first.

“i didn’t know dr. abbot does days,” she says, taking off her jacket and folding it neatly. 

“i didn’t either. do you know why?” it’s really an unnecessary question—it shouldn’t matter to you at all. but it does, and you’re terrible at burying things. it’s written all over your face that you want to know the answer why.

“well it’s likely just for overflow. i’m sure they’re expecting double the amount of patients today.”

“right. yeah, that makes sense.” 

“though it is surprising-”

“what is?”

“-that he didn’t take the day off, i suppose.”

“why’s that?” you ask, and mel shrugs.

“fourth of july is a usually tough day for a lot of veterans. when i was at the va hospital, some of the other doctors who had served would stay at home with their families. and the noise from the fireworks, too-”

mel goes on, but you have a hard time paying attention to the rest of her story. one thought washes over you, filling you with enough dread to last all day, making your blood feel icy cold in your veins. jack doesn’t have any family to spend the day with at home, so instead he’s here for the day shift, to help with the extra patients.

“i hadn’t thought about that.” you say quietly. you put your stethoscope around your neck and hold the familiar container in your hands.

“that’s okay, a lot of people don’t. i don’t think i did before my year there. wait, are those more cookies?”

it seems that robby shares some of your dread. you head out with mel, putting the star shaped sugar cookies with red and blue frosting in the break room. during sign-offs you tell parker and john to grab a few—just a few! leave some for the rest of us—before they head home. you smile politely at frank, who seems very concerned with making sure mel knows how hectic this holiday gets in the pitt and ask cassie how that bake sale went.

and then robby pulls you aside, leading you in front of central.

“i brought sugar cookies, i hope that’s okay. is something wrong?” you ask, gauging how robby is looking at you right now.

“yeah, everything’s fine.” he looks around distractedly, or maybe like he’s trying to make sure no one is eavesdropping. “listen, i know you just got back from nights-”

“are you sending me back? to nights?”

“what? no, no, we need you on days. i mean, you just finished nights and you were with abbot for a bit. how’d that go, by the way?”

“dr. abbot?”

“nights.”

“oh,” you say, feeling yourself flush. warmth spreads over you despite how cold it runs in the hospital. flustered, you continue. “it was good. um, busy and i learned a lot.”

“and you got to spend some time working with abbot, right?”

“yeah. some-uh, yes. i did.”

“great. because today is a bit of a weird day for him. he’s not used to days and we get overwhelmed pretty quickly. he’s here to help and it’s always great to have extra hands, especially his hands, but-” you zone out for a moment at the thought of jack’s hands. “-he seems a bit off and i want to make sure he’s doing okay, and he’ll just ignore me if i ask. so if you could—?”

robby trails off and you stare at him blankly, blinking after fifteen seconds of silence.

“if i could what?”

“just, check on him, y’know, throughout the day. just make sure he’s alright. thanks a ton kid, i knew i could count on you.” 

“wait, what-” but then robby is gone, and you’re left at central with dana behind you, handing you a tablet with a patient’s name on it and somewhere to your left is jack, immersed in a conversation with heather. you stare at him, and the he notices you looking, and looks back.

any other day, you’d turn and go straight to your patient, but not today.

today your attending has given you a task—check in on jack. make sure jack’s okay. and you are not the type of person to disappoint your superior.

you walk over to them, smile at both, and then watch as heather excuses herself. had robby told her about the task he’d assigned you?

“hey, kid. don’t tell me—america themed cookies?” 

you shirk under his gaze, the idea that felt very cute last night suddenly seeming exceedingly corny.

“it’s just festive,” you argue. “the frosting is made with blueberries and strawberries instead of food coloring. it’s healthier, i mean, it’s practically like eating fruit.”

“i don’t think you’re winning that argument, but sure, whatever you say. if parker and john left any for the rest of us.”

“i made a bunch this time. i figured there’d be more hands on deck today, i guess.”

(you hadn’t figured that. your logic with doubling the recipe and yielding twice as many cookies was that maybe there’d be some leftover for the night shift to take home with them—specifically one salt and pepper attending who already has two containers of yours at his home. what’s a third?)

“smart. we’ll need them. it’s gonna be a busy day.”

“that’s what i’ve heard,” you look up at jack again with a small smile—trying to disarm him without alerting him of your motive from robby. “how are you feeling, by the way?”

jack knits his eyebrows together.

“how am i feeling?”

“are you okay? do-do you need anything? i can go get you a cookie now, if you want, before they’re all gone. it’s not just the night shift, you know, trinity plows through them. and mel doesn’t have as much of a sweet tooth but since it has the fruit frosting, you know, i think she’ll like them.”

jack looks at you with a twinkle in his eyes, like he’s holding back a laugh, stopping it short at just a smile.

“i’m, i’m fine, kid. and that’s alright, i’ll go get one in a bit.”

“oh. okay. well that’s good.”

“are you okay?”

“yeah, why wouldn’t i be?” you lock eyes with him again.

“no reason. well, maybe we can go get that-”

“dr. abbot?” someone says, and you hold back the groan. it’s getting harder and harder to keep it inside. 

the people in this hospital really don’t want you to finish a conversation with your attending.

“yeah?”

he gets pulled up, and you do too—back to the chairs. it’s the usual residual patients from last night, but as the hours pass, you get more injuries related to the holiday. the allergic reactions and sprained wrists turn into burns from the grill and heat exhaustion. 

you find jack three more times in between seven patients—asking him he’s okay, how his patients are, if he wants that cookie now, or maybe water? all these people are dehydrated, it’s no good if their doctors are too, right? 

the next time you do it, he locks eyes with robby right after. you sneak your way past moving gurneys and crying patients, just to tap his shoulder and check in one last time before you sit down to debride a severe burn, one that’ll have you gone for at least an hour. 

“what the hell did you do, robby?” he asks, while they monitor a man who came in on the ambulance after setting half his body on fire trying to grill hot dogs.

“what do you mean? nothing.”

“that kid has-”

“did you try those cookies? they’re fantastic. no wonder you want her back on nights.”

maybe another two hours later, during a surge of ambulances, you realize you haven’t seen jack in a while. 

you pat your patient on the shoulder—a little girl with her mom who took a spill on the pavement while chasing her sister—and tell them you’ll send the nurse over with their discharge papers, and set out to find jack before sitting down with yet another burn—your tenth or so at least so far today. you close the curtain and look at the chaos in front of you—gurneys lined up against walls, patients crying and the entire place smelling of burnt flesh and salt water. 

dr. abbot is by the trauma bay, organizing patients as they come, and the whole thing feels more like a triage unit than it does an emergency room. 

you see trinity seeing the others from the chairs, heather jumping onto an incoming with robby. mel and frank are in one trauma room and jack is standing in the middle of everything.

is it the best time to ask him how he’s doing? no. that much is clear to anyone with a functioning frontal lobe.

but you are not just anyone, you’re you. you get slightly muddled in the head when it comes to jack abbot, and you definitely are not going to disappoint robby when he put you in charge of checking in on him.

you weave your way through the floor, avoiding nurses walking through with supplies in their hands and telling whoever you were supposed to be checking in with that you’ll be right back.

you dodge two gurneys that almost took your knees out just to get close enough to say his name and for him to hear you. you don’t see the one rolling right behind you.

