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robinavich · 2 months ago

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godlight

jack abbot x f!attorney!reader ao3 content: 18+ mdni, sexually explicit content, age gap, swearing, brief mention of alcohol, co-opting christianity for my benefit (sex), being mean to robby but like lovingly. like ur brother, gingko trees as a plot device, tom cruise mention words: 16.7k sry i <3 dialogue and write it before the rest of the plot a/n: the backpack thing actually happened to me before and also idk how to write synopsis: It’s routine. The first Friday of every month you make your way down to the emergency department with a stack of insurance claims in hand to harass Robby with, and you leave through the door with Jack Abbot, fresh off his shift and half a step behind you, muttering something lowly in your ear that makes you laugh. You’ll both stop off at your office just long enough to haphazardly toss the paperwork on your desk. And then you’ll go to the roof. You’ll pretend not to notice the hand hovering over the small of your back, and he’ll pretend not to notice the way your shoulder brushes his. Routine.

You’ve never seen a grown-ass man leap, but when you materialize beside Michael Robinavitch, ready to take advantage of his daily five minutes of quiet and drink his rapidly cooling coffee before he got down to business, with a stack of papers in hand, you think his skeleton might break from the violent flinch that racks his frame.

“God, what are you, a kamikaze lawyer? Are you heat seeking?”

“Why, you offering?”

It’s routine.

The first Friday of every month you make your way down to the emergency department with a stack of insurance claims in hand to harass Robby with, and you leave through the stairs with Jack Abbot, fresh off his shift and half a step behind you, muttering something lowly in your ear that makes you laugh. You’ll both stop off at your office just long enough to haphazardly toss the paperwork on your desk. And then you’ll go to the roof. You’ll pretend not to notice the hand hovering over the small of your back, and he’ll pretend not to notice the way your shoulder brushes his.

Routine.

So, like clockwork, the first Friday of the month rolls around, and with it comes you, metaphorical sunglasses on, sauntering off the elevator like you love the emergency department. Like you can’t wait to run around roleplaying Bolt from the titular Bolt to beg for signatures. Like this is exactly where you were hoping to be.

You click your pen, the sharp sound a tiny gavel sealing his fate.

“Come down to reject another insurance claim?” comes from your left.

“God forbid a woman have hobbies, Dana,” you scoff.

“Jack’s busy, ain't around for you to longingly gaze at.”

“I do not gaze at Jack,” you say defensively, hands abandoning the file they were holding on the desk to fly between your eyes and hers as you try to stress your point. “I look.”

She lets out an unimpressed mhm, her unconvinced eyebrows twitching in doubt at your self-proclaimed non-gazing status.

And you know that you really need to get these papers signed, but Dana sprang this on you out of nowhere, so now you have no choice but to pivot to a time-sensitive Gazegate investigation. Your mind begins to sift through all the evidence. You don’t gaze. You are totally in control of your physiological reactions to Jack.

Your face drops marginally. It’s not your fucking fault that you want him. As if it’s your fault that all you can think about some nights is his voice gasping out your name.

Minor desperation overtakes your frame and bleeds through your hushed words as you imagine Jack Abbot clocking you gazing at him.

Just embarrassing. Your lust is sickening.

“I don't gaze," you insist before dropping your voice and glancing at the attending. "Do I gaze?”

Robby’s eyebrows involuntarily shoot up, transforming his frozen, resigned face into one of are you fucking kidding me?, the statement making him consider whether he needed another cup of coffee or, maybe, a different career altogether.

Perhaps one without insurance claims.

His lips part around a question he doesn’t quite ask—words rising, then retreating as his throat bobs with the effort of swallowing them back down. Robby glances at Dana for a lifeline, but she's bloodthirsty for drama.

Robby finally exhales a short, incredulous laugh, shaking his head. "Do you... do you want me to answer that?" he asks, his voice laced with cautious amusement, hesitant to step in the trap you lay at his feet.

You’re silent.

His head drops into a single solemn, affirmative nod—your judge and jury. “You gaze.”

And there’s something on the tip of your tongue, locked, and loaded, and ready to fire—something connecting the word gaze to Myrna’s little nickname for him.

It doesn’t make it out.

Instead, you pick up the cup sitting to his side—the one patiently saying drink me, Robby! before it totally becomes cold—and silently reclaim it as your own, drinking the burnt coffee in one long, resigned sip.

Robby doesn’t speak.

It’s at that moment, of course, that Abbot appears—steady footsteps cutting through the low hum of the floor.

Jesus Christ. His hair was disheveled, curls sticking up at odd angles from running his hands through them all night and his black shirt, lacking any scrubs censoring the offending article, clings to his biceps like it was divinely tasked with ruining your concentration.

Your eyes catch there, unwilling to move, like staring is involuntary. A distraction you feel in your teeth. One you’d like to feel in your teeth.

As he approaches the desk you’re situated at, his eyes flicker up from the tablet in his hands just long enough to take in the scene: Robby’s flat stare, and your glare as you stand there, empty cup in hand.

“Robby,” Abbot drawls, loaded with the kind of dry amusement that suggests he’s made peace with your brand of destruction long ago.

His gaze slides pointedly to the cup, then back to Robby’s face.

Your victim looks up at him, forlorn, and mutters, “Can you just…?” His voice is flat, resigned—tinged with a special kind of despair reserved for the aftermath of you. Morosely, he half-heartedly gesticulates in your direction, trying to tell the man to control his animal.

Robby sets the cup down on the counter and picks up your pen, scrunching the sleeves of his hoodie at his elbows, wanting to end this.

Aforementioned animal owner has the audacity to smirk—half-awake and still deciding if he should be charming or infuriating—rolling his shoulders and then sighing before moving toward the desk, his movements slow and deliberate. He watches Robby for a moment, then shifts his attention to you.

“Any chance you’ll let him live to see tomorrow?” Voice dry but not quite masking the very real curiosity beneath it.

You shrug and slowly narrow your eyes as though the thought hadn’t even crossed your mind. “Depends.”

Typical lawyer.

“Get to him before that coffee does,” Jack advises like he’s giving medical advice, and Robby levels him with a flat stare because he knows that with you around, he is never going to get coffee, let alone have coffee get to him.

Jack huffs in amusement, shaking his head as he moves to join the taller man, tablet tucked under one arm.

“Still have a couple things to do,” Jack grunts to you lowly, and you glance down at your watch because surely you have the time right.

His shift should be ending.

And yet.

“What idiot starts his little tasks at shift-change?” you laugh, enjoying the unamused glance thrown your way from still-on-the-clock doctor—unimpressed, deeply earned.

“Wait for me?” Jack asks, already knowing the answer.

A small smile teases the edge of your lips in response. “Was going to anyway.”

With a low, reluctant breath, he straightens up, scraping a hand through his hair. He turns on his heel and strides through the department.

Dana looks up from behind the desk. Her gaze briefly meets yours, right eyebrow perched slightly above the left, as if to say not gazing, huh?, before she turns her attention back to the task at hand.

Jack’s off doing end-of-shift stuff, Robby is signing his life away, Dana is doing what Dana does, presumably—Christ, you would think these people were employed.

Floundering, you look around. So, no banter?

You’re already bored. You glance down at your watch, hand exasperatedly waving in the air as the numbers register. You'll have to act like you're employed soon, too. Your carefully structured morning—insurance claims, harassment, fifteen-minute break—crumbles before you.

God, so bored.

Eyes drifting around the department, your fingers start drumming an erratic rhythm on the surface of the desk, rebelling against the feeling of being out of place. Fingers dance along, down the length, adjusting a stack of papers, nudging them at an odd angle just to see if anyone will notice. You move on to your next victim, Dana’s hand quickly behind yours, returning the papers to their rightful place without so much as a glance in your direction.

Fluorescent lights glare down overhead, highlighting everything in a blinding white that dulls your senses.

You let out a low sigh, turning a tablet upside down in its dock. It’s not even fun.

Purposeful activity swirls around you in a slow tempoed symphony, a rare lull settling into the emergency department. To your left, Robby curses the claims in front of him in a hushed voice—and it’s a nasty, personal beef between him and that paper—pen scratching along the documents with resigned effort.

“You always act like I’m asking you to sign a voluntary execution agreement,” you sigh, a note of exasperation creeping into your voice. “I just need your signature, not someone to rewrite the Ten Commandments.”

That poor pen, you think, watching his reluctant grip tighten around it, the pen enduring its fate like a prisoner of war. Nowhere for it to run.

You lean on the counter and your head tilts, arms giving way and your body sliding an inch closer, observing with interest that his signature is essentially just a line. M——. You so could have done these yourself, if you really wanted.

You force yourself to choke back a laugh as expression tightens with each flick of the pen, the simmering annoyance contained just beneath the surface begging to be released.

Fingers beat slower this time, cadence matching the melody around you, watching as the charge nurse moves to undo your minor disruptions.

A smirk tugs at the corner of your mouth.

Time passes slowly.

This hospital should have more legal issues. You wonder who you have to talk to about that.

Robby flips the page.

And from across the room, you hear it. It’s soft, and warm, and, honestly, you have no idea how you hear it over the clamor of the emergency department, but it always lands on your ears deafening, like a clap of thunder.

And you have no reason to be jealous. Jack is, by all relevant and up-to-date nomenclature, your friend.

You trace the sound to the origin, and there he is, emerging from South 19, the smallest of smiles gracing his lips.

And, sorry, but that is your laugh. That’s the one you hear low and throaty in your ear when you’re walking too close, and you say something that catches him off guard. The one that haunts your dreams and wakes you up, the sound echoing in your ears. The one you would make a homily of, listening to it day in and day out, saying amen with devout obedience at every pause.

You blink, zeroed in and always devastatingly dramatic.

Maybe this is it.

Maybe the whoring out of his laugh—because apparently everyone gets it these days, because apparently, he feels magnanimous in the same way Oprah does—is his way of politely rejecting you.

Maybe it’s time to dedicate yourself to some religion somewhere and spend the rest of your life on your knees, lest another man tempt you.

Feigning nonchalance, your hand comes off the desk, very chalant eyes still fixed on Jack as you lean towards the blonde opposite you.

“Dana, you’ve lived here a while, right? What’s the convent scene like?” Robby lets out a snort at your question and the tip of your index finger firmly taps the papers beneath his palm three times to refocus him. “Sign the fucking documents, Michael.”

He obediently turns to the next page where you had so painstakingly and lovingly flagged exactly where his signature was required, and a mix of amusement and mild exasperation creeps across your cheeks, pulling the corners of your mouth into a small smile as he scrawls his indignant line across the pages.

“How about you go tell someone their insurance doesn’t care about their life. You’ll see how easy it is to sign these things then,” he says, turning to the next page.

“Are you kidding? I know you heard what happened to that UnitedHealthcare guy,” you click your tongue. “I ain’t doin’ all that.”

Robby doesn’t dignify your callus comment with a response, attention fixed firmly on the paper, willing it to absorb his frustration. The scratch of his pen dissolves into the steady drone heart monitors and residents trying their hand at cheating death. He flips the page, and his broad shoulders raise with his frustrated inhale, posture betraying his mounting irritation as he methodically—mechanically—works through the stack of forms.

The muted scuffle of boots against the ground alerts you of his presence as Abbot settles behind you, close enough his body heat warms yours.

“Free Luig, man,” he gruffly throws his two cents in.

“Luig?” you twist around, words laced with faint incredulity. “Y’all on a nickname basis?”

“Always have been,” he shrugs with such nonchalance that, for a second, you’re almost convinced they have always been.

You nod. Free Luig.

Caught in the crossfire, Robby closes his eyes momentarily and chokes back a groan. The headache was coming on already. It was way too early in the morning, and he was accosted before you even let him get his coffee, and now he has to listen to the two of you engage in what he and Dana and the rest of the staff with money in the pool could only assume was foreplay.

His pen etches into the paper one last time, a reluctant sigh escaping his lips as he finishes the final signature, his annoyance pooling into a little storm cloud over his head. He shoves the pages toward you with a motion that could rival a cat knocking a glass off the counter, his expression tortured, and you reverently accept the signed stack with flourish, a holy scripture freshly inscribed by a weary messenger of God.

“Thank you, sir,” you chirp, gingerly shuffling the papers and bowing your head.

“You’re too good to him,” Jack says, as if he genuinely expected better from you, nodding toward the older man, already rubbing his temples and back to pretending the two of you didn’t exist.

“He deserves a treat.”

He can’t take it anymore. Robby bolts—bolts—into the chaos of the department like a petty villain in the night.

You don’t even get a chance to double-check that his ridiculous little M—— is scrawled on every line it’s legally required to be on. He knows exactly what he’s doing, too—that smug twitch of his mouth giving him away as he disappears behind a random curtain.

What in the hell.

You tuck the files under your arm and slip a hand into your front pocket. Just as you’re about to let the let’s fly, Abbot roll off your tongue, your hand freezes, strangely empty.

You’re missing your pen.

That bastard still has your pen.

You inhale, long and tempered, because you don't want to be overly dramatic.

You don’t want to be overly dramatic because, okay, you get it, it’s a pen.

But pens don’t last down here in the emergency department, and every time you materialize, you end up giving Robby a pen, and you never get that pen back. And then Jack comes complaining to you because every time they work together, despite the growing number of pens you’ve surrendered to his cause, Robby never has a pen and then expects a pen from him. But the pen that Jack gives him is also your pen. So, then he’s asking you for a pen—which, really, no biggie, you’ve already looked up how much it would cost to buy Pilot so you could give him unlimited pens—and then you’re giving Jack a pen and then you’re also giving Robby a pen and then Jack is giving Robby a pen and you’re freaking hemorrhaging pens on three fronts.

You’ve Pavloved the poor men into carnal pen desire.

So, you stop yourself in your tracks, glancing towards your companion just enough to catch the angle of his head and smirk playing at the corner of his lips. Your shoulders shake as a huff of laughter leaves you.

There is no pen in his pocket, either.

Routine, you suppose.

“Anyone know where Robby went?” you ask, eyebrow arched, back to surveying the faces around you.

Jack nods over your shoulder, once again directing your attention across the room and you follow his line of sight, eyes landing on Robby’s stiff frame, hiding in plain sight. Two steps from him, a woman is standing way too close for his comfort, hand on his arm, the recipient of a very intense one-way conversation.

You’re so going to make fun of him for this later. Maybe even in the emergency department group chat that you’ve weaseled your way into.

“Explain,” you demand, ravenous for the gossip.

“Guy came in last night, not doing great. Advance directive on file, medical POA too—directive was signed after. The kids are pissed.”

He lowers his voice, conspiratorial, and you reflexively shift closer to hear him.

“Now they’re trying to bribe half the staff with Daddy’s things for comfort treatment.”

The word daddy leaving Jack’s lips makes your eyes freeze in place, the only visible crack in your armor. This is really not what you need to be thinking about this early in the morning. You give a sharp shake with your head, trying to physically eject the thought.

Man, that family is totally legal’s problem.

You deflate. Which means that’s your problem, really, and you know as soon as you get back to your office, you’ll be losing a game of rock-paper-scissors for who has to be on the way back down here, and you hate ancillary document infighting.

“Okay, well that’s…” Your eyes narrow slightly, contemplating. “…awful?”

“Was that a question mark?”

You shrug. Maybe.

“Any chance you think I can get his attention?” you question, acceptance of the fact that a new pen is about to be classified as missing in action settling in your pocket.

And then Jack forces you to look at him, hand slowly curling around your bicep, and you’re struck by the inexplicable, primal urge to flex to show him, hey, I could hunt and gather. I could do anything you need me to do.

And then you have to fight the other urge to check your watch, because God forbid you give the impression that there’s anywhere else you’d rather be, but you are positive now that it’s barely seven in the morning and you stomp that primal urge down because you cannot start your yearning and lusting this early. Especially with this new legal problem on your radar.

“Looking for something?” he says, and somehow it sounds like an insult.

“Theft charges,” you reply dryly.

His mouth twitches.

“If I am ever in that position,” he commands, voice gentle but unmistakably pointed as he tugs your focus back from Robby. Selfishly, Jack wants all your attention on himself. “Just put the pillow over my face, and press—”

You blink, drawing back. “Goddamn.”

“—create an airtight seal—”

“Just sign the POA, girl.”

“Bet you used to charge a premium for those.”

“Just, like, two thousand. That’s, like,” you expel a dramatic breath from your lungs, feigning introspective mathematical precision, and rock back on your heels. “Twenty beaver pelts back in your day.”

“Twenty?” His head reels back, his voice fading out at the end in an octave that you’re not quite sure he possesses, and the commitment to the bit makes your chest tighten. He leans forward again. “Real proud of those autogenerated documents, huh?”

“No one used to copy-and-paste like me, baby.” You bite your lip.

A beat passes.

He demands your gaze, insistent, possessive.

You suck your teeth and lower your voice, a teasing lilt rising to suffocate the longing that tries to break through. “So, I’m in your deathbed fantasy, huh?”

Enraptured by the way the left side of your mouth starts to smile before the right follows suit, he allows his eyes to flicker to your lips, too quick for you to catch.

He doesn’t even blink. The hand on your arm tugs you forward, gentle but certain, and you stumble closer to his body. Your tongue, usually razor sharp and biding time until the next joke, dulls.

You blue screen.

Why is his hand big enough to wrap around your arm like that? Dear Lord, has he always been this warm? You can’t remember. Whatever used to be where your brain was immediately betrayed you and fucked off, leaving in its place a panting dog. Does he need you to bark? You could bark. You have no qualms with barking.

He leans in close, voice fighting to be heard over the crackling PA system probably calling for an attending in some fucking room, and then you were no longer in the emergency department. Ringing overtakes your ears and you imagine the hand on your bicep somewhere a little higher.

“Sweetheart,” his drawls, sinfully wrapping around each letter, like he knows exactly what it does to you. The word drips from his lips with maddening ease, dragging down your spine like molten lava. “You’re in my every fantasy. Welcome to the conversation.”

You blink again. The PA system calls out another pleading demand for whoever was listening at this point, effectively eliminating you and Jack, and his voice—steady, warm, smug—fills your brain with cotton, making it hard to ration, or think, or breathe.

You’re what?

His eyes dance around your face reverently while the slightest ghost of a smile takes residence on his lips, memorizing the subtle flush traveling across your cheeks and your wide eyes—no longer the color you were born with—blinking uncomprehendingly up at him. He tucks some things away for later, too—the way your breath hitches in a shallow, uneven burst, and how your lashes flutter like they can’t decide to stay open or not while you process his words. In the back of his mind, he decides he likes making you speechless. He tucks that away for later, too.

Then the corners of your lips twitch, your voice slipping out before you could stop it, soft but teasing, “Careful, old man, lest someone label you a poet.”

His responding laugh is quiet, low, self-satisfied—just for you, as it should be, thank you. And when his hand loosens its grip on your bicep and trails down to brush his fingers against yours, your breath stalls.

For the first time, you realize that you’re not in control of anything here at all, let alone your physiological reactions to his proximity. Jack Abbot holds all the cards in a perfectly imbalanced stack against his chest, and, despite your best efforts, you’ve never been good at poker.

And then you feel it.

You are fucking gazing.

You very explicitly recall your job description reading: Hours: 7am-5pm, Mon-Fri.

So why, then, do you find yourself swiping your security card back into the stairwell, beginning your ascent just as the numbers on your watch creep to 6:48am on a Sunday.

Actually, you know why. A text.

You were tucked in bed, comforter woven from warm springtime sunbeams, thoroughly enjoying the walk on the fuzzy line between waking and slumber. And then, without warning or pause, your body was violently ripped from the veil like a loose tooth at a little kid’s freaking birthday party, phone buzzing, SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D. plastered across your screen and, below it, a text.

Roof, it read.

Well, yeah, Jack, you thought blearily. Roof. Of course, roof.

You say bark, I bark.

Your comforter was off, and shoes were being tugged on before the screen even dimmed from inactivity, the rational thought of changing out of your sad excuse of pajamas nowhere in sight. Heading into work on a Sunday before the sun was even up.

Nothing wrong with getting a head start on next week, you hum to yourself as you wait for the elevator to ding at the twelfth floor, and then you pause, disgusted with the stray thought. Since when did you want to willingly participate in capitalism more than required?

All because of a man?

Mental You takes the cookies out of the oven and giggles and twirls her hair and dreamily sighs out a yeah.

You step off the elevator and immediately cross the hall, shoving the door to the stairwell open, feet trudging up the steps.

At least you’re also getting paid for it. Not that you need to be paid to see Jack.

I’d pay to see Doctor Abbot, Mental You giggles.

You finally get to the roof, thighs burning, though not as much as they used to—shoutout to Andrea at the gym—and push open the door.

Or you would.

The door jams, halting your hand mid-motion, and you sigh.

Without thinking, you wind back and slam your shoulder into the damned thing. It flies open with a dramatic groan and you’re all but launched forward, right shoe catching awkwardly on the ledge. Gravity seizes the opportunity with enthusiasm, zealously pulling at your body, and you guess that your bag must want in on the action too, because it shifts the weight of everything inside, throwing you off balance, the momentum carrying you in a parabolic arc directly into the path of the bloodthirsty door, who vengefully desires nothing more than to claim your life and perhaps its rightful resting position in the frame.

And then time is slowing down in that unique and humiliating way it does when you realize with horror that you’re doing something that would land you on TikTok.

And then there’s another moment, fleeting but vivid, where you register how ridiculous you must look: clad in pajamas, bag swinging, your body a perfect picture of chaos.

And then it happens.

You collide with the door in a graceless, full-bodied tackle that rattles the hinges and might as well announce your presence to the entire city.

By the time you stumble away from the ring, vehemently declining another round with the door, your legs stinging where the exposed skin met the cold metal, you notice Jack already leaning against the far side of the railing, figure outlined by the slowly rising light of the sun.

At first, you think he hasn’t noticed your grand entrance, but Jack has always had the uncanny ability to see everything you don’t want him to see, and also you would have to have been dead to not have heard all that. It’s the single shake of his tense shoulders that betrays him, and, really, you have to give him credit where credit’s due, because he’s trying.

He’s trying so hard to not make fun of you right now.

You can feel it.

You straighten up, and you’re of half a mind to try and salvage the scraps of dignity you still have left, but, ultimately, you find that you just don’t care that much. You also find that it was so much colder than you thought it would be, given your current attire.

A coat, you think miserably. Anything. Anything at all would have been better.

“I swear it wasn’t like that a couple days ago,” you huff, brushing invisible dust off your sleeve as you lick your wounds.

Abbot finally allows a single soldier through the front lines in his battle against laughter, letting out a sharp chuckle that cuts through the cold morning air.

“You always know how to make an entrance,” he observes, similar to the way he’s observed cloud cover.

His eyes drag down to your legs and his brow subtly creases, trying to conceal the way his brain short-circuited for half a second.

“Shorts,” he mutters, blinking slowly, shoulders rising in a steep inhale. “That’s…a choice.”

"Yeah, well, you know..." you wave a hand in the air dismissively. "Sleeping."

And you realize, fuck, you really don’t care about your wounded dignity and stupid outfit if it makes Jack Abbot look at you like that.

A comfortable ease settles over you while something warm settles in the pit of your stomach, one that only he seems capable of conjuring. You take a deep breath, the cool air biting at your lungs, the tension from your stairwell match melting away as Jack’s presence steadies you.

“Wait, you come up here without me?” He clarifies, voice a little rougher than he means it to be, unwavering stare locked on you. “But it’s—this is mine.”

“I really don’t think you can have, like, a monopoly on the roof, Jack.”

“I was hired first,” he argues, like that alone justifies his claim to the space.

“Jack, how is it a monopoly if you let me in?”

He doesn’t answer, just stares at you flatly like that answers it.

“I literally work, like, eight feet below where we’re standing right now,” you stress, foot tapping against the ground in emphasis. “You understand that, right?”

He shrugs, corner of his lips creeping up. “You don’t have to beg, kid. I’ll let you use it,” he says, smug. “I’m magnanimous like that.”

