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blamedestiny21 · 7 days ago

Text

This made me laugh and put down my phone to touch grass. Very well done.

bed chem

dr robby x r4/fellow!reader

a fellowship application and a shared cigarette lead to a friendship, a situationship, a relationship with dr. robby.

how you pick me up, pull 'em down, turn me 'round /oh, it just makes sense/how you talk so sweet when you're doing bad things/that's bed chem

cw 18+ mdni. song fic. strangers to friends to long-distance something to lovers. porn with way more plot than originally intended. fingering, handjobs, squirting, oral (f & m receiving), a lil 69, unprotectedish piv. reader calls robby different first names as flirting. sharin’ ciggies. a lil angst as a treat. implied sexting/phone sex. goes a little off song but oh well. they’re in love and it’s disgusting. medical inaccuracies. kingdon for a second if you read between the lines. author knows nothing of lake erie & real trauma center locations, and chooses to ignore how fellows are assigned shhhh

wc: 10.8k (5.2k is just smut i have no excuse)

———

the heat of late summer in pittsburgh sends beads of sweat down your spine, the satin material of your dress clinging to you beneath your blazer, the september breeze doing little to help.

stepping out of the restaurant, you pull a cigarette and lighter out of your purse, shrugging off your jacket and throwing it over your bag.

you peek back through the window at the dinner still going on—what kind of hospital, supposedly financially unable to keep entire floors staffed, shells out the funds to host fourth year residents from all over the county for a weekend of wining and dining, trying to entice that year’s best and brightest into applying for available fellowship and attending slots?

the night’s dinner was the last hurrah, preluded with tours of the pittsburgh trauma medical center, shadowing of cases from each department, a luncheon conference with presentations by each department chief waxing poetic about their stats and advantages and research—some doctors notably less into it than others.

while they had reached out to you willingly, their emergency medicine fellowship was one you’d been eyeing since your time as an r2, and your application submitted soon after applications opened a month ago. hell, you had applied for a residency slot at ptmc, only letting yourself be disappointed in secret when you didn’t match. no sane person accepted into one of the most prestigious emergency medicine programs on the west coast should feel bad about missing out on a struggling hospital in almost-nowhere pennsylvania—that’s what you told yourself at least.

trying to light your cigarette with your dying bic, you hear a voice next to you.

“those things’ll kill you, y’know,” the man says.

cigarette still between your lips, you reply with a sarcastic, “never heard that one before—oh! dr. robinavitch, sorry, i didn’t realize it was you,” quickly pulling the unlit cigarette from you lips and hiding it behind your back when you turn to him.

“relax, kid. i’m just giving you shit,” he chuckles. “but really, quit while you’re young. trying and failing to every three months when you get old isn’t fun,” he says, contradictorily pulling a lighter out of his own pocket. he holds it up behind a large palm and lights, nodding down to your poorly hidden hand.

you bring the cigarette back to your lips, your hand cupping against his as you inhale, mumbling a thanks as you hold the smoke in your chest.

“i’m planning on quitting by end of residency, trying to ween myself off,” you add as you exhale. you hold the cigarette out to him, an offer, “you smoke half and it’ll only kill us half as quick, dr. robinavitch. for our health.”

he smirks but takes it, fingers brushing yours. as he lifts it to his mouth, he says, “robby.”

“what?”

“you can call me robby,” he says on exhale, smoke billowing from his nose.

“your parents named you robby robinavitch? wow, they musta hated you,” you tease dryly.

giving you a look and passing the cigarette back, he answers, “they named me michael. med school pedes rotations and a residency in the deep south named me robby.”

he begins rolling up the sleeves of his green button down, fighting off the humid breeze, revealing his forearms—hairy, thick, the kind you’d like to wear as a necklace.

quickly taking another drag, you shake that thought from you mind.

“so i gotta ask,” robby says, turning to lean one shoulder against the brick of the building, “why the hell did you apply for my fellowship?”

a cough of smoke came from your lungs, “excuse me?!”

robby reaches his hand back out for the cigarette, casual, and shrugs, “i saw your application. your transcripts, the letters of recommendation, it’s impressive. the research you’ve been doing more so. you could land an attending spot anywhere, somewhere that could actually afford to help fund your research. so yeah, why a fellowship in the pitt?”

he had called the emergency department “the pitt” in his presentation the day prior, too—overcrowded, understaffed, located in the basement of the hospital—a member of the admin staff had audibly groaned at that.

he finally took a long inhale of the cigarette before passing it back.

you took one last drag before throwing it to the ground and stomping it out with the toe of your heels.

“when i was in high school, my family took a vacation to lake erie. my dad and i were on a jet ski that got capsized while driving under a bridge, and we ran into a pillar,” you began. it wasn’t your favorite thing to recount, but it was what made you want to be a doctor.

“we got life-flighted to ptmc. my dad was driving and took the brunt of the impact. compound fracture of the ulna and severance of the nerve, broken clavicle, skull and rib fractures. a punctured lung. they had to shock and intubate him in the helicopter.

“when we got in, i was taken one way and dad the other. i don’t remember who treated me, i just had a gnarly broken ankle,” you lift your leg up, showing off the scar adorning the side of your fibula.

“but my dad,” you continue, “he had people all over his room. they spent an hour stabilizing him before he got carted off to surgery. thought he hit an artery the way he was bleeding internally. his doctor, dr. adamson, came in after and sat with me until my mom and brother arrived.” you saw robby shift out the corner of your eye, standing straighter. “i asked him all kinds of questions about what happened and he happily answered. i always kinda wanted to be a doctor, but dr. adamson made me want to be an er one,” you finish with a small smile, turning back to face robby from where your back was leaned against the wall.

you were surprised to find his eyes a little watery, but with a small smiled of his own.

“woah, did i say something wrong? i know i rambled a little there but—“

you were cut off my a shake of his head. “no,” he let out a breath, “i just…didn’t expect to ever hear someone say adamson inspired them again. it’s been a while.” he had a distant look in his eyes, an almost bittersweet smile.

you furrow your brow slightly, “really? i mean i figured he’d be at least semi-retired by now, but still working.”

robby looks back to you, back into the here and now. “he, uh, he passed away back in 2020. covid.”

“oh…oh, i’m so sorry. i didn’t know…” you want to say more, to offer some comfort, to say you understood, but you didn’t, not truly.

you’d only been in your first year of medical school in 2020. never experienced the chaos that haunted the hospital, the specter of death lessening, but never quite disappearing from the shoulders of those who had.

and you could tell robby didn’t want to speak about it, how his demeanor had shifted from curious and playful, to something sorrowful.

after a beat, you decide to redirect, not quite ready to break the conversation, finding yourself enjoying it despite the sudden shift.

“y’know,” you said, leaning over toward him, “i’ve read a lot of your publications. i really liked the op-ed about the treatment of homelessness in the ed from a few years ago. it ruffled quite a few feathers in my hospital. imagine, treating the unhoused like people. the gall!” you end sarcastically, him finally looking back to you with nearly imperceptible smile tugging at his lips.

“yeah, that wasn’t universally well-received. it did get us some grant money for our street team though, so i—wait, if you’ve read my stuff then you knew my name wasn’t fuckin’ robby robinavitch,” the playful tone returning.

the banter continues, you both not disengaging until the sound of people leaving the restaurant breaks the bubble, fellow residents and ptmc staff filing out.

“oh shit, looks like party’s over,” you say. you hadn’t realized you’d been standing outside with robby for so long, only meaning to have gone out for a smoke. but something in a distant part of your lizard brain liked that you had taken up so much of his attention.

after calling an uber, you take your blazer from your purse, pushing it into robby’s arms with a hold this—that earned you a small chuckle.

digging through your purse, you produced a pen. taking your jacket again, you spun so you were between robby’s arms, right shoulder briefly bumping his chest in the movement, before grabbing his exposed right forearm.

“here,” you say as you begin writing your phone number just above the tattoo on his wrist. “text me sometime—i won’t pick up if you call until i have your number.”

clicking the pen closed, you turn back to him with an impish smile, “about doctoring, of course.”

he pauses, then, “about…doctoring?”

grin growing, “y’know, research and science. or a cat you saw or…whatever.” anything, everything, nothing—just keep talking to me.

your uber chose then to arrive. turning and walking backward, you say, “goodnight, robert!” before climbing into the car.

robby doesn’t get a chance to reply, just shakes his head with a incredulous smile, watching until the car is out of sight.

———

it’s been nearly five weeks since you left pittsburgh. five weeks of balancing senior residency, attending and fellowship interviews, your roommate breaking up with their girlfriend again—five weeks with a schedule filled to the brim. so why was your first thought always on the fact that robby hadn’t reached out?

you thought you had gotten along well, really well. you hadn’t meant giving him your number in a flirtatious way—okay, maybe not only in a flirtatious way. but you had genuinely enjoyed talking with robby that night, him meeting your wit and sarcasm without missing a beat.

you almost gave up hope of ever hearing from him as week six drew near, but then—

unknown number:

saw this article and thought about your research.[link attached]

this is robby by the way.

you:

well hello robert long time no speak

robby robinavitch:

still not my name.

it starts slow, a text here and there. an article from him, an interesting case from you—doctoring. never more than a few moments of time, but you begin to cherish those moments.

texts about clinical work turn into strange patients, funny moments in the chaos of your respective ers. talk of work turn into tidbits from your daily lives, a new fancy restaurant you tried and hated, the cat he walks by every morning on the way to work—he actually sent you a picture of a cat.

you:

roberto look at this pile’o’seals i saw on my hot girl walk [photo attached]

robby robinavitch:

what the hell is a hot girl walk?

as the texts grew more frequent, they became phone calls, easier on his old man eyes and arthritic fingers, you would joke.

“ohhoho you just think you’re hilarious, don’t you?” he asks on the other side of the line.

“the pinnacle of comedy,” you reply. “hey, guess what kind of halloween lawn prop i pulled outta guy today.”

“halloween lawn prop? it’s almost thanksgiving…”

you took to calling each other a few times a week, usually during your commute home, the time difference typically having him home and getting ready for bed by then. every so often if your schedules aligned, you spend your days off talking for hours—about anything, everything, nothing. it quickly becomes something you treasure.

you:

guess who got their interview date for a certain fellowship at a certain hospital?

robby robinavitch:

about time, that was emailed hours ago.

you:

5am pacific time is far too early for emails rupert

robby robinavitch:

are these even actual variations of robert at this point?

effortless, innate, like you’d known the other forever, instead of only three months.

you:

happy holidays, bobbie

robby robinavitch:

happy holidays.

brat.

like maybe it wasn’t all in your head.

———

as the new year comes and goes, pittsburgh welcomes you back with a slap of bitter january air, sweetened with the prospects of your fellowship interview—and maybe a little a lot of seeing robby again.

returning to ptmc, you ascend the elevator to the administrative floor—the ivory tower, robby had called it. isengard, you’d suggested. he called you a nerd with a laugh.

other candidates sat on the benches lining the hall of the 12th floor, waiting for their own interviews in one of the many conference rooms. checking in, you joined them, foot bouncing with nerves—robby had refused to help you practice for your interview, even just as a sounding board offering no real feedback, said it wouldn’t be fair as he’d be on the selection committee, leaving you to rely on your own attendings and colleagues for help. it was fair, smart even, you knew that, but you couldn’t help but crave the feedback, to be told you did good, from someone you’d grown so close to.

the fellowship selection committee consisted of the program director, a couple of administrators, a board member, the current fellow, another senior ed attending, and robby, chief of emergency medicine.

over the next hour, your nerves dissipate, the interview going better than you could have hoped. your cv spoke for itself, but your personality keeps everyone’s attention. you even managed a laugh, quickly disguised as a cough, from the other attending, dr. abbot, when an honest answer seemed to peeve the board member. the current fellow, dr. ellis, was mostly on night shift with him, would stay there for her second fellowship year, leaving the dayshift spot open.

once the interview finished, after shaking everyone’s hands, you quickly got a text.

robby robinavitch:

you were our last interview before lunch. wait for me in the lobby.

you:

aye aye boris 🫡

after ten minutes of waiting in the marbled first floor, robby finally appeares.

“hey, sorry about that,” he says, arms beginning to raise, before he shoves them into the pockets of his fleece—was he about to go in for a hug?—“apparently lunch was code for having a meeting while eating lunch, so i gotta head back up.”

you hadn’t thought he wanted to take his lunch with you, not that you would have minded, figured it was just going to be a informal hello.

“no problem, dr. robinavitch,” you reply.

“back to formal titles, are we? i was starting to think you’d actually forgotten my name,” he smiles back, “so maybe—“

the elevator dings open, dr. abbot stepping halfway out, “robby, gloria requests your presence.” robby turns and gave a quick god, one second, before quickly looking back to you.

“i’m off at 7, meet me at o’donnell’s on middle st. 8:30? we’ll catch up then?” he asks, slowly walking away backward toward the elevator.

was your friend slash possible future attending slash crush asking you for drinks? or drink drinks? only one way to find out. “it’s a date,” you smiled back at him, “just don’t bring saruman.”

that earned you a loud ha!, followed by a very fond, “you fuckin’ nerd.”

“you love it!” you stage whispered as he entered the elevator, you both still smiling, neither noticing dr. abbot’s eyebrows raised practically off his forehead.

