spidervman

[spidervman]

silly seals from outer space

[spidervman]

Supersonic

Pairing: CollegeAU!Bob Floyd x Fem!Reader!

Summary: When you ask Bob Floyd to tutor you after not doing so well on your first Advanced Theoretical Physics test, you never expected him to say yes, nor did you expect him to be so enthusiastic to teach you the material either.

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI! Smut and Fluff, Reader is an Engineering Major who is just trying to take a required elective that doesn’t tank their average, Bob is a Physics Major who is an overachiever and is top of his class. We love a good tutor trope y’all, and technically it’s friends to lovers hehehehe

Smut Warnings: Unprotected P in V Sex (y’all, wrap it up), Bob’s a certified munch…What Can I Say? It’s in the holy scripture lol, Oral Sex (fem! Receiving), Fingering, Dirty Talk, Teasing, Hair Pulling, Face Grinding, Bob’s got a bit of performance anxiety (and loves praise, but the man also likes worshipping hehehe), Breast Play, Bob’s giving sub vibes in this, Handjob (I don’t think I’m missing anything)

Author’s Note: Alright. Alright. I heard the crowd lol. I heard the masses, and I finally got around to writing for THE Bob Floyd....And I came out guns blazing on this one. I hope it’s not a let down, I know y’all have been waiting for something from me regarding this cutie patootie, so I’m glad I can please the masses 😂Enjoy!!! (Side note: I’m not a physics major but I took a few courses here and there, don’t strike me down if I don’t get certain things right about the questions please! lol) This was also a request by @shewhocallstothestars but I did modify it a bit (hopefully that's okay.) 😏

P.S: Evil stuff dropping this so casually on a Wednesday afternoon! Lol Surprise tho!

Word Count: 19,626 (HA!)

The first time Bob Floyd saw you, you were late for Advanced Theoretical Physics.

Not embarrassingly late–but just enough for the heavy lecture hall door to groan open and click shut behind you with a sound that echoed far too loudly in the cavernous space. Just enough to make the professor falter mid-sentence, his marker hovering above the whiteboard as heads turned in your direction like a wave.

Your chin stayed tucked, gaze low as you moved up the steps with a quick, purposeful stride that practically whispered “please for the love of god don’t look at me.” Still, it was a walk that carried weight. Not flustered or apologetic–just sharp. Like you were used to showing up in the middle of things and moving through rooms without needing to explain why.

But even if you didn’t owe anyone an apology, you didn’t want the attention.

Especially not in the outfit you were wearing.

You didn’t mean to put on anything eye-catching, but laundry day had come and gone without mercy. Between leading three straight days of exhausting freshman orientation–clipboard, whistle, and all–and trying to get your textbooks, syllabi, and housing situation in order before classes began, your options had run out. So you’d thrown on a slightly-too-tight zip-up hoodie, your college’s emblem half-hidden under the worn zipper, and the only clean bottom you had left: a black skirt you hadn’t touched since the first day of summer.

It rode a little higher than you remembered, and paired with your bare legs and sneakers, it was far from inappropriate, but in a room where everyone else was in jeans and sweats, it made you feel seen. And not in a way you liked.

You spotted a half-empty row about midway up the lecture hall, three seats in from the aisle, and made a beeline for it, holding your skirt down as you made quick strides towards the spot that had your name written all over it. The weight of dozens of eyes prickled against your skin, but you kept moving, zeroed in on that opening like it might swallow you whole and hide you from the ogling stares.

Bob was seated near the end of that row.

His notebook was open, half a page of densely packed notes already filled in with that small, impossibly neat handwriting of his. A mechanical pencil twitched in his right hand as you approached–still mid-spin from the distraction you had caused. He looked like someone who took school seriously, but not obnoxiously so. His light brown hair was cropped short and a little mussed on the top, as though he hadn’t quite decided whether to tame it or not–or the wind got to it and messed it up on the way to class.