You don’t even know where to begin tearing apart the words that just exited his mouth. But your mouth, your traitorous mouth, does. “I’m not begging.”

He leans in then.

“Do you want to?”

He knows it’s the only way he can throw you off the same way you so unknowingly do to him.

Sure enough, you lag behind his response, mouth parting as power is diverted from mandibular control to turn the gears in your brain, each one creaking with effort as they try to process what the fuck just came out of his mouth.

And he says it to keep your blinders on, to distract you from the way he almost said ours instead of mine, and to distract you from the way his fingers twitch at his sides, like they want to reach for you but are stuck in purgatory, unsure if they’d be welcomed.

But Jack notices it too much.

He notices his twitching hands, and the way your laughter lingers in his chest longer than it should, and the way your voice threads through the spaces of his day and ties his heart in knots in ways he doesn’t even know where to begin untangling. He doesn’t say anything, but he feels it, thick and unyielding, curling around his ribs and threatening to suffocate him whenever you’re near.

So, his arms fold over his chest, absently creating a protective barrier, his eyes falling somewhere distant.

And then cut to you sideways, softening despite himself, cracking through the flimsy pretense of just-friends banter you both cling to like it might protect you from the inevitable. It’s a game you keep playing, tossing a live grenade back and forth.

But he won’t drop it.

If there is one thing that Jack Abbot has in abundance, it’s patience. He is patient—he learned it long ago under the blanket of gunfire and the oppressive heat of the sun, and mastered it with bodies bleeding out beneath his hands. And he is tenacious. He is so fucking tenacious it would make your head spin. And he would toss that live grenade days, months, decades until you reacted too slowly and it went off.

And then the moment is gone and you’re dancing back over the line to friends. He punches your arm lightly, the movement too calculated to be casual, his fist moving forward unaccompanied by the fluidity and self-assuredness you’ve seen him possess with florescent lights above him and a body below. His knuckles burn your arm where they glance across it, and your eyes whip between the afflicted site and him, mind already curating a scathing retort.

He waits, daring you to notice how long he lingers in moments like this, how he drags out conversations just to keep you tethered here next to him, close enough to pretend you’re his.

But you step closer, eyes taking in the way his shoulders seem to be pressed down by an invisible weight—one that you wish you could become Atlas to alleviate, if just for a moment.

Bad night, you observe.

Bad night, indeed, Jack’s body screams in reply.

When the shrill alarm alerting him of 5pm pierced the fragile fog that had settled on his brain, it felt as though the world was gunning for his sanity. The weight of exhaustion pressed heavily on his chest, and his body, tangled in sheets that seem to have turned into chains and a sweat-soaked shirt plastered to his body, drags heavily, joints creaking as he began to extract himself from his fabric prison.

Thirty-three minutes of deep sleep, Jack’s watch spat in his face.

Kill yourself, watch, he grunted back.

But time, relentless and indifferent and, in the back of his mind, named Gloria Underwood (no relation, you tried to convince him during one of your rooftop meetings once. It’s a common name, Abbot.), marches forward, dragging him along with its cruel cadence and another hellish shift in the books.

And presently, you see his tense body standing—like the soldier he’ll probably always be—at attention, shoulders rigid, chin tilted defiantly as if daring the universe to shove him just a little further, just until the ground beneath his feet disappears, and hands clenched so tightly at his side that you think you should take him downstairs to check for open wounds.

The thing about the veteran that you clocked long before the start of soft smiles, and the banter, and the myriad rooftop rendezvous is this: when he has a bad night, he gets philosophical.

“Do you think God cares?” he deadpans—which is insane to you, because who opens like that?

You gently lean your demon-possessed bag against the AC unit and walk forward to settle beside him where he leans heavily against the opposite side of the rail. “Like, in general, or…?”

“The death,” he lists, ticking it off like it’s a mildly interesting footnote. “The helplessness.”

“I don’t know. Kinda used to want to ask God that,” you admit, your energy shifting to match his vaguely existential one. You try kicking at a rock to diffuse some of the tension and somehow miss entirely. “‘If you’re so loving, why do you allow so much suffering and injustice.’”

“Don’t question it anymore?”

The question makes you pause. You guess you didn’t question it anymore. You were surrounded by it every day, as was he—the predatory insurance companies and the maladjusted American healthcare system. It wasn’t as though you’d been exposed to the trademarked horrors, but the past six years were taxing enough. Year after year, case after case, you internalized the knowledge that the things meant to help you weren’t really there just to help. And that knowledge takes its toll.

So, no, you don’t really question it anymore.

But you do let it steal parts of you. It isn’t outright draining—more like a faucet that didn’t shut off completely, allowing a single drip to escape at a time, every couple seconds, every day, for years. Not something someone immediately identifies and fixes, but something that, when you do notice it, you kind of throw your hands up in the air like, well what the fuck now?

That’s where you’re at. Well, what the fuck now, indeed.

You laugh, the sound unbidden and a touch more bitter than you want it to be. “No, it just became a pride thing.”

And then the soft confession escapes you before you could beat it back with a bat and send forth some retort that would get you a huff of air through the nose at worst, and a scoff and shake of the head at best. The words cross your unspoken boundary of keeping it light and ambiguously sexual—they toe the line of being vulnerable. “I guess now I’m afraid that he might ask me the same question.”

Part of you really hopes he ignores the words. Part of you hopes that the words would fall on deaf ears and any response would die on mute lips. Part of you hopes that the world would open up and pluck those drifting words right out of the air before they could reach him.

But Jack is there. Jack is always there, and Jack always fucking saw you before you saw you, and he always heard what you said before you knew what you said.

And he would always be there throwing you a life-preserver, a way out.

He tries to salvage what’s left of the levity from your grand entrance and nudges your shoulder with his.

“It’s a really stupid question, anyway,” he utters softly, gently, the understanding of a man who has seen worse draping over the words.

A life-preserver that you would enthusiastically grab like you’ve asked for one every Christmas for the past thirty years. His eyes head turns, and his eyes lock on to yours, inviting and warm, and you realize you’re so fucked.

You swallow, the familiar teasing expression reappearing on command, the left side of your mouth coming up in a smirk and your right eyebrow raising fractionally.

“Yeah. We should really be focusing on big picture stuff,” you agree. “Like, ‘How does Tom Cruise do all that?’”

“That’ll blow God’s freaking mind,” he grumbles.

You nudge his shoulder back.

Cold wind nips at your skin, and you shudder, your arms drawing in to aid your body in retaining heat. Your eyes dart to the side hoping you were as subtle doing that as you thought you were.

Definitely not, you assume. The troubled man’s fingers tighten on the railing as he wordlessly swings himself under to the other side, shrugging off his jacket and draping it over your shoulders.

You begin offering up a weak protest, barely more than a whisper, until Jack’s eyes snap to you, cool and amused.

“Don’t get used to charity,” he murmurs, voice like velvet on steel. “Just say thank you, Jack.”

A meek thank you, Jack takes its place. A hum, noncommittal—casual—fills the space between you in reply.

The weight of it presses down, swallowing you whole. It’s warm from his own body, and it smells vaguely of the antiseptic you’ve come to accept as his cologne, and God, and it’s heavy. Not because of the fabric itself—that’s actually rather light, it’s still early in the season-change—but because it’s his. An ever-present fixture that emerges as soon as the temperature drops.

A constant.

And now it’s on you and it feels almost too personal, and you shift slightly trying to shake the intimate feeling off and just enjoy the moment as a girl with a crush on a man fifteen years older than her, but the bastard clings to you and settles into your heart.

“We should get you a new cologne, by the way.”

You said we. You had said we and Jack’s brain immediately latches onto the promise of something so domestic with you.

“Are you saying I smell?” he asks, expression unreadable but amused.

“Every day I sit in my office and pray you’ll take a shower.”

“You don’t have better things to pray for?”

You open your mouth to respond, but he’s on a roll.

“World peace,” he supplies, like it was the obvious office prayer.

It’s a good office prayer, you have to admit.

“I can’t wear cologne down there. Liability or something,” he continues dryly, and the next words seek out your pride with surgical precision, making a single, tiny cut. “You of all people should know that.”

He got you there again—you should know that—and that’s like three times in the span of ten minutes that he’s got you. You’re not quite sure what’s happening right now.

Deafening silence concedes the argument.

But as far as you’re concerned, you’ll let him have it. You have Jack on one side of you and the warmth of his jacket protecting you against the cold creeping in. You’re content.

And you thought Jack was content, too.

But apparently, he isn’t.

Can’t let the silence just freaking do its thing.

“Can I ask you something else?” he says, like the answer to that has ever stopped him before, “Why do you care?”

And the parallel between this question and the one about God makes your eyebrows furrow a little because, what does that mean? What does ‘why do you care about the suffering of human beings,’ mean?

“About suffering?” you say slowly, trying to find your footing.

“No.”

Your mouth opens a fraction, perhaps wide enough for a fly to be caught, while you work to follow what path his mind went down.

What, like, The Yankees? Yeah, you care about them. Obviously, because you love them. Any team that happens to be playing against Jack’s beloved Pirates, of course care about them, because you hate whatever team Jack loves. Annoying Robby? Sure. About Jack himself, absolutely. Fucking definitely, even.

You tick the entries off in your mind: career, first and foremost; your friends; Jack; your family that hasn’t talked to you in years; Dr. Abbot down in the ED; crippling debt payments from law school; that matcha place Samira showed you; the socio-political landscape of the world; former army medic, Jack Abbot.

You can’t imagine that Jack’s unprompted and vague question was about any of these things.

Your eyes squint not of your own volition. “What?”

“Yesterday,” he clarifies, tone clipped, ever a man of many words.

“What?” you try again.

“About that woman.”

You’ll shove this fool off the roof yourself, you decide. “What?”

He leans back, knuckles white from gripping the rail to anchor him, sighing that you’re the crazy one right now sigh—like he can’t believe he has to spell it out for you, word for word. “The one that was flirting with Robby.”

You actually look over at Jack then, confused. He’s not looking at you, his back now ramrod straight and jaw reflecting his fists, clenched so tightly you're surprised his teeth aren’t shattering from the pressure.

The woman that you had a very long, very tense, conversation with—brother’s presence intruding like a serpent in the garden, begging you to sin—about pulling her father off life support?

A laugh almost escapes you. You’re not sure he realizes how stupid he sounds thinking you cared about anything in that moment other than the way his hand wrapped around your bicep and the way he laughed, low and ruinous and lethal, and called you sweetheart.

Light and sexual, you chant to yourself.

“The one that wants her dad dead?” you bluntly ask—whatever, who needs light, anyway?

His shoulder draws up in a half-shrug, mouth opening in a wordless response. Finally, he settles on, “I’m just saying you seemed… very interested—”

“What, in my job?” your confused tone betrays the half-smile on your face.

“That’s not what I’m saying—”

"I mean, it sounds like what you're saying—"

"No, you looked upset at her—"

"—and it's definitely what I'm hearing—"

"Well, get your fucking hearing checked—"

“Are you jealous, Jack?” you press, cutting him off, pointed and a little smug.

“Yes.”

He says it so simply, and his voice is so soft, so confident, and it lands with decimating impact.

What happened to light and sexual, Jack?

It just swan dove straight over the ledge, Jack.

What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

Your next thought slams through you, so loud and so out of pocket, and you’re a little pissed because last time you had this thought, you told it to at least give you, like, an ETA next time. Your heart jumps a little in your chest. Maybe you don’t have to call that convent, you think. Maybe he isn’t a fan of polite rejection.

And then the third thing you cared about in yesterday’s interaction strikes you. Obviously.

“Jack,” you enunciate. You want your next words to be explicitly clear. “The only reason I was even looking for Robby was because he still had my pen.”

His jaw twitches. “What?”

“Holy shit, can we stop with the whats?”

“Okay, look, sorry if I need to make sure that my friend,” he spits out the word, duplicity-soaked label coating his mouth with a bitter aftertaste. “Isn’t pining over my- my fellow attending.”

“First of all, I would never pine,” you note. “I’m a maple, and I want that on record.”

For a turbulent second, Jack wants to grab you by the scruff of the neck and manhandle you like a misbehaved chihuahua because he’s serious and you make jokes when you’re feeling defensive—something that he usually finds endearing but simply can’t find it in him to do right now.

He doesn’t want you pining over Robby, he wants you pining over him.

And so maybe his response is fueled by jealousy, okay, sue him. He’ll bring it up to his therapist and then apologize to you, and you’ll say something like, I should invoice your therapist myself for emotional labor.

So, he digs in, tone sharp but surgical, and says something that he knows will get a rise out of you because he knows you—he knows everything about you.

“Maple? You’re so obviously an oak—you’ll never be a maple,” he fires back, voice incredulous, volume subdued, eyes narrowed in outrage. “You’re not even close to maple-level, be fucking for real.”

A strangled sound makes its way out of you, shocked that he would even think such a thing. “Of course you would say that you fucking ginkgo,” you snap.

“Gingko?”

You inhale sharply and force yourself to rein in your next sentence because there’s a feeling in your chest—one slowly rising, and it suspiciously feels like anger. Why the hell is Jack acting like this at seven in the morning on a Sunday, especially about someone that the hospital would sell out in a heartbeat over a wrongful prolongation of life lawsuit?

Pining over Robby? Is he fucking stupid?

Well, two can play this game.

You can be fucking stupid, too.

You can be fucking stupid, and—you want it known, labelled, and presented before the new J.D. recipient, prosecution attorney Jack Abbott, M.D., as Exhibit A—you’re not remotely capable of even pretending to be normal in a competitive situation.

“Sorry, Abbot, I didn’t realize you could even clock my pining over the volume of your giggles,” you counter hotly, throwing a trembling finger in his face at the scandalized look that crosses it. “Yeah. Giggles.”

“So, you were pining over Robby?” he confirms, and it lodges itself under your skin.

You’re sure if you looked down at your watch it would tell you that you have a heart rate of at least one hundred and eighty.

“Why the fuck do you care who I’m pining over?” you hiss, your voice dripping with frustration.

Jack opens his mouth, thinks better of it, then tries again—lighter, a silent prayer that maybe the joke can diffuse the mounting tension.

“I don’t care, but Robby is built like one of those car-dealership inflatables, and—” he shifts his weight to the left, leg aching.

But it’s too late. Your eyes narrow.

“Built like a car-dealership inflatable?” you echo in disbelief, hoping the words will help Jack realize the incredulousness of the statement. “What the hell does that even mean?”

That’s a great question, the prosecution thinks. He doesn’t even really know, but it’s out now and he has to roll with it.

“That’s your friend and now you’re being fucking mean,” the words press out through gritted teeth, humor long gone. “You’re just saying stuff.”

He agrees with you, he is just saying stuff, and Jack will apologize to his friend for the stray when his mind is clearer and blood pressure lower, even though the other man won’t have any idea what he’s talking about.

“Yeah,” he bites out, stepping closer. “But you kicked this shit off with your stupid maple thing, and now I’m stuck defending myself against a guy who walks like life’s spine-optional and he’s not sure how gravity works—”

“Shut up about Robby’s walk!” you yell in a rush, your voice shrill and piercing, the sheer absurdity of the argument making your hands fly into the air. “This isn’t about him! Or his- his saunter. This is about your—”

“This is not about me,” he cuts you off, too loud to be convincing. “I just think you deserve better spine-to-surface ratio, is all—”

“Because your body has such a perfect there-to-not ratio, right?”

“Ohhhhh, you wanna go there—?”

“No, actually, I don’t,” you snap back. Then, sharper, “Listen, Abbot—”

“No, you listen,” he grounds out, your name a heated whisper snapping against its leash. “You’re the one who made this weird. You got all defensive and—” Jack gestures around like it personally offended him, “And then you’re calling me a gingko. A gingko. Like that’s a thing regular people do in arguments.”

“Oh, I’m sooo sorry, Doctor,” you draw out the syllables in mock-sympathy. “Would you prefer that I use military metaphors? Would that make baby feel more emotionally validated?”

“Yes, it would!” the doctor hisses back, mouth a breath away from yours. “Maybe at least then I would know where the hell I stand in your metaphor jungle!”

There’s a beat—one that coils the tension tighter, and tighter, and tighter—and Jack’s eyes, always attuned to your body, snap to the frustrated pinch of your mouth. Then back up. Your breath comes in sharp, uneven bursts, a wild fire burning behind your glassy eyes, gravity giving up on strands of hair where you ran your rands through them.

Not for the first time, he thinks that you’re beautiful. Your beauty was noted and neatly filed away long ago at your first meeting, shelved next to other invariably true things like death, and taxes, and a subscription he forgot about charging his bank account.

Eyes snap back down again.

And fuck he wants nothing more than to slam his lips against yours, to win, to derail the argument—to get you to stop arguing for maybe the first time in your life.

You clench your jaw, and you take a deep breath.

Neither of you move.

Don’t even shift your weight.

Almost nose to nose.

Of course, you weren’t pining over Robby, he knows that.

Because in Jack’s mind, it’s simple.

You’re his.

And sometimes he forgets that this thing between you has never been verbalized and linguists and English majors around the world are probably still scrambling and conspiring to combine words and build syntax trees that won’t even scratch the surface of explaining how deeply you’re seared into his soul.

And he certainly forgets that in your mind, he’s not yours.

Then, of course, there’s also the fact that he hasn’t done this in years, not since his wife—so, admittedly, he’s a little rusty. He tried practicing, but this conversation isn’t going at all how he painstakingly and methodically rehearsed with Robby in the breakroom.

And then somehow trees were pulled into it, and he doesn’t know anything about trees—he could name maybe four types. He can’t even tell you what a gingko is. He honestly thought it was a lizard. He probably would have put money on it.

And also he loves your metaphors, you know that.

“There was a woman in South 19,” he starts slowly, forcefully controlled. The first words in an unspoken sorry. His hands twitch by his side. “She was eighty-two years old and told me I was too handsome to be a doctor. That I should be on the cover of Vogue.”

Your brain, which has been running on pure spite and cortisol, fumbles.

Silence presses down over you once more.

The roof is too quiet now.

Too stupid.

You’re angry and a little hurt. Jack’s angry and, you think, probably a little hurt, too—at the very least by the body-ratio comment and definitely by the gingko comment.

And you feel even more stupid because, through it all, you’re still swimming in his fucking jacket.

Unfortunately for you, you agree with the eighty-two-year-old woman in South 19. He should be on the cover of Vogue.

It’s your turn. You press your hands into your eyes hard enough you see stars, taking a small step back.

“Robby had my pen,” you mutter, reprising the explanation you started before the argument spiraled out of control.

Abbot blinks. “What?”

You sigh, loud and theatrical, hands dropping. “Robby had my pen, okay? And it’s—just—it’s always like this. I show up. He needs to sign. He never has a pen. I give him one, then you give him one, but it’s also mine, because you got it from me, and then I give him another, and it’s like—I’m hemorrhaging pens. I am singlehandedly keeping Pilot in business because of this freaking guy.”

He just stares at you.

You gesture helplessly. “So, yeah. I was looking for Robby. To get my pen back.”

Another beat.

Then Jack, flatly, “You picked a fight with me because of a pen pyramid scheme.”

“Okay, um, actually, you picked a fight with me,” you object, your mind scrunching up its sleeves and waving its fists in the air, ready to go again. Ballpoint trauma massages its shoulders, egging it on.

He watches you and shakes his head imperceptibly.

He’s in love with someone who’s bleeding office supplies.

The man runs a hand over his face, palm dragging slow, and when it drops, there’s something soft and aching behind his eyes. Not pity. Not amusement. Just this quiet, stunned affection like, God, it’s you. Even when you’re arguing over trees and tube men, it’s you.

Your shoulders start to slump, and you scuffle your shoe against the gravel, eyes fixed on the ground like you’re trying to disappear. All the fire from earlier is gone, and somehow that’s worse. He watches you there, wrapped in his jacket like it belongs on your shoulders, drowning in the sleeves, collar brushing your cheek a little every time you move. It’s recklessly easy to forget what started this fight—to forget that he can’t do anything in this moment but watch you shrink before him.

He wants to take your face in his hands, thumb the curve of your cheekbones and tilt your head up. He wants to bend down and let his lips press into the corners of your eyes, catching the unshed tears. He wants to press kisses to every inch of your skin—your temples, the tip of your nose, the crease between your brows—murmuring I’m sorry between each one like a prayer, drunk on adoration of you.

In a pathetic attempt at casualness, your voice breaks through his fantasy, “I’m ‘friend’ and Michael’s relegated to ‘fellow attending,’huh?”

Jack exhales, controlled and slow, not meant for your ears.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” the veteran says quietly.

“I would argue what he doesn't know appears to hurt him the most,” you breathe a laugh, eyes still downcast.

He inclines his head and forces a gruff chuckle quietly to escape, the sound landing gently on your ears. Your traitorous heart stutters in your chest at the sound. And then his laugh pauses, and eyes narrow. He nods because, actually, you’re right about Robby. He should really ask him about that tomorrow.

All at once, in the back of your mind, you start to feel guilty.

You know that your friend had such a bad night and, presumably, a bad shift, that he asked you to come to the roof on a Sunday. And then you just called him a gingko and that was so fucking far from cool. The lump swelling in your tightening throat starts to teeter on impossible to swallow around. The tears you never learned how to suppress in an argument burn the back of your eyes.

But the sound has already burrowed into your heart once more and you can’t even remember why you were having a hissing match with Jack Abbot about trees and car-dealership inflatables. His stupid fucking laugh took your composure by the ear and shot it point blank in the back alley of a Wendy’s all within the span of three seconds.

You can’t help it.

“Hey, Jack,” you begin, your voice floating out and dying in the air as the sounds of the street rise to battle them.

You’re silent for a second.

You know you should quit while you’re ahead and leave down the stairs with a thumbs up and one last joke about returning to the door for seconds, but the words hey, Jack are already out, and true to the name, this is Jack, and now he’s looking at you with such affection in those confusingly beautiful eyes that all you want to do is tell him how, most days, he is the only thing keeping you sane, and how when you imagine your future, you imagine the calluses on his hands and arms wrapped around you from behind. And you want to tell him that you want nothing more than to see him every day, hell, you’ll take seeing him off hospital grounds. And, God, you want to text him the stupid updates throughout your day—that your matcha sucks today and you think the barista wants to set you on fire.

You want this nearing ancient, active suicide risk in your life beyond insurance claims, and Rooftop Club, and stupid fucking fights about pens and eighty-two-year-old women in South 19—even ones that are now confusingly flora based.

I think I love you, you want to tell him.

And for a moment you’re genuinely worried that you might say something conveying anything of a remotely similar sentiment—something definitely not light and sexual.

But then you hear yourself softly admitting, “For the record, you’re my best friend.”

The vulnerability makes you feel like you’ve been cut open, heart on display for the medic’s steady hands. The guilt gnaws at you, and you resign yourself to feeling like a fool, a lumbering joker standing in Jack Abbot’s jacket and your pajamas.

You start picking at the loose threads on his jacket sleeve.

His hand moves, slowly, the same way a cowboy would approach a skittish horse, and settles over yours, gently stopping the movement.

You drift your gaze up, just enough to catch his eyes with yours.

“You’re not a gingko, by the way,” you mumble, words barely making it past your lips.

His hand tightens on yours. It’s so marginal that you’re sure you’ve imagined it. His eyes stay locked on yours.

“Kid,” Jack says, and when he leans in, his voice drops, soft and steady and sacred. “Maples wish they had what you do.”

He angles his head just as the morning sun—surely a paid actor—breaks from behind the skyline and cascades over his face, bathing him in gold. For a fleeting second, the words of your mother ring in your ears and you think you finally understand what she spoke of when said that human beings are made in the image of God.

Slowly, your eyes begin to wander over the gentle slope of his nose, cataloguing the constellations of freckles across his cheeks, finding respite at the corner of his eye where his crow’s feet deepen as he squints, lashes battling the intruding light.

You agree. Surely something so beautiful couldn’t be anything short of divine.