“dr. abbot, are-” you’re interrupted by the sound of your own yelp, when jack reaches out to clasp his hand around your arm. he yanks you hard, pulling you out of the way, and suddenly, all the noises of the emergency room die down.

you hear the paramedic behind you, apologizing as he wheels the gurney out and back to the ambulance bay. you hear dana shouting from central to you—watch out, kid!—and even the wails coming from the trauma room robby and heather are in—a woman crying. 

but you don’t really hear any of it. your eyes are locked on jack’s hazel ones, his fingers still tight against your bare skin. his hands are softer than you’d imagined.

you blink at him stupidly, mouth falling open a little. you must look as dumb as you feel, almost getting hit by a gurney in the middle of a very busy shift. it’s like intern 101—things to avoid doing, especially in front of your attendings.

but jack doesn’t seem mad. he looks at you with concerned, pretty eyes, a focused expression. and then, at the same time—

“are you okay?” 

you both stare at each other for a while. you must look the equivalent of someone starstruck, staring with sparkling eyes, looking almost as grateful for him as you feel. that gurney would have taken you out of commission—at the very least you’d hit your head and be filling out paperwork under gloria’s watchful eye. 

but you’re fine, save for a large bruise forming on your upper arm with each second that passes by as you continue stare at jack.

“you two!” dana shouts over the other commotion, effectively snapping you out of it. all the noises return at once, making you wince, and what’s worse is that people are staring. “incoming, two minutes out. the rest of you, back to work-”

“come on, kid. you’re with me.”

you most certainly are.

+

at around quarter past eight on the fourth of july, you’re seated across from jack abbot at his favorite twenty-four hour diner. 

well, to be fair, you’re making more assumptions in the thirty minutes you’ve been sitting here with him than you have for the entire time you’ve know him. first—that this is his favorite diner. second—that he’s as interested in you as you are in him. and third—that you’ll finally get to finish the multiple conversations you’ve started with him and been unable to finish due to interruptions.

but there’s no interruptions here. post dinner rush, with a group of teenagers a few tables away and a couple in business clothes eating on the stools by the counter. there’s no nosy residents or gossipy nurses or incoming traumas. it’s just starting to get dark out, and you know the fireworks will start soon.

what you don’t know is if jack is going to be completely okay tonight. you don't care if you’re a temporary distraction from the noise, but you do care if you’ll be enough of a distraction for him.

the two of you order enough food to feed the entirety of the night shift at the hospital right now. the short staffing is the reason why you didn’t sit down to eat until seven forty-five, but it’s fine. as long as you’re here with him now.

you justify it mentally while jack steals one of your french fries—the ones he said he didn’t want half of when you asked—that you just need to finish the conversations from earlier. that it’s not wrong or inherently bad to order half the menu with your attending, one that was responsible for all of your anxiety three weeks ago. 

but staring at him like this, you wonder what you had been so worried about. in fact, over the last few weeks, you’ve realized he’s nothing like what you thought at first. 

“okay, i know this must be sound terrible,” you start, setting down your soda and reaching for another salty fry. “but that was amazing. like, the thrilling kind of amazing. does that make sense?” you stare at jack while you await his response.

“yes, it makes sense,” he says, but he can’t contain the laugh anymore. it comes out from his chest—unadulterated laughter, the rumble taking over his entire body.

“you’re laughing at me?” you ask, though you don’t actually seem upset about it. it’s hard to feel any sort of upset when you’re listening to what may be your new favorite sound in the world.

“no, no, i promise i’m not. you’re just so… you. even on a day like today.”

“what does that mean?” you reply quickly, sitting up straighter in your seat, expression turning deadly serious. “god, i’m so sorry. is that completely insensitive? i know it can be a hard day, i mean, well i didn’t know know. but mel brought it up this morning when we saw you and then robby told me to check on you and i thought i was helping until that stupid gurney almost took me out. but i just meant after that! the traumas and doing them with you. i-i hadn’t done any yet, with you, so i-” 

“when do you breathe?”

“sorry,” you sigh. “it’s a bad habit.”

“don’t apologize to me, please. it’s-” jack goes quiet, his mind searching to fill in the blank but coming up empty. 

it’s nice, he thinks. sweet. refreshing. funny. you’re all of those things and more. you don’t bite your tongue and hold back thoughts. you ramble until he can step into your thoughts completely—see it from your perspective like he’s inside your brain.

and jack—well, jack has friends. army buddies, guys he used to study with during medical school, a couple people from his residency that he stays in touch with. he has robby, though his friendship with him is going to be on thin ice after what he put you up to earlier, and dana. his parents are gone and so are his in-laws but he calls his sister when he really needs to talk about something and he checks in with his wife’s siblings once or twice a year, usually around the anniversary of her death.

(he hadn’t done it a few weeks ago, though, and he has trouble figuring out if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. but then he stares up at you, sipping your drink, patiently waiting for him to finish his sentence, before you, undoubtedly, ask him if he’s okay again. like if he tells you that he’s not—because really, he’s not—that you’ll make it your personal mission to make sure that he is. and that, well, what is he supposed to do with that?)

luckily the waitress interrupts the silence with the rest of the food—grilled cheese and waffles and whatever else sounded appealing in a hunger-driven craze—and he doesn’t have to finish the thought.

you two do talk about other things—how he’s sorry about yelling that week and how you completely didn’t deserve it. you tell him it’s fine and that he had a bad week and that you’re not upset, that it would feel wrong to hold that against him. he tells you about how good the brownies and the cookies were, and you beam at him with that smile again.

the conversations ebbs and flows—how it was nice of you to take care of that woman’s daughter. how great you did in the traumas today. how stupid robby is for asking you to check in on him—don’t listen to him ever again, just, come to me first next time. 

and then once the food is eaten and your drinks run empty, and the sound of fireworks is littering your eardrums, you just say it.

“i don’t think you should be alone tonight.”

“i’ve spent lots of july fourths alone, kid. i’ll be fine.”

he probably will be fine. he has noise cancelling headphones and though his apartment is close to the park where the fireworks are held—an oversight he didn’t think of when he moved in—he can distract himself enough to get through the night. he’s been doing it for years—taking care of himself when it comes to things like this.

“no, i-i know you will be. i just don’t think you should be alone.”

and then, for a split second, the force of your caring, of your affection for him hits him like a blow. it rushes over him—the feeling of how easy it might be to let you take care of him. to let someone else do it for once. reality seeps back in slowly, bringing his senses back one by one.

the first thing it does is remind him that you’re an intern.

“kid,” jack says firmly, sitting up straighter in the booth. he rests his elbows against the table, staring straight at you, boring into your soul like he always does. “i don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“why not?”