He was wearing a white t-shirt–simple, fitted just enough to hint at the softness of muscle underneath, but crisp in that way cotton gets when it’s been folded with care. Not stiff, but starched just slightly from the wash, like maybe he had just done his laundry the night before. His jeans were a classic blue–not faded or overly worn, but comfortably lived-in. No rips or frays.

His glasses were perched low on the bridge of his nose, the thin metal frames glinting faintly beneath the harsh overhead lights–almost silver against the warm tones of his skin. They sat just crooked enough to suggest he’d pushed them up one-handed without really thinking about it. Lenses wide and clear, catching reflections of the whiteboard, but not enough to shield the way his eyes flicked toward you the moment your footsteps slowed beside him.

He looked sun-kissed from the dying summer–like August had clung to him a little longer than it should have. His skin was a shade deeper than it would be in a few weeks’ time, golden along his forearms and the high points of his face, like he’d spent the end of break outside–on rooftops, maybe, or walking alone down sidewalks still radiating heat. His lips were a touch dry, his knuckles faintly rough. But he looked steady. Bright-eyed and well-rested. Like he wanted to start the semester with good intentions and achievable goals.

You stopped just beside him–hovering for half a second, your bag shifting on your shoulder as you nodded toward the empty seat a few spots in.

”Sorry, just gotta get by,” You murmured, voice low and unassuming.

Bob looked up fully then and immediately shifted forward, pulling his legs in without hesitation. His knee brushed the underside of the desk as he tucked himself close to make room for you, the motion smooth but stiff like he hadn’t quite expected you to speak to him. Or maybe he hadn’t expected you to sound like that–soft, a little breathless from the walk up the gauntlet of steps, but still sharp.

You moved past him in one fluid step whispering a thanks, then your scent hit him.

It wasn’t overpowering. It wasn’t the cloying kind of perfume that lingered too long in a hallway. It was just…You. Soft and sweet, but grounded–like vanilla left to steep in warm skin, the subtle warmth of almond or cream trailing just behind it. Lotion maybe. Something gentle. Something worn, not sprayed on. Like it had been absorbed into your hoodie, your neck, the backs of your knees in the early September heat.

But then there was something brighter, just beneath it–like sugar and citrus had melted into the mix. Not sharp. Not tart. Just the idea of lemon. A barely-there twist of brightness that reminded him of the first sip of a drink on a hot day. Cool. Balanced. Memorable.

It made Bob lose all his grip on the pencil in his hand, and made him straighten slightly, as his eyes glanced over to you slipping into the seat three down from his, holding your skirt against yourself so it didn’t ride up when you settled. When you shifted–once, just enough to adjust your bag or maybe smooth your hoodie–his eyes dropped quickly to your legs.

Bare and warm-looking in the stale lecture hall light. The skin smooth, catching little glints of reflection in a way that made him stare too long before he realized what he was doing.

His gaze jerked back up, and his pencil fell out of his hands. He fumbled to catch it before it rolled off the desk and clattered to the floor, and somehow he barely managed to do it. He cleared his throat so quietly that it didn’t even echo under the dome of the lecture hall. And then he exhaled once, trying to shake off the heat that creeped up his neck, fingers curling tight around the side of his notebook.

You didn’t look at him. Not once.

Not even when you pulled out your pen and your fresh, untouched notebook and started scribbling quick, efficient notes in handwriting he couldn’t quite see. Not even when your fingers fidgeted once at the hem of your hoodie like you weren’t sure if it was covering enough. Not even when you tilted your head slightly to the left, exposing the faint shape of your jaw and that one stubborn wisp of hair behind your ear.

You didn’t look back.

But he couldn’t stop glancing.

Every time there was a lull in the lecture–every time the professor turned toward the whiteboard or paused to answer a question from across the room–Bob’s eyes slid sideways. Just for a second. Just to check.

He told himself it was just curiosity. That he hadn’t seen you around before, and that this class wasn’t usually the kind that brought in new faces. Not Advanced Theoretical Physics. Not on day one. And especially not someone like you.

You didn’t fit the mold–not in the way you moved, not in the way you sat. There was a presence to you, even when you were quiet. Like you weren’t just taking space–you owned it. It made him curious. It made him distracted.