The newborn light catches on what’s left of the copper stands in his salt and pepper curls and dances on the unshaven stubble dusting his face, and you decide that God was taking his job as Artist very seriously right now, pouring gold down from heaven and letting it mend every chip and heal every break, sculpting a kinutsigi statue before your very eyes.

The gravel crunches as he shifts, the sound effectively restarting your brain, your head whipping towards the skyline before he could comment on your very clearly and pathetically waxing poetic gaze.

What the fuck was that?

But you know exactly what that was, and it was not something that fell under the umbrella of keeping it light and ambiguously sexual.

You shift your weight anxiously.

“And you know Robby can’t help that he’s built like a broad scarecrow,” your quiet voice drifts into the air.

“I know, sweetheart,” and God his voice is so soft, somehow so steady, that you’re not sure how it has the ability to cut through you with such sharpness. “Still wouldn’t trust the integrity of his core.”

You nod. You could get behind that.

“I like your body ratio the way it is, Jack.”

He brings your hands clasped in his to his lips.

You had the first Friday of every month circled multiple times on your calendar. It was routine, one that Gloria knew and that Gloria respected. Which is why, you couldn’t for the life of you discern the reason you were thrown into the lion’s den of not routine when she decided that, actually, these insurance claims needed to be signed at this exact moment on some random ass Monday or, as far as you could gather, the entire hospital would crash down to the ground with everyone inside it and then the rubble would catch fire, too.

But you don’t argue. A trip down to the emergency department was always a joyous occasion in your book, and so you hoped it would stay.

And you stumble into the elevator, cup of coffee in a mug that reads soy milk on the front and hola milk, soy tu padre on the back in one hand, and a bundle of papers flagged for signature in the other. Your hips angle towards the paneling on the wall and you all but ragdoll your body into the buttons, aiming for the bottom floor and, regrettably, hitting the bottom three.

God forbid you have an easy start.

The elevator doors open with a groan, and the controlled chaos of the emergency department whirls around you, and you duck and weave around rogue employees, making your way through the halls, sniffing the air like a bloodhound in search of Robby.

“Jesus Christ,” vibrates out of his chest, eyes landing on you as you turn the corner. “Once a month isn’t enough for you people?”

“You people? Do you mean women?”

His hands come up and pull at his hair.

You take pity on him.

“Hey, Robby, don’t shoot the messenger.” You shrug, eyes already wandering around the floor looking for their natural target. You slide the cup of coffee in his direction, a silent peace treaty. “You don’t like it? Sue.”

Robby sighs and takes off his glasses as he watches your pathetic scan of the department. After the conversation he and Jack had after he came down from the roof yesterday—which was essentially Robby asking if he finally asked you out and Jack just grunting at him and leaving—he knows he should handle this with kid-gloves.

And he tries. He swears he tries. He would testify, hand on the bible, that he tried.

“He’s gone.”

And for a moment, the doctor almost feels bad because your head whips towards him and you resemble an abandoned shelter dog, eyes sad and brows furrowed. He makes the split-second decision to grab the cup of coffee and place it under his protection before you can do something drastic.

“What?”

“He’s gone. Day off. Today and tomorrow,” Robby declares, using his free hand to make grabby motions at the file he sees tucked in your arms.

His eyes squint in thought. “Yesterday and today, I guess, technically,” he revises.

You try to process the words, wondering why it didn’t occur to you that Jack might, like, not only exist in this building when it coincides with you.

You pull out your phone, eyes pausing momentarily on the coffee that Robby’s safeguarding before deciding it isn’t worth it. The screen reflecting your sad expression, you scroll to Jack’s number, thumbs tapping out a message, short and sweet.

And then you pause before hitting send, your gaze flickering up to Robby, who seems to be the poster child for enjoying himself, mouth greedily sipping coffee and lanky frame folded back in his chair. You tip your head to the side at the odd angle of his spine. Jack was right, he should do more core work.

“Are you lying to me right now?”

Robby looks up, head moving in a tight, rapid shake that screams exasperation with you. "Yeah, Jack’s actually fishing over in Trauma 1 right now.”

Jack hates fishing. Checkmate.

Ignoring him, you return to your phone, the message awaiting your command to go forth.

Jack was so going to hear about this.

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: so u hate me now?

You pause for a second, wondering if the two of you were at harassment level.

The way his lips seared into your hand flashes through your mind.

You decide to full send.

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: u hate me so much u quit ur job so u never had to see me again

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: is that it

And you don’t expect an immediate response, you just want him to know you know about the self-conjured hatred and you’re not happy about it. It was 8am on a Monday—a Monday that Jack freaking has off, apparently—and by all accounts, he should be in bed, snug as a bug.

But your phone vibrates in your hand. You look down.

SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: If you wanted to see me all you had to do was ask

What the—? The audacity stops your thumbs in their tracks.

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: im a very busy woman abbot

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: u dont even know what my calendar looks like abbot

And then before you know what you’re doing, you’re sending another text reply.

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: can i see u

Was that too desperate?

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: im waiting for u to return from way

Deliberate typo.

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: war

Nailed it.

SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: Way

Stunning O-Neg Attorney: kill your self

Three dots appear and then disappear as you see him try to formulate a response. They appear once more.

SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: I want to see you too kid

SSGT Jack Abbot, M.D: Not on the roof I mean

You have to fight the smile that tries to overtake your face, eyes glued to the words on your screen, not even looking up when Robby’s hand enters your sight, snapping in an attempt to bring you back to earth.

But you, with days that start when Jack’s ends, and Jack, who seems to spend most of his free time in the emergency department whether he’s supposed to be there or not, have schedules that rarely align. As lamentable as it is, you both settle for a professional backdrop for your interactions.

Maybe God heard your plea from the rooftop and decided to have mercy.

I want to see you too, kid.

And so that night you find yourself at Jack Abbot’s fucking apartment, perched on his couch with his legs stretched long in front of him, ankles crossed, prim and proper, and yours tucked neatly to the side, body twisted towards his. Every once in a while, his knee brushes against your thigh. You have a Coke Zero in your hand—taken from his fridge after you showed up with a case that he immediately scoffed at—and a very manly beer is in his. The Pirates game plays forgotten on the TV. There is a pizza on its way with your name on it, which, really, should have been here, like, an hour ago, but neither of you really remember or care.

You’re mentally planning which route you’re going to take home—God forbid he lets you go home—so you could stop off at whatever church you pass first and throw up a thanks, Christ, owe you one also sorry for not visiting in a while.

“Why don’t we do this?”

“What do you mean?” you question. “We hang out all the time.”

“No, you asked me to come over once because you burnt yourself making cookies and you said that your arm resembled raw chicken.”

“Didn’t it though?”

He cocks his head to the side, bringing his beer to his lips, and his eyebrows move up in agreement. It did look like raw chicken.

“And wasn’t it the sexiest piece of raw chicken you’ve ever seen?” you press.

The natural banter presses deep and steady beneath his ribs. Silver curls tip back and his body shifts forward after it, a little closer to yours, as he laughs, and you catch a whiff of something unfamiliar, brief and blinding.

It’s going to be a good night, you decide.

Jack’s stare softens, tender and warm.

“You’re staring,” you tease.

“I’m gazing,” he stresses.

And you knew that son of a bitch Robinavitch wouldn’t keep his mouth shut.

You’re going to kill Robby. And maybe Dana, you’re sure she was in on that. And you’ll include Princess and Perlah, too, just to cover your ass.

You made it this far into the night, you suppose. Nice while that lasted.

The beer rests forgotten in the attending’s hand, condensation slipping down the glass. The game on the TV recedes into static. Your silence echoes in his ear and his arm shifts along the back of the couch behind you, fingers flexing.

“You don’t have to get defensive about it, you know. Whatever… looking. Gazing,” he shakes his head, while he sets his beer on the table, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I don’t mind.”

That smell enters your senses again, there and gone before you could focus on it, and you start to think that maybe you’re having a stroke. It’s the only logical explanation—it licks up your spine slowly, spreading over you and burning through your body, and holy shit how is he completely unaffected by this?

The crowd cheering quietly on the TV from a home run—which you’ll be pissed about later—the condensation from your can pooling in a puddle on the coaster, the older man’s body pressed to yours enough to throw you off balance. His arm, strategically placed behind you, is close enough for you to feel, and his legs, once prim and proper, have separated, thigh pressing against yours.

You’re about to lose your fucking mind.

And like always, Jack notices. He notices everything about you.

You press the cold can against your cheek as you groan, trying to ground yourself, but the metal does nothing to cool the heat building low in your spine.

And then that scent teases you again, barely enough and gone before you get a chance to pin it down to anything beyond Jack Abbot’s Natural Pheromones, and you can’t take it anymore.

“Okay, what is that?” you demand. “Is that you?”

Before he has a chance to respond, and before your brain can tell your carnal desire to, like, chill, you’re in motion.

Your first movement is sharp, and deliberate, and probably warranting the intervention of a priest, head snapping towards his as you push off the couch cushion and lean over him, trying to identify the scent invading your brain. Your left knee leverages you by his leg as your right moves behind you for balance.

And you pause.

Your second movement is slow, and hypnotic, and cautious, head dipping to allow your nose to hover above the column of his neck. Belatedly, it occurs to you that you might be crossing the boundary into territory you hadn't realized existed until now, one beyond banter and jokes loaded with yearning. Which is also a crazy thought to have when you’re almost straddling your friend, because obviously that crosses a boundary.

But the heat radiating off the body in front of you is searing.

You know you’re too close, the space between the two of you thinning to a thread, but you don’t think that even God himself could pull you from your place.

His body is firm under you as you trail your nose down, following the flow of blood from his jugular, so close you’re not sure if you’re hearing his heartbeat or yours. You tilt your head slightly, tracking the faint whisper of finally identified sandalwood and tobacco that lingers in the dip where his shoulder comes to meet his collarbone. The scent is intoxicating, earthy and bold, and mixes with underlying sting of antiseptic and of something so fundamentally Jack Abbot.

It clings to him like an omen, sealing your downfall. Head swimming, you decide you would go to war for that combination—you were ready to lay your life down, to become a faithful martyr to his cause.

Jack freezes so imperceptibly that someone less attuned to him might not notice. But you do. You notice the subtle, sharp exhale, the way his shoulders tense and slowly fall just a fraction more sharply than before. His head turns towards you marginally, one hand twitching where it rests on the couch, but not saying a word, and you freeze too because what the fuck has possessed you?

But then you catch the scent again and it feels like stepping directly into the fire, the tension surrounding you, poised and ready to suffocate given the order.

“I’m serious,” you murmur, your voice quieter now. “What is that?”

You’re close now enough to feel the rasp of his unshaven jaw against the soft curve of your cheek.

Jack finally turns his head fully and his piercing gaze drops, catching yours, demanding and unreadable, pinning you in place. And then, with the faintest of smirks tugging at his lips, his reply cuts through the tension like that stupid-ass tactical knife he keeps in his pocket, sharp and teasing, his voice gravelly and steady and casual, “Cologne.”

And fuck him because cologne?

But the way he says it, words low and rough, and the way his body coils, daring you to break first—something that you were more than willing to do, you would do anything he said right now, anything to ensure that not a millimeter of space came between the two of you—robs you of any oxygen that probably at some point surrounded you and feeds it to the embers, leaving none for your taking.

Your lungs constrict, desperately seeking out the air that seems to be in short supply, and a soft gasp is all you can manage. Pathetic, you think.

In front of you, you feel Jack’s muscles tense, pause in measured contemplation.

All at once, he pushes you backwards, crowding you couch, his body closing in like it belongs there. One hand clamps around your waist, dragging you tighter against him, the heat of it searing straight through your clothes and skin and bones and sinew to directly brand your soul. The other trails up your side, singeing sensitive skin, until his thumb hooks beneath your jaw and his fingers tangle in your hair, anchoring you there.

He slowly and cautiously leans in, his grip on you tightening. The distance—which you suspect he somehow invented, just to steal it back—shrinks. It could no longer be designated as platonic in any meaning of the word, though you’re starting to wonder if anything was ever platonic between the two of you.

Your voice sounds far away and foreign to your ears, lips barely moving and lungs barely containing enough air to get the word out, “Cologne?”

He hums and leans down further. His nose barely brushes yours and you’re certain the skin melts off of your bones in his wake, ��It’s sandalwood and tobacco and called Cowboy,” he whispers, breath intermingling with yours.

And while the space around your bodies seems suspiciously devoid of any breathable air, every breath leaving his lips enters into yours, leaving you lightheaded. Jack’s unwavering eyes drop from where they burn into yours down to your lips.

Your tongue darts out to wet your lips and, Jesus Christ, his eyes are sliding shut and he honest to God groans, the talons of desperation clawing up his throat and shredding him from the inside. It escapes low and taut, as if only the only thing holding it together from crumbling under the weight of longing are the last vestiges of his frayed restraint which, admittedly, don’t seem to be faring much better. And then it travels, and it might be the lethal combination of lack of oxygen and too much anticipation and most importantly of Jack, but you think you can see the soundwaves vibrating the air as it advances towards you.

You’ve never heard an angel, but you have never heard a sound so holy.

A traitorous synapse fires and a rogue thought populates in your mind. You gasp as you try to catch your breath, “I thought you weren’t allowed to wear cologne?”

Jack’s eyes stay closed while he releases a slow, resigned sigh. “There is something deeply wrong with you.”

You don’t move.

Neither does he.

The world outside drops away, and all that’s left is the two of you, suspended in a moment so thick with tension, you’re briefly reminded of that Steve Spangler cornstarch experiment.

But the heat between you sharpens, hovers, coils tight in your gut. Your skin prickles, your breath catches, and you can feel him watching you—his gaze heavy, unapologetic, dark with intent. Every brush of fabric against your skin feels louder, every breath sharper.

That the only thing left is to decide who breaks first.

You’ll be damned if it’s you.

Jack just looks at you, eyes dark, jaw tight, like he’s barely holding himself together.

One hand comes to grasp your hip, firm and possessive, and he leans in close enough that his breath ghosts across your cheek, stealing the oxygen back from your lungs and returning it to his own. His mouth doesn’t find yours right away. It just hovers, lips brushing but never meeting.

His half-lidded eyes flick to your mouth, then back.

You try to breathe, try to say something, anything, but your body betrays you—something it seems to do a lot when it comes to the veteran, and maybe you should talk to a medical professional about that—hips shift without thought, chest rising with a quiet desperation to meet him.

And then, slowly, deliberately, he presses forward—his body flush against yours, the unmistakable growing hardness at your stomach drawing a sharp breath from your throat. A thigh between your legs like it has every right to be there.

His mouth finds your jaw, barely skimming it as he pulls the pin on the grenade you toss between one another, “Cat got your tongue?”

You don’t answer.

You can’t.

Because your pulse is pounding, and if he doesn’t touch you properly in the next five seconds, you’re literally going to set his apartment on fire.

And Jack knows it.

He’s the proud policy owner of renter’s insurance and he’s savoring every fucking second of it.

Throwing up a quick sorry, God, damnation it is, you fumble. You move a second too slowly, and that grenade, square in your hands, goes off. You break first.

Your lips brush his and time stops.

His eyes find yours, heavy and half-lidded, and somehow miraculously refocus on you, and you’re looking up at him and the words kiss me for real? drip like honey from your lips and when has he ever been able to deny you anything?

A large palm comes up to cradle the back of your head while he pushes you into the cushions, boxing you in, and then he’s kissing you—fucking finally—trying to make up for every second he had to keep his hands to himself, making up for every minute that he held himself back with the restraint he’s been choking on for months.

And, like everything Jack Abbot does, you’ve come to find out, he crashes over you like a wave. Movements clumsy, he moves to balance one knee between your legs, the other moving to the floor so he can put both hands on you. Without hesitation, his other hand comes up to cup your face, the movement surprisingly gentle compared to the way his lips move over yours, desperate and raw.

He doesn’t even give you a chance.

Another thing you’ve learned about Jack Abbot tonight was there are no such thing as half measures.

His tongue darts out and he swallows the soft moan of surprise that escapes you, and you feel Jack’s grip tighten, his fingers pressing into your skin, anchoring himself to you. The sound seems to rip whatever restraint he had left to shreds, a hunger that was so carefully veiled now spilling forth like the first crack in a dam. His lips trail down and find the hollow between your collarbone and neck, and every sound that you make in response to the deliberate press and drag of his mouth against your skin urges him on, nipping and biting, stealing the taste of a forbidden fruit.

“So responsive,” he murmurs, almost to himself, his lips ghosting along the column of your neck. “How much more can I pull out of you?”

His hands shake as they move from your waist, the small of your back, your neck—searching, anchoring, pressing in and testing the limits of the physical world because he thinks that whatever close this is is not close enough.

And then demonic, disgusting, monkey-brained Mental You whispers in your mind, he should never be pulling out, and you’re batting her away. But it doesn’t help that you agree.

You gasp, and he swallows it whole, palm skating down to grip your thigh as he presses you hard into his couch, his own between your legs flexing, shooting sparks dancing up your spine, the aching between your legs growing unbearable.

None of it is enough.

Not after the way you just fucking sniffed him like a freak.

Not after the way you said his name like a sin he should feel lucky to commit.

When he pulls back, you’re breathless, dazed, lips parted and swollen. He stays close, eyes burning, and brings his thumb to trace your lips.

“I’ve been trying,” he says, breath ragged, “so fucking hard to be patient with you.”

You fuzzily blink, no thoughts, head only full of anticipation and him. “Huh?”

You really try to make sense of what the man above of you is saying, but all he’s done is kiss you, and it’s so unfair because you can feel you soaking wet, and you’re over here in sensory overload and he’s over here trying to speak full sentences.

The response almost makes him laugh, and he probably would have, had the situation been any different. But you’re looking up at him with blown-pupils and shiny lips, and the last of his control shatters.

Warm hands smooth around the sides of your neck, gently yanking you up to him. His mouth descends to yours. Teeth nip at your lips, sharp and possessive, and you can’t help the desperate moan that escapes. He slowly thrusts against you, the motion making you lightheaded.

Suddenly, he’s pulling you off the couch and pushing you toward the bedroom like the demon in you left and entered him, barely keeping it together, and Jesus Christ who designed the floor-plan for this apartment? You’re going to sue the fuck out of them because the space between rooms is offensive.

He finally kicks the door open, half-collapsing onto the bed with you beneath him, and the second the mattress dips beneath your weight, his mouth is on your neck, your chest, your collarbone—biting, licking, tasting everything he’s been fantasizing about. His hands push under your shirt like he’s starving, dragging the fabric up your body with a kind of reverence that borders on desperation.

“You have no idea,” he rasps against your skin, voice shaking, “how many times I’ve pictured this.”

You arch into him, breath catching. “Who are you, Picasso?”

That’s all it takes.

He tears the shirt over your head, mouth following the trail of skin like a man on his knees in prayer—hungry and grateful and, honestly, a little bit unhinged.

When he settles, Jack blinks up at you and freezes.

It’s not lace, just solid black cotton. It shouldn’t punch the air out of his lungs.

But it nearly destroys him.

The way it clings to your skin, simple and unpretentious, it’s so you. If medicine doesn’t work for him, maybe he would go into art, just so he could paint strokes on canvases, not one coming close to capturing your beauty. It makes his heart clench in a way that he doesn’t quite understand. His hands twitch, desperate.

He bites back a groan, head dropping to your hip as if grounding himself, but the ache in his chest only deepens.

“You know,” Jack grunts, voice low and rough, struggling to hold himself together as he unbuttons and yanks your pants, blindly throwing them. “I’m oddly surprised by the amount of muscle you have.” A kiss is pressed right above your knee in emphasis, his tongue slowly moving over the small patch.

His hands don’t hesitate. Fingers slipping beneath the waistband of your underwear, he peels the fabric down your hips with forced, deliberate slowness, savoring every second. The cool air rushes to kiss your skin, and the contrast against his heated touch makes your breath hitch.

“Are you kidding?” you stutter out, almost insulted, and then you pull together whatever composure remains in your trembling body. “You know I go to the gym—I can’t be embarrassing myself.”

He drops the fabric somewhere forgotten and leans down, lips grazing along the curve of your thigh, sending electricity lancing through your body. His eyes flick up to meet yours. Too much composure remains in your body for his liking.

His left hand pins your thigh to the mattress, spreading you out, his thumb pressing so close to where you need him.

Slowly, keeping his eyes on yours, he leans in a breath away from your slick heat.

His lips curl into a slow, wicked smile.

“No, you embarrass yourself in other ways,” he agrees, eyes shining up at you.

He finally has you where he wants you.

Laid bare at an altar for his worship.

He closes the distance, licking a broad stripe. Slow. Deliberate.

Holy shit, his mouth is a slick furnace between your folds, it has to be because that’s the only way molten iron could be flowing through your veins, and his tongue comes out and flicks your sensitive nub, humming as he feels you clench.

Your back arches, hands fisting in the sheets or his hair—whatever in your reach, really—breath coming in shuddering waves, every nerve ending lighting up like a struck match. You reach for him—fingers in his hair, nails grazing his scalp—and he groans against you, the vibration rocking down your body.

“Jack—” you gasp.

He glances up, mouth slick. “Something you want?”

He ceases all movement, eyebrows raising in mock question.

You blink, not quite comprehending. “You bastard—”

“What happened to please?” he interrupts smoothly, hands flexing against your thighs.

“What happened to don’t get used to charity?” you snap, or try to, but it lands breathless and woefully unconvincing.

His thumb dips down, and his eyes follow, glued to the sight. The thick digit slowly sinks into your wet heat, before unhurriedly pulling back out. And again. And again, and you think that his degree is actually in ending lives.

Dark eyes flash back up. “Say please.”

You bite down on a moan, retort dying on your lips. Hips thrust, chasing the pressure, shame long gone.

Burned up by the way he’s looking at you like you’re the only thing that’s ever mattered.

And his stupid fucking hands. You used to love those hands.

Silence stretches between you, taut and breathless.

Then you cave—because you were always going to. Because he knows exactly how to break you apart and make you beg for it.

“…Please.”

His mouth curves, satisfied.

“That’s better,” he murmurs.

His head dips back down, tongue skimming over your pussy, and his eyes slide shut. Groaning, he flexes his arms around your legs, opening you wider, pushing closer, and taking everything your body gives him. A holy communion for his taking.

Your back arches, tension drawing tighter and tighter.

Drawing your clit into his mouth, Jack sucks softly. Blinding pleasure rushes through your veins and your hips buck upwards, seeking out his tongue, clenching on nothing. A soft moan leaves your lips, desperately begging this piece of heaven to never leave your body.

Without mercy, he sinks two fingers into your cunt, draws them back, and slams them in.

“Jack—fuck,” you breathe. “Jack, I-I’m gonna come—”

A gentle encouraging hum fills your ears and you clench down on his hand, fingers curling, pressing against something absolutely fucking devastating deep inside you, and all you can do is gasp his name as burning ecstasy washes over you. You took some science classes back in school, but nothing could have prepared you for the nuclear fission—or, maybe fusion, the classes weren’t that good—that washes through your veins.

You can’t even fucking see. Or hear. The only sense you have is touch, specifically where Jack’s mouth continues, tongue gently flicking your swollen clit, working you through your orgasm.

Dude, what the fuck? you think as he kindly returns your eyesight to you.

He crawls over you, suspiciously absent of clothing, your soft thighs moving to bracket his hips.

“That was a lot of exertion,” your mouth says of its own volition. “Sure you don’t need a break, old man?”

“You’re the one coming apart, sweetheart,” Jack raises a brow, his voice low, the thick head of his cock catching against your entrance and pulling back, teasing. “A challenge, or you just stalling?"

“No idea, can I,” you gasp, breath hitching as the sensation sets off every nerve ending like a chain reaction, “Ph—fuck, phone a friend?”

Jack pauses just long enough to smirk, his breath hot against your jaw, his voice dropping to a rough whisper in your ear. “You really think anyone can help you right now?”