———

you arrive at o’donnell’s right at 8:30, stepping into the warmth of the pub, shrugging off your jacket which did little to cut the cold pennsylvania night. while smoothing down your powdery blue blouse—still in the outfit from your interview, you had only packed it and comfy travel clothing, not expecting to be invited out—you look around the bar, no robby yet.

after ordering a drink, you find a square high top table out of the way, taking a sip of the cocktail—a little liquid courage, more of a placebo with as small of a drink you took.

after a few minutes, the pub’s door opens once more, letting in a small burst of chilly air—and robby. looking around, he spots you, and walks to the table smiling, removing his carhatt.

“hey.”

“hello again, reuben,” you reply, smiling with the cocktail straw between your teeth.

“do you just carry a list of these names around?” robby chuckles. you didn’t expect him to rub one hand across your back, shoulder to shoulder, giving the far one a squeeze, before sliding back off the other—not really a hug, but the most physical contact you two ever shared. it makes you dizzier than any alcohol you had drank could.

“sooo,” you start, “how’d the rest of the interviews go?”

moving the other chair from across the table to directly next to you, robby replies, “now you know damn well i can’t answer that.”

you put on a fake pout, “come on! who am i gonna tell?”

he turns to a waiter walking by and orders bottle of beer before looking back to you, miming turning a lock over his lips, tossing the imaginary key over his shoulder.

you let out a huff with a roll of your eyes, “fine. but now i’ll just have to recount the thrilling tale of the old woman i sat next to on my flight. so she—“

you two spent the next two and a half hours together, bantering, catching up, much like your long calls, but so much better. hearing robby through the phone was one thing, but sitting next to him, close enough to count his freckles, smell is cologne, notice every curl of his lips, crinkle of his eyes—an easy camaraderie, intrinsic—was intoxicating.

you want him to ask you home, you realize, you unable to blame the alcohol for your thought. you’d spent more time chewing at the cocktail straw than drinking, robby’s own beer just halfway gone.

seemingly reading your thoughts, robby flags down the waiter to pay the bill—my treat he said when you tried to pull out cash—adding that he had to work in the morning.

stepping back out into the night, the air didn’t seem as sharp, a warmth in your chest you couldn’t cite to your cocktail spreading to your belly.

“your hotel far?” he asks, watching as you pull out a cigarette and lighter from your bag.

“nope,” you answer after taking a drag, “just a couple of blocks.” you hold the cigarette out to him, much like the first time, the only time, you had shared one.

“not even a month in and you’re tryna make me break my new year’s resolution,” he mock scolds, taking it in hand. “i’ll walk you back. for safety,” he continues with a nod, signaling you to lead the way.

you roll you eyes, “drunk ciggies don’t count, rochambeau. that’s all i’m smoking nowadays, anyway.”

he huffs out a incredulous rochambeau? as he exhales, before coming to a stop, “wait are you drunk?”

“not even buzzed,” you answer—a half truth, you were buzzing, but not from the alcohol. “you?”

“nope,” he answers.

you walk in silence back to your hotel, breaths coming out in puffs of air from the cold and puffs of smoke from the shared cigarette. after crossing a street, robby maneuvers you to the inside of the sidewalk with a large hand on the small of your back—he leaves it there for the remainder of the walk, feels scalding even through your jacket.

“this is me,” you say as you stop in front of the hotel, rocking back on your heels. robby only nods, looking up at the brick facade and ornate windows, hands in his pockets.

feeling brave, feeling the lingering heat from his palm on your back, the taste of your indirect kiss, you ask, “you…wanna come up?”

he turns back to you and says, “yes.”

———

your back hit the hotel room door with a thud the second it was closed, robby’s large hands on either side of your face, lips crashing into yours. the kiss wasn’t messy, it wasn’t necessarily chaste, but it was deep, full of longing, full of months—god it’s only been months of knowing each other—of unspoken truths, slowly circling around the feelings you both shared.

unzipping his coat, you reach up his stomach to his shoulders, pushing it off, causing his hands to fall from your face. he uses them then to push off your own jacket, reaching back out with one hand around your waist, the other to the side of your neck, to lead you further into the room, lips never parting until you where fully inside.

as you kick off your shoes, you flick on the bedside lamp, filling the room with a soft warm glow. in the dim light, you could see robby’s cheeks glow warm, him struggling to kick off his final boot. cute, you think.

meeting each other’s gaze again, he stood back to full height, stepping closer to you, chest to chest, mouths not touching, but close enough to share air.

he hesitates, hands hovering at the side of your waist. “tell me you want this,” he rumbles, his gaze moving between your eyes and lips.

you inch closer, lips brushing, and whisper, “i want this.”

that’s all it took to make his crash back into you, hands gripping tightly to your waist, rucking your blouse up from out of your slacks, your palms gripping at his solid chest. he begins blindly unbuttoning the top, quickly get frustrated with the delicate buttons.

“don’t rip it, i stole it from my roommate’s girlfriend,” you say against his mouth, replacing his hands to make swift work of the buttons.

“i thought you said they broke up,” he says, now mouthing at your neck. you wondered what his beard would feel like between your thighs.

“they’re in the on-again era,” you say breathily, shrugging off the top, suddenly realizing you’re wearing an old bralette—pink and lacy, but visibly well worn, not doing much more than a sports bra for your tits. robby didn’t seem to mind though, mouth trailing lower to bite at the top of each breast.

pulling his head back up for a kiss, his hands glide up from your waist, finders brushing up under the band of your bralette, one thumb swiping gently at the fullness. he then moves the bralette up, revealing your tits, before pulling it over your head, your raised arms landing on the tops of his wide shoulders.

robby takes half a step back, taking in the view—soft and supple, goosebumps rising where his fingers skim over the swell of one breast, nipples hardening in the exposed air. he bends down again, palming at one boob, mouth latching onto the other, sucking hard at your nipple.

you let out a gasp at his ministrations continue, tongue swirling around the nipple in this mouth, fingers tweaking the other.

“alright, alright,” you let out a breathy laugh, tapping at his arm. “your turn, big guy. tit-for-tat. get this off,” you joke, reaching down at the hem of his shirt, knuckles brushing over the coarse hairs trailing down his belly.

he stands up with amusement in his eyes before pulling the back of his henley up over his head in one smooth movement.

now it was your turn to stare. wide shoulders connect to thick arms and a solid chest, dark hair dusting his pecs, a gold chain with a star of david pendant lays between them. the hair trails further down to his soft stomach, hair thickening under his belly button, leading down into his waistband. you want to eat him alive—so you try. you step forward and bite at the meat of a pec, nails sinking into the softness of his belly, scratching up and down, fingertips just barley dipping into his pants.

“this is what gets you goin’, huh?” he chuckles, the baritone vibrations rattle your teeth.

you release your mouth, laving your tongue over the intentions your teeth left, sealing it with a kiss in the middle. “you have no idea,” you smile back up, your pupils blown wide, shining in the dim light.

robby brings you in for another kiss, this one now messy, desperate, tongue reaching into your mouth to lick every inch. his hands reach for your slacks, undoing the clasps, you helping him shimmy them down your legs. large palms squeeze at the meat of your ass, kneading and pulling hard enough to leave bruises where his fingertips lay.

breaking the kiss to look down at you, he chuckles, “these are cute,” before reaching his index finger into one leg hole and snapping the elastic. you look down—oh god, simple cotton bikini briefs, green with a little ladybug pattern.

“oh my god!” you say half embarrassed, half amused, “they’re comfy, okay! it’s not like i planned on anyone seeing them, otherwise i woulda packed something sexy.”

he brought his hands back down to your ass, sliding below to your thighs, before picking you up. your legs wrap around his waist as you let your a surprised squeal.

walking to the bed he sits at the head, bringing you down with him to straddle his lap. “mmm? these are sexy,” he chuckles, thumbs trailing underneath the leg seams again.

“this what gets you goin’?” you shoot his earlier words back to him.

leaning forward with a smile, he mumbles, “you have no idea,” before capturing your mouth again.

as your tongues meet, you begin grinding your hips down on to his, his hardness evident even though his jeans. you fumble with his belt and button, reaching your hand into his jeans, palming him through his boxers. you stand up suddenly, breaking your kissing, with a take ‘em off. you get an amused yes, ma’am in return.

robby sits fully back down on the bed with his back up against the headboard, reaching a hand out to you, pulling you back on top of him by your hips. a wet spot appears at the top of his cock, where he’s pushing hard against the fabric of his grey briefs.

you continue your ministrations, hands tugging at the hairs at the back of his neck, dry humping like a couple of teenagers, but god it felt too perfect to stop.

pulling out of the kiss, robby moves his mouth down your jaw, sucking and biting at your pulse.

you breath out, “i don’t have any condoms, you?”

robby slows momentarily, before replying, “wasn’t plannin’ on doing anything we’d need protection for,” before reattaching his mouth to your throat. as much as you were enjoying this, you wondered what he meant. yeah, maybe responsible doctors shouldn’t fuck raw on the first date—date? you’d never actually confirmed that’s what this is—but how far was he actually wanting to take this?

“i can hear you thinking,” he say, eyes returning to yours, hands solid on your hips. “i just wanna make you feel good, yeah?” he reaches up to one of your hands at his shoulder, lacing your fingers together, pressing a kiss to your palm.

you nod, taken a little aback by the sweet and intimate gesture.

he smiles then, “turn over, back against me,” he punctuates with a painless smack to your butt.

you shoot him a warning look, less threatening with the smile accompanying it, but oblige. he pulls your ass flush against his cock, one palm moves to your chest to get you to lean fully into him. as he kisses at the back of your neck, the hand not groping your breast trails down your stomach, fingertips ghosting over your skin. when he reaches your panties, he cups your cunt with large his hand.

“je-esus,” he groans into your ear, giving the shell a bite. “already soaked through. you’re drownin’ the poor ladybugs,” he adds with a teasing tone.

you slap a hairy thigh bracketing your own, ready to bite back, but are stopped with his fingers press down, hard, against your clit. your back arches and legs try closing tighter, letting out a small moan, but robby gives a quick uh-uh in your ear. he tugs at the waist of your panties, pushing them down as far as he could from behind you, you kicking them off the rest of the way.

leaning back you can feel the wetness on his underwear pressing against your ass, giving it small grind. pulling you back into his chest, robby throws his left leg over yours, pulling in back, exposing more of your dripping cunt to the air. the opposite leg bends away, his hand on your inner thigh, guiding it to rest along side his.

hand trailing down, he finally touches were you need him, fingers gliding against you slit, collecting the wetness. you try arching up again, but robby’s left forearm moves and locks around your waist, pinning you to him.

“be good and hold still, sweetheart. i’ll make you feel good, i promise,” he whispers in your ear.

sliding his wet fingers back up, he teases circles around your clit, brushes against the slides of the nub with a feather light touch, never making full contact.

a whine escapes you, nails of your left hand digging into the meat of the forearm around you. “please,” you breath, “i’ll be good, just touch me, please.”

“well when you ask so nice,” biting at the side of your neck, he obliges you. fingers finally making contact with your clit. he rubs steady circles around the nub, his thumb reaching up to your mound to pull up the hood, fully exposing it.

“ah—“ you give a shout, his fingers swiping across your exposed clit sending shocks through you. you could feel yourself grow close already. no one’s ever been to get you there that quickly, a testament to his skill or your feelings for him making you desperate, you didn’t care right now, not with the feeling of your slick running down your ass to the bedspread below.

“please, just like that i’m so close,” you pant, head thrown back against his left shoulder, moans escaping between breaths.

leaving an sloppy kiss to you jaw, robby speeds his fingers, adding pressure, grunting praise into your ear—y’sound so pretty, so beautiful, c’mon, come f’r me, such a good girl.

“oooh, michael—“ you come with a moan, toes curling, thighs shaking, pussy clenching around nothing.

robby continues his pace, his left arm coming off your waist to shuffle your head on his right shoulder. his left hand squeezes around your cheeks, forcing you to meet his gaze, eyes bouncing back and forth between your two. his pupils blown wide, he tells you, “say it again, say my name.”

you give the best smile you could with his hands gripping your cheeks, “michael.”

that’s all it took for his to crash his mouth into yours, all tongue and spit and groans and beard burn.

the hand between your legs moves from your overstimulated clit to your slit, plunging two thick fingers into you without resistance, the aftershocks of orgasm still making you flutter. you moan into his mouth as he curls his fingers up, hitting the spongy spot inside you.

releasing you from the messy kiss, he groans into your mouth, “y’hear that? hear how wet you are f’r me? s’good.” he emphasizes by driving his hand harder against your cunt, squelches becoming louder. the heel of his palm presses down against your sensitive clit, his fingers rubbing at your g-spot.

you pant out, “michael—fuck, please, ah, i need more, add another one.”

he leans away from your face a little, locking eyes, seeing nothing but blown pupils and sweaty baby hairs, brows raised in the middle, mouth open trying to chase his—fucking perfect.

you move your own hand down between your legs to rest over his, pressing against the knuckle of his index finger, urging him to add it along side his middle and ring fingers. the stretch rips a moan out of your chest, open mouthed against robby’s bearded cheek, the fullness tugging at something else beyond your orgasm.

your hand moves atop his, bracing against the bend of his wrist. you use the flat of your fingers to angle his hand how you want, making the heel of his palm press firmer on to your clit. with added pressure, you begin grinding your cunt against his palm, his fingers curling up inside you simultaneously. robby can only look down at you with wide eyes, the movements of your grinding adding an extra pressure to his clothed cocked between you—he was fully going to come in his pants if you kept this up.

focusing his attention back to you, he sat up slightly, setting a brutal pace against your walls, more pressure from his palm.