It made the last half of his notes nearly unreadable.

He’d rewrite them later. He always did.

But he’d still remember the scent you left behind when you passed him. The subtle trace of sweetness and skin-warmed citrus that had settled in the air like something meant to haunt him.

And he’d remember that you never once looked back.

—————————

You didn’t speak to Bob until the third week of classes, when you got your first ‘mini’ test back and got hit with the harsh realities of the choice you had made in picking Advanced Theoretical Physics for your upper elective.

You got a 68. You had never got a 68 in your life.

Not in high school, not in your other college courses, not in anything that involved formulas or numbers or mental gymnastics you were usually proud to be good at. Being an engineering student was supposed to make classes like this feel natural. Calculation, logic, technical problem solving–it was your bread and butter.

But this? This was humbling.

You stared down at the note the professor had written in red just beneath the grade:

”Revisit your derivations–conceptual understanding needs tightening.” You didn’t even know what the hell that meant. You had studied everything possible to prepare yourself, you knew you had been on the right track, there was no possible way this was the right grade. Your jaw flexed, and you tapped your pen once against the corner of your desk before you forced yourself to still.

You tried to breathe through the sting crawling up the back of your neck, the tightness that formed just under your ribs. This wasn’t even a midterm–it wasn’t supposed to matter. But to you, it did. You prided yourself on being able to handle anything. Being the kind of student professors leaned on. A leader. Someone who could run orientation like a sergeant and still ace quantum mechanics in the same week.

And here you were. With a 68 circled at the top of your page like a slap.

You let the paper fall face-down across your notebook and sighed hard through your nose.

Then you glanced over.

Three seats down, Bob was sitting quietly, glasses low on his nose again, flipping his test booklet over to the back like he wanted to get one more long look at it before class officially started.

You caught a glimpse of the front page as he did–and there it was. Written in the same red your grade was given in, unmistakable in the overhead light.

97.

Clean, confident. Circled big enough to make a statement.

He didn’t look smug about it. Not exactly. But there was something in the way he stared at that number, his brows lifting faintly as if confirming to himself, Yeah, that sounds right. His lips were pressed together in a close-lipped smile, the kind people wear when they’ve worked hard and know it paid off. He tapped the eraser end of his pencil against the bottom of the page once. Then again.

Pleased as punch.

You didn’t mean to keep staring–but it was hard to look away.

His black t-shirt was tucked just barely into the waistband of his jeans today, like he’d rushed to get dressed but still managed to look clean and composed. His hair looked softer, freshly washed maybe, curling a little more than normal without any product in his hair. The sun-kissed flush along his cheekbones hadn’t faded just yet, but it was slowly revealing little patches of paleness beneath it. The silver frames of his glasses caught the light again as he leaned slightly forward, flipping to a fresh page in his notebook to take pre-class notes even though nothing had started yet.

He was…Prepared. Calm, and clearly good at this.

And you were not evidently.

You sat back slowly in your seat, gaze flicking toward the whiteboard, but your mind was still racing. Not with formulas. Not with panic. But with something slower, more deliberate.

You needed help. That much was obvious.

And unfortunately–or maybe fortunately–the only person who hadn’t fumbled through the last three weeks with shaky handwriting and unsure eyes was sitting just three seats away.

Then…You made a decision you never thought you would be making in a class you expected to be good in.

You were going to ask him for help.

It went against every fibre in your being–the pride you carried like a shield, the belief that if you just studied harder, dug deeper, figured it out on your own, you’d make it through. That’s how it had always worked before. You didn’t need tutors. You didn’t ask for things.

But your test score was still burning a hole through your notebook, and Bob Floyd was still sitting three seats down, calmly annotating equations while half the class looked like they were on the verge of weeping. He definitely had the highest mark and there was no denying that, and you had to pick his brain to see if you could emulate the same genius level thinking. Maybe there was a secret to it all, and he would somehow share it with you so you could make a quick recovery and still grasp honours at the end of the semester…At this point you’d take even the craziest solutions to save yourself from another embarrassing mark.