And before you can respond, he shifts his head slightly, his breath dipping lower, and then he bites down. A gasp breaks loose from your lips, sharp and involuntary, as he takes the skin between his teeth, and you whine, high and needy. The arm not supporting his weight snakes around and presses into your lower back, lifting you slightly off of his bed, smearing his precum on your stomach. He wants to hear that sound again, and again, and again.

He wants to see the way your sharp tongue stalls and your words falter and crumble beneath his touch.

It doesn’t matter if it takes all week, he has sixty days of unused PTO and willpower.

But your lips are moving, loaded with a different one. “I’m starting to think you’re stalling.”

“Can’t you just let me enjoy the moment?” he huffs out, already sucking a new blemish into your neck.

“Pretty sure you’re enjoying it enough for both of us.”

“Damn right I am.” Teeth graze the mark he’s just made, tongue following like an apology he has no intention of meaning.

“I’m gonna need an alibi, at this rate.”

He groans against your skin, begging you to stop talking.

Nipping the cord of muscle where your neck meets your shoulder, he mumbles, “I’ll write your statement.”

Your fingers thread in his hair and tug, hard enough to remind him you’re not completely helpless under him and it takes everything in him not to snap. He finally retreats from your neck, lips trailing up and capturing your lips with his.

You push him back with a soft grin. “Just make sure you spell vampire right this time.”

Jesus Christ.

He flashes his teeth at you and drops his head back down. Seeking out an unblemished spot on your neck, he bites down. The pain blooms hot, chased immediately by a wave of heat that pulses low in your body.

He slowly pushes into you with a broken groan, burying his head in your neck. Inch by inch, he sinks into you, sparks shooting up and down your spine. Your hands scrabble at his back, gripping hard, needing more—needing him. He holds you there, slowly stretching you open, and you seize in his grip, mouth open in a soundless cry as the all-consuming feeling of fucking finally crashes over you both.

He’s trembling. You feel it in the tight line of his body, the way his breath stutters against your neck, and then he exhales, guttural and wrecked.

“Jesus,” he whispers. “You feel—fuck—you feel like heaven.”

He doesn’t move at first. Just leans in, pressing his forehead to yours, his breath ragged and hot between you. The cool drag of his dog-tags skims your chest with every sharp exhale. He wants to take his time—to drag this out until it’s unbearable. He wants you below him and moaning until your vocal cords don’t have anything left. He wants to burn every second of this in his memory.

“Jack, please,” you whisper, voice already frayed at the edges. You’ll be angry at yourself about this later, about Abbot making you so needy that you can’t even speak. You need him to fucking move, to do something, anything. “God, please.”

You say it again, and again, each repetition thinner, rawer. Like the word alone might crack him open, might finally tip the scale in your favor. “I need—” You break off with a gasp, hips shifting in a silent, wordless demand, but he still doesn’t budge.

“Please,” you try again, throat tight, lips brushing his. “I can’t… I need you to move. I need you.” It tumbles out now, shameless and urgent. “I want you. I’ve been good, I’ve waited—”

He stills like he’s savoring every syllable you offer up like prayer—like penance—his body tensing against yours, hand tightening its grip on you. He hears you.

He just wants to hear more.

“Please.” It’s broken now. Desperate. “Don’t make me beg—” but you already are, and you’d do it again, if that’s what it took to get him to fucking move.

“It’s okay, sweet girl,” he breathes into your lips. “I’m magnanimous, remember?”

And then his hips snap forward, rough, and your broken moan ricochets off the walls of his apartment. He’d be very, very shocked if there weren’t a noise complaint tomorrow, but he couldn’t care less. He wants fifty noise complaints by sunrise, minimum.

You gasp, sharp and shuddering, clawing at his shoulders like the only way to stay grounded is to anchor yourself in him. Your thighs tighten around his waist without thinking, dragging him closer, and the new angle presses him deeper, stars dancing behind your eyes. Every thrust knocks the air from your lungs, each one more brutal than the last, making up for the torturous stillness that came before.

Your back arches, trying to take more, begging him to give more, and he meets you there—half-growling into your neck, hands mapping, afraid if he stops, you’ll vanish. Like this is the last time he’ll ever get to touch you, and he’s determined to make it count.

He drags a hand down your body, teeth scraping against your shoulder as he mutters, “You asked me to move, sweetheart.” But he’s already unraveling too, eyes dark and unfocused, pace punishing. You don’t know where you end and he begins—all you know is the burn, the ache, the obscene need spiraling tighter and tighter between you.

There’s nothing careful left in him. Just possession. Just hunger.

“Fuck,” he grunts. “That’s really all you needed to stop talking, huh? Just needed me to fuck you?”

Your answer is a gasp, his name falling from your lips like a prayer—cracked and corrupt. He drinks it in like it’s holy, like the sound of it is sacred when it’s coming from you in this state—wrecked, open, begging. He groans, deep and guttural, like the name alone nearly breaks him. “Say it again.”

“Jack—” breathless, sobbed, nearly swallowed by the slap of skin and the scrape of his breath at your ear.

He could die like this. Right here. Right now. Buried in you, name on your tongue, legs locked tight around him like you’d never let him leave. He’d march into hell for you.

“God—fuck,” he pants, losing rhythm for a moment, hips stuttering. “L-like you were made for me.”

You tighten around him at that, a pulse he feels in every nerve, and he shudders like it’s too much, like your body’s trying to drag the soul from his chest. And maybe you are. You probably will.

He brings your wrist clasped in his hand by your head, the other slipping between your bodies to find your clit, rough fingers moving in tight circles, aching to push you closer to the edge with him.

“You feel that?” he growls, almost desperate now, voice roughened by strain. “You ruin me.”

“Jack—” you cry out, high and trembling, and that’s all it takes.

He’s relentless now—driving into you like he’s chasing something only your body can give him. Each thrust lands deeper, harder, pulling broken sounds from your throat before you can even catch them.

You try to focus on anything—the iron grip of his hands on your wrist, the cool scrape of his dog tags between your breasts, the hot press of his mouth at your neck—but it’s all a blur. Nothing anchors you. Not when your body’s burning up from the inside out, tightening around him with every punishing roll of his hips.

“Look at me,” he grits out, voice ragged, pleading. “Come on, baby—look at me.”

You do, barely, your vision swimming, and the second your eyes meet his—dark and wild and so fucking gone—you snap. Your body seizes under him, climax crashing over you like a wave with no warning, no mercy. You cry out, shattered and gasping, every nerve ending alight and pulsing.

“That’s my girl,” he pants.

Your responding Jack is high and needy and he didn’t think his cock could get any harder but he swears to fucking God he almost blacks out.

He growls your name like a curse, and then he’s gone—hips snapping forward one final time as he buries himself deep, spilling into you with a sharp, strangled moan. His whole body seizes against yours, trembling with the force of it, and you cling to him like he’s the only thing holding you to earth. His whole body trembles, breath tearing from his throat like he’s breaking apart inside you.

He stays buried deep, gripping you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

Like if he moves too fast, it’ll all come undone.

His weight presses down on top of you. The furthest thing from holy, your muscles still twitching from the aftershocks, his softening cock still in you, and you think you might start begging again, this time to never move from you. He inhales in your neck, slowly his lips find yours once more to press a kiss—slow, reverent—to the corner of your mouth.

It must be holy to feel so pure.

Your hand finds the back of his neck, fingers threading into sweat-damp hair.

He sighs, low and wrecked. “Jesus Christ, kid.”

You’re still trying to find your fucking lungs and tell them get it together, we have work to do, as you scratch your nails on his scalp.

Eventually, you whisper, lips barely parting, “Jack, where is that fucking pizza we ordered?”

#no 16k is just embarrassing no one tell me if it is horrible #the pitt #jack abbot #abbot x reader #jack abbot x reader #dr abbot x reader #the pitt x reader #dr abbot x you #*writing

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alien-slushie · 2 months ago

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DPxDC Prompt/Idea

The death of his parents brought in a lot of hidden information to young Timothy Drake. For example, Janet and Jack weren't the only family Tim had. Turns out, Janet Drake had two older sisters, whom she had estranged herself from a long time ago, meaning Tim had two blood aunts, an uncle, and two adult aged older cousins. The discovery of his other family was both joyful, and worrying, making his future uncertain until the social workers could work something out.

After court appearances and jurisdiction issues, Tim was finally plopped in the lap of the relitive that was deemed "most suitable", whatever that meant; his older cousin Danny.

From what Tim had overheard *cough*snooped out*cough, his Aunt Alicia lived in the middle of nowhere without much electricity or even internet, and while she would have taken him in, the social workers worried the drastic, and sudden change in environment, on top of his grief, would make everything even harder on him, especially since Alicia lived hours away from any therapists, which was a requirement due to the situation. His Aunt Maddie and her husband Jack were immediately denied, given the state of their home and the 'open lab' concept they had going on down stairs, not to mention the fact that their own kids had seemingky cut contact as soon as they turned 18. The next person they looked into was his cousin Jazz, Maddie's oldest child, but while she looked like the best fit on paper, given her job as a therapist and psychoanalysis gave her the means and emotional capabilities to raise a child, but Jazz's job wasn't stationary, she helped a lot with the FBI, and more specifically, the rehabilitation of Villains and Rogues, meaning she traveled a lot and tended to have a target on her back due to her Job, it just wasn't safe or consistent enough for rearing a child. That left Danny, Jazz's younger brother. At just 25 years old Danny was a freelance engineer, and consultant that worked according to his own hours, not only did having the ability to chose his own work schedule make it easier for him to spend time with Tim, but the fact that Danny could work anywhere meant that Tim didn't have to leave Gotham, as Danny was willing to move to Gotham so Tim didn't have to change schools, or leave his home.

So here Tim was, in Drake Mansion, sitting across from a cousin he had never meant before, his new guardian, trying to wrap his head around the entire situation as best he could.

When Danny heard from Jazz about their estranged younger cousin, he hadn't thought much on it. He felt bad for the kids situation, and he hoped the kid was actually getting looked after, but never in a million years did he expect to be deemed 'most suitable' to care for the kid. Honestly he's thought Jazz, or Aunt Alicia would be best suited, Jazz had the fancy "feelings degrees", and his Aunt had a peaceful farm, Danny was just a freelance engineer that worked out of his condo most days, while portaling back and fourth to the Ghost Zone to help Clockwork, and other Ghosts with whatever wacky hijinks they needed help with.

Phantom had retired, the Portal in his parents house sealed, and their blueprints tampered with just enough to not be obvious, but still make making another portal to Ghost Zone impossible. Danny had graduated with grades passable enough to get a partial scholarship, and then he left Amity, working labor jobs on the weekends to live and pay the rest of his tuition. Once he graduated, Danny started working with a company, before eventually breaking off to start working for himself.

Once Danny had left Amity, he got his name changed. He didnt hate his parents, but Danny had just started to not care, it was painful to yearn for acknowledging repeatedly, only to be ignored in favor of work, so Danny just stopped trying, changed his name, and simply didn't call or visit his parents. Jazz hadn't totally agree with his actions, she'd kept their parents name, but she didn't visit or talk to them much either, not unless they reached out first, so she didnt have much of a leg to stand on.

Given all that, Danny had been surprised when Tim's social worker reached out to him. At first he figured they wanted a character reference for his sister, but to his shock, they wanted to know if he would take Tim in, saying that he, Danny, seemed the most stable for the child. It was a whirlwind of questions, and background checks, and parenting classes, and court dates, but before long Danny found himself staring down at his little cousin in a too big, too cold, too staged mansion in Gotham New Jersy.

#this is more for me than anyone else #solving my daddy issues one convoluted storyline at at time #/j #dpxdc #dc x dp prompt #dp x dc crossover #thinking about trying to write this but if anyine else is up to it go ahead #just share it with me 😗#ples

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novelistwriter · 19 days ago

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A Place to Remember

DP x DC Prompt with minor inspiration from FNaF

Danny, forced on a vacation in a random world, is bored. As he was figuring out what to do in this Gotham City, he had a slice of pizza and almost immediately spat it out due to how bad it tastes. This led Danny to try and see if all the pizza places are this bad in Gotham. He only found one good pizza place in Gotham, and it's located in a place the locals call "Crime Alley"

He really misses the pizza he had of one dimension he visited during his early years as Ghost King. It not only had the best pizza, it also had entertainment in the form of animatronics. He wanted to help the Ghost kids with their problem, but Clockwork had told him not to get involved. Otherwise, the timeline of that world would've collapsed.

That world has given him the idea to make his own pizza place with animatronics and other things for entertainment. He's got the funding to buy the needed materials and the location he chose. He even has the perfect animatronics to make that aren't animals. His animatronics will be based on him and his Ghostly Friends.

Phantom, the lead animatronic of the new pizza place, Phantoms Pizza. Phantom is the kind king who always cares for his subjects and visitors to his kingdom.

Salvia, the animatronic who is plant themed, and she is friends with Phantom. She is headstrong but also caring for those who care for plants and animals alike.

Pharaoh, another animatronic friend of Phantom, and he shares his wisdom with those who ask. He even uses some sort of magic to perform on stage.

Blaze, a musical animatronic with lights on her that make it look like she's on fire. She loves music and sharing her music with other people.

Meal Madam, the animatronic who provides the food. She is adamant about feeding people and making them healthy.

Cabin Boy, an aspiring Pirate Captain animatronic specifically for kids to play with. Cabin Boy always plays with kids in Phantoms Pizza, making sure adults are given a break while they enjoy the pizza.

Danny is currently working on making the animatronics for his pizza place. He doesn't know that the Batfam are currently trying to get info on him because he "mysteriously" came into a lot of money and bought many high-tech stuff that potentially could be used for bad things.

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dcu #dp crossover #dp x dc prompt #ghost king danny #batman

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heartmix · 6 days ago

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❯❯❯❯the grid: how they act when drunk

prompt: how they act when theyre drunk

includes: MV1, LN4, CS55, CL16, LH44, OP81

a/n: REQUESTED. This was hard for the drivers i've seen proof of being drunk, and easier for ones I didn't.

warnings: intoxication. suggestive (for Carlos' part), accidents mentioned (Lando's part), not well proofread

F1 Masterlist / Masterlist

MV1 - Fun + Funny

The only time he doesn’t think of himself as Champion Max Verstappen and just Max while in public.

Everyone has seen Max drunk, and everyone loves it. It’s why they always try to get him to go out. Everyone wanted a chance to be around 'Drunk Max.'

You loved drunk max. When you knew he was going to drink the night away, you tried hard to stay sober so you could remember everything. (Also, so you could record him and use it as blackmail material.)

One time at a club in Ibiza, you and Max were out with all your friends. The night started off normally with max crackling jokes and telling animated stories using his hands. After about 5 vodka crans and 4 rounds of shots, drunk max was here to party.

"We should pop fireworks!" he exclaimed. Every drunk person cheered him on while you just sat with a puzzled face.

"Baby, we don't have fireworks."

"Wait....I know a guy!" Quickly, he pulled out his phone to make a call. Before you knew it, someone showed up with a pack of fireworks as he ushered everyone outside to witness it.

Of course, drunk max would think to pop fireworks, and of course, he knew a guy who could get them. At least he wasn't breaking down any doors with a hammer.

LN4 - Messy + Accident Prone

He always had the personality of a little kid in a toy store. Sober or not. But it seemed that when he had alcohol in his system, it was as if he was staying overnight in that said toy store - the place being a mess, and somehow, injuring himself.

To others, it may seem like his actions weren't much different from sober him. Sober Lando ate expired food, while drunk Lando almost accidentally stabbed himself with a plastic fork while he was eating chili cheese fries you gave him to sober up.

“It’s like you don’t even know how to eat.” You chuckled as he pouted when he missed the container by a margin.

“I-I…help?”

“You’re lucky you’re so cute.”

Trying to feed him was like trying to feed a baby. Even though you had control of the food, somehow chili ended up on the corners of his mouth, and non-melted pieces of cheese were falling down his shirt.

By the end of the night, he’s wearing someone else’s glasses, the ones he came with you’re wearing because he insists they look cooler on you, while he's holding on to you for dear life, trying not to trip and fall. He fell earlier trying to go down the steps to the bathroom.

CS55 - Touchy Feely

Carlos claims he’s way too old to get drunk and party anymore. Until he wins a Grand Prix, he suddenly forgot what he said.

The night started out like any other. Both of you are nursing a drink in your hand for the first hour while mingling. After a while, you made your way to the dance floor with some of the girls. From your spot on the dance floor, you could see the shots Carlos was pounding back and how his drink was never empty. You knew he was going to be plastered. That was when you decided to slow your pace.

Around 30 minutes later, he joins you on the dance floor, arms wrapped around your waist and head buried into your neck. If you hadn’t memorized his arms and the scent of his cologne, you would have pushed him away.

A few songs later, his hands start roaming over your stomach, your hips, and thighs. That was your cue that both of you needed to get off this dance floor, or he would do something crazy where everyone could see you.

When you made it to your booth, he pulled you on top of him. Both his arms have you in a bear hug; you have nowhere to go. And like clockwork, his lips find any piece of your skin. Your shoulder, face, lips, and neck. He couldn’t care who was looking; he probably thought you both were alone and not in a packed club.

“Bubba, wanna go home?” You asked, trying not to give in to his loving touch. One of you needed to be sensible.

Just for a moment, he pulls away to look at you. Those cute brown eyes everyone compliments are now full of lust behind them. “Take me to bed, mi amor.”

CL16 - Shy + Awkward

This man is awkward already. Awkward smile, awkward laugh, awkward posture. The first time you saw him drunk, you were trying to help him relax and open up. Well, turns out alcohol doesn’t help with that. Not for him.

The more he drank, the quieter he got. Four drinks in, he was just humming to the songs, not even singing them like he was when you first arrived.

When someone would come up to him, he wouldn’t know how to keep up a conversation. All his responses were limited to ‘mhhh’ and ‘yeah’. If he tried to say more than two words, he would fumble and make it seem like it was his first time discovering what a sentence was.

Someone could be talking to him about tyre strategies and how he pulled off staying out for 5 more laps, and his response would be “yeah- I mean…slicks right?” You had no idea what he was trying to say, and neither did the person who was talking to him, but to Charles, it made sense.

When that person walks away, you turn to him, a tease already on your tongue: “Who knew how shy you are while you’re drunk.”

This man turns as red as his Ferrari suit. You’ve never seen him this shade ever before. He turned to look anywhere but you because if he did, he couldn’t stop heating up and smiling from being so affected by you.

LH44 - Bragging (about you)

He doesn’t get drunk, and there are only a few times you could count where he has. He sees his body as a temple and is very careful what goes past his lips. The few times you have seen him plastered, he’s pulling you everywhere, bragging about you.

To catch this man drunk, you’d have to turn back in time to 2012. The sighting was so rare you could count on less than one hand the times you’ve seen him pass the point of “tipsy.”

He didn’t even get drunk in his own house. Two glasses of wine will always be his limit. He claims he’s too old and that one of the two of you needs to be sober to take care of the other.

But when he does manage to feel intoxicated, you'd better hope no one there hates you because you're all this man will talk about. You were going to be mentioned in every conversation this man had with every single person there that night.

“The team is looking to get better upgrades after the break I heard.”

“You know my girl said I should be meaner. Like on the radio and stuff. Said I don’t deserve that kind of treatment, and she’s usually right. She’s right about everything.”

He’s saying all that with you hanging off his arms while he has you in a death grip, refusing you to go anywhere. His answer makes you face-palm. Thankfully, the guy was a good sport and couldn’t help but laugh himself while agreeing with Lewis.

You were convinced that night everyone knew about you than every before and it wasn’t even from you talking, it’s because Lewis couldn’t stop talking.

OP81 - Agrees to everything you say

This man follows you around like a dog on a leash. Never in front of you, always in the back so he can watch you. Whenever you guys go out, you're the undecided leader.

He’s also a lightweight. He can handle a few beers here and there, but once you get hard liquor in him, it’s over.

As the night wears on, with Oscar having one arm always around you, you find out quickly that he will agree to anything you ask of him.

Oscar usually only drank a one liquor and soda combo. Nothing fancy and nothing that involves different types of alcohol mixing all in one. You, on the other hand, only drank those toxic waste of drinks. So when you decided to test the theory of him saying yes to everything, you started out with drinks.

“Oscar, baby, wanna try my drink?” You asked with the sweetest voice and angelic smile on your face. You tried hard because the drink in your hand was Long Island, and it included every liquor known to man inside. He nodded before you helped him with the straw so he could have a sip.

“How was it?” You asked, seeing as he didn’t make a face. He was too far gone to be affected by the taste anymore.

“Taste good.” He smiled down at you, seemingly not knowing that he took something he always nagged you about for drinking.

"Think you could skip training with Lando tomorrow?"

"Anything you want, baby." He gave you a goofy smile that you couldn't help but giggle at. He was so far gone from reality.

#f1 #f1 x reader #formula 1 #formula 1 x reader #lando norris #lando norris x reader #max verstappen #max verstappen x reader #carlos sainz #carlos sainz x reader #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton x reader #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x reader

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long-live-astronerd-ghost-king · 1 year ago

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DPXDC prompt: Spiritual Siblings

Bruce: My assassin kid can't be that normal!

Damian: Well, I’m completely emotionally stable by Amity Park standards. The problem is with you. Obviously.

~~~~~

Damian had long found peace and home in Amity, so he did not worry that the new family and Gotham might not accept him.

Sure, Al Ghul had lived without any contact with his biological father all these years but he could safely say that he had a happy childhood. First years were hard and he was raised more as a weapon than a human being. Even so, after that a ghost who decided to become his brother appeared and everything changed.

Damian still does not know what Ra's owes Phantom but Danny has a right to take him, without prior notification, to live with Fentons, to visit Aunt Alicia at her farm, and to make Vlad’s weekends much less calm and boring. Danny jokes that he just steals him as a hostage when Al Ghul does not pay taxes for using Lazarus Pits. Whatever the reason, he already has a family that loves him.

However, he still wanted to make an effort to fit in this one too. The model of conduct certainly was his older brother. No, not the oldest, of course. To be honest Dan wasn’t the kind of a man that could charm you from the first minute. But Danny, in Damian’s experience, had a calming effect on people. So he tried to act like him.

And, yeah, for lack of experience, he was more fun!Danny at home and super!Danny on patrol but he also really tried not to get any of his own assassin personality in his new-self and was tired of it. He couldn’t get a 100% match. Fine. Still doesn’t look like anyone in this house really likes him, so whatever.

Damian understood why Bruce didn't like his company. Jazz had long ago explained to him the importance of voluntary consent. His mother did a terrible thing. Al Ghul was not a child and therefore he was ready to admit it. However, he also understood that children were not responsible for the actions of their parents.

As a biosocial being, he wanted to be more than just a painful reminder of what had happened to Bruce. Wayne's ignoring of his existence was rude. But Damian wouldn't force this man to spend time with him just because he was legally obligated to take care of his well-being. He wasn't going to prove anything to Batman, and he definitely didn't need his attention. The care of his real family is enough.

But Damian really tried to get along with new potential siblings. He even shared Sam's and Danny’s special jokes with some of adopted kids 'cause he didn’t want them to feel like he put himself above them. He wasn't good at showing emotions but he was as open as the assassin could afford to be to strangers.

But they all obviously expected something from him. And it reminded him of the League in an unpleasant way. It was easier with Fentons. Almost everyone in Amity Park was saying what they thought, and Damian didn’t have to waste time decoding potential conspiracies.

Damian missed movie marathon nights with Sam, Tucker, and Danny. And he hoped Dani had time to bother Vlad in his absence.

It was so weird here. When Danny and Valerie were fighting, they would gather at the dinner table anyway. When Damian wanted to have combat training with Drake here, he was forced to stay in his room. A very strange punishment. And undeserved one too.

Al Ghul felt quite calm and fine sitting at his easel and painting the people he left behind. An unusual subject for his paintings. But, Ancients, he missed Amity.

He missed Jack's bone breaking hugs, Maddie's Ecto-Contaminated food, arguments of Sam and Tucker, cozy art class with Mr. Baxter and even Vlad's done look. He missed Danny telling him about the stars. He also missed sword practice with Dan's boyfriend Fright Knight and he missed Dan's stories about his other youth. He missed literary evenings with Mr. Lancer, Clockwork and Ghost Writer. He even missed the hours-long Jazz lectures. He missed the dance of death and life. He missed being looked at without expecting anything from him. He missed the crowd. In the league, he was never at one with himself and in Amity he was always surrounded by people who were not afraid of his fate as the heir to the said League. This Manor was full of people, but for the first time in his life he felt lonely. Damian has to admit that he felt left behind. Of course, he understood that people needed time to build relationships, but he could have sworn that even he didn't need that much time to connect with Fentons. Maybe this is one of the tricks of the Clockwork? Then this one is not funny at all.