“c’mon, you got one more, don’tcha? need you t’come for me, baby,” robby breathes into your ear, hot pants joined by hot tongue.

your second orgasm quickly approaching, you feel another pressure rush ahead. “mi—mmmichael, wait i’m gonna—“

“do it, let go,” he cuts you off.

you feel hot liquid gush out of you, around his fingers, down your thighs and ass, your orgasm rushing quickly behind. you see stars behind your eyelids, hearing only the blood rushing through your ears, the unbelievable release of pressure from your belly.

you come to with robby slowly pulling his fingers from your used cunt, the other hand smoothing softly down the side of your head.

“i think you vagled there for a sec,” robby chuckles when your eyes open to meet his. you lean up and give him a soft kiss, sweet, chaste in every way compared to what just happened. he hums in to the kiss, thumb stroking the apple of your cheek.

after a few moments, he pulls away. “c’mon, you need a shower,” he says softly.

having regained the ability to speak and sit up, you turn to face him. “but you’re still hard,” you say, palm sliding up his inner thigh.

his hand wraps around your wrist, stopping you before you even reach the leg of his briefs.

“this isn’t about me,” he says. “i wanted to take care of you. make you feel good.”

you meet his eyes with a small pout, “you did. i do. but i also really wanna make you feel good.” you shift closer, fingers gently curled into the fabric on this thigh. “please?”

he looks up to the ceiling, blowing a long breath out of his mouth. he starts, “i just…i don’t want you to think…” you gently reach at his bearded jaw, moving his head so he’s looking into your eyes again, waiting for him to continue. “i don’t want you to think i’m some dirty old man pressuring you into getting him off so he’ll give the the fellowship,” he lets out in a breath, eyes glancing away self consciously.

you take a beat—you don’t know what you expected him to say, but it wasn’t that.

“hey,” you lean your head to chase his gaze. “michael,” that gets his attention—until tonight you had never called him that, you barely called him robby—his eyes rejoining yours.

“is this about whether or not i get the fellowship?” you ask bluntly.

he hurriedly sits up more, “no! no, of course not! that’s what—“ he’s cut off by a peck on his lips.

“i know. it’s not about that for me either,” you reassure him, fingers scratching through his beard. “i like you, really like you. so if that’s your only reservation, then i’d really like to get you off,” you end with a playful smirk.

robby huffs out a laugh, but looks back at you with a soft fondness, “yeah? okay then.”

you bring him back in for a kiss, you both palming at his underwear to pull them down and off his legs. now, finally, completely bare, you look to take him in. he’s flushed red down his chest, body hair curled and matted down with sweat all the way down, down to his leaking cock. long and thick like the rest of him, flushed as red as his face under your focus, tip a painful shade of maroon, pool of precum beading at the tip—your mouth waters. balls lay heavy beneath his cock, hairy and full. you start to bend forward to take him into your mouth, but robby stops you.

“if you even breath on me right now i am going to come,” he says.

you smile impishly, “mmm? that so? well—“ you move to straddle one of his thighs, “i won’t breath on ya, then.” lifting yourself slightly, you run the length of your hand through the slick mess between your thighs, gathering your wetness. you bring your glossy hand to robby’s cock, slowly gliding your slick up and down his aching length, mixing with the beads of precum previously fallen.

“jesus fucking christ, you’re gonna kill me,” he chokes out, eyes locked on your movements.

“but whatta way to go,” you smile, sitting back down against his thigh, the coarse hairs rubbing against your overstimulated cunt, leaving him covered in slick.

you incrementally increase the pressure of your fist, the speed of your wrist. watching his chest rise and fall, his brows furrow up, eyes close in pleasure.

panting now, robby pulls you in by the back of your neck, mouths once again meeting, kisses interrupted by his moans.

“thought you’d come if i breathed on ya,” you tease.

“close,” is all he manages to reply.

kissing the corner of his mouth, you reach your other hand down to fondle his balls, feeling them tighten up in his impending orgasm. “michael, baby, then come for me,” you speak into his mouth. and he does. ropes of cum spray up his stomach and chest, down your fist still working him through it. once his orgasm subsides, you two stay there for a moment, foreheads pressed together, sharing air.

“now we both need a shower,” he breaks the moment with.

you giggle, opening your eyes to meet his, already looking softly at you, “and a new comforter.”

looking over your shoulder, he flushes that the sight of the wet material.

you give him a peck, “you start the shower, i’ll call down to the front desk about that bedspread.”

you two make quick work in the shower—“no funny business,” he said, “i am not going to the er with a skull fracture from shower sex.”

the hotel clerk delivers the new comforter—“so sorry! i spilled pop all over mine,” you lie lyingly like a liar, “i’ll pay for the cleaning!”— just after you both are dried off, you into your baggy pj shirt, robby with a towel hanging low on his hips.

robby helps you strip the soiled bedding and remake the bed, before reaching down for his jeans.

“stay,” you say quickly, afraid he’s about to get dressed and leave. “i know you have to be up in a few hours, but…stay, please.”

he walks to you and drops a kiss to your forehead, “i was just grabbing my phone to set an earlier alarm. i’m staying.”

laying in bed—head on robby’s chest, hand playing with his chest hair and chain, legs tangled together, sleep pulling at your eyes—you ask, “you promise this really won’t affect my application, good or bad?”

he exhales a mmm from his chest, “no. i don’t get final say anyway and the program director doesn’t listen t’me,” he pulls you in closer sleepily. “besides, the interview was just a formality. you had the slot before applications were even closed.”

“what!?”

———

you didn’t receive your formal offer letter from ptmc until the beginning of march. you had received other offers prior to its arrival, attending and fellowship slots alike, from some of the best facilities in the country.

robby couldn’t understand why you’d still be considering his dumb fellowship—his words—with what you were being offered.

your normal—and now flirty, occasionally explicit—texts and calls turning more into debates and arguments

“the research grants they can provide, i mean, christ! you could publish before you’ve even been there a year! fast track to a lasker award,” he argued to you one night during your phone call.

“yeah, it’d be great on the research side, but it’d only be research! i want to practice medicine! i want to help people, materially, not just in some hypothetical future innovation way!” you argued back. and after a beat, added softly, “besides, you’re not there.”

“honey, please,” he said, a soft desperation in his voice, “you cannot base your future on me. i can’t let you hold yourself back just to be near me, i wouldn’t forgive myself. adamson was the reason ptmc is even on your radar, but he’s gone.”

you blinked back tears, suddenly glad you were on the other side of the county, not looking into his eyes. “and he left the best parts of himself within you,” you said hanging up the call.

you and robby didn’t speak for two weeks, the longest you’d gone since the first time he texted you.

deep down you knew the point he was making was right, but you also knew what you wanted, what kind of doctor you wanted to be—not sitting in a lab for the rest of your career; not buying your third vacation home and spending your afternoons golfing, willfully ignorant to the plights of the sick; but the kind that sits and explains procedures to terrified but curious teenagers; the kind that treats unhoused patients willingly, fully, and tells the whole medical world they should too.

you tell robby as much when he calls you at the end of those two silent weeks, an abnormal facetime call coming through. he looks miserable, says he feels just as well, his therapist having himself kicking his own ass up and down the street. what he didn’t tell you, though, was about the session that truly shook him—him, ranting at his therapist, “i mean, yeah i’d love for her to be here, not only as a doctor, but…here, with me! but i can’t! if you love something, let it go—“ yeah, he realized then, slapped with the obviousness of it, i love her.

things got better then, slowly, you both realizing in the other’s absence that it really does make the heart grow fonder.

in mid april, you accept the fellowship position at ptmc; robby understanding now that it was truly the place you wished to be—and having some old man eye candy was just a bonus, you joked.

you:

robinette guess what i’m doing to celebrate my acceptance?

robby robinavitch:

bungee jumping.

what are actually you doing?

you:

enjoying my empty apartment

just me

and my ladybug panties

and some goodies from my bedside drawer

[photo attached]

suddenly, an incoming call from robby robinavitch comes through—contact photo the selfie he sent you back in february, all awkward angled and big grinned, with the beautiful view from his cabin behind him; you loved it.

“miiichael,” you answer, coy and falsely nonchalant, hands already trailing down your torso.

“sweetheart,” he warns, exhaling.

that night you two had another abnormal facetime call, one that ended in sticky sheets and heaving chests and a quiet i wish you were here.

———

ending your residency at the end of may and starting your fellowship on july 1st, you had decided to dedicate the month of june to your move to pittsburgh. time enough to pack and drive the thousands of miles across the county to your new home—miles and miles and miles through desert and mountains and so many cornfields—

robby robinavitch:

please just let me hire movers and buy you a plane ticket, sweetheart.

i don’t like the idea of you driving cross county alone in a u-haul.

you:

i’ve done it before rasputin

three times!!!

the ominous hell is real signs thrill me

robby robinavitch:

that one’s just not even fair.

send me pictures.

“there’s no robert at your new hospital, not in the er at least,” your roommate said, making you look up from your phone.

you step into your closet where they were supposed to be helping to box up your clothes, instead finding them on the floor, on your laptop, scrolling the ptmc staff page.

“i wanna see the boyfriend. it’s only fair, you’re leaving me for him,” they say peering up with an exaggerated pout.

“he’s not—“ my boyfriend, you start. you knew you were ass over elbow in love with robby, but you two had never actually labeled anything, never used the l-word—it’s on the move-in checklist: number 7, the what are we? talk. “he’s not a robert,” you say instead, “i’ve told you it’s a joke. his last name is robinavitch.”

as you step back into your bedroom, you hear them shout, “dr. daddy boba eyes over here? okay, girl. and gasp! chief of emergency medicine, you dirty minx!”

———

knocking at the front door interrupts your unpacking with a start. glancing at the clock on the stove, you were tempted to grab your cast iron skillet as a weapon, but made your way toward the door empty handed. robby had told you this was a good apartment in a safe neighborhood when he helped you house hunt, but who the hell would be knocking at your door at 9:57 at night if not an ax murderer?

slowly peering through the peephole, you see who—robby, one hand on the strap of his backpack, the other holding a plastic takeout bag, rocking back and forth on his heels.

you fling the door open. “sorry sir, i’ve already witnessed jehovah and he got a restraining order,” you deadpan.

“so sorry, ma’am. i’ll just take this food and be on my way,” he jests back, turning to leave. before he makes it a full step, you grab him by the front of his shirt and yank him into you for a bruising kiss. he quickly drops the bags to the ground, wrapping his arms around your middle, lifting you off your feet.

“hi,” he says once you break the kiss for air, smiling.

“hi,” you reply as he sets you back down and kicks the door shut, a small smile joining his. six months with only phone calls and facetimes and texts, you didn’t realize you missed him this much, not until he was standing in front of you, despite you talking nearly every day.

feeling tears sting in your eyes, you bury your face in his chest—still solid, still warm—wrapping your arms tightly around his middle—still soft, still biteable. he wraps his arms around you then, cheek resting atop your head.

“i missed you,” you mumble into his shirt.

“i missed you, too. i brought food,” he says, neither of you moving from your position.

“thought you were an ax murderer,” you add.

he chuckles—still rumbles deep in his chest where your head lays, “why the hell would an ax murderer knock and politely wait for you to answer the door?”

you pinch at his love handle, earning you a laugh. “for the element of surprise,” you step back to look at him again, “who the hell doesn’t text before showing up to a lady’s house in the middle of the night?”

he chuckles at the scowl on your face, reaching up to smooth the furrow between your brows with his thumb. “it’s 10,” he starts, hands moving to rest on your jaw, thumbing at the apples of your cheek. “and a guy whose shift ran over, showered at the hospital, sped to the restaurant to pick up food before they closed, and forgot to text because he was so embarrassingly excited to see his beautiful girlfriend who he hasn’t gotten to touch in six months, that’s who.”

you felt your cheeks heat—girlfriend. “that’s not playing fair, michael,” you whine, grabbing each of his wrists in your hands, tearing your gaze from his.

“ohhoho, you callin’ me michael before we’ve eaten dinner? that’s not playing fair, sweetheart,” he teases, head tilting to meet your eyes again.

when he does, you confess, “you called me your girlfriend. i didn’t—you’ve never done that.”

“is that…not what we’ve been doing? is that not what you want?” you feel his hands start to retreat.

“no!” you say, keeping his hands on your cheeks with your grip on his wrist. “i mean, yes! yes, that’s what i want. we just never talked about it and i didn’t want to assume but i also figured—“ you cut your own rambling.

robby’s eyes soften, pulling your forehead to his. “i will never understand modern dating etiquette,” he chuckles.

“times have changed since the paleolithic era, old man, get used to it,” you tease, finally releasing your grip on this wrists.

“i think you’re gonna have to get used to it,” he says, hands moving to your waist, kissing your forehead, “because you’re mine,” your eyelid, “i’m yours,” your cheek, “we’re together,” your jaw, “so you’re stuck with me,” ending on your mouth, just a soft press of his lips to yours.