So…You waited until the end of the lecture.

It took everything in you not to bolt out the second the professor dismissed the room. You always left quickly–efficiently–avoiding the post-class shuffle of students with questions or headphones already in. But today you stayed seated, even as the sound of backpacks zipping and notebooks slamming shut rose around you like thunder. You didn’t move, just flicked your pen closed and kept your eyes on the spiral binding of your notes until most of the room had emptied.

You packed up faster than usual, sweeping your things into your bag in quiet, practiced movements–but you left your test out, folded once, red ink still just barely visible beneath the crease. Your hands felt warm. A little clammy. The kind of nervous energy you hadn’t felt since your very first midterm in undergrad. But you stood anyway.

Bob was still at his desk, leaning forward, transcribing the last few formulas the professor had scribbled across the bottom corner of the board. His notebook looked the same as always–clean lines, small print, mechanical pencil pressed tight to the paper like he didn’t know how to be imprecise.

You made your way down the row, test in hand, and stopped just short of his space. The words were already forming in your mouth, even before he noticed you.

You cleared your throat. “Hey… Sorry to bother you. You’re Bob, right?”

His head snapped up fast, and his eyes locked onto yours like he hadn’t expected you to actually exist this close.

“Uh–yeah,” He replied, “Yeah. Bob Floyd.”

You’d caught him off guard. You could tell by the way he blinked, like he had to reset. His mouth parted slightly, lips soft and chapped in the middle, and then–almost as if he remembered he was supposed to be someone in this moment–he cleared his throat and sat up straighter.

“You’re…Y/N? Right?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

He held out his hand, a little unsure. “Nice to meet you.”

You hesitated for a beat–because it wasn’t every day someone in a physics class offered a handshake–but you took it. His palm was warm and dry, his grip a little firm at first, like he hadn’t meant for it to feel that strong.

His fingers were long. His nails clean, almost manicured in a way that surprised you. His thumb brushed yours briefly, and for a second, the contact lingered just a little too long.

You let go, and Bob rubbed his hand on the knee of his jeans as you both sat in the pause that followed, air slightly charged.

You weren’t wearing anything special today–just an old cropped t-shirt that rode up when you lifted your arms and a pair of low-slung sweatpants that had long since given up trying to cling to your hips. A hoodie hung open over it all, soft with wear. It wasn’t much. Just lazy comfort. But something in the way Bob’s eyes dropped for half a second–just below the hem to a flicker of skin at your waist–told you it wasn’t invisible either.

He gulped again, trying to recover from being caught.

You cleared your throat. “So, uh… I was wondering if you offer tutoring or something. I kinda bombed that first mini quiz.” His brows lifted over the rim of his glasses–an expression halfway between surprise and amusement.

“I…I don’t offer it or anything,” He said, already fumbling a little, “But I can help, if that’s what you’re looking for…How bad did you do?” He asked, trying not to assume the worst, but knowing there was a possibility he was going to see a fairly bad mark, judging by the conversations that happened behind him when the tests were handed out at the beginning of class. You flipped the test open toward him, and he stared at the 68, a smirk drawing up on his lips. He let out a short, soft laugh through his nose, more of a warm exhale than anything mean.

”I mean…It’s not great, but I’ve seen worse.” You raised your eyebrows at him and smirked faintly.

”How comforting.” You mumbled. He shifted in his seat, thumb rubbing across the corner of his notebook like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. His gaze didn’t meet yours directly; it just hovered somewhere around your shoulder, your mouth, and your hair. He was still absorbing the fact you were in front of him asking to be tutored.

“I can definitely help you bring your grade up. It’s early enough in the semester to get it back on track.” He explained. Something in his voice steadied–like the gears in his brain had finally clicked into place. Like this was territory he knew how to navigate. Structure. Process. Solutions. A small smile tugged at your lips. A breath of relief rushed through you before you could stop it.

“Thank you so much,” You replied. And then, already leaning in with eagerness, “When can we get started?” Bob paused, chewing on the inside of his cheek as his eyes flicked slightly upward–thinking, scanning the mental file cabinet of his day.