~~~~~Phone call~~~~ Damian: Mom, I want to go home. Maddie: I'm so sorry to hear that, sweetheart. What happened? Damian: Just…Nobody likes me. Why was I sent here? I'm not weak. And my brothers are quite capable of protecting me from Raas. I don't need Batman for this. Maddie: We'll figure it out, champ. Moms love you, remember? I'll talk to Talia, okay? Your brothers and sisters are already on edge and ready to steal you right during the patrol. Damian: It would be nice, but it would put a bat on their tails. So lock them in thermoses if they bother you too much. Maddie: But that won't stop Jazz. Damian: I missed the part where that's my problem. Maddie: Well, it will be your problem if she comes to your doorstep with your childhood photos and moralizing.

~~~~~~~~

It's his birthday. And he was always excited about it. But now, looking at the pile of gifts, he realizes that these people don't know him at all.

And this is the family of the best detective in the world? Maybe yes, but none of them bothered to really find info about him or ask him about his likes. Damian's a stranger here, and that's obvious.

The lunch container, which he will obviously give to the Boxing Lunch when he's in the right time interval, tennis rackets that Youngblood might like, The Graveyard Book…

Valerie had already read it to him and Dani before it was published. Thanks to Clockwork for his little miracles. The book reminded him of home.

Obviously this one is from Jason. And well, Damian doesn't think it was a pun on his life in Amity, more like Hood's inside joke about death but Dami will definitely leave this thing in the room at the Manor and maybe take it with him to the GZ or Amity Park.

~~~~~~~

When they gather at the festive table, Damian realizes that he has to make some kind of speech. He tries to be as brief as possible in his report.

Damian: Todd, your gift is appreciated. And I found a potential use for items that were given by others, Bruce.

Damian never called Batman his father. With Maddie and Talia, calling both moms wasn't weird, especially when Jazz explained to his biological mom that he wasn't trying to replace her. But with Wayne, it was different. Both women took care of him, they deserved this title. Wayne provided for his needs, but his core heart didn't feel like they were close. Surely there's nothing wrong if they're just Bruce and Damian? Obviously, they both don't enjoy each other's company.

Jason: So, do you like books, little demon? Damian: Sometimes reading is quite relaxing, I should point out. I'm not indifferent to Stephen King and Lovecraft. Jason: Personal recommendations? Damian: Cujo is one of my favorites. Jason: Not a common opinion, huh. Damian: It reminds me of my family. Damian tries to smile like Danny does, but Jason's twitching eye clearly indicates that he screwed it up.

~~~~Dick and Jason synchronously drop their forks as an excuse for a conference under the table.~~~~ Dick*whispers*: How's the situation? Jason*whispers back*: If the boy asks for a dog, don't be fooled. He will be happy to dance on our graves.

~~~~Cass knocks over their heads, urging them to return to their seats.~~~~

Damian: So how good you are at fading and sliding,Todd? Jason: Why did you ask? I can't, of course. Damian: Because you're dead. It seemed to me that this was a completely understandable interest. Jason: Wow, what a jerk. Damian: I wonder why your own incompetence makes me a jerk? Even my sister could do this when she wasn't dead for even a month.

Jason, for some reason, looks awkward, although he has never been embarrassed before by the idea that a girl could be stronger than him.

Jason: Your sister? How old was she when... So it's all about age. Damian rolls his eyes.

Damian: We're the same age. It seems like it was four or five years ago. To be honest, I don't remember. I wasn't around then. I'll ask Danielle the next time I go to the cemetery to visit her. Dick: I'm so sorry, Dami. Where is she buried? We can take you. Damian: There's no need. She has no grave, as there was nothing to bury. Bruce sighs loudly and covers his eyes with his hands. Damian: It's just easier to contact the afterlife in places like this, you now? Duke: We are very sorry, dude. Damian: Don't be. People come and go, and then come back if they haven't finished annoying you. There's no point in regretting the past. Her creation was not the most ethical thing but everything is going as it should. At least that's what Grandpa says. Considering that the old man is older than time, I prefer to believe him. No one plays with fate without his permission unless they want to get hit by the clock. Tim now looks like he's going to throw up and Damian hurries to move his plate closer to him. Jason: Yes, Bruce, this is definitely your son. Damian: Did I say something wrong? Dick smiles faintly at him but still doesn't find anything to say. Damian shrugs and goes back to eating asparagus. People outside of Amity are so weird.

Signal looks at Damian suspiciously as he carefully rearranges the plate of soy sausages away from himself. Did he take him for an idiot? Everyone knows that even vegetarian sausage bite and fight no worse than those with meat when they come back to life. It's not Damian's fault that he doesn't have an ectoblast with him and wants to have extra distance from the opponent.

~~~At the same time, in the walls of Wayne Manor~~~ Dani: The operation codenamed "Get Haunted Idiot" is declared open. Danny and Dan *salute*.