“well, for one, i’m your attending.”

“oh, who cares about stuff like that? it’s not like i’m gonna tell anyone,” you reply, as though the words had come to you quickly, like you really believed them. 

as if you’d already put some thought into your response before he’d asked you the question.

you don’t seem the least bit hesitant about basically telling him to spend the night with you—whatever that might mean to you. he doesn’t want to assume things, but it’s been a while since he’s done something like this. he doesn’t know what’s changed in the last decade and he certainly has never done something like this with a resident, much less an intern.

the whole thing is seeming much too bill clinton to him. he wants to express the thought to you, though it doesn’t make much sense—he’s not married and he’s not the president but you’re an intern and he was raised right so it feels wrong—and then he realizes it quickly. are you even old enough to remember that scandal? he shakes his head, as though he can dispel the thought by physically removing it.

“i care about stuff like that. there’s a power imbalance here, and-”

“i’m not even on nights anymore!”

“but you will be on nights again in the future. in a few months from now, when you’re a second year. you’ll do a whole month of nights in third year, too.” 

your lips curve up into a playful smile.

“getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we?”

“kid-”

“i said you shouldn’t spend tonight alone. you’re thinking three years ahead. i mean, don’t get me wrong, jack, i’m totally flattered, but i think you should scale it down. one day at a time and all that.” his expression changes and so does yours—it’s the first time you’ve ever called him anything other than dr. abbot. “i’m sorry. is that completely unprofessional? oh my god, am i one of those people? is that harassment?” you whisper the last part, as though you’re worried he’ll leave to report you this instant.

jack wants to bang his head against the table. he thinks, not for the first time and certainly not for the last time about what he’s going to do with you. 

the waitress brings the check and he places his card in her hand before you can so much as glance at it.

“i… i just meant that, i think it’s a bad idea if you spend tonight alone. we can watch a movie or make cookies or whatever you want to do. it’s just-” you trail off, suddenly quiet.

“it’s just what?”

“if we both go home alone, i’m just gonna spend the whole time worrying about you, anyways. might as well worry about you while i’m sitting next to you.” you stare at the table the whole time you say it, and then your gaze flickers up at him before looking back down quickly. “that must sound crazy. i’m sorry-”

“stop apologizing to me, kid.” 

it’s hard on a regular day to resist the urge to listen to everything you say, to comply since he knows how good you are. made of a kind of sweetness that he really doesn’t know the first thing about—how you got to be this way, with an abundance of compassion, enough to make him feel like he’ll explode from the sheer strength of it.

what jack does know is that he wants to find out.

you both get up, and you put on your pullover from what can only be your alma mater, grabbing the containers you’d brought into the break room this morning. he swings on his backpack and you both walk outside. it’s dark now, and you can hear fireworks somewhere in the distance. the noise is loud and uncomfortable even to you, and you briefly wonder how it might sound to jack, and decide again that you really, really don’t want him to be alone tonight.

“listen, kid. i don’t want you to waste your night worrying about me. you should-”

“oh, trust me, it’s not a waste. i have an ulterior motive for wanting to go back to your place,” you say, nodding when jack tilts his head at you in confusion, wondering if he’ll bite.

“yeah? and what’s that?”

“i need my tupperware back.”

+

your back thuds against the wall beside jack abbot’s apartment door. you’ve never been here but you try to blink open your eyes to take it in, to see if it’s just as you thought it’d be while his lips—soft and wanton and kissing you—stay against yours.

it’s stupid—why are you worried about his apartment when your attending is kissing you like you belong to him? but then you remember something frank had once told you during your first week, something about adhd and how all of you probably have it, and then you start giggling against jack abbot’s lips.

his fingertips, which were brushing against the skin of your waist after sneaking under your shirt, tighten around the soft skin there. you can feel them digging in, but stupidly, deliriously, and a little light headed, you wonder if you’ll bruise if he pushes hard enough.

“y’know, kid,” he mumbles against your mouth, pulling away for just a second. his breath is hot against your lips and his touch makes goosebumps rise all over you, makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up tall. “i haven’t done this in a while but if you’re laughing, i must be doing something wrong.”

you should say something, say anything, so he stops talking and keeps kissing you, but nothing comes out besides another laugh. 

“i’m sorry,” you say, trying to catch your breath while jack’s hands hover over your hips. “i-” you glance up to lock eyes again, but when you see the way he’s looking at you, you stop laughing completely. 

“if you’re uncomfortable, we can stop. you don’t have to-”

“no! no, i’m not uncomfortable. i-i’m laughing because this is so funny. you’re my attending and now we’re kissing and i’m in your apartment and it looks, exactly how i pictured it. and you’re so nice to me, but it’s the fourth of july and i want to make sure you’re okay because-” 

jack interrupts you with another kiss, his lips pressing against yours. this time he doesn’t let up, his tongue slipping into your mouth while you collapse against the wall, knees suddenly very weak.

but it’s alright, because jack’s got you. he holds you up by your hips and your legs mindlessly wrap around him, his hands going to your ass to hoist you up and secure you around him. he lifts you up and starts walking, and you whine against him, impatient and fairly comfortable where you were.

it’s like he’s a mind reader.

“our first time is not going to be against a wall,” he mutters, mouth on the column on your neck, tracing kisses from your collarbone to your cheek and then back to your lips. you want to reply, you want to tell him that you would have been perfectly content against that wall, or the door, or the couch, or even the floor, but nothing comes out.

you pull away just for a moment to look at him in the dim light of his bedroom—flushed cheeks, breathing heavy, taking a moment to push a piece of your hair behind your ear before kissing you again. and then with his mouth on yours again, you realize that jack abbot has discovered some way to turn your brain off. 

his touch is rough on your skin—when your scrubs got peeled off of you, you don’t actually know. he throws them somewhere on the ground and you paw at his shirt until he gives in and takes it off. 

it should be slower, he thinks briefly, he should slow down and take his time and not even give in and slip inside of you until you’re already a writhing, aching mess. he’s out of practice but he knows how you are, knows what would make you fall apart piece by piece.

that’s what he thinks of when your hands go to the button and zipper of his pants. for everything he knows about you, you’re also impatient. and lucky for you, he is too.

jack is out of practice, but it doesn’t mean he’s forgotten everything.

“c’mon, kid,” he breathes against your collarbone, wrestling your hands away from and then pinning them over your head. “be patient.”

“i’ve been patient—!” you whine, but he doesn’t give in just yet.