———

a trail discarded of clothing leads from the front door, down the hall, and into your bedroom—the only thing set up being your bed, still pulling clean clothes from boxes in the corner. the moonlight streaming in from the large windows is the only source of light as you lead robby backward to the bed.

the backs of his knees hitting the side, robby sits on the edge of the bed and pulls you into his lap, mouths never parting. you hold him by his shoulders, lips trailing down his beard to his neck, licking and biting in their wake. you slide off his lap, nipping at his collarbone, his nipple, his lower belly, before landing on your knees on the floor below him. your mouth moves to his thick thighs, peppering slippery kisses as you move from knee to groin, biting at the flesh at his inner thigh, soothing the sting with your tongue after his flinches.

looking up at robby, you ask, “can i use my mouth?”

robby, ruddy-cheeked even in the pale light, gives a quick nod accompanied by a shaky exhale.

hand wrapping the base of his cock—still long and thick, still flushing hot in your hand—you gather saliva in our mouth. not breaking eye contact, you let the glob of spit fall from your lips, landing at the tip of robby’s cock, hand working his length to coat it. a grunted fucking hell escaping robby’s lips.

coated to your satisfaction, you lean in to kitten lick the tip, swirling your tongue slowly around his head before pushing it into his slit. bringing robby into your mouth, suckling the head, you look back up at him with wide eyes, his mouth pressed tightly shut as to not let any noise escape.

pulling off his cock, you say, “don’t be quiet. please, let me hear you.” not a demand, but not a request either. robby thinks this may be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen—you, wide-eyed with spit-slicked lips, bathed in silvery moonlight, sweet voice like a melody in his ears.

sinking back down around him, you take robby as far into your mouth as you can, hand wrapping around what you can’t. hollowing your cheeks, you slowly, tortuously slow, pull up his length, the vacuum heat of your mouth causing robby to finally let out a chesty groan. repeating the ministration a few more times, you feel robby’s hand on your head. but instead of guiding your head down around his cock, he grabs your hair and pulls you up and off of him.

“i was doin’ somethin’ here,” you say.

you get a filthy kiss in return, hand still knotted in your hair. “wanna taste you,” robby grunts. his hands move under your armpits to guide you to stand, spinning you to lay further up the bed.

settling on his stomach, he begins kissing up your thighs—beard burning just as deliciously as you’d imagined. looking up at you with a mischievous look in his eye, he takes the fat of your inner thigh and sucks a biting bruise into it—fair, you think as you yelp.

throwing one of your thighs over his shoulder, finally, finally, his focus turns to you aching cunt, hot and wet and dripping for his attention. closing his eyes, robby puts his nose against your slit, inhaling your scent—it was filthy and only make you slicker.

the flat of his tongue runs slow from your hole to your clit, swirling his tongue around the nub once he reaches it.

“michael, please,” you gasp, hips grinding into his mouth.

he splays one large hand over your lower belly, steadying you, the other against the inner thigh of the leg not around his neck, holding you open.

robby eats you like a man possessed, like he’s drinking the nectar of the gods, like he could do this forever and never tire of it. he alternates steady licks with powerful sucks to your clit, nose rubbing the at nub when he dips to fuck your hole with his tongue.

eventually you feel your belly grow tight, unabashed moans escaping your mouth. you reach to intertwine your fingers with robby’s on your belly. “clo-close,” is all you manage to pant out. looking down at him, you can see his hips moving, grinding down into the mattress—hot, you think.

looking up at you, he lets out a mmm that vibrates through you. he speeds the licking at your clit, pulling you impossibly closer. holding your gaze, he sucks hard at you, sending your orgasm crashing though your body. you’re unable to hold his gaze as your back arches off the mattress, head thrown back with a shout.

robby’s licking never stops, only slows, working you through your orgasm and the aftershocks. the heat of his tongue and scratch of his beard boarder on painful in your overstimulation.

sitting up slightly you reach your hand into his hair and tug, him pulling his mouth off you. he looks up at you, beard soaked with your slick, pussy-drunk smile on his face. you can’t help but smile back. he leans down to reattach his lips to your cunt, but you pull his hair again, harder, keeping him from where he wants to go.

“‘m not finished,” he grunts, if not pouts.

you blow out a shaky laugh. “well you interrupted me earlier. let me suck you off, michael,” shoot back.

he concedes, placing a kiss to your hip, “well since you asked so nicely.” he moves up to hover his body over yours, leaning in for a sloppy kiss, all tongue and his spit and your slick. he pulls away just enough to meet your eyes and says, “but only if you sit on my face while you do it.”

blood instantly rushes to your face at his words, at how casually he said them. you were no blushing virgin, but him wanting that made you dizzy.

sensing your hesitation, he spoke softly, “hey, you don’t have to—“

you cut him off with a fierce shake of your head, eyes starting up into his. “nope, my soul just left my body for a minute, i’m all good now.”

he chuckles with a shake of his head and rolls over, laying flat on his back, head on your pillow. following his movements, you turn, looking back as you swing one leg over his head, caging him in. you hesitate to do more than hover over him, but robby pulls you down onto him with two large hands gripped into the meat of your ass. you let out a gasp, catching yourself with a hand braces against robby’s stomach as you jerk forward.

robby keeps his grip on you tight as he begins devouring you once more, sloppy and filthy, grunting into your cunt.

as you bend down to take his cock in your hand, you nuzzle against his pubes, rubbing your cheek against the coarse hair like a cat. trailing open mouthed kisses up his length, wetting him once more, you gently suckle at his cock. the moans he pulls from you while licking into your slit cause vibrations to wrap around him in your mouth, precum and drool leaking from the corner. you increase your suction, hand jerking steadily at what you haven’t swallowed.

you feel robby pull his mouth from your cunt. “baby,” he pants, hand sliding as far as it could up your hip from his position to get your attention, “if you want me to fuck you, you’re gonna have to stop that.”

pulling off him with a pop, you place a final peck to his tip before turning around to face him.

smiling down at him, you tease, “gettin’ tired, old man?” it comes out sweeter than planned, the softness in your eyes matching robby’s own.

sitting up against the headboard, he reaches to grip your hips, pulling you in to straddle him once more. “don’t wanna come until i’m inside your pussy,” he answers, expression too fond for words so vulgar.

you smile again, kissing him passionately, trying to say what little was left unsaid between you two.

reaching down between you, you grab robby’s cock, swiping the head through your slick folds, and begin to line him up with your cunt. robby interrupts the kiss, “wait, baby, condom,” holding you by your hips to keep you from moving.

opening and closing your mouth once, you ask, “you’re clean, right?” he nods. “i’m clean. i’ve got an iud. i want…i just want to feel as close to you as i can. i want to feel all of you, michael.” i want to crawl into your skin and live there, you think.

robby reaches one hand to your face, brushing a rouge hair from your forehead. “i want to feel all of you, too,” he punctuates with a kiss below your eye. “just didn’t wanna be presumptuous,” he adds, teasing.

“you callin’ me presumptuous, you dirty old man?” you shoot back. “wantin’ to fill me up, fuck me raw on the second date?” you add, lining robby up to you once more.

he barks out a laugh that turns into a moan as you sink down onto him. the stretch, eased by your previous orgasm and robby’s tongue, still burned, splitting you open and reshaping you perfect for just him.

fully seated, you and robby pant into each other’s mouths, eyes pinched shut, foreheads touching. finally, you began to move, rolling your hips against his, feeling his fullness suffocate you.

speeding, you felt robby’s hands return to your hips, fingertips leaving bruises in your flesh, assisting the movement of your hips. opening your eyes, you saw him already looking at you, cheeks flushed, sweat beading down his temple. you leaned forward and lick it, kissing his cheekbone, under his eye, across his nose.

robby pants your name like it was holy, one hand moving down your body, thumb finding your clit, making you cry out.

neither of you were going to last, both close to the edge before even starting, desperate to feel the other completely.

hand gripping tightly to your hip, thumb working fast at your clit, robby grunts out, “where do you want it?”

“inside michael, shit— inside, please please, inside,” you whine, orgasm closing in.

robby chokes out a fuck, before moving the hand from you hip to the bed, using it as leverage to fuck up into you from below. “fuck, baby, i’m close, shit! god, i lo—“ robby shuts his lips tight, breathes coming heavier from his nose. did he just— was he about to—

you reach both hands to his beard, tugging so you can lock your gaze with his. “what were you going to say? please, say it,” you keen, so close now.

he releases the seal on his mouth with a heavy exhale, “i love you. i—fuck, shit— i love you so fucking much.”

that’s enough to send you over the finish line, cunt clamping down hard on robby’s length, thighs trembling from exertion and ecstasy. one hand falling down to robby’s still playing with your clit, nails biting into his wrist—to keep him going or to stop him, you didn’t know, brain foggy with overstimulation and oxytocin.

the hand still in his beard tugs at the short hairs, eyes opening again to meet his. “i love you too, michael. so fucking much, i love you,” crashing your lips back into his.

a few more thrusts and he’s coming, hot ropes of cum filling every inch of you, marking you as his, his rumbling moan spilling down your throat.

you two bask in the afterglow, trading breathless laughter and panting i love yous as the moon drifted further into the sky. kissing forming bruises and soothing over lingering scratches. drifting to sleep in a tangle of sheets and sweat and limbs, content now having the other in arm’s reach.

———

as june came to a close, filled with unpacking, exploring, and making up for six months of distance, july 1st quickly arrives, time for your fellowship to begin.

arriving at ptmc, you make your way to the ed—the pitt—arriving half an hour early, determined to both settle into your locker and settle your nerves before shift change at 7. you manage to find the staff area without being stopped, everyone seemingly too tired to notice the unfamiliar face in familiar black scrubs.

exiting the break room, a gruff voice comes from the north nurse’s station. “you’re here early,” the voice says.

“oh! hi dr. abbott,” you say once you turn. never listen to jack, robby had joked. “just didn’t wanna be late on my first day, y’know. how are you?”

ignoring your question, dr. abbot asks his own, “robby here, too?”

keeping your best poker face—it’s bad—you reply, “what? oh! uh, i don’t—i wouldn’t—“

dr. abbot continues his staring, unimpressed or unbelieving, you couldn’t deduce.

“i, uh, haven’t seen him! but i’ll let him know you’re looking for him if i do!” you end with a fake cheer.

face unchanged, dr. abbot huffs out his nose, “got me excited, thought i was gonna get outta here before 8 today.” he looks up with a smirk, “next time just come in together, save me the heartbreak.”

never listen to jack. always listen to dr. abbot, but never jack.

laughing nervously, you gave a small gotta go do something before walking away. not a complete lie.

you had briefly seen the memorial wall during your tour all those months ago, photos of ptmc staff who had passed. it was the second place you wanted to to visit before the start of your first day. looking up at dr. adamson’s photo, you smile as if he was actually here, seeing the curious teen now grown into a real doctor.

making your way toward the main nurses station, you see an excited doctor talking animatedly with her hands—something about an amazing! case the evening before—to a prettyboy doctor, who had a smitten look on his face, seeming to be hanging on her every word.

two more doctors walk in from the ambulance bay then. the woman one smirks at the pretty boy and says getta room! with a teasing tone. prettyboy just flips her off, attention never straying from excited girl. the victorian orphan looking boy just pushes sarcastic girl further into the pitt as she cackles.

leaning against the counter, you hear footsteps stop next to you. “doctor,” the voice—robby—says in faux seriousness.

“doctor,” you echo.

as senior doctors gather at the nurses station, introductions are made by robby—you can’t remember another time he’d ever called you by your title and full name.

“you remember dr. abbot and dr. ellis from your interview,” dr. ellis gives a up-nod, dr. abbot an all-knowing half-smile. robby introduces two senior residents, one being sarcastic girl—dr. santos. “and our junior attending, dr. langdon, who isn’t scheduled til noon, yet is already here,” robby ends, turning his attention to dr. langdon—prettyboy.

he shrugs, “had to switch out cars, figured i’d stay. i’ll survive.”

“say that to shen in 18 hours,” dr. abbot smirks.

the day proceeds quickly. a thorough tour, more introductions, a few traumas. it was overwhelming and exciting and real—didn’t hurt that your tour guide was your piece of old man eye candy.

midafternoon, the announcement of an incoming multi-car, multi-trauma pileup rang through the intercom.

“from downtown,” the charge nurse, dana, added off-speaker.

“okay, y’all, how many furries?” one of the med assistants asked loudly. post-it notes and cash flew his way between staff setting up for protocol.

“furries?” you ask putting on your trauma gown.

“furries,” dr. whitaker—victorian orphan—confirms. “there’s a convention every fourth of july weekend and we always end up with at least a dozen of ‘em. some bet on how many, what reason, how wild,” he ends up a shrug.

you just nod, a little confused but hey, every hospital has their thing—the pitt’s seemed to be betting on anything.

you worked the trauma event with efficiency and precision, leading some cases with junior residents, working other cases along side robby or dr. langdon. the cases with robby were something else; a choreographed dance neither of you knew you had learned, an easy rhythm uninterrupted by the urgency of the situation, the other right where they were needed when they were needed.

as the final patient was stabilized and wheeled off to surgery, you pushed your disheveled hair out of your face, giving an amazed laugh to robby from across the trauma bay. he returned the smile with a soft good job, closer now, audible only to anyone actively trying to listen in.

(there were 11 furries in a 15-passenger van. one threatened to sue as his fur suit was cut off. a nurse named jesse won the pool.)

as the shift drew to a close, you sat at central finishing your charting. from the corner of your eye, you saw two nurses—princess and perlah—turned toward you, talking openly in tagalog? you’re pretty sure? smiling nervously as you turn to look at them, they smile back, giving small waves.

“they’re talking about you, you know?” dr. santos says as she leans across from you, elbows on the counter, hands clasped together loosely.

looking from the nurses, you joke, “only scandalous things, i hope.”

dr. santos smirks, “they’re plotting to start a betting pool. how long before you and robby start fucking and or dating each other?” you let out an incredulous breath before she continues, “my bet is that you already are. am i close? i need a win, i lost a lotta money today.”

if it were about anything else—anybody else—you would have laughed it up with dr. santos. instead, you felt your hands grow sweaty and face hot, fumbling out, “i don’t know what—i mean—nooo…robby? noooo.”