“We could do today…You could meet me at the library,” He suggested, after a second, “I'm free after four.” You wrinkled your nose a little, already shaking your head.

“The library’s kind of a distraction for me,” You admitted. “It’s always too loud–someone’s always coughing or typing like they’re in a race. Even the reserved study rooms…I don’t know, it never really works for me.”

Bob tilted his head a little, listening closely, waiting for you to present a different option.

You hesitated for just a second before offering, more carefully now, “If you feel okay with it…We could study at my dorm? It’s definitely quieter. And there’s not much to get distracted by.”

You didn’t say it with any kind of tone. No flirt, no implication. Just facts. Just a space.

But Bob’s throat tightened anyway.

His mind, helpful as ever, immediately conjured the image–your dorm. What it looked like. What it might smell like. You curled up in your desk chair, with your hair pushed out of your face, sleeves rolled, and a half-empty mug of tea or coffee next to an open binder. Maybe your bed was still unmade. Maybe there was a bottle of lotion on your nightstand in the same scent that clung to you now, soft and sweet and skin-warmed.

He swallowed.

Hard.

Not because he had any ulterior motives. Not because he thought anything would happen. But because it had been a long time since he’d been invited into someone’s space like that. A woman’s space. A woman like you–all sharp eyes and soft smiles, casual comfort and effortless pull.

“Yeah,” He agreed, clearing his throat and nodding. “Yeah, that’s totally fine. If you’re comfortable with it.”

“I wouldn’t have offered it if I wasn’t,” You said easily, and the way you said it–so certain, so casual–made something tighten low in his stomach again.

“Okay,” He replied, and he finally looked at you. His blue eyes were steady behind his glasses, a little glassy from the fluorescents, but locked on yours. “Just email me your dorm number. I’ll bring the notes, you bring the test, and we’ll make a plan.”

You grinned, and god, it hit him like a sucker punch. Like something he hadn’t braced for.

“Deal.”

And then you turned, backpack swinging over one shoulder, hoodie hem swaying against your hips as you made your way back up the aisle.

Bob sat still for a moment. Longer than he meant to.

He hadn’t even packed up yet.

It took him another ten seconds before he finally exhaled, shoved his pencil into the spiral of his notebook, and muttered to himself under his breath–

“…Way to make this hard for yourself…You dummy.”

————————

Your dorm wasn’t anything glamorous–but it was yours, and that made all the difference.

When you unlocked the door and pushed it open after class, you were immediately met with the familiar scent of fabric softener and the faint citrus-vanilla from the reed diffuser you kept on the dresser. The room was small, technically a single dorm, but it was just enough space for you to carve out your version of comfort. Still, as you stood in the doorway, backpack slipping off one shoulder, you looked around and immediately thought that there was no way in hell it was going to stay like this, especially with a guest coming over.

You dropped your bag near the door, and got to work immediately.

The bed was first. You hadn’t made it this morning–just rolled out with your alarm still going, one arm flung across your eyes as you reached blindly for your phone, groggy and unwilling to admit the day had started. The sheets were still tangled, your navy-blue comforter half-slid to the floor, the corner twisted around your foot in your sleep. You tugged it all back with quick, practiced tugs, smoothing the fitted sheet until the last of the sleep wrinkles vanished under your palm.

Your comforter had a faint rip in the seam on the left side near your hip–stitched up once, badly, with mismatched thread. You’d done it the second week of your freshman year, the night you’d fallen asleep sobbing after a brutal call with your high school boyfriend, and woken up the next morning tangled so tightly in the blanket that it tore when you got up. You never fixed it properly. You kind of liked the scar.

You fluffed the single throw pillow you used for your head–an old one, pillowcase faded with soft clouds printed across pale blue fabric. Not the prettiest, but it felt like home. And the long body pillow you always fell asleep hugging–cream-colored, with one end slightly more smushed than the other–went right in its usual spot against the wall. A comfort thing. You didn’t sleep well without it.

Then you moved to your desk.