“it’ll hurt, sweetheart. i have to stretch you out first,” he says, and you feel dizzy with lust. it washes over you and makes you dumb, and you, for everything you are, are not a dumb girl. at least—not normally.

jack skips the teasing this time, trailing fingers down your chest, between the valley of your breasts and over your stomach. when he gets to your leaking cunt, he collects the wetness there with two fingers, and when you start whining again, impatient and antsy and your entire body humming with want, he does it again.

reminds you to be patient, and then plunges a finger inside of you. a moan leaves your throat—choked and loud, but he wants you to be even louder. you don’t know when he adds a second, and then a third, but you feel the delicious stretch of your walls, how his palm stays in place for you to grind up against. your hips buck up and you’re ruining his sheets and crying for more though you don’t even know what you’re asking for.

and jack takes it all in. how wet you feel against his fingers, how beautiful the noises that you’re making are. so focused on you—the sheen of sweat on your skin and how responsive you are to his touch, the noises outside his walls get drowned out. 

“jack, jack, more—” you plead, but jack doesn’t listen. everything in your body feels ready to finish. your muscles ache, the knot in your belly tightens, and heat washes over you while your toes curl in anticipation.

and then jack just stops.

“no—” you whine, the rush disappearing all at once. “no, no, jack!”

“patience, kid.”

“you’re being unfair-”

“no, i’m not.”

“then why’d you-”

“because the first time i make you finish is going to be when i’m inside of you. understood?”

and for once, you’re silent.

+

“i would have gone to the roof, probably.”

you blink open your sleepy eyes. you’re pressed against jack’s chest, your head resting there while he trails his fingers through your hair. you’re wearing his shirt, sleeping in his sheets, a cup of water that he got you from his kitchen resting on the nightstand.

you can’t feel your legs, but that’s a problem for tomorrow—but at least you know now that you might have bitten off more than you can chew. 

“what do you mean?” you ask quietly. the fireworks stopped an hour or so ago, and the only noise you hear now is jack’s heartbeat thudding against your ear.

“the rooftop, at the hospital. i go there after my shifts sometimes.” 

a lot of the time—but you don’t need to know that. from the way you immediately sit up in bed, his sheets slipping a little and exposing more of your soft skin that you don’t seem to care about, he can tell you’re concerned already. 

his shirt looks good on you. 

“tell me it’s just for fresh air?” you ask, reaching your hand over to run your fingers through the hair near his temple. his eyes close when feels your touch there, and suddenly, it feels more intimate than it has all evening. jack takes a deep breath, and then sighs.

“something like that.”

“jack-”

“it’s just… i don’t know. i got used to it, i guess. at first it was just to see what it felt like being up there. then it just turned into something else. i go up there after a bad shift and look at all the people below and… decide if it’s still worth it, i guess.” his hazel eyes look towards you and jack nestles himself more comfortably against your hand that hasn’t left him. 

“what’s gonna happen if you decide it’s not worth it one day?” you ask quietly, wet eyes sparkling up at him.

teary-eyed and flushed in his bed, all for him. you feel your emotions so strongly that he can watch them flooding your body, taking their course, almost sense them radiating from you. 

that’s the second time you’ve cried because of him, and he decides he’s not going to let it happen a third time.

he takes the hand that you had extended against him into his own and presses a kiss against your palm. 

“i don’t think i have to worry about that anymore.”

+

you get back to your apartment around four in the afternoon—you have a rare day off today. jack’s back on the night shift at seven, and though he offered to let you stay the night while he was gone, you wanted to give him time to get ready before going into the hospital. everyone has a pre-shift routine, even if they don’t recognize it. 

now that you’re back on days, yours consists of waking up early to stretch and eat a big breakfast and leave enough time lay in bed for an extra ten minutes before you actually have to get up.

you don’t know what jack’s is but you’re sure you’ll find out soon enough. 

the two of you slept in, courtesy of his black out curtains. you’re more of a get up with the sun person, but exceptions can be made.

(you’ll be making a lot of them from now on. jack abbot made you cum three times in his bed and once in the shower, and then he washed your body with his soap, the one you can still smell on your skin now. he kissed you while making you breakfast—eggs and bacon—and then told you to stop apologizing every time you accidentally hit your foot against his prosthetic under his dining table. and finally, he gave you one of your containers to take back home, and said he’s keeping the other one here. why? you’d asked. insurance, he’d replied.)

so you go back home, make dinner for yourself and wash your singular yellow tupperware and text jack to have a good shift tonight. 

you set an alarm for five, get out of bed at five-fifteen and get ready for work, more giddy for a shift than you have been since your first day of intern year.

when you walk into the hospital, early like always, you see jack talking to parker. he looks in your direction and even parker can notice his gaze following something, but she doesn’t say anything. you look away before smiling to yourself, the grin being glued to your face the entire walk to the lockers as you recall memories of the last time you saw jack.

one of the perks of always being early is that there’s no one by the lockers when you arrive.

(you’ve never thought of it as a perk until now though.)

jack walks in behind you a few minutes later—right as you’ve tucked away your pullover and your bag and he stands beside you as you reach to pick up your stethoscope. 

“ah, hold on,” he says, taking the stethoscope of your hand and into his. he loops it around your neck carefully, setting it in place for you. “there you go.”

“really?” you ask with a laugh, closing the door to your locker. “when you walked in here i thought i was gonna get a kiss. wait, what did you tell parker-”

“c’mon, kid,” jack says, looking at you with an expression you’re not sure you could ever get tired of. “i’m not that obvious.” you stare at him. “yeah, okay. i told her to go finish the note from the last trauma.”

“lucky for you, i’m your best resident. these other chums don’t show up until much closer to seven. actually, one time, santos came five minutes late. so-”

and for the second time, jack interrupts you with a kiss. he leans in, pressing his lips against yours, and your hands go slack by your side. his mouth tastes like coffee and even after a twelve hour shift he still smells like jack, the way his sheets and his soap and his shirt had smelled when you wore it.

he pulls away, and your eyes blink open slowly, like you’re figuring out where you are. fluorescent lights and the smell of the alcohol wipes they use to clean everything lingers around you.

and, of course, your attending, the one who sneaks into the locker rooms before shift change to give you secret and likely highly forbidden kisses.

“my lips are sticky,” jack says, bringing a finger to his mouth and rubbing it against another. you can’t bear to look at his hands right now, so you look away, at the risk of being useless for at least the next hour.

“it’s this lip peptide thingy. i don’t know, it’s good for them, i think. better than chapstick and they have all these flavors. they say it-” you trail off, staring at jack while he stares at you. he licks his lips.

“tastes good, kid. see you out there.”

oh god. you lean against your locker and watch jack leave. a minute later, mel walks in with trinity.

“i don’t want to hear it, bubbles. i’m here extra early, and not just to prove a point-”

“well, actually, i think it is to prove a point, but not-”

“what’s wrong? did the cat finally get your tongue?”

“i never understood what that meant-”

oh god. it’s going to be a long shift.

and outside the lockers, robby finds jack.

“so?” robby asks, leaning against the counter while jack sorts through tablets. he hands one to parker and then another to john, and they go off to pass on their patients to everyone arriving. 