~~~Several Days Later~~~

Damian: So, this is Dan. Danny says we keep him as a GIW repeller. Dick: And Danny and Dan are.. Jazz: His brothers. I'm Jazz by the way. Elle and I are his sisters. Damian: I feat the criteria to participate in their name cult, so they took me. Dan, Danny, Dani and Dami. Dan *ruffles Damian's hair* : I prefer to call this biting threat Damn, to be honest. Dami: Shut up, DaNtE, they almost wrote Dark in your passport, you idiot. I can't believe I thought I missed you. Danny: Wow. Rude. Your grandpa would be disappointed. Great job, lil one.

~~~Several years later~~~

#dpxdc #dpxdc prompts #dpxdc prompt #dpxdc memes #damian and danny are brothers

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emacrow · 2 months ago

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Thank you for accepting the courtship.

Raven was using an ancient forbidden ritual to Pariah King of the infinite realm to stop Trigon and Darkseid to stop them from taking over this universe. The proper gift in term in the book for the ritual to be accepted said to be her firstborn whenever she were to have one, and it seemed the ritual was accepted.

She expected some old man in dark ancient armor to come out of the summoning ritual portal, except it wasn't Pariah King who came out.

A aurora crown floated upwars, then a white blob emerged only to be white long hair that kept going upward, growing longer and longer tall silhouette nearly 12-14 feet tall.

Hundreds of thousands of tiny stars in the white hair swirling toward the face with pointed ears, forming into three glowing yet dull green eyes with darken specks of stars underneath the eyelids and cheeks, a blackish blue like breaking open like a tear to reveal sharp gleaming white teeths, a dark blue tongue.

The clothes that this entity form beneath that resemble 1980s hazmat clothes that flickered from and to a royal clothes with jewels of tiny planet yet unnerving as if it haven't decided which to be and out of place that nearly made Raven's eyes wanted to avoid looking at it.

She didn't falter nor didn't flinch as this being glanced at the ritual symbols, tilting his head as if interested before before the three eyes looked back at her that made her heart wanted to stop as the used to be dulled eyes sparkled a bit.

Then, the being grew smile that would've made the Joker cry, Much to Raven's inner horror and nearly every empticlones in nevermore screaming at her to run and hide.

"I, Phantom, Prince and Savior of the infinite realms from the Mad King, Defender of Pandora's box, Balancer of Time, accept your gift." The voice was barely a whisper that almost sounded rich smooth as velvet, yet loud enough to hear clearly to raven.

With a simple wave of his long, arachnodactyly fingers as if waving off an annoying fly before shrinking slowly with a gleam of white light evenly enveloping to reveal a 9'4 foot tall lanky bat adoption bat guy.

Black long-haired, put in a clumsy doubled braided with blue and red flowers, held polka dotted scrunchies, girly hair clips with unicorn themes, soft blue eyes that were redish in the corner and a soft delicate face that Raven definitely wasn't ogling in her nevermore mindscape.

"Thank you for accepting the courtship."

"Your welcome."

....

Raven's mind blanch a bit realizing what he just said.

"Wait, What?"

...

Danny was doing just fine, just fine indeed as he was sitting in Jazz’s house, his niece rebraiding his hair as he shoved another giant handful of Fudge brownies into his mouth.

Ellie was moving into her boyfriend six month ago, and there was nothing Danny could do seeing his little girl move on without him.

Empty nest syndrome Jazz and his parents told him. Sam suggested another online dating, but being a famous, well-known Savior of Earth after Disasteroid came a lot of girls and even boys who see danny as a hero or for his fame and fortune instead of Danny.

Not to mention the ghosts, the stupid eyeballs trying to present another candidate for him to Wed which he refused.

He has used raising ellie as the common excuse that turned into actually doting parenting, but now..

He couldn't go back to his haunt castle after she moved out without burying himself in her childhood room, holding her old worned out red beanie hat that she didn't wear anymore.

Kids grow up and move on from their parents, but they always come back when in need.

He did something out of impulse due to his empty nest syndrome, which was going a bit haywire by the day and Sam, Val and Tucker won't let him bring them over to hang out especially when they are busy.

He made a ritual with clockwork help that randomly appeared in any other dimensions, then his own to pick the right person to court at the right time.

Now all he has to do is wait.

(I got inspired by this post here <- )

#dpxdc #danny phantom #dc x dp #dp x dc #dp x dc crossover #dcxdp #dc x dp prompt #danny is the ghost king #eldritch danny phantom #tall danny #Corvid Crowns #raven willing to do a ritual to beat trigon and counter Darkseid #accidentally accepted courtship #danny is empty nesting so badly #inspired by do you want my first born post #meddling clockwork

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dcxdpdabbles · 6 months ago

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#holiday request Sorry, it's me again! I't just that I really, really love your writing and I forgot to mention "Alley boyfriends" and "Alfred's Boy". If you could update either of those I would be very grateful <3 <3 <3

The first sign that something is wrong is finding Damian with a bow and arrow in the tallest room at Wayne Manor. Or, more specifically, seeing the boy aiming the arrow out the window in the direction of Dick and Danny cuddling in a backyard hammock.

Thankfully, he had been fast enough to snatch the arrow from the air before it went anywhere near the cuddling duo. Damian insisted he wasn't aiming for either of them- just the strings holding the hammock up.

The reason? Dick had gone over the agreed-upon cuddle time, and Damian wanted to make him stop. Bruce knew it was just because he was jealous.

Bruce had seen his youngest making doe eyes at Danny earlier that morning while the boy was doing his daily chores. He's been more energetic since Wes left and was willing to share his half-human status with the Wayne household after a talk with Alfred.

All of his children took the news well. They had many teammates who weren't human, but Bruce could tell Danny was still afraid to tell them the truth. Despite the many times Danny provided support in the Batcave and knew of said teammates, he still feared that he would be the exception to their acceptance.

It seemed his parents had left more prominent scars than Danny had been willing to show.

After a brief but vague- Alfred made it a point that his contact did not want Danny stating what he was until it was safe to do so- the Waynes got the gist that Danny needed cuddles.

Almost all his youngest had quickly offered their services, but Alfred and Bruce stopped it. The two men created a cuddling schedule, like a meal plan, to help Danny regain a healthier state, along with the few older ones, excluding Jason.

His second eldest had been highly offended to not be on the schedule, but Alfred calmed him with a whisper. "Think about how hilarious this will be to watch?" Jason had returned to his romance novel, cackling like a loon.

He was easy to manipulate.

Alfred forbade Bruce from telling Jason about Danny's slight crush. The reason was that Clockwork had already spoken to Alfred about it being a passing fancy, and it was safer for Danny's kind to not be rejected until later. Bruce burned with many questions, but he would never dare investigate Alfred or his affairs.

He respected him too much.

Now, if only his kids would behave.

"Damian Wayne, we do not shoot arrows at our siblings." Bruce scolds, wagging a finger at the boy's pouting face.

"But you let Drake throw a spoon at Girl Row!" Damian whines, crossing his arms. In moments like this, Bruce is violently reminded that for all his advanced vocabulary and intelligence, his son is still a fourteen-year-old teenager who could act childish.

"I did not let Tim do anything. He's ground for throwing things at Harper." Bruce sighs, rubbing his right temple. A pounding headache was starting to build up there. "Just because she came to watch Danny's cooking lesson with Tim and Cullen and chose to give Danny a quick snack with her hug does not mean Tim had a right to throw utensils."

"It wasn't even aimed at her head," Tim mutters from the hallway. His punishment for his behavior was that he was to stay within the six feet radius of Bruce. It was the only surefire way to ensure Tim wasn't up to something, like working on case work or plotting to overthrow a small government.

Bruce would break out the kid's leash if he tried to run again.

It was hilarious when Tim was thirteen, and the kid leash still had the same threat level at seventeen as it did then.

"That's another week," Bruce tells him.

"What!? I didn't even do anything!"

"Two weeks."

"Come on!"

"Three weeks." Bruce drawls, which causes Damian to smile until his father looks him in the eye. "I don't know why you seem too amused. You're grown for two weeks as well, young man."

Damian throws his arms up, wisely keeping his mouth shut as he steps with Tim. Now Bruce had two kids he couldn't let out of his sight, and they did something crazy. He marches them out of the room towards his office, where he plans on getting some work done and putting them both to do some extra class studying.

They pass by Jason, who looks like the cat that got the cream at their obvious grounding. He waves a couple of tickets in the air. "It seems like you brats are grounded. Too bad, I was about to invite you to show at the planetarium."

"Why would I waste my time there?" Damian scoffs as Tim glares. Bruce feels his headache growing stronger as Jason smugly proclaims.

"Danny is a huge star nerd. He was excited to finally see the show now that he was feeling better. He wanted us all to go together, but you'll have to miss it since you're still getting grounded at your age." Jason mocks, walking away while shaking his head. Bruce has only a few seconds to wonder why his second is like this, and then Tim and Damian explode with pleas to let them join the rest of the children.

He stays firm in their punishment, but he honestly doesn't feel safe by the way the two, right in front of him, start putting their difference aside and communicate with mere glances a plan of escape. Bruce wishes their corporation wouldn't come at the expense of his sanity.

He glances out the window, watching Dick and Danny talk, and it hits him suddenly that Dick is making that face he usually reserves for staring at baby ducks and baby elephants. His eldest was forming a deeper bond with the boy, which could mean several things, but the center of it all was what made him such a good leader.

Dick was breaching the walls Danny had built so strongly around him.

By tonight, Bruce would not be surprised if Dick started calling Danny his little brother. Coupled with the effort Jason put in to get Danny out of the house and around more people, the boy was healing in a way he so desperately needed.

He was so proud of them. Bruce is so glad the kids allowed him into their lives in moments like these. They saved him more times than he counted, and he does not, meanwhile, being Batman.

The kids saved Bruce Wayne, and he hopes they will save Danny Fenton similarly if the younger boy allows it. Not just because he's Alfred's boy but because he is a Wayne in a different shade.

Danny's face lights up with a smile, looking far more alive than ever before, and Bruce's eyes soften. Then they harden when he spots Steph creeping closer to the hammock from behind some bushes, a garden hose in her hand.

"No! No, no!" He shouts, running down the hallway with Tim and Damian behind. "Don't even think about it, young lady!"

#dcxdpdabbles #Alfred's boy #Part 8 #Bruce's pov #Jason is having the time of his life #The cuddle buddy schedule is causing wars #Danny opening up to them #The clam before the storm #Tim and Damian are losing their minds #Jason is unaware he's part of the plot #Bruce's blood preasure is through the roof

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formulafanfics13 · 14 days ago

Note

I love your fics, and I admire your ability to absolutely grind them out. I was hoping for a YT22 fic where he brings his girlfriend to the paddock for the first time. And she's just trying to stay out of the way, but he's completely obsessed with her and just keeps holding her hand or trying to bring her water. And the internet and other people are just deeply amused at how cute it is

You're My Lucky Charm. - YT22

Masterlist

summary: yuki tsunoda brings his girlfriend to the paddock for the first time. she's quiet, sweet, and just trying to stay out of the way. but yuki? he's completely obsessed. he won't stop holding her hand, offering her water, or looking at her like she hung the fucking moon. the internet notices. the grid notices. and no one knows what to do about it except laugh and fall in love with them both.

warnings: fluff overload, extreme boyfriend behaviour, background teasing from the grid, social media reactions, soft kisses, pet names, hand-holding, obsessed yuki, introverted reader, paddock chaos, mild secondhand embarrassment

It starts before she even steps out of the car. Yuki's fidgeting like a kid on his first day of school. Bouncing his leg. Checking the paddock pass hanging from her neck. Making sure her hat is on straight even though it's his AlphaTauri cap and it's drowning her face slightly.

"You're okay?" he asks for the third time.

You nod, laughing under your breath. "Yes, Yuki. I promise."

"You'll tell me if someone says something weird? Or if they stare? Or if you want to go back to the hotel-"

You grab his hand. "Baby. I'm okay."

He stares at you for a second. Then exhales. Then pulls you in for the softest, deepest kiss like he forgot where he is for a second.

"You're so pretty," he whispers. "You're gonna kill everyone in there."

She doesn't. Of course she doesn't. She stays quiet. Stays out of the way. Smiles politely when someone says hi, holds onto the laminated pass around her neck like it's a shield. Keeps close to the walls. Moves behind the garage barriers without being asked.

And yet, Yuki still doesn't let go of her hand. Not once.

"Who's the girl?" someone whispers in the media pen.

"That's Tsunoda's girlfriend."

"What?! That's her?"

"Yeah. First paddock appearance."

There's a beat of silence.

Then: "She's adorable."

It starts small. Yuki bringing her water bottles like she's in the middle of a marathon. Straight from the fridge. Label peeled off. Condensation dripping. He doesn't even ask if she's thirsty. Just hands one to her every twenty minutes like clockwork.

"You're gonna drown her," Pierre mutters as Yuki walks by.

Yuki flips him off. Then adjusts your hat. "You're hydrated, right?" he asks you sweetly.

You nod. "You've given me like four."

"Good." He kisses your cheek. "You need five."

Social media catches on first. A photo of Yuki holding your hand while talking to his engineer. Another of him adjusting your hair just outside the AT motorhome. Then a video.

@f1girlfanpage: the way yuki tsunoda is treating his girlfriend like she's a sacred national treasure is everything to me

"hold this," he says, giving her his drink. then he forgets and tries to sip from her water bottle five minutes later. they both laugh. i'm actually crying. he's been holding her hand for like 6 hours straight if they break up i'll stop watching motorsport

The grid catches on next.

She walks into the hospitality area and George full-on gasps. "She's real?" he whispers to Lando. "I thought she was a myth."

Lando snorts. "Yuki hasn't shut up about her for months."

Alex leans in. "She's so quiet. Are we sure she knows where she is?"

"She's got the pass," Charles says, sipping coffee.

They all nod solemnly. "She's got the pass."

Meanwhile, Yuki is sitting beside you in the back of the garage, holding your hand with one and texting on his phone with the other.

You try to pull away gently. "Yuki," you whisper. "You need your hands."

"I need you," he says with zero irony.

You giggle. "You're ridiculous."

He kisses your temple. "Yeah. But I'm your ridiculous."

Later, in the paddock corridor, she trips slightly over a cable. Yuki sees it happen from fifteen feet away. He runs. Not walks. Runs. Wraps an arm around her waist like she's about to collapse. "Are you okay? Did you hurt anything? Did you twist your ankle? Let me see-"

"Yuki," you say, flushed. "It's fine. I didn't even fall."

He still crouches and checks your ankle. In public. On his knees. Someone snaps a picture. The internet loses its mind again.

The rest of the weekend becomes a montage. Yuki letting her eat the last protein bar from his bag even though he needs the calories. Yuki giving her his noise-cancelling paddock headset during FP2. Yuki carrying her little crossbody purse when she gets too warm. Yuki introducing her to Laurent and Christian and then immediately pulling her back with a nervous "okay that's enough he's too charming." Yuki following her into the hospitality trailer and literally sitting on the floor outside the bathroom while she pees.

"Just in case you need anything," he shrugs when she opens the door.

"You think she's in there crying?" Logan whispers to Oscar.

Oscar blinks. "I think he's in love."

She stands beside him during media. Quiet. Polite. Smiling.

Until someone says, "We didn't know you were dating anyone."

Yuki just smiles. "She's not just anyone." And he pulls her close.

He places eighth in the race. Not a podium. Not a win. But when he finds her after parc fermé, all sweaty and flushed and shining like a little sunbeam in a flame-retardant suit, he wraps her in his arms and lifts her clean off the ground.

The cameras catch everything. Him grinning. Her laughing. The way he kisses her like he's just won the whole championship. The way she whispers something in his ear and he immediately turns red.

That night, the internet explodes:

he didn't even finish on the podium and still ran to her like she's the trophy yuki tsunoda is boyfriend of the year and it's not even close how do i get someone to stare at me the way he stares at her they're soulmates. i don't make the rules.

In the hotel, hours later, curled up in bed, she turns to him. "I was trying to stay out of the way, you know."

Yuki hums. "I know."

"You kind of made it hard."

He laughs. "Good. I wanted to."

"Why?"

He turns on his side. Cups her cheek. "Because you're mine," he says softly. "And I want everyone to know it."

She melts. They fall asleep with her head on his chest and his hand still wrapped around hers.

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alltheeya · 4 months ago

Text

Before the show | p.sh

genre: established relationship, fluff

word count: 0.7k

notes: another short one but i find it really cute jshsiuhj, y/n is an idol too btw

Sunghoon’s adjusting his in-ears, staring at the monitor in front of him. His stylists are doing last-minute touch-ups on his hair and outfit, and everything is moving around him like clockwork. It’s fine—he’s done this a million times. Performed without you watching backstage. He can do this.

But it’s different now.

He’s gotten used to having you nearby. Even if you were quiet, even if you were hidden behind the staff, just knowing you were close has always made it easier to breathe before a stage. And today? You’re not here. You’ve got your own schedules. And logically, he gets it. He tells himself it’s fine.

Still, there’s a little hollow ache in his chest.

He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, gaze lowering toward the floor, and just as he’s about to sigh—

He hears a faint, "Psssst!!"

Sunghoon blinks and instinctively turns his head.

And there you are.

A little distance away behind the camera setup and some stage equipment, you were hopping. Like full-on hopping, with your arms waving above your head like a little kid trying to get someone’s attention at the airport. Your staff are clearly telling you, “You need to go, you’re up next!”, but you are fighting for just one more second.

Sunghoon’s lips twitch into a grin, his heart flipping over itself.

You finally catch his eyes. Your grin widens, and you throw both your fists up in a small cheer.

You mouth, “You’ve got this, baby!”

Then you point at your own eye and do the I’m watching you sign, grinning like an idiot.

And then—your hands flutter over your chest before you make a little heart with your fingers.

“I love you,” you mouth this time.

Before you're scooted away by your manager, literally being pulled by the wrist because you're supposed to be somewhere else. You give him one last bright grin, one last tiny wave, and then you’re gone.

Sunghoon exhales a breath he didn’t know he was holding. His cheeks hurt from smiling so hard.

And when he steps on stage, in front of thousands, it’s like you're still there beside him.

Because your voice echoes in his head,

"You’ve got this, baby."

And damn right he does. Sunghoon killed it on stage. He knew it.

The adrenaline was still buzzing through his veins, but as soon as he got backstage, he barely let the staff unclip his mic pack before he was moving. Weaving through staff and dodging cameras, still catching his breath but not caring one bit.

Because you were next.

And sure, you had your staffs with you. They are probably whispering something to get you pumped, fussing over your outfit, or making sure your in-ears were in perfectly.

But Sunghoon needed to be there too.

So there he was, standing just beyond the curtain—close enough to catch you before you went on, but far enough not to be in the way. Still wearing his stage outfit, sweat on his temple, chest rising and falling from his own performance. But none of that mattered.

Because he saw you.

You were at a distance, head tilted down, doing last-minute breathing exercises. Then one of your stylists pointed toward the side, and you turned your head—and spotted him.

Sunghoon lifted both hands above his head and started waving them like a maniac. Not the cool, controlled idol wave. Full-on dorky arm-flailing.

Your whole face lit up.

You giggled—he saw it. You were supposed to be in serious mode by now, but there you were, breaking into the biggest smile. And then, without thinking, you did your little happy bounce—your signature move whenever you were really happy. Little jumps on your toes, the ones that made you look like an excited bunny.

Sunghoon swore his heart exploded.

You waved back at him, both hands, big energy. Then you pointed at him, did the little "watch me" sign just like you had done before, and mouthed, "For you!"

And then—just like that—you switched.

From his giggling, bouncing y/n to y/n the performer. Shoulders squared, eyes sharp, walking toward the stage like you owned it.

But Sunghoon didn’t leave.

He stayed right where he was, hand pressed over his heart, watching you like you were the only thing in the world.

And as the lights came on and the music started, he whispered under his breath,

"For me, huh? Then go kill it, baby."

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chaoticwriting · 6 months ago

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THE FATHER 3

Part 2

So Danny and Babs go out for a nice evening date that weekend. It is so nice that they even return home safely and romantically and even promise for another date.

Well

That is what Danny and Babs wanted. But now here they are 1000 feet high in the air, looking down on Gotham. It is fine if it's just the two of them and it is part of Danny's plan. However, the one orchestrating the event is The Riddler that decides to bring the whole restaurant that they are dining at flying up high in the air.

Danny sighs as he watches the event unfolds. Standing up he brings his chair right next to Barbara and sits right next to her. Danny seriously needs to have one normal date because for the love of god even in highschool he can't take a break. It's like God is preventing him from having a normal date.

Danny holds Barbara's hands as he can see she is a little nervous about it all. I mean, they are now 1000 ft high in the sky. If she isn't afraid at all that is more impressive. Danny tries to make a conversation with her as they eat while everyone else is freaking out. Amidst the chaos, a couple is sitting beside each other talking and occasionally laughing as they eat.

Suddenly, a big explosion engulfs one part of the restaurant. Danny immediately perks up his senses because he can hear The Riddler panicking about something. Smiling at Barbara, Danny sends out a little clone of him to check what is going on.

To his surprise, Vortex is here thrashing the room where the explosion happened. His clone gets close to Vortex to ask him what happens.

Clone Danny: Vortex! What are you doing here?

Vortex: Phantom! I am in need of your assistance! Right now!

Clone Danny: Dude. Can't you see I am busy?

Vortex: I need you to help me find my relic. That damn bastard Zeus stole it from me.

Clone Danny: Goddamnit! Why the hell don't you go after him then?

Vortex: Clockwork says to go to you if I have any problem relating to the human realm.

Clone Danny: Uugggghhhh....... Of course CW is behind this. Just go back first. I will find your relic later. What is it that you lost anyway?

Vortex: It is my Pendant of Thunder. That is my first ever artifact. If you find it, I will even let you keep it.

Clone Danny: What? If you don't want it, why do you even care that it is stolen?

Vortex: It's not a matter that it is stolen. It is the fact that the one that stole is Zeus. I hate that guy.

Clone Danny: Fine! But come back later. That is none negotiable. I have a date and an attack from Gotham's Rouge is already bad enough.

Vortex: Grrrrrrr......fine. I will comply.

And with that, Vortex just disappears into the sky. Sighs. What is even happening anymore? He just wants a date. And shit is going so fast.

-In the dining room-

Danny: So do you have any plans for the future?

Barbara: Hmmm, I don't really have one. But I do wish to get married and have a kid or 2 running around.

Danny: *Stiffening smile* Only one or two? What about adoption?

Barbara: I mean they are cool. I don't have any negative thoughts on them. And there is this one guy I really like that runs an adoption centre. Such a fine young man.

Danny:*Blushes* Ehem. I'm sure that young man thinks you are lovely too, Barbara.

Barbara: You think? But that guy hasn't tried to make anything between us official yet. Not even boyfriend and girlfriend.

Danny: *Looks around* I'm sure that young man is looking for a nicer place to announce his plan to you.

Barbara: Hmmm, I certainly hope so. I don't like waiting for so long. I hear that guy has a lot of pursuers.

Danny:*Snorts* As if they could hold a candle to you. All they want is my money or because they think I am mysterious and dangerous like in their omegaverse fan fiction.

Barbara: *Giggles* That certainly is true. Though I must say some of the things in their fan fiction are 'spicy' to say the least. I even see some tags of your name in AO3.

Danny: Please don't mention that. My kids think that I don't know what is going on but my friends are having a blast making fun of me because of it.

Barbara: It's fine. It's not like they can hur-

*Booommm*

Danny & Barbara: Oh no.

Suddenly, it is almost as if gravity stops working for them. Some of them starts floating in the air as they can feel the air brushing through their face. No. They are not floating. The building is going down!

Realizing the severity of the situation, Danny makes hundreds of his clones as some of them go under the building to support it slowly to reduce the impact of downfall while the others go to take care of the other customers alone with the goons. In retrospect, the goons are very nice. They haven't been rude to him nor Barbara this whole time. And even only treats the adults roughly. So they honestly get a pass in Danny's book.

Danny meanwhile stands behind Barbara as she finishes her meal. He holds both her and her food with ectoplasm so they wouldn't move.

When the restaurant lands safely, Danny brings Barbara out of the restaurant towards his car. He can see Batman and his crew jumping across the building as they are fighting against Riddler's goon.

Danny drives them off to another place so that they can continue their date.

#danny phantom #dp x dc crossover #batfam #dpxdc #dc x dp #data ghost #death watch #danny x barbara #I write this at 1 am so apologize if there is some words or sentence that doesn't make sense.#Comments if there are any so I can fix it

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honeyedmiller · 1 year ago

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Pretty Little Thing | Joel Miller

joel miller x oc!f!reader

rating: 18+, minors dni

synopsis: it’s summertime and you’re working at a retro diner on the outskirts of austin. you’ve seen many faces and heard many voices all in a passing blur; ones you’ve never really payed any mind to—until one handsome southern gentleman in particular catches your special attention, and he’s got a voice you’d recognize anywhere—one that’s gotten you off more times than you’d like to admit.

warnings: original female character, no outbreak (game) joel, joel has a hidden identity in this for a bit, joel is taller than reader, joel can pull reader’s hair, reader is mentioned to blush once, joel indulges in virtual sex work, joel has no kids in this, flirting, talks of masturbation, smut (protected sex, blowjob, consensual choking, spitting, hair pulling, many ass slaps, edging, squirting, name calling, ass play), no use of y/n.

word count: 5.3k

a/n: this is entirely self indulgent. sorry for the small writing hiatus, life has been insanely busy. thanks for being patient with me as i ease back into writing fanfic.

It was like clockwork.

Every day was the same.

The same regulars, the same orders being put in, the same rushes.

The lunch rush usually died down around two, which gave you time to prepare for the dinner rush before five.

It was funny, really. You never thought that such a tiny diner off of Interstate 35, tucked in a corner on the outskirts of Austin, would have such an attraction as it does.

Maybe it was the house favorite flapjacks you guys sold. Maybe it was the friendly hospitality you and your favorite coworker, Betty, gave to new and familiar faces. Hell, maybe it was the half-decent coffee and the low prices for everything that kept everyone coming in and coming back.

Either way, it was all the same every single day.

Until today.

Usually, there’d be no more than three stragglers from lunch, and no one would come in until around five.

The little bell above the door chimed as someone walked in, and Betty tapped you on the shoulder with a pleading look in her eyes.

You averted your gaze from the sugar pourers you were refilling, giving her a small smile.

“Honey, I’m sorry, I was about to take my break. Can you take that table for me? I need a cig after this morning’s rush.” Her blonde-gray hair was in disarray and her voice was scratchy and desperate.

“No problem. Enjoy your break.”

“Bless you, sweetheart.”

You brush off the straggling sugar crystals that stuck to your hands on your black apron, pulling out your pad of paper and pen before approaching the man that sat with his back facing you.

You muster up the best smile you can before stopping at the booth, ready to jot down his order.

“Hello sir, how are you doin’ today?” You ask, and he looks up from the menu with a grin.

The first thing you notice is his eyes. They’re a warm and inviting shade of hazel; a mixture of a beautiful green that reflects off of his tan skin and an amber as smooth as whiskey.

Then you notice his lips. Pink and plush. Kissable.

And then there’s the smile hidden behind the lips. Bright, pearly whites that take your breath away and make your heart palpitate, because god, why is he so handsome?

It’s like he won the genetic lottery or something.

The mustache above his lips and the scruff on his jawline matches his dark hair with a few silver strands peeking through; the only identifier of his prospective age.

His lips pull up into a smirk as he watches you shamelessly checking him out. Truthfully, you want him to watch you watching him.

He clears his throat and your eyes snap back up to his. You tilt your head to the side and study him for a moment further before he finally speaks.

“I’ll take a black coffee n’ the number three please. Eggs over easy.”

You write down his order and your brows furrow as he speaks. Something about his voice sounds so… familiar.

“Midday breakfast?” You tease, and he offers you a shrug and a grin. “It’ll be right out, sir.” You gingerly take the menu from him and walk back behind the counter.

His voice keeps ringing through your head as you ring in his order on the POS system. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but his voice was attractive nonetheless — deep and gruff, yet sweet and polite.

Where the hell have you heard that voice before?

And then it hits you.

Fuck.

Oh, fuck.

That man’s voice has brought you more orgasms than you can possibly even count.

In a desperate need to get yourself off one night, you explored your options until you came across a faceless account. It was his broad body and thick, muscular arms that caught your attention. And — yeah, okay, maybe his deliciously girthy cock, too.

The final nail in the coffin was that thick, syrupy Southern drawl that reeled you in and immersed you in a world full of pleasure.

His voice and groans alone have made you come harder than any man you’ve ever been with.

Your throat goes dry as you look back at him, tucked into the booth he chose to sit at, looking at his phone.

You mindlessly pour his coffee and bring it out to his table, legs seemingly floating in his direction.

You set the coffee cup down on his table. His large hand grabs the cup, making it look nearly miniature.

Your mind was fuzzy and your core suddenly had an aching throb as you thought of his hands exploring your body; what they’d feel like all over you and — god, get a fucking grip.

“Was there anythin’ else I can get for you?” You ask as nonchalant as you can muster up.

“Nope, that’ll do it darlin’. Thank you.” The crinkles beside his eyes deepen in the slightest as he tosses a polite smile your way.

“Food should be out in a couple of minutes.” You rap your knuckles on the table once before turning around to finish topping off the sugar pourers.

The chef chimed the bell indicating the handsome man’s food was done. You wipe your hands on your apron once more before sucking in a breath.

You decided to shoot your shot and call him out by his screen name. You were confident it was him.

You saw no wedding band on his finger, either, so what the hell, right? Worst that could happen is he rejects your advances.

You grab his plate from the kitchen window and head toward his table. Your palms start to sweat and you’re nervous as hell, because fuck, a face like that is hard to forget.

You set the plate down in front of him and he softly thanks you. You hesitate for a second before tucking a stray hair that had fallen out of your braid behind your ear, shooting a wink his way.

“Anytime, Mr. Ryder. Let me know if you need anythin’ else.”

He pauses before looking up at you again, eyebrows furrowing.

“How do you—?” He starts, clearing his throat as his eyes travel down your figure.

“I’m a fan of your work.” You shrug, passing it off like it’s the most casual thing in the world.

“I see,” He looks back at the now empty diner, gaze shifting back to you. “Wanna sit for a minute and chat?” His voice holds sincerity and — god, let it be — desire.

You nod and hold a finger up to him. “Just a sec.”

You walk back to the counter, catching Betty at a perfect time. She grins at you as she re-ties her apron around her waist.

You jerk your head back to Ryder. “The guy over there wants to chat for a few. Mind if I take a break?”

“Go ‘head baby. Not like we got a ton ‘a people to serve.” She laughs, and you shoot her a smile.

“Thanks, Betty.”

You untie your apron from your waist and walk back over to his booth. He gestures for you to slide into the side opposite of him, and you clumsily settle into the worn leather bench.

He chews on a piece of bacon before his gaze roams your face, seemingly studying you before he swallows.

“So, what’s the first video you watched?” He asks, and you feel your face burn with a blush. You thought he’d be more subtle, but it’s better to lay the cards on the table you suppose.