“‘noooo robby,’ what?” the man asks himself, walking up to return a tablet. dr. santos excuses herself with a light oh, nothing.

robby turns to you with raised brows.

“your staff is betting on when we’ll get together, michael,” you answer. the hr papers were already turned in. technically it was out there. just needed the right question to be asked to the right admin staffer by the right person.

robby leans on the counter, mirroring dr. santos’ previous stance. “well then, would you like to go to dinner sometime?”

you smile rolling your eyes.

“are you free next week?”

———

and then princess and perlah my chismosa queens overheard and rigged the bet and won so much money amen

also no one cares but i know ellis would be 2 not 1 year post residency and mel 1 year with this timeline but i wanted them in here so pretend they did/are doing a 5th year as chief resident or s/t shhhh also i fully believe langdon and santos will eventually end up being bickering-siblings-coded in canon thank you goodnight

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blamedestiny21 · 7 days ago

Text

Nearly brought a tear to my eye! Omg

Like Water

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

Previous << || Fin

Word count: 10k

Summary: where Simon finally tells you.

18+

CW: fluff, smut (handjob, cunnilingus, squirting, p in v), brief light dom/sub (sub Simon Riley). canon-typical violence (description of past events, description of a corpse). lots of domesticity, established relationship (finally, dare I say)

Masterlist 🦊 | In The Walls Masterlist 🦊

Simon’s gait has a certain rhythm to it.

A slow and purposeful thump, thump, that has an intermittence of sorts between each step, because he favours his right leg. Doesn’t help that he’s still recovering, that his ribs still tighten with each breath he takes, his ankle clicking whenever he puts too much weight on it.

However, even through the noise of the rain pelting the roof overhead, even through the gusts of wind that rush in your ears, Simon knows you’ve heard him arrive.

Few people have access to the rooftop, and you definitely don’t have the seniority to be here—you shouldn’t even have the key. Perhaps you consider it your little secret. Perhaps you think he hasn’t noticed the key missing from the ring he keeps in his bedroom, back at his flat.

How he’d seen you leaf through the keys on his dresser until you found your prey, small and squared, “Hereford Rooftop” engraved on the handle. Snatched it and pocketed it quietly, biting on a smirk, as he slept soundly. To your knowledge, at least.

On the other hand, Simon had to shuffle under the sheets to hide his snort.

Nevertheless, he’s behind you now, hovering like the ghost that he is, and as you puff a cloud of smoke from between your lips, he decides to make himself known.

“Won’t ask how ya got here.” Though he knows.

You look behind your shoulder, profile dark with the contrast of moonlight behind you.

He sees you bite on your lip, barely hiding a smile. Cheeky, bordering on adorable. His boots bring him to you before he can even realize he’s walking.

“Good, ‘cause I wouldn’t tell you.” You reply, all smug.

He props his elbows on the railing beside you, hunching over it. Fingers clasp loosely over the darkness beneath.

“How d’you find me anyway?” You ask, puffing on your cigarette.

He gives you a sidelong glance.

“Put a tracker on ya,” he replies, then, like it’s normal.

He knows you wouldn’t put that past him, unable to even out whether to believe him or not. And just as he predicted, the only thing you manage to do in response is to give him a side eye that holds questions you don’t seem ecstatic to say out loud.

Simon’s lips twitch.

“Takin’ the piss,” he says finally. His hands go for his pockets, and he plucks a ciggie of his own. “Johnny saw ya goin’ upstairs. Put two ‘n two together.”

You deflate. Bring the cigarette to your lips again.

Simon follows your hand, rough knuckles ruined by the harsh winds and not the kindest of jobs: rubbing of synthetic leather, friction against punch bags, and all that jazz. The orange butt of the cigarette softens between chapped lips, a faint sheen of balm unevenly spread over them—not enough to mend cracks, but just enough to soothe the burn.

“Came here for a chat, then?” You ask, leaning the side of your head on his shoulder.

It’s unexpected.

Touch-starved as he may be, there is still deep-rooted discomfort whenever his hunger is fundamentally fed. Sex he can endure. It’s a physical need: your hands on him when he’s practically buried in your guts are a natural necessity for your balance.

But when your touch isn’t inherently sexual, that’s where he struggles.

When you linger nearby, fingers in his hair or cheek on his shoulder, he can’t fathom why. You have so many possibilities, so many spotlights ready to point your way, that he fails to understand why you would want to wander in the dark instead.

Why you, unbelievably patient, put up with a path so ruthless, with a wall so thick and bricks much too heavy to tear.

He shuts that voice. Stabs it ruthlessly, using the gentleness of your head resting against him as the sharpest weapon. He shows it off, flaunts it around—look at this. Look at what I can have.

But Simon’s one old dog and sometimes doubts still rankle his bones. He shakes it away with one imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. Slowly, he relaxes, bringing the lighter to the cigarette now tucked between his lips. He uses his other hand so the arm you’re resting on can stay comfortably still.

“Not really.” He replies.

Soft smoke billows from both your lips. It merges in front of your eyes, a fleeting cloud that disperses in the rain.

“Saw the papers on my desk,” he drawls. “Extended leave, eh? Plannin’ a trip?”

The countryside stretching just at the outskirts of the HQ steals the show. Dark clouds unable to completely shroud the full moon, twinkling lights of the city at the horizon, blinking through the sheer curtain of drizzle and fog.

He silently thanks nature for going all out this evening. Means you can be focused on these bits and pieces of beauty it offers, instead of gauging the obvious nervousness etched in his eyes.

“Nah,” you reply, shrugging. “Just need some…”

A beat.

“…humanity. Some quiet.”

Simon forcibly tears his eyes away from the horizon and lets them linger on the top of your head.

He sighs. “Reckon there ain’t much o’ that in here, no.”

His cigarette, tapped with tiny raindrops, is dropped into the darkness below the railing because he doesn’t fancy a smoke as of now. He’s only lit it to have a reason to stay, a habit that makes him forget, sometimes, that he doesn’t need to fake it anymore.

Simon keeps quiet, then, in case you feel the need to elaborate.

“I miss having breakfast in bed,” you say, words muffled by the ciggie snug between your lips. “Miss going grocery shopping and complaining about the prices.”

A puff of smoke.

“Miss having a chat with my neighbour—she’s a proper gran, Grace. Full of wisdom and shite.”

You chuckle, and Simon’s lips twitch because it’s as infectious as they come.

“Always tells me I’m too young to be this sad.” You wave your hands like you’re not fully on board with it. “I tell her I’m not sad and she just says—”

And there you mimic what he thinks is her voice, going all croaky and high-pitched.

“—‘not in the way you think’.”

You scoff, then. But it’s sweet, like you’re not really mad at her for saying that. Maybe just miffed because she perceived something you’ve been trying to conceal, and it’s not always welcomed to have someone tear down the walls, rip at the curtains.

Simon knows a thing or two about that.

“Bet she’s a good laugh,” he replies, trying to fit some humour in the wistfulness coating your words.

You nuzzle his bicep with a breathy chuckle, and that’s a small victory on his part.

His hand goes to the small of your back, thumb brushing the divot of your spine through your shirt. You relax further into him, and he loves to feel how soft you go whenever he turns gentler too.

“She is.” You say fondly, flipping the finished cigarette into the darkness below.

Simon follows it with his eyes.

“Wouldn’t mind meeting her.”

He can feel you stiffen; the softness he coaxed out of you suddenly gone. He doesn’t blame you—too many times he’s waxed lyrical about you, guiding you out of your own armour because it’s easier to pierce flesh if there is no shield in the way.

What a fucking bastard he’s been.

He reckons he’s gotta work thoroughly to fix his mistakes, to show you he’s not keen on doing them all over again.

“Yeah?” You say, cautious like you’re tiptoeing in a landmine.

“Aye,” he replies. “Might as well bring ya that breakfast in bed you were talkin’ about. Proper five-star service.”

A divot in your lip forms under the bite of your teeth. Gentle and pensive, much like the line drawn between your brows. You’re quiet, and he lets you digest it.

“Wake ya up with it.” His eyes fall on your hands, curled around the railing in a death grip. "Coffee or tea—your pick. Though I’m hopin’ it’s tea. Last thing you need’s more bloody caffeine."

Your shoulders tighten in the curl of his arm. He releases the hold as you subtly move to the side. Cold seeps through the crack parting between you and him and further ventures inside his bones.

Your acting is good. If he didn’t know you, he’d think your smirk, although weak, is an honest one. Still, it takes one subtle look in your eyes to gauge the truth—you’re careful, protected. Doesn’t blame you for it, though he loathes to see you trying to mask it, taking his quip in stride: dismissively waving your hand at him, scoffing to pretend a chuckle.

“We both know you make shit coffee, Riley.”

“Could learn,” he offers gently.

You sigh and unwind, recognizing that he caught on much more easily than you were expecting. Your hand drops, his heart with it. “What is this, Simon?”

He’s seen this already, heard you ask him that same question. But at the time, he didn’t have an answer for it—too lost, too confused. Undeserving. Reluctantly he admits, afraid too.

You’re the one who’s scared, now. You soothed his heart before, repeated his name like a prayer, and made promises rationally impossible to keep. Lent your ear to listen, cherished his fears and fought them for him. Took it upon yourself to be strong enough for two, in combat for a love you weren’t even sure reciprocal.

He’s never had that, never knew what it meant to have someone fight for him. He thought himself too wretched to waste time on—food gone bad, poisonous. He’s been that for you: he has poisoned you.

He reckons it’s time for him to be the antidote too.

Simon’s voice is a gentle rumble. “M’fixing it.”

You glance upwards. Your eyes meet.

He turns to face you, and you straighten your spine, looking upward through your lashes. Big palms come to cradle your cheeks.

“You said you get it, yeah?” Simon whispers, somewhat lost in the patter against the roof.

Your answer is a careful nod.

“Then let me.”

Silence lingers, then. Gentle eyes sharp like knives, cutting through the layers of him, and he allows himself to be shredded open—as long as you see. See through the grooves in between each brick, see the landscape stretching behind it. How it’s not as desolate and barren as it was before you fought to see it flower.

You break through with a sigh and turn your eyes ahead. His hands slip back to rest on the railing, and he finds himself following the line of your gaze: the lights in Hereford blink back, waiting quietly for your words to break through the silence. Similarly, Simon dithers with bated breath.

Your voice reaches him. “Breakfast, you say?”

Simon thinks breathing has never been easier.

He hums in reply. “Mhmh.”

“In bed,” you state.

“In bed,” he confirms.

You shift your head his way. Your lips twitch and your eyes turn soft.

“Could make a full English,” he adds quietly. Contrary to yours, his smile is there, however faint. He reckons it must give him some sort of look that inspires yours, because it’s then that you bloom.

“You’re gonna burn the eggs again, aren’t you,” you say with a drawn-out sigh that sounds surrendered and annoyed, but he knows you’re anything but.

He snorts. “Think I’ll bring my pans ‘round. Keep yours safe tha’ way.”

His hand returns around your shoulder, and he pulls you in. You wrap your arms around him just as securely. Gingerly, you rest your chin on his chest and look up.

Being blunt and direct is his specialty, so he does just that.

“Fancy some company, then?” He asks. “During this extended leave o’ yours.”

You cock your head.

His heart starts thrumming when it takes you a while to give him a proper answer that isn’t the curious look in your eyes, like you’re studying him inside out. Fucking hell, he knows he looks anything but the man you’re used to: it’s not a ruse he promises, cross his heart and hope to die and all that. However, he doesn’t know how to tell you without sounding like a pining sod that this is what he wants to be when the mask is off and the guns are holstered. Comes easy as anything now that he’s let his guard down around you.

“I would love that.” You say.

His sigh is staggered, cough abrupt as he clears his throat to get his voice back.

“Alrigh’ then,” he murmurs, straightening his spine. “Consider it done.”

True to his word, that same night, Simon begins to pull enough strings to grant you extended leave. He was never one to beg and almost drops out of this mission when the brass forces him to.

But then the images of what could be start reeling before his eyes: to witness you wear the dress of domesticity, arms out of that bleak uniform and stuffed into comfortable PJs. Your lips around the mugs he washed, sipping on the tea he made. Hands holding grocery bags and not knives, mouth mindlessly complaining about the prices and not bellowing orders, or murmuring Yes, sir.

Simon begs.

And when it doesn’t work, he threatens—and that one never fails.

In less than a week, Simon has documents signed left and right.

In less than two, Simon is resting on your sofa with your head on his thighs and your favourite movie playing on the telly.

It’s barely morning.

The sun bathes your kitchen, casting long shadows at his feet. The blender sitting on the counter reflects kaleidoscopic sunlight—inexplicably beautiful in its mundanity. The kettle bubbles right next to it, soft crackle of water rising at the top.

His wrists crack when he curls his fingers around the lip of the counter and leans backwards. As the water boils, he takes the scenery around him as it is: sanctuary of quiet in the chaos, what his life could be if he allows it—what it could’ve been, had he been brave enough before.

The sun is gentle still, cottoned by the early hours. Slices of sunlight cut through the darkness. Soft ticking of the clock above the fridge. Breeze brushes his stomach from the window left ajar, the flutter of the curtains preceding each featherlight touch.

He pours the water into the mugs. Lets the tea steep—a handful of minutes he spends observing your habits. There, Simon realizes there’s so much to learn about people just by looking at their kitchen.

You have six of everything. Six mugs, six glasses, six forks and knives—excluding sharper ones for cooking. Everything is in a set of six. A far cry from what his house offers: singles everywhere, there. Not many people come over, and when they do, it’s not to stay for dinner. Only you’ve had the pleasure, and that night he’d sneaked out to buy some cheap dishware at Tesco under the guise of getting a pack of ciggies.