“am i supposed to know what you’re talking about?” jack replies, noticing you from the corner of his eye. 

you’re coming out with santos and king, a water bottle in your hand. he had filled it for you before you left his apartment, after you’d refused his offer of walking you home. you look in his direction, and then you both look away at the same time. jack picks up his coffee cup to take another sip—if he doesn’t get the taste of you and your lip peptide thingy out of his mouth, he’s going to have a freudian slip in front of robby.

“i’m talking about you and the kid.” jack sputters, choking on his drink mid-swallow. “woah. you okay?”

“f-fine. uh, what? me and the kid?”

“yeah. since the fourth, you know, are you two good again?” 

robby looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to fill in the silence with an answer. 

“uh, yes. yeah, of course.”

“good. that was my goal. she started on nights at a bad time, and uh, i mean no one blames you. but we don't want to scare away all our interns, either.”

“right.” jack looks back at robby. “anything else?”

“no.” robby arches a brow at him. “you sure you’re okay? because she’s back on nights soon, and i don’t want-”

“i’m good, robby.” 

“alright then. where are we with sign-offs?”

you on the day shift is something manageable. something he can handle, something that shouldn’t be too terrible for you two to figure out. you always come early and he always stays a little late, and he’s sure that it won’t look suspicious. 

if you’re on days, then he’s not the one primarily in charge of your post-graduate medical education. that falls to robby and heather and frank, and he can trust that none of them are going to accidentally interfere with you learning everything you need to learn to be a good resident. 

to be a great resident—because he knows you have it in you. you’re made of the stuff it takes to be teaching other interns one day—compassion and kindness and how to treat the person while you’re fixing the patient. 

robby and heather and frank can help you with that. but if you’re on nights, it’s an entirely different ball game. he’s responsible for your education, for approving your notes and questioning your decisions and making you jump onto incoming traumas and justify every choice you make. he’s also responsible for correcting you when you’ve made a mistake. making you drink a cup of coffee if he thinks you’re getting tired. waking you up if you fall asleep at your desk at three in the morning.

and that’s just the problem. for the first time, jack abbot wonders if he can do all of those things if you’re the intern he has to do them to. 

for god’s sake—he couldn’t even wake you up to ask how you wanted your eggs. 

that’s the conundrum he’s facing when you come back home that night, near seven thirty. he’s off tonight and back tomorrow night, which means he gets about eleven or so hours with you until you leave tomorrow morning.

“hi,” you breathe, when he opens the door to let you inside. you’re clad in your pullover and you drop your bag by the front door when you come inside. “it feels weird to not go straight home.”

“oh, sweetheart, you could have gone home. i could have met you there-”

“no, no, it’s okay. i have a noisy neighbor and, well-” you drift off, smiling up at him the way you usually do.

“well?”

“i’d rather wear your clothes anyways.” 

what’s he supposed to do when you say things like that? a couple of words that make him happier than he’s felt in years, lifting the storm cloud that’s been following him around since the conversation with robby this morning. 

but it’s an important conversation, one that needs to be had. jack is a lot of things, but he is absolutely not a meddler in the lives of pretty interns or in the business of hindering their education.

“did, uh, robby say anything to you today?”

“jack,” you start slowly, turning on the couch to face him completely. “he’s not a mind-reader, you know.”

“no, i know. i just meant—well, did he?”

“no. he was normal. he even apologized for giving me side quests on an already busy day.”

“oh. that’s good.” 

you bring your hand to his hair again, running your fingers through it. it’s almost an instinct to him now—jack closes his eyes for a moment and you watch his shoulders relax.

“what’s wrong? what’re you thinking about?” his pretty hazel eyes meet yours.

“i just want us to be careful-”

“hey, you’re the one who kissed me this morning-”

“i know, i know. i need to be careful, too. i don’t want-”

“i understand. i wouldn’t want everyone knowing i’m screwing the intern either. it’s kind of a cliche, honestly, we’re no better than-”

“what? no, no. i don’t want anyone to say anything that could hurt you, or for this to interfere with your education. it is a cliche, and i know you’re close with the others and people can act very differently when they think that-”

“jack,” you start, moving yourself closer until you can crawl into his lap. his eyes flick over you, settling to watch your lips before he locks eyes again.

“yeah?” he asks, his throat dry.

“in five minutes, i’m going to be wet and naked in your shower. you can either keep talking about this or you can come join me.” then you lean in to press a kiss to his cheek. “c’mon, i wanna hear all about how you spend your days off, old man.” 

and then you get up, peeling off your sweatshirt, and then your shirt, and leaving him a trail of your clothes that ends with your panties on his bathroom tile. 

jack is a lot of things. but stupid isn’t one of them—so he follows you in there and leaves the rest of the conversation for another day.

but that day doesn’t end up coming that quickly.

as it turns out, interns on day shift barely get to spend time with their attendings from the night shift. on top of that, he has no idea how anyone manages to have an affair with a resident—they’re at the hospital every single day, pulling eighty hour weeks and coming home, if jack is even at home, completely exhausted.

but he also learns that glimpses of you at shift change and sign-offs at seven am and seven pm are enough to sustain the two of you. 

it starts with conversations in the locker room before your shift starts. he makes sure his residents are distracted before sneaking away to get a kiss or two and leaning against the metal lockers like a lovesick high schooler.

“you know that patient i was telling you about yesterday? with the bleeder? well, i came to change my scrubs and trin was grabbing something and she saw me and asked if i was mauled by a bear.”

“oh, god,” jacks says from his position, watching you do the same thing you do every morning. put away your hoodie, grab your protein bar for later, tell him whatever you’ve been thinking about since he left you yesterday night. “what’d you tell her?”

you smile.

“something like that.” you laugh, so then jack laughs.

“that’s a little dramatic, no?”

“i also told her i’m clumsy, but i think she’s come to the conclusion that i’m a sex freak.” you close your locker, facing your boyfriend-slash-attending.

“well, i mean-”

“shut up. do not-” you start with another laugh, but your smile fades when you see mel walking in with frank.

“uh, make sure to check that with ellis, alright?”

“yes, i will, dr. abbot.” jack leaves, smiling politely at frank and mel and turning back to look at you once. he really shouldn’t but he’s gotten in a bad habit of it, even though one day, someone is going to notice.

“did you just tell abbot to ‘shut up’?” frank questions, and they both look at you, waiting for your answer.

“no! no, of course not. i was just telling him about something a patient said and, um, dr. ellis wants to document it. yeah, she wants, like, really thorough notes, so he was just telling me. about that. um-”

mel looks at you thoughtfully, before bringing her hand to frank’s arm.

“i have noticed that she writes her patient encounters in a very specific format,” she says, and you sigh without realizing it. you let her carry the conversation into how frank’s notes could use some work, and then the two tease each other while you quietly make your exit.

+

another morning, jack stands at central with dana and robby, filling both of them in on two patients who are due to come back in the afternoon and the three patients still waiting for a bed upstairs.

heather and frank are bickering next to the three of them like they always do, like they’re siblings fighting in front of the parents, when he hears what they’re talking about.