“Truthfully, I’ve scrolled all the way to the bottom of your page and have probably watched every single one.” You shrug at your confession, and that pulls a smirk out of him.

“What about your favorite?” His tone is almost challenging, but truthfully, he’s intrigued. Never did he think anyone could recognize him by just his voice.

Joel was careful not to show his face on camera. He wanted to keep himself a mystery—the gruff, sexy voice of a suave cowboy and his perfect body that he shared with the world—a secret.

“It’s probably gonna have to be the one where you’re pretty much just talkin’ the viewer through it and, fuck, this is kinda embarrassing but we’re already here,” You huff, and Joel shakes his head and urges you to continue. “When I watch that video, I’ve kinda timed it to make myself come the same time you do.”

“Not embarrassin’, sugar. That’s the sexiest thing a woman has ever confessed to me.”

“Yeah, well, when you got a voice like yours and a dry spell like mine, it’s the perfect mix for a most blissful—” Joel’s hearty laugh cut you off, and you couldn’t help but admire him from across the table.

He was so fucking handsome and you genuinely couldn’t believe you were seeing the man who’s made you come more times than you can count without even fucking touching you, in person.

“Can I see your notepad and pen real quick, baby?” He asks, gesturing down to your lap. You shuffle the items out of your apron pocket before sliding them across the table, and at the click of the pen, he starts to write something down.

You lick your lips and cross your arms over your torso, lolling your head to the side. He clicks the pen once more before sliding it back over to you with the notepad.

You look down at what he’s written, to see his fake name, phone number and an address.

“Whenever you get off, gimme a call n’ come over if you’d like. No pressure though, sugar.”

Holy fuck.

No way in hell you’re passing up this opportunity, so you shoot a smirk his way and tuck the paper into your apron pocket.

Play. It. Cool.

“I get off in about,” You look down at your watch, twisting your lips to the side. “An hour.”

You try to keep your voice steady, but your heart is thumping in your chest and your desperate, aching cunt.

“Sounds good,” He raps his knuckles on the wooden table before grinning at you, nudging your foot in the slightest before he finishes off his breakfast for lunch. “Just the check, sugar. Then I’ll get out of your hair.”

“I’d rather you pull it than get out of it.” You grin wickedly at the astonished man in front of you, sliding out of the booth.

You walk away to the counter before he can retort and ring the check up for his meal, but before you can bring it back to him, he slaps two twenties on the counter before you.

His thick fingers find their way to your wrist and give it a squeeze as he leans down to you and whispers his next words.

“Hope I can satisfy you in more ways than one, baby. See ya in an hour,” He straightens back up before looking down at the twin Jacksons staring back at the both of you, “Keep the change.”

He walks out without another word, without looking back, and it leaves you nearly winded.

“What was that all about?” Betty asks, sidling up beside you as she gently nudges your ribs.

“Looks like I got a hot date.” You half joke.

“If I was thirty years younger I woulda been all over that too, baby,” A hearty laugh escapes her and she shoots a wink your way. “Have fun tonight.”

The hour goes by surprisingly fast and you find yourself almost scurrying to your car after you clock out. You toss your apron into the passenger seat of your car and immediately roll down the windows.

The AC decided to give out on you about a week ago, and of course it was during a time where it was hotter than the devil’s fucking asshole outside.

You groan as you close your eyes, the heat already making you miserable. At least the diner had a good central air system.

You peel your eyes open to fish the paper out of your apron pocket with Ryder’s number and address on it, dialing the numbers scrawled across in blue ink.

After the second ring, his rich voice picked up on the other end of the line.

“Hello?”

“Hey Ryder. ‘M off work now if you still want me to head to your place.”

“Hey sugar. Head on over. There’s a spot in the driveway for ya.”

“See you soon.”

Nerves coursed through your veins as the line went dead. You type in his address into your phone, and to your surprise, he only lived fifteen minutes away.

You threw your car in drive and you were off, the hot air whipping through the cab of your car.

It was truly unlike you to do something so bold like this.

You never went to strangers houses, always ignored when you got hit on at the diner, rejected offers from several men for what would probably be a night full of mediocre sex—and yet, there was something about this man that you couldn’t shake off.

Even with just video evidence of this man’s gruff voice, veiny cock and skillful hands, you could just tell he knew exactly what the fuck he was doing.

It wasn’t long before you pulled up to a quiet neighborhood. His house was on the right hand side, and you pulled up into the driveway next to his black truck.

You took a deep breath before looking at yourself in the mirror of your sun visor before touching up with some lip gloss. You spray your perfume on your pulse points before deciding to stop stalling and finally get out of your car before psyching yourself out.

Your beat up work shoes scuff the concrete path leading up to Ryder’s door, and you swallow thickly before you knock.

Thirty seconds later, a now shirtless Southern gentleman answers the door, hazel eyes catching yours as you stare up at him in awe.

“Well fuck me.” You mutter under your breath as you study his handsome face and his thick, toned torso.

“Tha’s the plan, sugar.” His deep voice shoots straight down to your core, nearly making you audibly moan.

He steps aside to let you into his house, which is surprisingly warm and inviting. It’s cozy with its worn-in furnishings and family photos on the walls. It smells like him too; something earthy and musky and delicious.

He guides you into the living room with his hand on your lower back, touch sending a chill down your spine.

“Make yourself cozy, darlin’. Would y’like anythin’ to drink?”

“Whiskey, neat please. If you have it.” You respond, and he softly smiles at you before nodding and retreating into the kitchen. You can’t help but watch him walk away with the muscles clearly rippling in his back as he walks, all the way down to the back dimples he has.

There’s no fucking way this man is real.

You sigh and settle onto the couch, folding your hands into your lap after setting your purse and keys on the coffee table in front of you.

It’s only a couple of minutes before Ryder reappears before you, handing you a glass of amber liquid. You thank him and sip on it graciously, the smooth taste gliding down your throat and going straight to your already throbbing core.

He sits next to you and slings his arm over the back of the couch, allowing himself to get comfortable as if this occurrence is the most natural thing in the world.

Fuck, maybe it might be for him. You wouldn’t really be surprised considering the charm and suave demeanor he possesses.

“You can relax, darlin’. ‘M not gonna try anythin’ or touch ya without your consent.”

Your shoulders visibly relax at that, not even noticing they were tense to begin with. He didn’t give you bad vibes or scare you. He made you nervous—a feeling you haven’t felt with a man in a very long time.

“So,” You start, voice scratchy from talking so much hours prior and the burn of the whiskey affecting your throat, “You usually bring women home like this?” You’re half teasing and half curious, wanting to see if this really is a regular occurrence for him.

A deep chuckle rumbles through his chest and practically vibrates the whole couch. “No, sugar. You’d be the first t’ even recognize me just by my voice. Gotta say, ‘m pretty impressed with that. Guess you’re a regular viewer then, I take it.”

Now he’s the one teasing, but there’s a knowing tone in his voice. You didn’t even have to say it. He knows.

There’s really no point in denying how turned on he gets you, so you just… let it happen.

You feel a little looser with the whiskey swimming in your veins, giving you the bit of courage you mustered up within the past minute or so. You sink into the couch further, spreading your legs enough to keep the man curious.

He watches you wearily, eyes trained on your body and the signals you were emitting.

“You’re the only man that can get me off now. You’ve got me wrapped around those skillful fingers, Mr. Ryder.” Your voice sounds more smooth and sultry than you expected it to, but it was definitely working in your favor.

“These skillful fingers would love to show you a thing or two, baby.” His fingers twitch around the glass he holds tightly; clearly a form of self-restraint.

You didn’t want him to hold back anymore.

“Show me.” You say.

A small groan emits from the back of his throat.

You suck in a breath as your eyes notice his going completely dark, drowning in desire for you. His once bright hazel eyes have since been replaced with something deeper than a simple need to satiate.

It was fucking carnal.

He downs the rest of his drink and licks his lips, patting his jean-clad thigh.

“Sit on my lap. Back against my chest.” He commands, and you try to smoothly maneuver yourself onto him just as he’d asked.

Once you’re settled on top of him, he gently grips onto both of your knees to spread your legs apart so they’re on either side of his thick thighs.

Your lips part and you don’t even notice you’re breathing heavier until you feel a soft kiss on your shoulder.

“Relax, baby. ‘M gonna make you feel good. If you need me to stop, just tap my thigh twice and hard. Got it?”

“Yes.” You whisper, nearly shaking in anticipation.

“Good.”

And his hands are grazing up your legs to the inner part of your thighs, delicately tracing your skin. Goosebumps raise at his featherlight touch, and before you know it, he’s spreading his own legs wider to spread yours.

You were aching and damp even back at the diner as you sat with him in the booth, studying his handsome features. The cool air of the home hits the dampness on the cotton panties you wore.

Ryder’s fingers made their way up to the lace trim of your panties, causing you to softly whimper for him. You genuinely didn’t think you needed anyone to touch you so fucking bad in your life.

You didn’t want to come off whiny and absolutely desperate, so you kept your pathetic begging to yourself.

“So wet already, pretty girl. This all for me?”

You can’t muster up the words because your brain is simply mush at this point, and all you want is his fingers on you, and fuck, in you.

“You know I respect you, right baby?”

Respect you?

You’ve only known this man—physically—for a few hours, albeit knowing his voice and his body long before he’d even tell you his real name.

And yet, there’s a comfort in his presence. One that would have you willing to do nearly anything for him—with him.

And all you could do was meekly nod your head at his words, his Southern twang dripping in honey—buzzing into your veins.

You turn your head to look at him with a bewildered expression on your face, though, wondering why he’d ask such a thing.

He shoots you a devilish smile.

“Good, ‘cuz for the next few minutes it’s gonna look like I don’t.”

“Oh, fuck.” You mewl, tossing your head back onto his shoulder. He noses at your jaw, littering kisses and small nips all along your jawline and neck as he slides your panties to the side.

He slides his middle finger through your slick slit, moving up to circle your already sensitive clit. You shudder at the touch, clamping your eyes shut as you softly moan.

“Fuck baby, you’re drippin’ already. This what I do to ya? You get this wet when you’re by yourself and you’re bein’ a dirty fuckin’ girl gettin’ yourself off to my videos? Hm?”

His deep voice vibrates through your body, finger traveling down to your entrance. He teases you as he slips the tip of his finger into you—nothing more—and moves it back out.

He continues this a few times, and when you don’t answer him, he slaps your dripping cunt lightly. You gasp and grip onto his forearm that was wrapped around your torso.

“Answer me.”

“God, yes, I–I fuckin’ love your videos. You always get me this wet. Every time. You’re just so—fuck—goddamn hot.”

He chuckles at your blabbering. “Hot, huh? You think that highly of me?”

“Ryder,” You moan as he fully sinks his middle finger into you. He stops his movements and it takes everything in you not to rock your hips.

“Joel.”

“W-what?”

“I want you moaning my real name, baby.”

Joel.

That name is somehow very fitting for him, and lucky for you, it rolls off the tongue easily.

“Joel.” You test it, and his grip on you tightens.

“Atta girl.” He praises, sinking a second finger into you. You moan at the feeling, long fingers hitting spots yours never could. He curls his fingers to hit that exact spot and you cry out in pleasure.

You can feel Joel’s cocky smirk on his lips as he kisses your braided hair, likely in a complete disarray at this point.

The squelching noise that reverberated throughout his living room was truly obscene, but he didn’t seem to mind one bit. In fact, it seemed to spur him on as he twisted his wrist and worked his fingers faster, pressing into that spot inside of you that had you choking on your own moans.

Without warning, you felt yourself nearly at the brink of your orgasm—and Joel pulls his fingers out of you. You cry in desperation, the beautiful build up completely dissipated.

“Not. Yet.” Joel’s mouth was next to your ear, nibbling at your lobe as he worked you through the edging.

He didn’t stop after that, though. He kept the momentum going, sliding his other hand from your torso down to your swollen clit. He slowly starts to rub small circles onto the already overstimulated bundle of nerves, and you cry out a strangled moan as the feeling surges through your body.

“Now.” He says.

Your mind was going blank at this point and a pressure kept building and building and building—until you felt a huge gush, forceful and draining. Your eyes snap open to see clear liquid dripping all down the couch.

“Fuck, Joel I’m sor—”

“Don’t you dare apologize baby. You ever done that before?” He asks, and you shake your head no. He moans at your wordless response and readjusts himself beneath you, and you can suddenly feel how hard he is in his jeans.

Even through the denim he felt fucking big, and you knew you were in for it.

“Let me,” You start, shakily sliding off of his lap and onto the floor. “Let me take care of you.”

Joel watches you and the same muscle in his jaw ticks furiously. He nods without another word as you lean up to kiss the hot skin above his jeans, trailing your lips down to the hemline. You undo the button and zipper swiftly, and he lifts his hips to pull his pants and boxers down to his mid thigh.

Your hunch was correct: he’s fucking huge. You swallow as you take in the sight of his cock in-person rather than over a screen, and it was even better than you’d imagined all those times.

You gently grab the base of his silky flesh, giving it a soft squeeze as you move your hand to the tip. Your eyes flicker up to his, and he’s watching you intently. You smile sweetly up at him before bringing your head down to lick the pre come from his slit, moaning as you get a taste of the salty musk.

Joel’s hand flies to your head, threading his fingers through the loose braid as you slowly lick your way down the vein on the underside of his cock.

“So fuckin’ pretty,” You say, and he groans at your praise. “Even better than I imagined.”

You bring your tongue back up to the tip and take him in your mouth this time, going as far down as you could before you gagged softly.

“Fuck yeah baby, just like that. Doin’ so fuckin’ good for me,” He mewls as you set a faster pace, one of your hands coming to pump the rest of his cock you couldn’t reach with your mouth, the other gently fondling his balls.

You moan around him as his silky flesh easily glides onto your tongue. You enjoy getting him off like this; unraveling him inch by inch just as he’s done to you many times before.

He began to rock his hips up into your mouth, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you try your damndest to not forcefully gag around him.

“Mouth feels so goddamn good on me, honey. ‘M not gonna last much longer.” Joel confesses, and your tighten your lips around his cock to silently urge him to let go.

It was only another minute until his hips completely stilled and his pulsing cock was drained, salty spend coating your mouth in haste.

He groans loudly as he reaches down to cradle your jaw, slowly sliding your mouth off of him. You swallow his spend and sit back on your heels, looking up at him innocently.

“On your knees, baby. Ass up.” He pats the spot next to him on the couch, and you happily oblige. He pulls the skirt of your uniform up over your hips and slides your wet panties down your legs so you’re on full display for him.

You feel his hands slide over the globe of your ass, spreading you apart to get a good look at all of you. You suck in a breath for a second before you feel his fingers slide through your slick folds once more, teasing you so.

“You ever had a man touch you back here? Pretty little thing.” He asks as his thumb circles the tight ring of your ass.

“No.” You moan, closing your eyes as you press a cheek to the couch cushion.

“Hm. ‘S a shame. Feels real good.”

“Please, Joel.” You truly weren’t above begging for this man to touch you in any way possible.

“Please what, sugar?”

“Please—please touch me. Make me feel good. Even better than I already feel.”

You turn your head more to lock eyes with him staring down at you with a look of determination and hunger.

He keeps his eyes locked on you as he grabs his half-hard cock, reaching to the coffee table beside you both to grab the foil packet you didn’t even see until this very moment.

He rips it open and slides it on before sliding his cock through your slick folds. You sigh in pleasure as your eyes flutter shut for a brief second before you open them again as his tip notches your entrance.

“You ready baby?”

You nod your head, but he shakes his.

“Need your words this time darlin’.”

“Yes Joel. Please.”

He sinks into you slowly, his girth stretching you out so deliciously. It stung a little, because in truth, you’ve never been with anyone his size.

Once he’s fully sheathed into you, he shoots you that same wicked grin before letting spit slowly dribble out of his mouth and onto your asshole.

“Oh fuck me,” You whisper, moaning as his thumb circles the tight ring once again. “Please.” You say, and he hooks his thumb gently into you.

You feel so full like this, barely even able to comprehend the fact that you’re about to get fucked by your favorite adult content creator.

Joel starts to rock his hips slowly at first, moaning at how tight you are. He picks up his pace once you’re both comfortable and it feels like he’s punching your fucking gut.

It’s almost unbearable— but the pleasure outweighs the pain by a mile. He’s rocking his hips so hard that the couch starts to scrape onto the floor, nothing but skin slapping on skin. You feel a sting on your left asscheek and moan at the contact, realizing Joel had slapped you.

He does it again, and again, and again, until tears are in your eyes and you can no longer bear the sting.

“Pussy feels so fuckin’ good baby. Was meant to take this cock, hm?” He says through gritted teeth, and you can’t help but agree with him.

His hand slides up your back and reaches your hair, pulling it so your head tilts upward.

“So fuckin’ pretty like this. Love the way you feel around me.” He confesses, taking his thumb out of your tight muscle before wrapping his other arm around your torso once, only to pull you upright this time.

He’s pistoning into you as you lean back onto his body. His hand wraps gently around your throat as he scatters more kisses onto your jawline and up your earlobe.

“Can I?” He asks, and you choke out a meek yes.

His large hand wraps all the way around your throat, squeezing the sides. Joel turns his head down to look at you, all helpless as he fucks you relentlessly.

Your jaw hangs open and your eyes are squeezed shut, relishing in the all-consuming feeling of Joel.

Joel, Joel, Joel.

You open your eyes as you plead his name, feeling another orgasm burning within you.

He moves his fingers up from your throat to grab at your jaw, forcing your mouth open as he spits into it.

“Swallow.” He commands, and you don’t question him one bit.

He likes seeing you like this—submissive and practically breedable—and yet, he barely knew you. He knew he wanted that to change after this, though.

“Joel I’m gonna come.” Your voice is hoarse and desperate, trying so hard to keep the feeling of pleasure at bay.

It was no use, though. The way he was looking at you made you want to fucking risk it all, and when he finally bent his face down to kiss you, you knew it was a wrap.

You both moaned into each other’s mouths as your tongues tangled together, tasting each other and exploring one another.

It wasn’t long before the coil finally snapped for you, and seconds later, him as well. You both panted heavily as you were submerged in the post-coital bliss.

“You did so good, baby. Hopefully I lived up to your expectations.”

You huff a laugh at his words as he pulls out of you and shuffles himself down onto the couch, pulling you on top of him. He kisses the top of your head as he plays with your hair, a strange feeling blooming in his chest as you both enjoy the presence of one another.

One thing’s for sure and two things for certain:

You’re everything he’s wanted, and he didn’t even know how to tell you. There was no way he was letting you go now.

tags: @endlessthxxghts @punkshort @ilovepedro @nostalxgic @party-hearses

@joelsgreys @ozarkthedog

#joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller one shot #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x oc #tlou one shot #tlou imagine #joel miller tlou

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lexus-k4 · 8 days ago

Text

Dp x DC

Okay, so, I've read a few ideas I've loved where Danny is some sort of babysitter one way or another. Again I've loved them all.

Now que my insomniac ass awake at 4:32 am, due to start work in 3 hours, getting an idea myself where Danny is a babysitter kind of thing. But it's a dead tired idea. Now, before you think about the age gap, this will involve clockwork and his time shenanigans. So while Danny will be a teen as a babysitter and Tim a kid. Time shenanigans related. Turns out Tim and Danny are actually in the same age group, but tTim is just a year older :3

- - - -

"Phantom. My boy. I have a request for you, I would like you to go back in time and look after a young boy for at least 2 possibly 3 or 4 years. I'll make sure your age doesn't increase. And I will owe you a debt for this."

Danny froze. Of course he did. I mean, he'd have helped anyway, but to be able to have an ancient of time indebted to you? That's like. Waw. And he gets a minimum 2 year break from fighting every waking minute. But that just made it sketchy. "What's the catch?"

Clockwork just shakes his head, "no catch my boy. Just a wish to prevent a tragic end. There are only a small hand full of good outcomes that will come from how this boy grows. And only one of that small group is with no outside interactions. If this boy were to down a dark path. So would the dear lady, her people and everyone around."

Again with the cryptic shit. Where he gives you an answer but it's not clear and you need to think or be a genius to figure out the words he's leaving out. Why did time have to be so god damn fragile. Like, even the family of speedys can bend and break it by just running.

Danny could confidently say that the family of speedsters was both the most and least favourite of hero's to clockwork. And a cause for most of his pain when having to deal with time quests for CW.

"Fine. But I get to call in that debt when I want. So what am I doing?"

Of course, CW half explained things, but Danny got the jist. At least he thinks so.

Baby sit a kid who could become the death of thousands, possibly millions. Show him love, make sure he's safe and just enjoy.

And now?

Now, Danny was in the filthy rich aide of the most crime ridden city of America.

But a few years in the past.

Woohoo....

Danny, being a paranoid duck, decided to just watch for a bit and see what's he's working with. And it's wasn't great.

Neglectful parents. Stupid parents. Suicidal child with no regard to safety. A child with understanding of love. Doesn't know what love is. Has severe starvation from physical touch, attention and emotions which he doesn't even realize.

But one thing he does find out.

The kid he's babysitting? Is a child of bad dayum billionaires. Billionaires who wouldn't hire a babysitter because apparently their 5 year old son, is old enough to fend for himself now while they disappear for months at a time.

...

So of course Danny dis the only logical thing possible.

He became the boys ghost babysitter. The one the parents thought was an Imaginary friend and punishes their child for being so 'childish'

Danny- I WONDER WHY ASSHOLES.

So the kid stayed quiet about Danny but they still talked. Danny cleaned, Danny played, Danny helped, Danny even learnt how to cook for the little boy.

The little boy he came to learn was called tim.

Or more precisely TIMOTHY DRAKE. SOON TO BE TIMOTHY DRAKE-WAYNE. HOLY FU-

no Danny. There are kids here. Watch your language.

So Danny did that. For a good two years. He cooked food for rim, cleaned, set his bed, did laundry, taught Tim how to garden and look after plants, how to fight how to use a boe staff, a sword and a few other wepons. Wepons he only knew how to use thanks to Pandora

He even helped Tim with school while somehow still doing his own studies. It turns out when you aren't getting ambushed every hour, you can actually learn alot.

Especially when you have a child genius by your side who seems to be in the same mental age of a high schooler and not the 6-7 year old he is.

Danny found out so much about Tim. His love for photography, physical activities, skateboarding, using a boe staff. Tim loved the colours green and blue. And loved octopuses. Tim, somehow knew what coffee was too.

And that concerned Danny. So he tried to hide it.

But that didn't work.

So instead he bargained. Max one coffee with half an espresso worth of caffeine in it per day as a max. In return, no bedtime schedual as long as he's not a zombie and can function and can get a minimum of 6 hours per night on school nights.

They even had a God damn contract. But it woked. And life continued.

2years passed. And Danny got his green envelope from CW. Tim instantly thought he was leaving because Danny was honest from day one, that he'd have to leave but he'd at least spend 2 years with him. Max 4.

Then Danny opened it, and while Tim stood there defeated thinking he'd lose Danny, Danny turned around with a bright smile. "Well will ya look at that. I'mma stay for another good two years. Ya ain't gettin rid of me that easy."

And Tim? Yeah, Tim was overjoyed. His best friend, best buddie got to stay for another year. Tim ignored the warm fuzzy feeling he got in his chest which a 7year old shouldn't have by any means at all. Besides Danny was about 13 years older than him.

Another two years passed. A unique exploration of different cuisines, teaching Tim how to cook some basics. Danny learning how to play the piano. Tim learning some martial arts styles. Growing fruit treats, Berry bushes and some other things, especially flowers.

And a special plant. An infinity realms plant. One that would change between blue and green, would glow slightly and had mild sentience.

Danny gifted it to Tim on his last day, as a parting gift, telling him that the plant will only respond positively to him and Danny because he infused some extra echo into it to recognize them.

But in those two years Danny also started studying some collage level books by himself, learnt some defensive combat styles, he learnt so much.

But especially, he learnt how to love someone. Before you say anything, before Danny returned to his time Danny just saw Tim as a kid he looked after. But when he returned and saw Tim on the news, his heart would flutter. That had never happened before. And he had a whole closet case, and gay panic session that spanned over a good half year.

But Danny feels morally conflict by these feeling. I mean. He basically raised the kid for 4 years because his parents wouldn't. Well. He ain't rly a kid anymore. But, that's besides the point.

He probably doesn't even remember Danny and just thinks he was an Imaginary friend.

Meanwhile. Tim, in Gotham, researching a fake government organization that is giant against the Meta rights act for being they call 'ecto-entities' which, both Satan and Raven confirmed are actual beings from a different realm that's connected to every dimension. Heck, even Constantine said the same thing, and he's the best of the best. His description was - like the stitches that hold the dimensions together, that aren't right so that you can easily accessible the other side of the stitches but not so loose that they aren't connected, but that point were it's lose but still closes the gap and holds all the important things like blood and insides within it. And the blood and internal organs in this case would be stuff like different after life's, before life's and limbo and limbo equivalent.

So now, Tim was working with Duke and Jason to do investigative work on these excto-beings which are being hunted by the idiotic mis Ecto-Soginistic assholes.

Now imagine time surprise, when he finds a blurry image of a certain white haired teen he had a crush on when he was a kid. The same one who taught his so many things. How to fight, how to love, how to cook, different hobbies and so much more.

They even had the same name.

Phantom...

More deeper searching finds that phantom had only showed up about six years ago. When Tim was 15.

But phantom started disappearing around 2 years. But that didn't make sense. Because in the photos, phantom looked around 14-17. But Tim remembered him looking about 20. And him saying he was 20.

Then he saw something else. Something too coincidental.

A fourteen year old boy getting into an accident 6 years ago. Then phantom showing up.

The said boy having poor attendance and always disalearinf when a ghost appeared.

The said boy, moving cities to start looking for collage as he takes a gap year to raise money in a bigger city. The same year and month phantom almost starts showing up never...

Yeah. Tim really didn't think it was a coincidence.

They even looked extremely similar. This black haired, blue eyed, pale, freckled guy looked like a cooler inverse of phantom.

Other than phantom having pointed fangs and elfish ears. Everything was identical.

So. It was decided. Tim was going to meet phantom.... Sorry. He meant Fenton.

Duke was coming with, for his eyes because he can see things they can't.

Jason was coming for intimidation reasons. And possible connection to the ecto-beings, because he had always mentioned going somewhere when he was dead. He didn't remember it but the magic specialists said it was most likely the infinity realms. The living place of ecto-beings.

Time for a road trip!!!

And time for reliving his childhood crush, with an actual chance of it happening. Especially if his guess was right then he was even older than him.

Maybe only by a year. But still older. Tim was taking any bonuses he could. And he looked good when he tried, to he actually had a chance to woo him, unlike when he was a kid.

No. Danny didn't freeze from shock then proceed to faint when he opened his apartment door to find a certain Timothy Drake-Wayne at his door...

The same one who gave him an existential crisis at age 20.

The same one who made him question his morals.

The same one he raised as a parental/friend figure for 4 years.

The same one that made him question his sexuality.

Yeah, Danny was doomed. He couldn't keep secrets from a face like that. And to say the look of surprise on Tim's brother's faces wasn't expected when he started spilling everything on accident, would be a big fat lie.

#dc x dp #danny fenton #danny phantom #dp x dc #dpxdc #batfam #dcxdp #tim drake #dead tired #:/ yeah #i wrote this and about two others in the same night. each one gettinf closer ro my alarms going off #all scheduled to post at diffeent times but yeah. fun #i hate insomnia #and yet here i am

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egcdeath · 1 year ago

Text

something old, something new

pairing: patrick zweig x f!reader

summary: when your childhood best friend asks you to get married, how are you supposed to say no?

word count: 7.2k

warnings: MATURE (mentions of sex but no explicit sex scenes), marriage of convenience, fluff, mentions of alcohol, patrick is a bad friend (but he improves), friends to spouses to lovers, fake dating, yearning and pining, everyone is bad at communicating, many feelings are being repressed, mentions of dieting in an athlete way, one singular creepy old man, no use of y/n

author’s note: i cannot get this tennis man out of my head!! i hope you all enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!

It wasn’t every day that you could count on hearing anything from your childhood best friend, but it seemed like whenever you did hear from Patrick Zweig, it was always an ask for something more shocking than the previous one.

As kids, you spent many evenings doing the homework that Patrick didn’t want to do, despite the fact that you didn’t really want to do more homework either. At boarding school, you’d somehow become his personal designated driver, answering his calls no matter what time and groggily picking him up from whatever party he’d found himself at. In your adulthood, you found yourself becoming a go-to stand-in for him at events he didn’t feel like attending. The amount of times that you’d shaken hands at charity galas and introduced yourself as Patrick’s girlfriend, despite not having a single romantic encounter with him, was frankly astounding.

It seemed like whenever Patrick needed something, you were the first person he reached out to. After his parents, of course.

You dreaded knowing the reason behind the simple hey, text message you’d just received, but you were sure that you’d find the reason out sooner rather than later–and that whatever the reason was could not have been good.

Like clockwork, only an hour after you’d received his message, Patrick appeared at the doorway of your apartment. He came to you equipped with his secret weapon, the kicked puppy look that he often used on you before he asked you for a ridiculous favor, like breaking up with his girlfriend for him or telling his mom that he still wasn’t joining the board of the family business.

You sighed as you took his less-than-stellar appearance in. Downtrodden expression, wrinkled and sweat-stained shirt, as if he’d gone to the gym to sweat out his feelings before coming to you, and eyes so red-rimmed, you wondered if he’d been crying.

If you had to guess, he’d either been arguing with his parents, who knew exactly how to get under his skin, or his tennis friends, who also knew exactly how to get under his skin, or his latest girlfriend, who probably confronted him about his own wrongdoings. Regardless of who had upset him, he had obviously come to you to lick his wounds.

Like always, Patrick stalked inside without asking you for any further permission. The two of you had done this song and dance more times than either one of you would like to admit.

“How are you?” he asked, stopping in your kitchen to steal an apple from your decorative bowl of fruit.

“I’m good,” you said with hesitation, eyeing him once more. He really looked like shit. If he hadn’t looked so sad, you would’ve told him exactly how much shit he looked like.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me how I am?” he questioned, a little pathetically.

“No,” you walked off to your living room, fully expecting him to follow you. You were unsurprised when he did exactly that. “Let’s just get right to it. Why’d you come over here?” you asked as the two of you sat down on your couch.

“My parents are cutting me off,” he explained, voice breaking as he spoke.