But you—you like people. He can see it in the flowers sitting at the centre of the table, too. They’re fresh: you change them every few days. Bright colours now that it’s summer, but he can imagine the purples of winter pansies that would fill the vase during colder months. They make the room inviting, like they’ve been set for people to admire and then bring home as a memento of the evening spent together. Pressed inside books, dropped in water-filled glasses.

Simon plucks a primrose and pockets it. Might stuff it in his wallet later, bring a piece of you in the back pocket of his jeans.

As he scoured your kitchen for tea, he found a cupboard filled to the brim. Black tea, of course. Green tea, matcha, jasmine, lavender, oolong, too—whatever the fuck that is. Quite pricey as well, the label still glued to most of the boxes. Nevertheless, you seem to buy based on taste. Yours, perhaps, but those of eventual guests too.

These are signs of what he knows already: generosity.

You’ve always had that. That… selflessness that makes you comfortable to be around. He knows you, even as you mask the cashmere of your heart under the inviolable shell of the admirable sergeant that you are. You opened up for him with the ease of a peach, mature softness crushed under his thumbs. He hasn’t been gentle either; he took greedy bites and left when your taste became cloying, when your syrup threatened to invade his blood and turn him soft, too.

He's done fighting it: his mantra, repeated daily. There’s peace in that.

But still, it isn’t the care with which you prepare your place for others that strikes him.

It’s how part of it he feels.

There are roots growing around him, undeterred by the last shreds of fear still clinging to his bones. Comfort of his bare feet against the floors, of the padding of yours down the hallway. Third door to the right, that’s where you’re coming from. He could draw the blueprint of this place with his eyes closed, knows it by heart already, even if these are his first days in it.

As expected, your voice rings crystalline from the doorway.

“Tea’s gonna taste like dirt.”

When he lifts his eyes to you, something scratches his brain just right.

You’re leaning against the kitchen door, arms folded in front of your chest. Sleeping shorts and a white ruffled t-shirt. Your cheek is still dimpled with the folds of the bedsheets, a testament to the blissful rest you got.

His lips twitch.

Yeah, he spaced out and forgot about the tea. Cry about it.

“Mh. S’my own special brew.”

Struggling to mask amusement, you push yourself off the door and slowly walk to him, swinging your hips in a lazy gait that hypnotizes him.

“What’s the special ingredient?” You ask innocently. Your fingers come to dance on his chest. “Overthinking?”

He snorts.

“Yer a right laugh ain’t ya.” He mutters, but not unkindly. “Spaced out is all. S’early.”

You nod in mock understanding. “Just another Tuesday for Simon Riley.”

In spite of the snort he yields, you couldn’t be more wrong. His regular Tuesday has never been even remotely close to this.

No, he doesn’t recall a single day of the week in which he woke up because sunlight tickled his face and not because the alarm blared him awake. Not a single Tuesday in which the flat he was in didn’t feel like a cold coffin as soon as he opened his eyes.

You wrap your arms around him, sneaking your hands in the space between his biceps and his sides. Your fingers clasp at his back. Simon’s lips drop instinctively on the crown of your head.

You smell of sleep. Of linen and citrus of your shampoo, still warm from the bed. The scent of smoke lingers on your hair, cigarettes you shared on the balcony before you guided him to bed last night. And there, at the base of it all, like a footnote left written imperceptibly small—you smell of him. Of hints of gunpowder from work and spices of bodywash, of pungent nicotine staining his fingers and herbs of black tea brewing in the mugs.

No, this isn’t a regular Tuesday by miles.

He mimics your stance, wrapping his arms around you as well.

“Yer not gettin’ breakfast in bed if you keep trailin’ after me every time I get up, y’know.”

You wrinkle your nose. “I like to make sure you’re not, like, making a run for it.”

Simon snorts. “I’d be a hell of a lot quieter.”

“Mh,” you hum. “So it’s in the plans?”

“Sure.” He nods towards the window with a smirk. “Drop’s not even that bad, is it?”

It steals a laugh from you, one that warms him like the kindest of suns. You nuzzle his chest, and his lips pull in a smile you can’t see.

“You could always use the door,” you say, voice muffled and vibrating against his shirt.

“I’d miss the theatrics.”

“’Course you would.” You mumble as your shoulders shake in giggles. “What else to expect from someone who chose Ghost as his callsign.”

He clicks his tongue. “Behave.”

“The elusive Ghost, lurking in the background. His enemies fear him, the man with the bloody Halloween prop on his face—"

Simon bends his knees and, with impressive speed, hooks his fingers at the back of your thighs.

Suddenly, you’re airborne, giggly and light. A mere gasp is what you offer when your feet leave the floor, but you’re just as ready to curl your legs around his hips. The surprise is barely there, as if you were expecting him to do it—perhaps wishing he would.

He swivels on his heels and plops your ass on the counter.

“I said, behave.” He rumbles, but there’s no hint of threat in it whatsoever.

In fact, you don’t falter in the slightest.

“If only they knew,” you say theatrically, brushing your nose with his. “How easy you are to trick.”

“Fuck’s sake.”

“A pair of tits and you lose it.”

Simon’s eyes soften with a sigh. "You don’t quit do you.”

“Never.”

He pinches your thigh until your nose scrunches. He loves to see how appreciative your eyes turn. Bit mocking too, but in that kind way of yours.

Your fingers travel up his sides, and he shivers. When his eyes inevitably land on your lips, magnetised, he’s dying to dive in and steal a kiss, but you ask a question before he can even register his wish.

“How’s the bruising?”

It’s been a few weeks since he came back.

The desert is the worst place to get lost in: too hot during the day, too cold at night. The darkness is so thick you can feel it lick at your skin, and Simon would be lying if he said the memories didn’t haunt him just as much as even darker ones still do.

However, the sand scratching at his lungs like shards of glass, the cold biting at his fingers and toes, the sun ravaging his skin… They’re all nightmares incomparable to the dread clutching his chest every time the wind swept over a dune.

In truth, it was unfathomably easy to imagine your corpse being unveiled from under it.

He’s seen you looking like death warmed over with a tube shoved down your throat already. He’s seen you with a bullet in your stomach, with blood soaking your clothes—it took almost nothing to graft that face onto one of the countless dead he’s witnessed, the dead he’s caused.

Your limbs bent unnaturally, the ashen hue of your skin, the glassy look in your eyes. The blood—so much fucking blood, caked and thick and oxidised black. Coagulated sand beneath you, hair torn from your scalp: pink matter, shards of ivory bone. A fat tongue filling your mouth, the muscles in your face slack, your body putrid and tumescent.

The image reappears again, quick like the flash of a camera, sharp like a blade. So vivid he almost smells it: death.

Shivers wreck him. Subtly, he loses his balance and holds you a little tighter, placing his hands at the slopes of your waist. His forehead knocks onto yours, and he closes his eyes. Breathes, inhales the citrus and the linen and the cigarettes, whirlpool of gunpowder and spices and tea, and sighs.

Chapped lips and rough stubble rise up your face in tender brushes, until he finally lands on your eyebrow, where a slit bisects the hairs into two perfect halves—remnants of what could’ve been so much worse if your PPE had been buckled in wrong. The scar is small but still thick under his kiss, just as thick as the fear that had clotted his lungs weeks back, as he waited—hoped— for his radio to come to life and breathe your voice through comms.

You squeeze his hand on your hip, and he realizes he must’ve spaced out for longer than intended. Or maybe you noticed the darkness that had suddenly taken hold of him, attentive as ever, and subtly tried to bring him back to you.

Simon sighs and breathes it all away. Lets the syrup of you invade him, soften him up again.

Gently, you ask, “Alright?”

However, he prefers to answer the previous question—much easier to put into words how his body is faring, instead of the complexity of his head.

“Breathing’s good,” he replies quietly, brushing his lips to your brow. “S’just a bruise. Looks worse than it is.”

You mindlessly trace his knuckles with your fingers. Considerately, you let it go and focus on the answers he’s willing to give you.

“Yeah, it’s just a bruise,” you reply with a cheeky grin, “but it’s on you.”

He scoffs. “Throwin' my words back at me, that ain’t—”

“Ankle?” You bat your lashes.

He sighs and rolls it a couple of times to show. “Functional.”

You scrunch your nose in a pleased smile. Gently you tap his forehead. “Head?”

His smile flickers back to life, faint as it may be. Quick and sharp, sarcasm back home on his tongue. “Lost it. Saw those tits.”

Now, you flick his forehead. Simon’s heart soars even as his head flinches back.

“Head?” You ask again, brows rising to your forehead to reinforce your insistence.

Simon’s smile warms. His answer is kind, this time.

“Quiet.”

You roll your eyes fondly, and even though you’re trying your best to look tough, he can tell his answer has affected you. Made you happy, he hopes.

“Sap.” You say, curling your nose in a smile.

He pinches it between his knuckles until you pretend it hurts.

“Done with the inspection, sarge?”

A glint suddenly sparking in your eyes tells him that instead of smothering a fire, he fed dry, burning wood to it.

He can feel the tips of your fingers brush against his sides until they find the hem of his shirt. You toy with it, trying to act clueless with the bat of your lashes.

Minx.

“Actually—” Your tongue peaks out to wet your lips. “I think there’s still something else I gotta check.”

Simon cocks a brow. A hum rumbles in his chest when your hands shift the attention to the elastic of his waistband.

“Is there now,” he purrs.

You leave a kiss on his jaw. And then lower, to the racing pulse in his neck—blood in a waterfall, rushing down to where your hands sweetly promise to go.

“Mhmh.” You nod your head, brushing your nose against the slope of his neck. “I gotta be thorough.”

Your tongue peeks out, licking a stripe. Simon fists the back of your shirt, abandoning all subtlety. His neck pliantly tilts to leave you more room to explore. Rapidly, his skin sizzles at every brush, awakened by you— nails stroking teasing lines just above his pants, wet tongue soft and insistent, breath warm huffing from your nose.

It's instinctive, really, for his hands to slide to your front, inching upwards, until he’s tracing the underside of your breasts.

“Hands off, lieutenant.” You rumble against his skin. A bite, gentle, to where his shoulder meets his neck, to steel the seriousness of your order.

“Inspections are done while standing at attention, aren’t they?” You purr.

It makes his cock twitch.

“Don’t think you have the seniority to order me ‘round, sergeant.” However, his hands obey and clasp behind his back.

You hum. Simon can feel your smile hidden in his neck, teeth smooth to his jugular.

“Don’t have the seniority to do lots of things,” you prance. “And yet.”

He could grab you and toss you on the table. He could bend you over and rip the shorts off your legs, move your knickers to the side, and plunge where he knows you’ll be wet by then. He could, but he doesn’t. Curiosity, maybe, or, more truthfully, genuine enjoyment in seeing you have your fun.

Simon sighs. “And yet,” he whispers after you.

And yet here you have him, bending and breaking for you on a whim.

You tap his thigh, right where it creases to meet his hip.

“Wider, L.T.”

And Simon complies, shifting his weight until his legs are further apart.

Then, your inspection starts. Your fingers hide under his shirt and brush his sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. You test the flesh rising upwards, right where his bruises heal slowly. You’re gentler there, but still covetous. Nails trace the ridges of his ribs, journey to his chest. Your thumb grazes his nipple, rounds it with its pad, and Simon takes a breath that shakes up his throat.

He's a ball of tightened muscles and burning nerves, tough at his biceps and corded at his forearms. Harder than ever between his legs, where your hand finally lands, and warmth envelops him when you palm his crotch.

It’s not been long since he last fucked you. However, this might be the first time he doesn’t have his hands on you. He curls them into fists, faintly trembling at his tailbone, and when you graze your nails over his shaft, right above his boxers, he collapses forward with his head in the crook of your shoulder and his palms flat on the counter for balance.

Instinctively, his thumbs hook at the hem of your shorts, but that stops you in your tracks.

“I said hands off, lieutenant,” you say sharply, as though you were truly in the four walls of bloody Pirbright and not in the quaint kitchen of your flat. “Not done yet.”

Simon feels his cheeks grow in a smile, entertained by your antics but not any less frustrated. He could grab you and fold you like cheap paper in his arms—he could, but he wants to see where you’ll take this, and so he finds himself following orders as if you had any right to dispense them.

“Don’t take it too far, will ya?” He concedes, and his hands return clasped behind his back.

“Trust me?” You croon, voice warm and wet against the shell of his ear.

Sometime in between your words, you’ve already started teasing the elastic of his boxers. Hooking a finger and tracing around its edges, gently snapping the band in place. Always quite there but never truly where he wants you.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “Trust ya.”

He could. He could grab your wrists and pin them both to the cupboard overhead. Keep you still as he devours you in a kiss, while his offhand crosses the barrier between your clothes and your cunt. Dip inside because he knows you’re wet; won’t hurt a tick, really. Fuck you on his hand until you’re creaming around two fingers—three if you’ve been good and moaned in his mouth for every orgasm he ripped from you.

He could, but aren’t you just a treat, with this teasing twinkle in your eye and your hand so close to his cock, and so he leaves it to you. Trusts his body in your arms.

You tap his thigh. “Look up, c’mon.”

Reluctantly, Simon lifts his head from your shoulder, and the same aversion that had roused is quickly schooled into place when he meets your eyes. Gorgeously heavy, crinkling at the corners with a healthy balance of fondness and arrogance alike. Suddenly, he realizes how much he likes it, when you’re the one holding power—won’t tell you though, lest your ego grows too big.