“well, now i feel bad, ‘cause she’s mel’s friend, but i don’t even have that kind of energy after two red bulls, so-” frank starts, before heather interjects.

“it’s not about energy, it’s just a conversation about burn-out. candles don’t burn on both ends for a reason.”

“okay, you lost me with the metaphor.”

“you can’t be that nice to every patient forever. at some point you have to pick.”

“be nice or save their life?” frank supplies. “so basically, when is she gonna become like the rest of us?”

“i mean…” heather trails off, turning to dana. “what do you think?”

“i think they call her bubbles for a reason,” dana says, pushing up her glasses. she cranes her neck to stare at the screen of patients, looking for the next empty bed. “and i think north-two needs to be discharged, so if you two are done-”

“let me test our theory,” frank says. he waves over the lot of you coming in for your shift—you, cassie, mel, and trinity. you look over at jack, and he looks over at you, before you focus back on frank. “need someone to discharge this bed and then go grab the next patient from chairs. dana—?” he holds the clipboard and looks over at all of you, but it’s only half a second before you chirp up.

“i can do it,” you say brightly. you smile at frank and dana, reaching for the clipboard, while jack watches it happen.

“thanks bubbles,” trinity says, while the others dissipate. you make a slightly dampened face at the use of the nickname.

“one other thing,” heather asks. “when are we gonna get more cookies?”

“oh! i’m so glad you guys liked them. i guess another holiday, if there’s one coming up? or someone’s birthday? actually, i think there’s just labor day and i don’t know what kind of themed cookies i’d make. well, chocolate chip cookie day is in august, i think-”

“kid?” dana asks. “the patient? north-two?”

“right. i’m sorry. i’ll come check in after i bring the new patient back,” you say, still smiling when you walk away with the clipboard in your hand.

“what exactly were you testing?” heather asks.

“i don’t know, but she’s definitely doing whatever your metaphor meant. are we taking bets yet? i wonder how long she’ll last-”

“alright, enough,” jack snaps. “do you two not have anything better to do? who’s this helping?”

“jack?” robby questions, his eyes flicking towards dana, who looks back at him with a shrug.

“why would you want her to be jaded? isn’t it better for our patients that she stays like that for as long as she can? i thought you’d try to keep her that way, but i guess-”

“jack-” robby interrupts. 

“you two, go help somebody,” dana says to heather and frank, before turning to jack. “what the hell was that about?” 

jack sighs, not realizing when his hand had turned into a fist. probably when your name was brought up.

“nothing, i just- bad night. that’s all.”

“o-kay,” robby whistles. “you going up to the roof, or?”

“no. no, i’m going home.”

jack walks away, not in the direction of the door, but rather towards the beds on the north side, almost instinctively.

“what the hell’s wrong with him?” dana asks.

“i don’t know. since when does he just go straight home after a bad shift?”

“i have no idea.”

(that night at six-fifty, trinity pulls you aside before you two head home. you’re antsy since you want to get a couple of quiet minutes with jack before you have to leave, but when she starts talking, you forget all about it. listen, trin says, i’m sorry about the whole bubbles thing, i didn’t think it was bothering you. but collins told me that abbot was yelling at them about it and he was pretty upset, so i- but sadly, you don’t hear much of the rest of the conversation.)

you walk away from her after she finishes, reassuring her that you’re fine, before setting out to find jack. he’s putting his backpack under the desk at the hub, and you go straight to him, not entirely caring that people can see the two of you, supposing it’s fine as long as they don’t hear you.

“what’s the matter?” jack asks, and then much quieter—”everything okay, sweetheart?”

“you defended me?” you ask softly. you’re normally full of words but it feels hard to find them just now, your head feeling cloudy. 

“no, no, i just told them to knock it off.”

“was it something bad?” you question, your expression knitting into worry. 

this is exactly why he got upset—why he didn’t like their conversation from the jump, why he knew that he wanted frank and heather to stop talking before someone else overheard and jumped in and you found out what they were saying.

it’s not bad, even you wouldn’t think it’s bad. but jack doesn’t like it. he doesn’t like anyone speaking of you in any way that he doesn’t like and he especially hates the idea that you’d be upset when you found out. 

“no. i just-” jack trails off.

“you just?”

“i don’t like anyone talking about you. and i don’t like that stupid nickname, so-”

you smile at him, not the sort of innocent smile one casts at their attending—the result of being told good job on a case or have a good night on your way out. no, you smile at jack the way you do everything—with the full force of every emotion behind it, wearing your heart on your sleeve. 

and jack couldn’t look away from you, even if he wanted to.

(the two of you look like idiots—googly eyed and lovestruck and every other way to describe people who like each other a bit too much. this time it’s dana who sees the two of you. she does a double take on her way to hand a stack of tablets to the night shift charge nurse and blinks twice to make sure she’s seeing the right thing. jack abbot, a regular on the roof, and the intern who they call bubbles, looking at each other like the rest of the hospital has faded away into nothing. and then she walks away, and decides she’ll wait for robby to bring it up.)

+

it’s mel next—she’s incredibly observant as it is, but even more so when it comes to someone she considers a friend, someone like you. trinity jokes about the continual bear attacks that explain the hickies on your neck and chest when you change out of your scrub top and pull on your hoodie, but mel knows it’s more than that.

she’s always known you get to work early, but recently, every time mel comes in to put away her belongings, the space that you usually occupy is already empty. your things put away, locker closed and locked, your yellow water bottle already resting by the computer that you usually write your notes at. 

and after that, it’s just a game of paying slightly closer attention. you walk out from behind a curtained bed and come say hi to mel, ask her how her evening was, how becca is doing. but when mel glances up at the screen to see what patient you were with behind that curtain, it’s empty.

that bed was empty. and well, mel’s not much of an detective (though she has her moments), but it’s worth a shot. waste a few minutes, stare at that curtain to see if she can figure out what, or rather who is behind it. she’s almost about to call it quits, frank was running late but he’s here now and there’s an incoming so she should start moving and then—

dr. abbot comes out from behind that same curtain. he leaves it open, comes to the hub, smiles politely at mel and tells her to have a good day, dr. king, and then he walks away.

more specifically, he walks in your direction. the back of his head moves slightly in your direction. you beam at the tablet in your hands. and then—

“mel? you okay?” frank asks, and she’s snapped out of it.