Surely, this couldn’t all be over an empty threat. They seemed to threaten Patrick with this every few days. In fact, you’d been in the room with him when his parents promised that he’d never see another dime from them–more than once. Every time, it ended with them coming to their senses and throwing more cash at him.

“That’s what, the twentieth time?” you laughed. “They always threaten to cut you off. What’s different this time?”

“This time, they mean it.”

You laughed even harder in his face. If you had a quarter for every time you’d had this conversation, you’d be richer than the two of your families combined.

“I’m serious,” he inched closer to you. “They’re tired of funding my ‘tennis habit’. They want me to get serious about life. To join the board and start a family. My dad showed me an edited draft of his will and everything”

“So?” you prompted, trying to figure out where you fell into the equation. Hopefully he wouldn’t try to put you up to something absurd, like seducing his father into convincing him to not threaten Patrick’s inheritance.

“So, tennis is the only thing I care about.”

“Okay…” you trailed off. “What would you like me to do about that?”

“I need you to help show my parents that I have a vision for the future.”

“Again, Patrick, what exactly are you asking me to do?”

“Marry me.”

You weren’t sure what you expected him to say, but it certainly was not that. Your mouth instantly dropped open and you were sure that you were gaping like a fish. Maybe if he had asked you ten years ago, you’d have instantly said yes, but you’d let that naive dream die after you’d come to realize the transactional subtext of your friendship.

“What?”

“I want you to marry me. I was thinking… you remember when we were younger and we made that pact, that if we weren’t married by the time we were adults, then we’d get hitched?”

You continued to stare at him, completely dumbfounded and not believing a single word coming from his mouth. “I… I…” you couldn’t even form the words. “We were kids!”

He gave you a halfhearted shrug, as if that didn’t matter at all, and as if he didn’t just ask you to be legally and romantically bound to him forever.

“You are fucking unbelievable! You haven't talked to me for anything other than asking me a favor in years, I barely know you’re alive apart from the random drunk texts you send me, and now you want me to marry you? Do you even hear yourself?”

You scoffed and stared at him in disbelief. “And that has to be the worst proposal in all of human history. First you tell me that tennis is the only thing you care about and then ask me to marry you? You’re a joke.”

He let you finish your rant, but after a beat he finally asked. “…Is that a no?”

—��—-

Stranger things had happened to you than marrying your childhood best friend just a month after he’d randomly popped back up in your life. At least, that’s what you told yourself as you walked down the aisle on a beautiful beach off of the Amalfi Coast.

The last few weeks had been an absolute whirlwind, with what felt like every second of your time consumed by making guest lists and invitations, booking hotel rooms, and finding a dress that you liked enough to get married in. Obviously, you knew this was more of an elaborate scheme than a celebration of love, but you wanted it to be nice anyway. For all you knew, you may never get married again.

You don’t know what possessed you to say yes to Patrick. Maybe the small, desperate part of you that had been begging him to truly see you since you were old enough to realize he didn’t, or maybe the desire to finally have that fairytale destination wedding you’d been dreaming about from the time you learned what a wedding was. Regardless of the reason, both of your families were overjoyed by the union. In one fell swoop, you’d been able to satisfy both of your parents’ desires for you to settle down, and you’d done it with someone both pairs approved of.

You had to give props to Patrick, the ceremony was beautiful. Given the short timeline, the two of you decided to divide and conquer the planning of the event. You were sure that he’d outsourced the work, since he was still in the middle of his tennis season, but whoever he hired did an excellent job at giving you the wedding you’d always wanted.

Despite the very short timeline everyone had been given, you were able to wrangle all of your close family and friends to Italy to watch you elope. Your parents had insisted on inviting second cousins and shareholders to your wedding, but you’d somehow convinced them that you and Patrick wanted a smaller, more intimate ceremony. It was probably better to have less people there, lest someone notices the artificial nature of your union.

Part of you felt like you’d pulled off the greatest prank of all time as the two of you stood up in front of your small crowd, gazing as lovingly as you could manage into each others’ eyes while the officiant said his spiel, but the other, more logical part of you filled with dread as the reality of the situation began to set in. Patrick seemed to have a way of always dragging you into a shitty situation, and you hoped for both of your sakes, that that wouldn’t be the case for your marriage.

After what felt like a lifetime, Patrick began to recite his vows, claiming to have loved you since you were children, and promising to continue to love you ‘till death did you part. If you had been marrying literally anyone else, your knees would go weak with swooning.

Unfortunately, you were cursed with the knowledge of the reality of your situation, one where your vows sounded more like: “We only have to stay married until I retire, which should be sooner rather than later. We don’t have to do anything together: no galas, no family dinners, no family vacations. Hell, you don’t even have to come to my games. And we don’t have to be exclusive either. This is basically just a title, so feel free to see anyone you want to. I can already see the worry in your face. Stop that. We can hire someone to make us prenups, so the divorce will be an easy, clean split of our assets. See? It’s not that bad.”

The dichotomy between the words he’d said to you a month ago and the bullshit he was spewing now almost made you laugh, but that was clearly not the reaction you were meant to be having when the love of your life was publicly declaring their feelings for you.

Once he finished declaring his romantic, empty words, you began to read off your vows. They fell in a similar vein to his, a proclamation of a lifetime-spanning love that didn’t really exist in the first place. But when you glanced up at him from your slip of paper, he was really selling it. He stared at you like he adored you, like he wanted to study every inch of your face after running off with you into the sunset.

The ridiculousness of it all finally hit you like a freight train, and you managed to pivot the laugh that was creeping up into your throat into a weepy sounding crack of your voice. Surely people cried during their own weddings.

You finished off your vows, doing your best to pretend like this whole ordeal wasn’t the most ridiculous scheme you’d ever been dragged into. You imagined a world where he was less selfish and you were less selfless, one where you were exchanging these vows with sincerity, and it helped you to get through the words that you knew were almost completely meaningless.

The two of you then took turns placing the ring on each others’ fingers, with Patrick giving you a ring with the largest diamond you’d ever seen, and you giving him a band that had been passed throughout your family. He’d agreed to give you the heirloom back once you divorced, so you couldn’t complain too much about giving it away in the first place.

The announcement of being able to kiss the bride rang out in your ears, yet you still found yourself surprised when Patrick eagerly wrapped his arms around you and kissed you passionately. Cheers erupted around the two of you, and you pulled away as the officiant declared you Mr. and Mrs. Zweig.

You had successfully tricked your audience, and yet, you still had the strangest feeling.

Your reception felt far more natural than your wedding ceremony. After a change of outfit, a huge bowl of pasta, and a few flutes of champagne, you were feeling substantially better about the arguably poor decision you’d just made. You chatted up your friends, who jumped at the opportunity to comment on how cute of a couple you two were, did some light matchmaking between single guests, and placated both of your parents with manufactured acts of affection. You even managed to get Patrick out on the dance floor, after he swore to you that he didn’t dance.

By the time the two of you were stumbling back into your villa, the woes of the day had practically been forgotten. When you were having this much fun, who cared about a massive, potentially life altering decision?

You immediately made a beeline to the bathroom, anxious to get into your comfortable pajamas and to wash your face after a long day of wearing tight, extravagant dresses and a heavy layer of makeup.

“So what did you think of your big day, Mrs. Zweig?” Patrick called out from the other side of the bathroom door, where you were sure he was also preparing for bed. “Was it everything you wanted and more?”

“I think this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” you paused as you thought about something before confessing, “but it was everything I wanted and more.”

“Yes!” he celebrated from where you couldn’t see him, though you could perfectly envision the goofy look on his face. “I owe it to you after everything I’ve put you through. I just hope you weren’t too let down by the groom.”

“What?” you drew out before blowing a raspberry. “Of course not. You looked very handsome today,” you complimented in between splashes of your face.

“You looked pretty beautiful, yourself,” he complimented you right back.

“Aww, thank you, honey,” you emphasized the pet name.

“Hmm, I don’t know if I like that,” you heard the squeak of the bed from behind the door as you assumed that he’d sat down.

“Hey, you’re the one who made me marry you,” you pointed out. “Am I more than you bargained for?”

“Of course not, babe,” he emphasized his own pet name, which sent you into a fit of laughter. “It’s just so weird to hear you refer to me as anything other than an asshole.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, you’re still an asshole,” you replied as you walked out of the bathroom, donning an old shirt with the logo of your boarding school and an equally old pair of shorts. “Just a married asshole.”

You took in the sight of your now-husband as you made your way to your side of the bed, surprised to find that you quite liked the sense of domestic bliss you were feeling. The bed dipped as you sat down and glanced back at Patrick with the slightest bit of hesitation.

“Is this weird for you? I can go to the spare room, if you want me to,” he offered, surely in reference to the two of you sleeping in the same bed.

“Don’t worry about it,” you assured him, setting a steady hand on his knee. “What kind of couple would we be if we didn’t spend our wedding night together?” you teased.

“The kind of couple that marries for convenience?” he suggested.

“Hey, who’s to say that this isn’t love? I had the biggest crush on you when we were kids. Maybe some of it lingered, or some shit.”

“Oh yeah?” he looked at you with that sleazy smirk that you both loved and hated. “What happened?”

“Hmm… I think I realized that you’re a dick,” you matched his smirk with a challenging one of your own.

“Huh. Did you have this realization before or after you started seeing Dan Thompson?” he questioned.

You were surprised by the mention of your first boyfriend, particularly because you weren’t sure that Patrick remembered any detail about your personal life, let alone your love life. “I realized it after you started treating me like your workhorse.”

“Oh okay, so you had a crush on me while you were with your boyfriend. Good to know.”

“Shut up,” you groaned and turned away from him as you finally full laid down.

“Would it make you feel better to know that I also had a crush on you?” you heard the bed sheets rustle as he scooted closer to you, and you turned back to face him.

“You’re lying.” You couldn’t see any world where that would make sense to you. In your youth, it seemed like Patrick was always off somewhere with a new person, and none of those people were you. Not that you had an issue with it, but the thought that the two of you might’ve had crushes on each other at the same time without either of you pursuing each other felt kind of weird.

“Nope. You’re the first person I ever jerked off to,” he said as casually as if he were telling you what he ate for breakfast, not breaking eye contact with you.

“Ew, you’re so gross,” you gently pushed him, but your hands lingered where they sat on his chest. “Was that supposed to be romantic or something?”

“That’s not romantic to you?” he asked with all the sincerity of someone who was fully committing to a bit.

The two of you broke out into laughter. Once you finally caught your breath, you began once more. “This is gonna be a long marriage.”

“Hopefully,” he remarked in response.

“If you keep talking to me like that, I will literally go get our marriage annulled, like right now.”

“Please don’t,” he whined, grabbing one of your hands from his chest and kissing your fingers. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Every time you promise to make something up to me, an inconsistent fairy gains its wings.”

“Hey,” his tone suddenly became very serious, completely catching you off guard. “I really am sorry that I’ve been a terrible friend. I don’t know that I’ve ever said it, but I am. You deserve so much better than me, and I don’t even know how I convinced you to do this for me.”

You almost started to laugh, unable to take the absurd situation seriously. You’d been waiting years to hear him genuinely apologize, and now hours after you’d married solely as a favor to him, he was finally telling you what you wanted to hear.

“Please. I’m serious. I know you think I’m a piece of shit flaky ashhole, and I am, but I want to be a better husband to you than I ever was as a friend.”

You felt your heart stop beating for a second. The word husband sounded so foreign in his mouth. You couldn’t quite pin how you felt about it, but you knew you felt uncomfortable with the intimacy of his words.

“Patrick, please shut up,” you squeezed your eyes shut, suddenly a little overwhelmed with the Patrick of it all. In fact, you couldn’t think of anything more encapsulating of your experience with him than the whiplash you got from that moment. He could be a complete asshat, but his occasional moments of earnestness kept you following him like a lost puppy, accepting his apologies and granting him ridiculous favors, despite your better judgment.

“Are you okay?” he asked, moving closer to you to get a good look at you. You swore you felt your heart squeeze painfully in your chest.

“I’m fine, I just-“ am overwhelmed by you being sweet? Can’t believe that I’m hearing you say this to me after so long? Also can’t believe that you and I are married?

None of the right words seemed to come to you, so you did the second best thing you could think of.

You pecked his lips and pulled away as if you’d just touched a hot handle. You didn’t know what had come over you, and immediately began to apologize profusely.

“Oh my god, I don’t know-“ you were cut off by his hands on your face, greedily and sloppily pulling you back in for another kiss, this one far more passionate and confident than the first.

Your kiss was messy but fervent, years of pent up sexual frustration and non-sexual frustration behind your every movement. As you kissed, you moved to straddle him, feeling a little ridiculous in your ratty old clothes, but that didn’t stop him from groping you over your pajamas like you were the hottest thing on the planet.

Maybe the strangest thing to happen to you that day wasn’t even your wedding.

——

That night was the first in a series of very strange events. You couldn’t even fully wrap your head around what was happening in your marriage. You just knew that the two of you had become closer friends than you’d ever been before, and that you slept together when either of you had the urge. It was basically a no strings attached situation, except, legally, all strings were attached.

If you were confused by your arrangement, you were sure that your friends were even more lost, something they proved to you as they interrogated you over brunch.

“So, just so we’re clear, you married him as a favor?!” your friend asked in complete disbelief.

“Well… yeah, basically.”

“Shit. Can I ask you for a favor of a million dollars?” she joked, leading to the laughter of your other friends at the table.

“Well, that’s different. At least with our marriage, we both benefit. He gets his parents off his ass about being so focused on tennis that he doesn’t have any future prospects, and I get my parents to stop trying to marry me off to every single rich boy they find.”

“But you’re not like, actually married. Like you guys don’t have feelings for each other?” another friend questioned.

You sipped your mimosa before explaining your situation for what must’ve been the fifth time that day, “we’re basically friends with benefits.”

“But you’re legally married? Like, the wedding was official and stuff?”

“Legally? Yeah. But it’s literally just that,” you clarified.

“Legal marriage and sex?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, hoping that they were finally catching on.

“Then… are you guys seeing other people?”

“Oh yeah, what ever happened to that one model guy you were seeing?” another one of your friends pitched in.

“It didn’t really work out,” you addressed that with an understatement. He rightfully flipped his shit when he found out you were going to be marrying someone else. “But neither of us are seeing other people. I don’t think either of us want to risk bringing anything back to one another.”

“That sounds pretty committed to me.”

“Not really,” you dismissed.

“Then why are you even together?”

“How many times do I have to explain how we both benefit from this?”

“No, not legally, or socially or whatever. Why are you hooking up with him? Aren’t you scared you’ll mess up your friendship or something?”

“Well, the sex is really, really good. But I’m really not worried. There's no romance between us. We’ve been friends for so long that it’s just… weird to look at him like anything other than my friend. It’s basically a loveless marriage of convenience.”

Your friend shot you a skeptical look. You just shrugged her off.

———

The moment you found out your afternoon meeting had been canceled, you reached out to your assistant to make arrangements for you to go to Patrick’s tennis game. He’d been on a winning streak, and though he insisted that you didn’t need to come to his games, you knew that he secretly liked having you there.

Over the past few months of your marriage, you’d grown to realize that he often didn’t say what he actually meant. Like the time he told you that he preferred to live alone, before breathily confessing in your ear that he slept better by your side. Or when he swore to you that he loved the pancakes you’d served him, despite the food being some of the worst you’d ever put in our mouth and him being on a diet. You almost found it sweet that he tried to prioritize your feelings over his own, which was surely a result of overcompensation from the way he had treated you for the majority of your lives.

You arrived at his match just in time to watch him take a break, making your way into the stands and finding a seat where you’d have the best view of your friend as possible. You didn’t expect him to scan the audience and find you until much later on, but you were pleasantly surprised when the two of you made eye contact and he absolutely lit up. You waved, then gave him a thumbs up in hopes to communicate your support from far away.

While you couldn’t always make it, you liked to play the role of supportive tennis wife. Getting dressed up and making an appearance not only publicly legitimized your sham of a marriage, but helped you to reconnect with some of your former boarding school classmates, who were often in the stands supporting a friend or a loved one. You also just liked to watch him play, as witnessing the passion and ferocity he had out on the court was extremely entertaining, and even at times, mildly arousing.

With their break ending, Patrick went back out on the court and played just as well as you expected him to, crushing his competition, and looking up into the stands at you to celebrate once he’d scored the winning point.

At first, it was surprising how proud his wins made you feel of him, a feeling that you explained to yourself by arguing that if he wasn’t giving his absolute all to tennis, then your marriage had basically been all for nothing. Although that did still ring slightly true, the truth was that you were simply proud of Patrick. Whether you liked it or not, the two of you were a unit now, which meant that his wins were your wins and vice versa. In some ways, it was kind of nice to be part of a team. Or at least his team.

You met Patrick down on the court, where he paused from packing his bag to immediately greet you with a kiss to the forehead, a small act of intimacy that was typically reserved for situations far different from the one you were currently in.

“Hey! I didn’t know you were coming!” he exclaimed, pulling you in for a half-hug.

“I didn’t know I was coming either,” you instinctually wrapped your arm around him in response to his half-hug. “Great job out there. You kinda demolished him!”

“I did, didn’t I,” he said just loud enough for you to hear, still wanting to appear like a good sport. “I have to go get ready for the press conference. Do you want to meet me at my hotel?”

“Of course. You don’t mind me staying for the night?” you probed, despite knowing the answer. He wouldn’t have asked you to go to his hotel in the first place if he’d minded.

“You know I never mind you staying for the night,” he gave you a cheeky wink.

“You’re so sleazy,” you commented with fake disgust.

“You started it,” he replied, reluctantly pulling away from you and reaching into his bag to grab his hotel keycard. “I’ll text you when I’m heading back.”

The moment you received a message about him being on his way to the hotel, you made a very lengthy phone call and request to the restaurant in the building. Technically, he shouldn’t be eating any of what you ordered, on account of him being on a strict diet plan, but you figured that he deserved it after playing the way that he did. Besides, Patrick liked thoughtful acts of service, and you figured that this would count as one.

“You know me so well,” he practically gasped as he stepped into the room, taking in the platters of food you’d laid out for him.

“What kind of wife would I be if I didn’t?” you teased, though your sentiment was somewhat accurate, and it was clear that the two of you had grown to know each other far better over the past few months, you hoped that your friend wasn’t interpreting your words in too serious of a way.

The two of you laid out on the pristine hotel bed, eating the feast that you’d ordered without much dialogue between you, other than a comment on how good something was, or a request to pass an item to one another. It felt oddly domestic, and oddly enough, you liked it. Maybe you liked it even more than you’d been willing to admit.

“I’m gonna go shower,” he announced after tossing his napkin onto a cleared off plate.

“Want some company?” you offered, raising your brows at him in a playfully suggestive manner.

“Is that what this is all about?” he feigned offense.

“Maybe,” you trailed off. “Or maybe I just wanted to celebrate the greatest tennis player of all time,” you purred.

“Come on. You and I both know that is far from the truth.”

“Well you’re the greatest player in my heart,” you praised, much to his chagrin.

“Ugh. Shut up and come shower with me.”

As you sleepily ran your fingers through his damp hair, you were surprised when he broke his silence with a comment seemingly out of the blue. It was more of a mumble than anything else, but you’d grown accustomed to his muffled words over the course of your marriage.

“You’re so beautiful,” he randomly complimented you.

“You know you don’t have to compliment me to get into my pants, right?” you asked with a hint of laughter in your tone.

“I’m not trying to,” he pecked your arm–the limb he had the easiest access to at the moment–as if he was trying to emphasize his point, though all it did was bring heat to your cheeks at the reminder of the way he’d pressed slow and meaningful kisses along your calves and inner thighs while the two of you were in the shower. “You just looked so good today, I couldn’t not comment.”

“I don’t look good every day?” you asked facetiously, trying to deflect from the warm and fuzzy feeling his compliments and affection were making you feel.

“Of course you always look good,” he reassured you rather than playing along with your game of joking instead of addressing your feelings. “I just don’t tell you that enough.”

You weren’t even sure how you could respond to that. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood to mince words tonight, but you couldn’t bear to match his genuinity with cheap jokes. The only real, genuine thought to pop into your head were three ridiculous words that you immediately batted away. You couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing than randomly declaring your love to a husband who wasn’t really your husband in a marriage that wasn’t really a marriage.

Out of ideas, you hit the lamp on your side of the bed. “I appreciate it. Goodnight.”

“Night,” he parroted back to you, remaining snug against your chest, despite the fact that your hands had stopped threading through his hair.

Deep down, you knew that those three words had been on the tip of Patrick’s tongue, too.

——

Being in the social circles of filthily rich people meant you often found yourself at random charity events, hosted by the nonprofits of families and business owners looking for a particularly large tax break for the year. Over the years, you’d felt that you’d seen and participated in it all: marathons raising awareness for a serious, but extremely rare disease, date auctions to raise money for a cause that certainly didn’t justify you having to go on a date with a man almost forty years your senior, or galas for nearly-extinct sea creatures that were essentially used as an excuse to stand around and network while drinking expensive alcohol and eating hor d'oeuvres.

You seemed to find yourself at a lot of events like the latter, including the one you were standing at now. The gala, which took place in the art exhibit it was raising money for, was a rather standard one, filled with the typical suspects who regularly attended those events.

It was slightly ironic to be at the event with Patrick as your plus one, as this was the exact type of event he would’ve texted you about an hour before it began to ask if you would play his concerned partner for the night who told everyone a flimsy excuse about him being under the weather.

It also served as somewhat of a reminder to you of the massive growth that your friend had undergone since the two of you became legally bound to one another. It finally felt like Patrick saw you as a true friend, instead of a reliable person who would do his dirty work. It finally felt like he cared. In some ways, your marriage was the best thing to happen to your friendship.

Patrick returned to where you were standing, this time with two flutes of champagne and a delicious looking appetizer in his hand.

“You’re too kind,” you said as he passed you your drink.

“Anything for my wife,” he mockingly bowed in front of you and you chuckled and shook your head. Over the past year, the two of you slowly became slightly more comfortable with referencing each other as husband and wife, but only really as a joke. You guessed that in a lot of ways, that’s what your marriage was—a ridiculous inside joke.

He was just about to feed you a hor d'oeuvre when you were approached by a wildly unwelcome figure: the man who had purchased a date with you a few years ago. Despite your one very awkward, stilted date, he never really seemed to get over you–which he made a point to prove at every event you both happened to be at. And unfortunately for you, his generous donations landed him on the guest list for the majority of these events.

You were used to fighting him off on your own, as he seemed to come and flirt with you regardless of how inappropriate it was for the setting of the event, or even when he already had a beautiful young bombshell hanging on his arm. At this point, you’d learned to just tune his every word out and flee as soon as you possibly could. He was annoying, but he wasn’t dangerous.

“Hey, honey,” he greeted you way too comfortably. You’d given up on asking him to call you by your name a very long time ago.

“Hi, John,” you reached out to shake his hand and cringed internally when he kissed the back of your hand.

“Oh honey, who is this?” Patrick immediately lept in, surprising you with his unsubtle passive aggressive tone and ridiculous use of a pet name.

“You don’t remember me? I swear, we’ve met a few times.” John asked, trying to smile despite clearly being agitated by the presence of competition.

“Some people are more forgettable than others,” he said with a shrug. “How do you know my wife?” He emphasized the word and you pushed down the small inkling of pride you were feeling. Whether it was from watching Patrick try to scare this annoying man away from you, or being so proudly referred to as his wife, you couldn’t be sure.

“Finally settling down, eh?” he directed at you, then directed his next statement to Patrick. “We went on a date back in the day.”

“It was for that one date auction thing,” you quickly added context, but paused when you took in John’s less than pleased look. He was a large donor at your own family’s nonprofit, and you were sure that your parents wouldn’t be too pleased with you if they found out he pulled out over you hurting his feelings. “We had a lot of fun, though.”

“We definitely did,” he chuckled and smirked. You wanted to punch him in the mouth. “We should definitely do it again sometime.”

It was clear that Patrick was not taking kindly to seeing you be flirted with so brazenly in front of him. Part of you wondered why he would be possessive, since part of your initial deal was that you could see whoever you wanted, even if that happened to be a creepy old man with a lot of money. The other part of you was enjoying seeing him so fired up. Particularly, seeing him fired up over you.

“Our schedule is just so busy. Between work and us trying to start a family, I just don’t know when we’ll have time to see you again.”

Trying to start a family? That was definitely news to you. Although, the idea didn’t sound awful. Wasn’t it everyone’s dream to start a family with their closest, most dear friend?

“Well, she knows where to find me, right, honey?”

“Mhm,” you mumbled, looking into your glass like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

“Now if you don’t mind, my wife and I are going to go check out the exhibit,” Patrick announced, grabbing your hand and taking a step away from John.

“You two have fun,” he said before clapping Patrick’s shoulder and leaning in to begin a stage whisper. “Make sure you treat her right and cherish her. If you don’t, I might have to swoop in and do so myself.”

He winked at you and you bit back a gag.

“Don't you worry your wrinkly little head. Nobody lov- cherishes her more than I do,” he theatrically patted his back much like he’d initially done to him. “See you around.”

Did he almost say what you think he almost said? Surely you misheard him, or he was just playing up your relationship to scare away that creepy man. It really wasn’t anything to think twice about.

Once the two of you had walked away far enough to be out of earshot, you finally addressed what had just happened. “Thank you, bodyguard. You don’t even know how much I despise that man.”

“He seems like he’s the worst,” he agreed with you, looking back over his shoulder.

“That’s because he is,” you emphasized. “This is so random, but did you mean what you said earlier?”

Patrick suddenly paused, his face going pale like he’d just seen a ghost. You were a little confused by this reaction, as he’d said nothing to warrant that level of fear.

“Do you actually want to start a family? Obviously not now, while you’re still playing tennis, but maybe eventually? I know we don’t have the most traditional marriage, but, I don’t know. Neither of us are getting any younger, and it might be fun to co-parent with my best friend,” you were clearly rambling now, but luckily, Patrick came in to rescue you for the second time that night. He looked far less aghast now.

“I would love that,” he said to you with a genuine smile. You matched his with one of your own.

———

“Do you have any big plans for retirement?” a reporter asked for the final question of the press conference.

“Mostly just eating a lot of burgers. And maybe learning how to play pickleball,” Patrick responded, never one to give a serious answer to questions that weren’t explicitly about tennis.

It was a ridiculous note to end on, but it felt right. You’d found that to be the case with most things in your life that pertained to him–most notably your marriage, which ended up being far more than you ever expected it to be.

After the press conference had come to a close, Patrick met you outside by the car, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips, then leaning down to peck your baby bump.

“How does it feel to be retired?” you asked, ruffling his hair while he was still bending down.

“It feels like you might divorce me,” he joked. Obviously your marriage deal was only meant to cover the time that he was still playing tennis, but after years of a complicated marriage that suddenly became significantly less complicated once you finally confronted the fact that the two of you very obviously loved each other, it seemed unlikely that your union would end any time soon.

You glanced down at your baby bump, then back up to him skeptically. “I hope you’re not being serious.”

“Come on, I never know with you. You’re the one who friendzoned me the entire first year of our marriage!” he exclaimed.

“That was a lifetime ago,” you countered before taking his hands in yours. “If you’re really worried, I have zero intentions of ending our marriage.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear,” he grinned, stepping away from you. “Let’s get going. I don’t want us to miss our reservation.”

You nodded and obliged, passing him the keys before heading to the passenger side of the car.

Once you sat down, you were overcome with the urge to say something. You had spent so much time bottling up and pressing down your own feelings, that it was now hard to resist letting things out when they came to you.

“I’m so proud of you,” you blurted. “And I love you. So much.”

Patrick smiled at you genuinely, before his look turned into a slightly more devious one. “I love you so much, too. One might even say I love you more.”

“Don’t even start with that,” you laughed, not in the mood to have the kind of back and forth with him that you had at least once a week. Considering that you were carrying his child, you were pretty sure that you were the winner of the love competition.

“Fine. We love each other equally,” he conceded.

“That’s more like it.”

You tried to think back to one specific moment where your marriage had crossed over from being one of convenience, into a union with genuine feelings attached, and realized that you weren’t exactly sure. It could’ve been the first night you spent together, when you’d finally allowed yourself to consider what your relationship might look like beyond a simple friendship, or maybe it was even earlier than that, when you gazed into Patrick’s eyes as you read off your vows. The look of pure adoration he gave you was one that you had grown familiar with throughout the course of your marriage, but you hadn’t realized at the time just how genuine he had been. Or maybe even the moment Patrick asked you in the living room of your apartment, when you’d been the first person he thought of to carry out his ridiculous scheme, and you’d said yes despite every logical part of your brain that screamed at you to say no.

Whenever it began didn’t particularly matter. What mattered now was that the two of you fully intended to spend the rest of your lives together.

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