It’s already been fighting for space with his own—years of this, really. Won’t deny he enjoys it, always has.

Your fingers tease the band of his briefs before dipping in, until your whole palm encircles his shaft. You tug downwards, peeling back the foreskin from the head of his cock, and his body erupts in goosebumps. Simon’s mind blanks, swirling with thoughts that do not make sense, and he doesn’t care to tie the pieces together either. His eyes flicker when your hand returns up, gently gliding his foreskin to stave off overstimulation.

He inhales sharply. Smacks his lips as he straightens his neck, as if that could help the tightness of the muscles there.

White-knuckled, his hands crumple into fists against his back. Diligently, he follows your order—hands off—but his fingertips itch to touch you, a sliver of you, anything to quell the absence so contrastingly tangible between his fingers.

So, he admires you with his eyes, dancing about the curves and angles of your face. Pupils blown and just barely concealed, long lashes fanning your cheeks when your gaze lands on his mouth—a look of abandon, heavy lidded and slack. Parted lips he wants to kiss, soft teeth biting into the flesh.

Teasingly, you bring your hand just below his mouth, leaving his cock to weep precum in the tight fit of his boxers.

“Spit,” you order.

And Christ, Simon follows it like a pup who’s just been told to sit. Collects a dollop of spit in his mouth and lets it fall onto your palm in a thin rope. He keeps his focus on you. Watches how the black hole of your pupils eats at your eyes, following enraptured as his mouth puckers and spits.

As a reward, you kiss the corner of his lips, tasting the grunt that escapes when you encircle his cock once again. Your motions are more bearable now, as the mix of arousal and saliva keeps your gliding soft and wet.

There, your hand finds a pace that’s soothing and earth-shattering all the same.

He wants to fold into you, be weak and crumble into your arms. Touch you, press his forehead to yours and hold on tight—nails digging into the flesh of your ass and not the skin of his palms.

It’s genuinely driving him insane. Bloody closest thing to madness he’s gone through in recent times—trying to hold it off feels impossible when you’re clearly so good at touching the right spots, finding the best pace. He holds your gaze, drinks your lust with his eyes and bottles it, multiplying the overwhelming stash of it he already has in store.

That’s enough to almost make him come undone. He bites back a groan as he shifts his hips backwards, slightly away from your grasp.

“Slow down,” he murmurs, throat tight.

You lean forward, lips jutting just enough to brush with his mouth.

“Worried you’ll cum on my hand?” You whisper, starting a deliberate twirling movement with your hand once it’s reached the base of his cock.

He bites his own teeth. Nostrils flare in an irritated huff.

“Now tha’d be a waste, wouldn’t it?”

Your chuckle is light, breathy. “Mh. Much better when it’s inside me, isn’t it?”

Simon groans. Eyes rolled back at the thought. “Fuckin’ hell swee’heart.”

Subtly, his gaze falls to your lips. There’s a curve etched at the corners, a soft wrinkle hinting at a smile—it’s like a hook, he thinks, and he’s a starving prey standing right before a feast. And by God, you got him. You got him good.

He tests the waters first, landing a brief peck.

“What are you doing?” Your voice cracks, losing the sharp edge of authority.

“You said hands off.” He shrugs his shoulders, hands clasped behind his back clearly proving his point. “I’m listenin’, ain’t I.”

He kisses you again, featherlight. Your lips morph before him, blooming in a smile that tastes of his victory.

“Guerrilla tactics,” you quip softly.

“Nah,” he hums. “Just resourceful.”

It’s you who kisses him now. Still briefly, still not enough to satiate the beast that’s rearing its head in his stomach. The smack of your lips when you pull away echoes in his ears—he fucking thrives on it, can barely wait to feel your tongue in his mouth and fist the back of your head to keep you from ever moving away.

“Not fair at all, lieutenant.”

Simon captures your lower lip between his teeth. Bites gently into it, until he can hear you suck in a breath. Watches transfixed how it bounces back in place when he pulls away, still keeping close enough to see the indents left by his incisors, the dry flecks of skin dusting the flesh.

He’s gonna die if he doesn’t kiss you again.

“Wha’ was tha’ saying?” he muses, angling his head so that your mouth can better slot in with his. “All is fair in love and war.”

You chortle, leaning forwards so your lips can brush when you speak. “Calling this war sounds a bit dramatic.”

Words roll off his tongue seamlessly.

“Never said t’was war did I.”

Your hand twitches. It’s minuscule, really, but he feels the sudden rigidity of it against his cock, until you fall completely still. It feels somewhat wrong to get off when you’re trying your hardest to mask sudden shock. Slaps him right in the face that you’ve never really had a proper chat about it, and by God, isn’t this the worst fucking moment to bring it up.

Or maybe the best.

Then again, he should listen to his gut and shove it down his throat for the time being; no sense in talking feelings when you have your hand in his pants. There’s a chance you might peg it to the ecstasy of sex, to a bit of a bribe so he could have you on your bed afterwards. Turn you soft like he did in the past and slide his cock right back home.

Fucking hell. Right back home, eh?

Once again, you have to snatch him out of his own head, as your offhand rises to cup his cheek.

“Reckon’s love, then?” you dither, with that breath of hope stuck between your teeth.

Silence lasts a handful of seconds, not a moment more. It’s not heavy, not tense. It’s filled with the motions of the day: lives around you both starting to wake. The rumble of an engine, the chatter of neighbours around the breakfast table, whines and giggles of children passing nearby. Sounds travel through the crack of the window and envelop him in a hug that warms him to the bone.

A sense of belonging: grounding and tangible, taking the shape of you—brushing his jaw and breathing in his mouth.

Briefly, he licks his lower lip, throat suddenly dry. “An’ what else, no?”

He kisses you, pushes forward until you’re forced to crane your neck. The cotton of his briefs snaps against his cock when you take back your hand and use it for balance. Simon doesn’t waste a moment and hooks his arm around the dip of your waist.

He pulls back. Looks at the plump of your lips glistening with spit before returning his focus to your eyes.

“M’gonna fuck you now.” He whispers, chest heaving and tight. He nods his head slowly, making sure you understand. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, fuck—” you gulp. Nod vigorously. “Yeah. Yes. God, yes.”

The rasp in your voice scratches his stomach, travels straight to his groin. Simon sucks in a sharp breath before every ounce of control in him breaks.

He needs to feel you in all your warmth and softness, splay his hands where the muscles harden and then pillow at your thighs. His arms envelop you fully, hands settled on your rear to lift you up.

You gasp. Just like before, when everything was inside jokes and mindless banter. Now there’s true surprise in there, followed by the softest of chuckles. “Careful—your ankle—"

“C’mere.”

He captures your lips and swivels on his heels. Loses his balance in the sudden rush to take you to the bedroom and accidentally bumps your ass against the table behind you. The vase resting in the centre rattles but thankfully never falls—though it earns him a playful slap on his shoulder.

“Careful, my vase,” you giggle to his lips.

“Buy ya a new one,” he replies, words warbled against your mouth.

It only takes Simon a few more steps before he has you on the bed. Too quickly, honestly, and he recognizes it too. He lands you on the mattress with a muted thud, perhaps with too much force—a clumsiness in his actions he has rarely experienced, so blatant and youthful that not even his early days in the army have witnessed.

You chuckle at it, both because it’s funny and because you’re happy. He can tell, he can feel it—yours and his, working like a hand untying the nauseating knots tangled in his guts. Peaceful, like a breath of fresh air journeying crisp down his throat.

“Lieutenant Riley!” You’re giddy when you say it, propping yourself on your elbows. Your legs open pliantly when he crawls to you, slotting his waist in between.

“Told ya ‘s Simon when we’re here.”

Clothes come off in a clumsy hurry, as you follow his lead and take off his. His cock springs free—reddened and wet at the tip. When he bends down to you, it sits heavy on your stomach. On instinct, his eyes fall on it: droplets of precum oozing out, dripping to your belly. A sight for sore eyes, especially the image his brain concocts of where this’ll lead.

Fucking fill you with it.

He noses your throat, following the line of your neck up to your jaw. Soft laughter bubbles out of you, and he can feel it shake in your neck—he smiles against it, bites your lobe and kisses the shell of your ear until your giggles turn breathy and wet.

“Simon,” you echo through your smile.

His fingers brush your breast, thumbing at your nipple just briefly, before his lips follow the same path of his hand. Tongue down your collarbone, open-mouthed kisses on the fat of your tits. He pinches one nipple between two fingers, and lavishes your other one with his mouth.

Simon can feel you turn putty in his hands—breathy moans and burning skin under his fingertips. His palm explores, tracing lines down the curves of you: the ridges of your ribcage, the skin of your stomach, until it finds a harder patch of flesh. Bumpy and jagged, thicker and coarse to the touch.

He remembers it so vividly, the sheer horror of that sudden shot. Your body violently recoiling, slammed to the floor in a crimson puddle—safe somehow, by the will of some God he now trusts, tucked in a bed with a tube down your throat.

He lingers there, grazes his thumb along its perimeter, before his mouth follows the worship. A kiss lands where your nerves are frayed, where scar tissue has lost its sensitivity.

“Say it again,” he breathes to your skin.

You sigh deliciously, oblivious to the switch in his eyes. Crow’s feet born from smiles now folded by one ancient concern he’d kept crammed in his guts.

“Simon,” you say.

His mouth opens around the injury, tongue tracing the dotted lines of old sutures. Heavily, he sighs on your skin when he feels your fingers thread through his hair.

“My girl,” he breathes, reverently traveling downwards.

He bites into your belly, hard enough to make you hiss and pull his hair in retaliation. Stinging scalp burning so good he can only grunt to your skin to release the tension.

His hands find the plush of your thighs, settling on the curves in between. He pushes your legs apart, hooks his fingers behind your knees, and lifts them over his shoulders.

Face to face with your pussy, Simon traces its edges. He kisses your labia, your slit, a mere nudge of his nose to your clit. Your muscles tense under his palms, breath snatched in your throat—he knows your tells, knows you’re directing him with your fingers through his hair. Caresses down his temple, down his cheek.

Simon’s tongue lands flat on your clit. Your fingers cramp, hand fisting the sheets. He licks once, and the taste of you travels right to his dick; nothing stops him from grinding against the mattress, so he does just that. The roughness of the sheet is uncomfortable, but there’s the sight of you arching off the bed that’s enough to push him to go further.

It’s not the first time Simon’s been in this position, but the motives have changed. He loved eating you out for the sake of turning you soft enough to make it hurt less when he’d slide in—small act of mercy in his selfishness. To show off, too. Give you a reason to choose him for a fuck instead of some other bloke who could’ve probably given you the same thing without the additional damage.

He sucks on your clit, tip of his tongue teasing the flesh more and more until your fist lands with a thud on the mattress. Until your mouth finally gives in and pliantly opens, sweetest sounds leaving your lips. His eyes follow the curve of your belly and the bounce of your breast, falling soft to the sides, and finally land on your face.

That. That is why he does it now.

Neck craned forward, chin to your chest. Hair tousled by the sheets, brows tight and focused, eyes glossy and heavy with pleasure and love. Love, he hopes you see—knows you see, because your thumb goes down to brush his cheek.

He pulls back only to replace his tongue with his fingers, drawing lazily around your clit just enough to make them wet, so they’d glide down smoothly to your slit until your hole. He circles around it and drives them in.

Your mouth parts in an oval, lips shining with spit.

One finger only at first, buried to the knuckle. Easily he finds that spot you like, and you prove him right with the broken moan you let out.

“Fuckin’ hell, Simon,” you pant.

He hums, something deep from within his chest. Slides a second finger in—the stretch is delicious, it seems, because you cry out again, propping yourself on your elbows to have a better view of him.

His mouth returns on you, and that seems to be what does you in.

“Oh Christ,” your head collapses backwards as he properly works you inside out.

That’s why he does it. Squirm for him, arch your back off the bed, fist the sheets, and break apart on his tongue. Have him suffocate there, crush his head between your thighs.

You look gorgeous, always, but never as much as when you’re sweaty and breathless and panting his name.

Simon presses his tongue to your clit, licking a fat stripe up to your curls.

“Can’t wait to see ya cum like this,” he heaves, vibrating with excitement at the thought.

You huff a chuckle. One hand clutches the sheets for dear life. The other one rests atop his head, fisting his hair.

Glossy eyes return to lock with him. You smile, speech still warbled. “Yeah? Think yer—fuck—good enough?”

Simon chuckles too as he fingers your cunt, scissors inside and presses upward. The more he insists, the wetter your noises become.

“Smartarse,” he smirks. “Don’t you dare, now.”

Breaths snags in your throat, voice cracked and wet. You challenge him anyway, because that’s who you are, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Dare what, L.T.”

“It’s Simon,” he says. A kiss lands soft on the apex of your pussy. “S’Simon for ya. Always has been.”

Gently, his tongue trails around your clit again, precise circles that tease and never touch. With his eyes, he follows the curve of your smile, how it softens even as tremulous as it is.

“Simon,” you breathe. “My Simon.”

“Fuckin’ hell, you got tha’ right.” His chest grows tight. “Yours.”

His mouth wraps around your clit and he sucks. Sucks until your moans are all that echo in the room—fuck it if someone hears. He’s home now—no more hiding in his barracks, no more run-ins at the HQ gym, or in the blind spots of the rec room.

It’s home.

“Fuck,” you groan.

Yes.

“Si—fuckfuckfuck—"

Yes yes yes—

You go silent, shallow breaths hitching in your throat. He’s insistent and relentless, pushing and sucking until your thighs shake on his shoulders.