(she could have figured it out ages ago, she thinks afterward, reflecting on how dr. abbot never used to tell anyone to have a good day or hum while finalizing notes or look up and smile in your general direction before looking back down at whatever’s in his hands. the first time she met him, she thought he was the type of person you categorize in the debbie downer sort of group, whereas from the moment she met you, you were clearly more of a chatty cathy. but you’re her friend. and when she had told you about her feelings for frank, you had listened and supported her and never made her feel that it was anything less than okay.)

so the next time she sees you at seven am, already out by your computer or walking back from around an empty corner, when she notices dr. abbot trailing behind you, she doesn’t say anything. when dr. abbot hangs around late finishing up a trauma and you go ask him for his opinion on whatever patient you’re seeing, even when robby is free just over there, she doesn’t say anything.

even when frank brings it up over dinner with her and becca, a side conversation while they eat spaghetti—you noticed anything different with abbot recently?—she doesn’t say anything. 

in fact, the closest she gets to saying anything is when dr. abbot comes in early—maybe around five-thirty one evening—because they’re getting swamped and heather and cassie have the flu and it’s been a terrible mess of a day.

you and mel have been running around the entire shift, barely stopping to drink water or eat something. when jack shows up and flocks straight to you and leans in to tell you something, your hand moves to touch his arm for half a second before you remember where you are and put it down. jack pulls out a granola bar from his pocket and leaves you with it to jump on the next incoming.

mel watches the encounter and puts her head down when you look her way, pretending that she’s drinking her water and staring at a tablet. when she looks up, you’re gone in another direction, but dana stares at mel, both with an understanding of what they just saw.

and then they go on with their shift.

+

it all comes crashing down, just as it had the first time, after a particularly terrible night shift. it’s always hard when someone dies in the first few hours, leaves a horrible, bitter taste in his mouth that makes him want to walk outside and not come back in. 

it’s even worse when he knows he did everything he could, that there was no way this patient was making it off the table. that the devastated husband and the crying kids were completely unavoidable, that he still has to go back and jump on the next case and start fresh and try to drown out those noises.

drowning, drowning, drowning. he’s always trying to drown out something. if it’s not the fireworks then it’s the kids sobbing over their dead parent, and if it’s not that, then it’s how he relives his own worst day of my life every time someone’s wife dies in front of him. 

it’s been one of those days. you’re due to start on nights in two shifts from now, and he still has no idea how he’ll manage to be any less obvious when it comes to you.

(the last thing he keeps trying to drown out is how wrong this is. the voice in the back of his head keeps reminding him, seemingly unable to stop, no noise being loud enough to get it to stop repeating itself. you’re still a while away from being a second year, but is that even any better? or is that another excuse he’s invented to stop feeling so guilty about the fact that you sleep in his apartment every night and leave cookies for him on the counter so he has something nice to come home to? jack doesn’t know.)

you show up at six-thirty, smiling sweetly at parker and john, telling them to grab a cookie on their way out. parker asks you why and you tell her just because, and you want five minutes alone with your boyfriend before he leaves.

you’re impatient, always have been and always will be, especially when it comes to any and all matters related to jack abbot. you’re eager to go back on the night shift because you think you’ll be able to appreciate it so much more now—learning under his tutelage, being able to discuss those foreign medical journals he shares with you over coffee at four in the morning rather than through his illegible, scribbled print on post-its and your neat handwriting in the margins. 

you want it all, and you want it now.

so you made more cookies—oatmeal raisin—to make jack’s apartment smell nice, and you pack several of them to have a valid reason to distract the others so you can get those five minutes, maybe ten, in peace.

“hi,” you sing, while jack stands in front of you, tablet in his hand and blood on his shoes. “how was your night?” he doesn’t look up, but you don’t wait for an answer. “i made oatmeal raisin last night and i put some in the break room so i think we have five minutes. i want ten but i won’t be greedy, i mean, we’ll be on nights together soon, so at least that’ll be-”

“we need to talk, kid,” jack says, looking up at you with an expression you don’t recognize.

“what’s wrong ja- dr. abbot?” a nurse walks by just as you start your sentence, changing it mid-way. 

“that,” he says, coming out a bit louder than he meant it to. “that’s what’s wrong.” 

“jack?” you say it quietly. he doesn’t mean it like that—he doesn’t want you to be upset and worried about him when you have a whole shift ahead of you, one that you show up early to with distractions so the two of you can have a few minutes alone.

it’s all of it—it’s the fact that you even have to do things like that to get five minutes alone with him. it’s that you can’t let someone overhear you calling him anything besides dr. abbot.

it’s the realization that you deserve much better than what jack abbot can give you. more than five minutes behind a curtain or a couple minutes in the break room or thirty seconds at central hub before the charge nurse comes in with another incoming. 

“come on,” he says, leading you away for a moment. you have twenty-five minutes before your shift starts and he has two senior residents who can run the show until robby walks in. he leads you to the on-call room, four walls enclosing four beds. surgery has rooms of their own, but sometimes the trauma surgeon on deck will crash in there waiting for the next page, so he checks the room before letting you into it, closing and locking the door behind him.

“i thought you were gonna yell at me. this is so much better,” you say.

your mouth has gotten you into trouble before, especially with dr. abbot. in fact, it’s what got you into this whole thing to begin with, but where you expect jack to laugh in the privacy of this room, he doesn’t.

“kid, we need to have a serious talk about this.”

“about what?”

“this. us.”

“oh, jack, come on-”

“no, i-i’m being serious. this is not okay, it’s not sustainable.”

“you’re upset because we don’t see each other? honey, i start on nights in two days, i think we can make it,” you say, coming in closer to bring your hand to jack’s shoulder. “what’s going on? really?”

“don’t you think that… what i’m doing is wrong? you’re an intern. this is about your education, i-”

“why do you think you’re disrupting my medical education just because you’re my attending? i know i get stupid around you but i promise, i’m not gonna stop paying attention to my patient because you’re standing near me. i am a doctor, you know-”

“kid, i-”

“no, stop. half this hospital is dating each other. robby is heather’s attending and i don’t see you storming them into on-call rooms to debate about his influence on her medical education-”

“that doesn’t even make sense-”

“it doesn’t have to,” you sigh, out of breath and a little winded from how loud you’re being. “we make sense. you and me. we’re good together. a lot of things in this place don’t make sense but we do. people die everyday and i don’t want to die wondering what could have been if i’d just-”

“don’t,” jack interrupts, his hands coming to your waist. they feel tight, like the first time he’d help you like this. he brings his face closer to yours, foreheads almost touching. “don’t say that.”

“oh my god. i am so sorry. that must sound so insensitive, i just meant-”

“stop talking.”

“but i-” 

and this time, he doesn’t give you a choice, pressing his lips against yours quickly. you mumble against else against his mouth, but he can’t make it out, choosing instead to ignore it. like always, jack’s mouth tastes like coffee and you take it in—your boyfriend, your attending, and whatever else jack abbot is to you, kissing you like he’s finally realizing that he belongs to you, just as much as you belong to him. 

jack’s fingertips travel under your scrub top, hands roaming the expanse of your back and then settling onto your waist again while you keep kissing, realizing that when you go back out there, you’ll be flushed and warm and your lips will be swollen.

and then you realize that you don’t care, and you let your body lean against jack’s. he pulls away for a moment, but you don’t let him get the chance to stop, leaning in to resume the kiss, desperate to feel his tongue against yours again. 

jack does pull away finally, holding your jaw with his hand.

“this is so much better,” you mumble again.

“kid, we can’t-”

“yes, we can. we have so much time, jack,” you say, trying your best to sound convincing. 