It was more shelf than desk, sure–but it held your brain in neat, tiny pieces. Notes, sticky tabs, a single battered wire basket for loose paper, and a coffee mug you never drank out of that just held highlighters, lip balm, and the same pair of scissors you’d had since high school. You stacked your textbooks neatly–physics, mechanics, one painfully dry thermodynamics manual–and slid your notebook on top, flipping it to the most recent page so Bob wouldn’t see your chaotic post-lab scrawl from earlier in the week.

There was a Polaroid pinned to the corkboard just above the workspace–one of you and your best friend from home, taken in your kitchen during winter break. You were both in pajamas, mid-laugh, a sliver of frosting from a baking experiment smeared across your nose. You paused for a moment, fixing the pin to straighten it, and sighed.

Your reed diffuser sat on the corner of the dresser–three pale wooden sticks soaked in a warm citrus-vanilla scent that reminded you of summer mornings and freshly folded laundry. The bottle was nearly empty now. You should’ve replaced it weeks ago, but you kept putting it off. There was something comforting about the familiar scent, even as it faded.

Near it sat a tiny glass tray shaped like a shell, where you kept rings you barely wore and two hair ties you always reached for. One had stretched out completely, the elastic barely holding together–but you refused to throw it away. It had survived too many late-night study sessions, too many chaotic mornings before class. It had history.

You lit your desk lamp–the one with the soft yellow bulb, not the bright blue-white you hated. It cast a glow across the room that made it look gentler, less like a dorm and more like a nook carved from a novel. Cozy. Private. You turned off the overhead light and stood there for a second, letting yourself just look. The soft shadows, the freshly made bed, the diffuser’s scent hanging lightly in the air.

You sigh, satisfied with your work, eyes scanning over the room once more. Everything was in its place. Not perfect, maybe–but it looked lived in, cared for, warm. It looked like you.

With that final breath of approval, you turned toward the door tucked just beside your dresser–the greatest stroke of luck you’d had all year.

An attached bathroom.

Single dorms were hard enough to land as a second-year, but a single with a private bathroom? That was near mythic. Your RA had called it the “housing lottery jackpot,” and you hadn’t argued. No communal showers meant no mildew smell clinging to your towel, no forgotten flip-flops, and–best of all–no awkward small talk with girls brushing their teeth beside you at midnight.

You stepped inside, shutting the door behind you with a soft click, and reached for your phone on the counter. 3:30 PM. Forty-five minutes, give or take.

Bob said “after four,” but something told you he wasn’t the type to be late. You weren’t sure if that meant he’d be early–but either way, you weren’t risking being caught in your towel when he showed up at your door.

Without much thought, you tugged your clothes off in a few quick motions and tossed them into the hamper tucked beside the sink. The hoodie fell in a heap, the fabric heavy with the day’s wear. Your cropped t-shirt was damp at the neckline, your waistband creased from sitting through the afternoon lecture. It all smelled faintly of the campus and the late-summer air–sun-warmed concrete, paper, and the barest hint of classroom chalk.

You flicked on the fan and twisted the shower knob until the water reached the right balance of hot–just shy of scalding.

Steam bloomed in the narrow space like it had been waiting, curling along the top of the curtain and fogging the mirror in soft, slow layers. You stepped in, letting the heat rush over your shoulders in a way that made your muscles go slack and your eyelids flutter briefly closed. You weren’t indulging, not really. You just needed to rinse the day away–strip it off like a second skin, let the tension from your shoulders drain down the tiles and vanish with the suds.

While the water beat down over the back of your neck, your thoughts began to drift.

Even though this was just a tutoring session–just notes, formulas, and a second chance at a first impression–it felt bigger than that.

You hadn’t brought a guy into your room in months.

Not since you’d drawn that invisible line in the sand–the one that said: this space is mine and mine only. Not since you started guarding your time, your energy, and your peace. You weren’t a prude–far from it. You weren’t closed off either. You just…Stopped inviting chaos into your life. And sometimes, chaos looked like someone else’s backpack thrown on your floor, someone else’s hand on your thigh or under the waistband of your sweatpants, or someone else’s voice asking, “Do you mind if I crash here tonight?”