Your breath is released all at once in a loud groan—cream around the base of his fingers, liquid pooling on his palm. You clench rhythmically around him, tight like a vise—it’s a harrowing job to keep his fingers moving, but he pushes through. Your clit pulses on his tongue, arousal coating his chin, as his own cock drips and aches at the friction it’s put through while he properly fucks the mattress.

You look even more gorgeous when your back arches off the bed and your thighs clamp against his ears. Sounds reluctantly muffled. Alas, worth it all.

You taste of heaven.

He pulls back enough to take out his fingers and prolong your orgasm, sliding over your clit. Thankful for the view he’s given now, as he catches his breath, watching you trying to find yours while your chest swells rapidly, shallow cries that sound like music.

“St—” You heave, “Stop, oh my G—”

But he doesn’t.

“Simon, fucking hell—god—” You snatch his wrist and pull it away from you.

He chuckles but obliges, done with his teasing. Counterweight for all you’ve done before. Feels fair.

“Hands off?” He quips, cocking his head between your legs.

You gasp. Shock paints you briefly, but you meet his joke with one hell of an irritated look—even as sweaty and breathless as you are.

“Oh fuck off,” you say with a chuckle.

There’s a pool under your ass, staining the sheets. You look wet and open, and his cock is still hard. However, those are thoughts that vanish when you guide him upwards, hand at the nape of his neck. When you lock your thighs at his waist, bring his mouth to yours.

He tastes you as you taste yourself on him—a fair exchange of sorts. A kiss that’s grateful and tender more than hungry and lustful.

Your hand snakes down his chest, teasingly traveling downwards.

“Don’t throw my own words at me ever again.” You breathe into his mouth, apple-cheeked and smiling.

“Can’t help it. ‘m a learner,” he replies, just when your hand finds his cock—throbbing in your palm, embarrassingly wet with precum. “And yer a good teacher.”

You give a few pumps to lubricate it, before guiding the head to your pussy. Easily as predicted, he slides in. No resistance, no painful stretch. You welcome him like that’s where he was supposed to be all along.

“Oh f-fuck,” you cry. His gaze takes in your face as it morphs for him: crinkles at the corners of your eyes, mouth agape and bitten by his teeth.

Simon’s mouth hangs open, head quiet and filled with you only. His cheek leans against your own, nose nuzzled on the side of your head as he inhales you—citrus, cigarettes, gunpowder and tea. Him, imperceptible and yet so obviously present on your skin. Pungent note in your sweetness.

Unmoving, he stays buried inside you, cradled within your arms as he exchanges the gesture and fits his palm beneath your head.

He can hear you sob quietly when his hips start moving, and your arms encircle him fully, until your chests are welded to one another. A growl rumbles in his ribcage when he drags his cock backwards. You’re impossibly wet still, and each time he bottoms out there’s a fat squelch resounding in his ears—and God, he can still taste it on his tongue.

Teeth sink into your neck and muffle his grunts. He can only pull back a handful of times before he feels his orgasm approach, so he decides to stop instead. Punch a gasp out of your mouth when he drives his cock forward and plugs you full, flush to you.

He rolls his hips deep, coarse hairs on his pelvis pressing to your swollen clit. You moan into his shoulder in that way that cracks in both pleasure and oversensitivity. Trembling himself, he lifts his face to kiss you, clumsily needing to smash his lips to yours—but he stops. The coil in his lower belly slackens as a weak tremble rankles his spine.

His eyes fall onto that blasted scar. It reaches just above your lid, and he instantly loses himself in a melting pot of what-ifs that almost make him forget where he is. You could’ve lost your eye, you could’ve lost your head.

You could’ve died.

And just when his gaze turns intense, veiled by a darkness that has no place in this predicament, you blink.

Simon breathes, comes back to his senses. His cock throbs, wrapped within your walls—velvety soft and scorching hot. His cheeks burn red, eyes cast heavy as his breath drops on your lips, almost liquor thick.

Perhaps you know, must’ve followed the trajectory of his eyes and how they had lingered on the thicker stretch of flesh on your brow. Gently, your hand lands on his jaw, traces the outline.

“Don’t go there,” you whisper. “Stay here, will you?”

Your legs stretch and curl around him, locking at his tailbone. He’d beg for you to keep him there forever, if he could find his voice, but it’s stuck somewhere in his chest—stay here. Stay.

Simon merely hums; body frozen stock still, tangled with yours.

“Got scared,” he croaks. “Tha’ day.”

Something lodges in his throat, perhaps scraps of the man he once was, trying to stop him from revealing too much. And still there’s an even stronger fist wrapped around his stomach, urging him to vomit everything out. Simon’s not one to ramble, not one to give in; however, this time, the latter finally wins.

His voice is measured and slow. Heavy like rocks grinding together, lighting a fire on dry wood. Nevertheless, the raucousness of it betrays the calm he wants to convey: panic so tangible he knows you feel it too, as your eyes grow heavy with water.

“Got so fuckin’ scared, pet. Thought I’d never see ya again, like tha’ last time—” he gulps. “—thought ya’d have to go through all tha’ shit again, with the surgeons ‘round ya an’ the fuckin’ machines blarin’—"

“But I didn’t—"

“—But I wouldn’t’ve turned my back on ya, love. Not this time. Not makin’ the same fuckin’ mistake twice. Woulda stayed, yeah? Soon as I made it outta tha’ hell. Watch yer six from a bloody chair next to yer bed—"

“I know,” you breathe, voice wet like your eyes, and sincere like no other. “Simon, love—"

Trembling, you cradle his face in both hands. You search for him, clawing away the panic that shrouds his vision—and you manage, though barely, letting light shine through.

“It’s alright.” You breathe. “It’s in the past, all that. We’re past all that.”

Simon leans into your palm, stubble scratching your skin, and with a grave sigh he breathes the dread away.

You drink it in your mouth, placing the softest kiss.

“I’m here,” you say. “Are you?”

A fucking million-dollar question, so of course it’s you who asks it. Share his same stories, you do: matching callouses on knuckles, plethora of scars tightening the skin.

Clever as ever, knowing him deep to the bone marrow.

Simon’s mind’s rarely where his body is—he’d wager you’ve seen that plenty. The dissociation, that thick veil dropping before his eyes. There were moments when he’d have chosen the barrel of a gun over your presence—because you made him feel alive, and for a man long used to being dead, that’s the worst outcome possible. Hope is a beautiful, horrible thing, and you brought plenty of it: stuck between your eyes, glued to your fingers, coating your tongue.

But he’s got his eyes on your face and you’ve got his face in your hands. Your head cradled in his palms and his waist locked between your thighs.

Clicking in place.

“M’here,” he breathes. “No place I’d rather be.”

His kiss is open and soft. Quiet reigns, occupies the room and wraps comfortably around you.

Gingerly, he palms the sheets, lifting himself on his knees while taking great care not to slip out of you. Once found his balance, his hands trace your body and settle on your hips, canting them upwards and lifting your ass off the bed. You reach behind you and blindly grab a pillow, and he helps you stuff it under your lower back.

Pliantly, you mould for him, let him guide you in the position he desires, hissing through your teeth when his cock inevitably pushes upwards. With a tilt of his head, he silently instructs you to place your legs on his chest, and that you do, comfortably hooking your ankles on his shoulders.

He holds you steadier than ever, watches the dewdrops on your lashes, the redness of your eyes, and your arms splayed above your head.

Looking like a dream.

There, he wraps his arm around your thigh, reaching with his thumb to your clit. He’s featherlight, soft circles that reignite the flame. You choke on a breath when his hips start moving, and he follows suit with a grunt when delicious friction finally strokes his cock again. Fingers curl around your shin in a loose grip as he turns his head to drown his noises on your skin, pressing his lips to the arch of your foot.

“Lemme look at you,” he whispers as he finds a gentle rhythm. “Christ—fuck—lemme look at you.”

Simon fucks you slow.

Rolls his hips each time he bottoms out, flattening the pad of his thumb to your clit—increasing pressure that makes you fist the sheets.

Simon fucks you as he watches you like a hawk, following your hands as they grip his forearms and dig red lines on the ink. Focuses on the space between your lips, on the sweat blooming on your chest as it glistens under strips of sunlight peeking through the blinds.

Enraptured, he listens to you. Sweet, mellow cries—as if this is too private for anyone else to hear, contrastingly from before. Quiet breaths and rare moans break your mould, and barely any noise comes from him; stole his breath away you did. Can’t even find his voice, heavier than ever, buried deep down in his chest.

Your pussy tightens again, seemingly sucking him in. He’s found a pace you like, so he keeps going at it, forgetting the soreness of the muscles in his thighs—unimportant even before, though more so now that your belly is fluttering again, in that way he recognizes.

“Like that,” you slur, speech warbled and wet.

Mindlessly he echoes you, though he’s focusing on something else entirely. On the rolling of your eyes, the weight of your legs on him, the breathy murmurs from your lips.

“Yeah, jus’ like that, love. Perfect.”

When you cum it’s a sight for sore eyes, perhaps even more than before. He can tell it’s not as strong, though it’s more drawn out. Something he built with you, something that shatters you thoroughly: trembling thighs, curling toes, stiff back against the bed. You struggle to take a breath, chest frozen in place as you focus your eyes to the ceiling, the O of your mouth wide to force the air in.

He replaces that. Folds inwards and onto you, slotting his lips with yours. Breathes oxygen into you as he fucks his cock just as deep, fighting against the hot tightness of your cunt that wants to spit him out. Scrambling, your arms wrap around him, and your fingers find his hair.

Your hips meet his thrusts, frantic just like his own as he loses the rhythm he set for you and finds one he prefers most. Gruelling and rough, ploughing in until he can feel you take a breath in the form of broken cries. Until the tightness of your cunt translates into familiar stiffness at the base of his cock, taut belly, and strangled throat. The wetness of you splashes the curls on his pelvis, and it’s not long before his own cum joins the mess you both created.

Simon cums with a grunt of your name. Desperate fucks follow it, curses and prayers poured into your mouth as your chest heaves to drink them all in. His ears ring and cotton, his name falling sweetly from your lips barely makes it through.

Unceremoniously, he collapses onto you, flat to your chest. Your legs slide down his hips, and your nails leave the dents crossing his back—scratches turn caresses, coaxing his floating soul back down in the cradle of your arms.

Purple kisses blossom on his throat, salt of his skin home on your tongue. He falls asleep while you cradle him on your chest. As the fog dissipates, he hears it before succumbing to fatigue.

“My Simon,” you breathe.

Yours.

It must be well into the day when he wakes up. The sunlight is not as gentle as previously that morning, and judging by how groggy he feels, he’d wager it must be much past midday.

Bedsheets are uncomfortably draped over his back, clinging to the wetness of sweat perspiring from his skin. Still, he doesn’t move. Opens his eyes instead with tired blinks, and takes in the environment around him.

Curtains drawn, windows closed. Blades of glaring sunlight fight their way through the cracks of the blinds, slicing the bedroom in onyx and gold. A book on his nightstand with the receipt he uses as a makeshift bookmark peeking out a couple of hundred pages in—black ink fading grey, though he’s confident he can read it like it’s still the same day he got it, when you jumped on the Humvee in high heels and a frown from a date gone horrendously bad.

Still drowsy, he turns his head the other way and finds a much better sight. Cheek to your pillow, eyes shut, your face is drowned in linen softness. There’s a sheen to your forehead that tells him you must’ve suffered the heat as much as he did, but you must have been just as tired and never bothered getting out of the bedsheets.

While his arm still tingles, he reaches for your cheek and brushes his knuckles against it. You’re tangible and warm, and that grounds him enough to understand that you’re finally resting—weapons holstered, the fight is over.

You were right. The walls around him are too high to climb and too thick to tear down. And you never managed, he reckons. Though he should’ve known better than to underestimate you: not once have you proved his scepticism right—not as a sergeant, not as a human being. Clever soldier, clever woman.

Because where you couldn’t climb, where you couldn’t break, you went through.

Turned yourself liquid before his eyes. Like water you fitted through the cracks between the bricks and made it inside where he rotted away, and yet you watered the earth: unshakable, undeterred, stubborn, wonderful.

Some pieces of you never made it through, still stuck in the walls and now part of them until the day he finally goes—and he’d bet even after that. They’re his most beautiful part, he thinks: crystals in between eroded bricks. Like water, they let the light through, scatter it inside of him where he’s never witnessed warmth.

“Love you,” he tests it on his tongue first, quiet but no less confident.

Your lips twitch in your sleep, and maybe asleep you never were.

And maybe, he knew that.

You stretch yourself awake, nuzzling your face in the pillow to hide a smile—Simon hates that you do that. He pokes at your side beneath the bedsheets to make it bloom instead, and that earns him a giggle drowned in linen.

Beaming, you return your eyes to him and scoot closer. He welcomes you eagerly in his arms, bending his head so the tips of your noses can touch.

“I love you,” he breathes to your lips.

And without even waiting for a heartbeat, you reply in kind.

“I love you.”

When you kiss him, he inhales you whole, closing his eyes to focus on touch and smell alone. Your lips are dancing slowly, your skin is humid and hot under his palm, grazed by callouses and the kindest touch he can manage.

You smell of citrus and gunpowder, of linen and spices, of lingering cigarette smoke and herbal black tea. You smell of you, and you smell of him.

And he thinks, for a fleeting moment, that if he only holds you closer, he might carry you in his very skin like you do with him. So he follows the pull of instinct, cradling you entirely—hands sliding down your back, lips kissing lips.

Simon decides, with unshakable certainty, that he will never let go again.