“it’s seven in the morning,” jack argues, though he doesn’t resist when you pull his navy shirt off and over his head, exposing his chest to you. you run your fingers down the exposed skin, pressing your mouth against his shoulder.

“no it’s not,” you reply, leading hot, open-mouthed kisses from his collarbone to his neck, back up to his lips. “it’s six forty-something.”

“someone’s gonna-”

“no one’s gonna,” you say, smiling in that way that you do, the way that makes it impossible for him to say no. “not unless you stop talking, old man.” 

“oh. that’s how you wanna do this?”

“i’m not doing anything,” you say, pulling off your own scrub top, and then your shoes. 

“you’re gonna kill me, kid,” leaves his mouth as your hands go to the tie of his scrub bottoms, undoing the knot. jack brings his hands to either side of your waist and lifts, bringing you down onto one of the beds with all of his strength, making you squeal as your head hits the pillow. 

he starts with a kiss to your jaw, and then your neck, trailing down between your breasts while he undoes your bra. your hands find his shoulders, gripping him tight while he works his way down, littering your stomach with kisses until he gets to the drawstring of your pants. 

his fingers work on undoing it while you whine, and then try to push yourself to sit up against jack’s weight on top of you.

“oh my god, this is so embarrassing. i didn’t know we were doing all this. i have so many matching sets of underwear for this very occasion and the one day-”

“sweetheart, i love you, but you really need to stop talking right now.”

“you love me?” you repeat back. “you love me. oh my god, i-”

you lean in, lips crashing together hard, until jack moves and he’s on top of you again. he slides off your bottoms first, his fingers dancing around the waistband of your panties—navy blue with lace on the sides and he thinks they’re awfully great so he’s not sure what you were talking about—and then you start giggling. nearly uncontrollable.

“kid, that’s twice now you’ve done that-”

“i’m sorry, i’m sorry jack,” you plead, trying to keep a straight face but being unable to stop laughing. “i can’t believe this is how we’re saying i love you to each other-”

“you’re the one who wanted to date your attending-”

you burst into another fit of giggles, which jack effectively silences by kissing you again.

“one day,” jack starts, tugging your underwear down until it’s discarded somewhere by your feet, or maybe somewhere on the floor next to your clothes. “i’ll get to take my time with you again.”

that sentence leaving jack’s mouth makes your entire body tense up, a flood of want washing over you until you feel loopy. 

you pull him in for another kiss, and you feel him against you, memories of the first time he stretched you out on his fingers running through your mind. you two don’t have enough time for that today, and you both know it, but it still makes your cunt throb with anticipation.

jack lines himself up against you, running his thick tip over your opening, collecting wetness and making pleasure course through your body when he bumps against your clit. it’s electric—like a live wire hitting your nerves and making everything feel like lightening.

your limbs already feel like jelly, and you let jack maneuver your legs up onto his shoulders, watching him while he looks down at where you two are connected. 

he pushes inside and you moan—loudly and unfiltered—feeling that ridiculously amazing stretch again, your toes curling and every muscle tensing. jack leans in to kiss you and swallow the noises you make, but you still think it might not be enough.

when he pushes all the way in, your eyes roll all the way to the back of your head. 

“i’m sorry, kid, we can’t be loud,” he breathes, followed by a groan. he uses his hand to cover your mouth, pulling out and then thrusting back in all at once. the bed creaks as jack starts fucking you with an intense rhythm, the thin wooden frame hitting against the wall repetitively. 

you lock eyes with jack, moaning against his hand, feeling how big he is like it’s the first time all over again. 

every ridge and vein makes you see stars while you focus on how full you feel—full of jack, how you want stay like this forever if he’ll let you—in a tiny on call room with the door locked and people looking for the two of you. 

you repeat it against his palm—jack, jack, jack—while he keeps fucking you with an intensity that makes the coil in your belly keep tightening. he’s so deep inside of you that you’re sure you won’t be able to walk after this, let alone finish your shift, but the thought drifts somewhere far away when he changes the angle slightly. 

jack pushes his hand against your lower belly and thrusts back into you, while your back arches and tries to fight him. maybe you’re trying to get away from how good it feels, that overwhelming sensation that the ground is about to give out beneath the two of you. you stare up at jack through teary eyes, taking in how he looks hovering over you, taking care of you and watching out for you and thinking about you first like he always does. 

and then it happens, the hot sensation in your belly tenses, and then snaps, and it washes over you like a current. you feel it—the ringing in your ears feels like it’s making its way through your entire body and your walls clench and pulse around jack’s girth. 

your eyes snap shut but when they open, you keep looking up at jack, finally forcing his hand away from your mouth. 

“jack,” you get out, your throat dry and sore and lips aching. “i love you too-”

you hear jack groan, a noise that makes your walls flutter, and then you feel it again—jack’s hips stuttering, his grip on you tightening, and then warmth filling you, hot streams of cum coating your walls until it’s leaking out of you. 

you take deep breaths, head hitting the pillow while jack collapses on top of you, and then rolls over until he’s beside you. 

the room is silent besides the two of you breathing, until of course, you speak up.

“i can’t believe this is how we said i love you.”

“you already said that, kid.”

“i know. i just really can’t believe it. i figured it would at least be outside of the hospital, but, i guess that wouldn’t feel right.” 

“sweetheart-”

“am i doing it again? the not knowing when to be quiet thing?”

“no, but i-”

“wait,” you cry out, sitting up immediately. “what time is it? oh my god-”

“don’t worry about that right now. i gotta get you cleaned up before-”

“jack, i have never been late for a shift before.” you sigh dramatically before you keep going. “i just knew it. this relationship is completely affecting my medical education-”

jack shuts you up with a kiss before you can finish the sentence, capturing your laugh against his mouth. 

he starts making half a plan in his head, though what he wants to do is take you home with him right now.

“i think i’m ready for you to be back on nights now.”

“yeah? why’s that?”

“because at least we can sleep next to each other if you-”

“jack!” he hears robby’s voice shouting from the other side of the door, followed by three pounds that rattle the wood. “do not tell me that my intern is in there.”

“fuck,” jack whispers, while you stare at him with wide eyes.

“what should we do?” you mouth, while jack gets up, finding your scrubs and pocketing your underwear while he pulls on his own clothes.

“stay in here,” he tells you quietly. “just take your time.” 

“okay,” you whisper back, leaning in for another kiss with a smile. “i love you.”

“i love you too.”

jack pulls on his shirt and unlocks the door, closing it quickly behind him as he steps out to meet robby on the other side. 

“you’re kidding me, right?”

“i can explain, robby. we-”

“i don’t want to hear it. the on-call room? that’s disgusting, you know.”

“robby, i-”

“go talk to hr before gloria gets on my ass about this.” robby walks away, shaking his head. 

you open the door, poking your head out, and jack turns back to look at you.

“gosh. i sure hope hr doesn't think you’re interfering with my medical education-”

♡ thanks for reading!