You didn’t miss it.

But still–when you looked Bob Floyd in the eyes and suggested your dorm like it was no big deal, like it didn’t mean anything–something in your chest had fluttered. Not panic. Not excitement. Just a shift.

A crack in the routine.

Now, standing under the steaming pulse of your shower, with the scent of citrus shampoo rising like vapor and the water cascading down your spine, you realized you hadn’t really prepared yourself for that part.

Bob Floyd. In your dorm. Sitting on your bed, or at your desk…Breathing in your space.

You didn’t think it would be weird. He didn’t seem like the type to make things uncomfortable. If anything, he seemed like the kind of guy who’d knock twice even after you told him the door was open. He was polite. Mild-mannered. A little tightly wound in a way that made you think he probably alphabetized his class folders.

But you didn’t know him.

And it was dawning on you, as you tilted your face into the stream and let it blur your vision with heat, that this was only the second conversation you’d had with him. Two conversations, and now you were inviting him into the most intimate space a student could have–your dorm. Your bedroom. Your sanctuary. A place where your throw blanket still held the scent of last week’s laundry, and where your pillowcase had that faint stretch of mascara from the night you fell asleep before washing your face.

What if he thought it was messy?

What if he thought you were messy?

What if he saw the tangled cords beside your bed or the half-finished cup of coffee on your nightstand and assumed you were the kind of person who couldn’t get it together–even when your whole reputation said otherwise?

What if he looked at your 68 again, and thought you were dumb suddenly?

You hated that thought most of all.

You weren’t dumb. You knew you weren’t. You were sharp, resilient, calculated when it mattered–and still, you wondered if he’d already made up his mind about you. Academic ego like his–97s without breaking a sweat–probably came with an equally inflated sense of who could keep up. Maybe he was too polite to say it, but what if he thought you were just another pretty girl in a hard class, grasping for help she hadn’t earned?

You scrubbed your hands over your scalp trying to shake the thought loose, because it didn’t matter what he thought.

Right?

You’d asked for help. That was the whole point. And he’d agreed. He’d said yes without hesitation–well, after a small nervous stammer, but still. He’d seemed open. Kind, even. And if you were being honest with yourself–and not just stewing in self-preservation–you didn’t think he saw you that way. Not as dense. Not as helpless. If anything, he seemed genuinely surprised that you’d asked him at all. Like he hadn’t expected someone like you to even talk to someone like him.

You rinsed the last remnants of soap and shampoo off your body, letting the moment pass.

You weren’t going to overthink this.

He was coming over, he was going to sit down. You were going to go through your test and try and work through the incorrect answers, maybe laugh once or twice, and you’d be one step closer to not failing this class.

That was it.

You shut off the water, the sudden silence deafening in the tiny bathroom.

Steam clung to every surface. You wiped your hand across the mirror, catching your own reflection looking back at you–a few beads of water dripping from your hair, over your collarbones, down over your breasts, the light reflecting off of them like little glowing orbs.

You wrapped yourself in a towel, padded out onto the tile, and toweled your hair dry with slow, deliberate motions. You’d keep things light. Professional. You’d study. You’d ask questions. You’d nod along when he explained something that made sense. And then–

You paused.

Then maybe…Maybe you’d ask what his secret was. The 97. The sharp notes. The calm in his hands. The look in his eyes when he first saw you walking up those lecture hall stairs. Not because you wanted anything from it.

But because part of you was just…Curious.

You stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in the last traces of damp heat, the steam still clinging faintly to your skin like a second breath. The scent of your shampoo followed you into the room–light citrus, clean warmth, a kind of quiet comfort–and you padded barefoot across the tile, leaving soft marks on the floor that vanished almost as soon as they appeared.

Your eyes flicked to the digital clock on your nightstand.

3:55 PM.

Of course it was. Right on the edge of too early, which meant Bob would probably be here right on time–maybe even five minutes ahead, just to be polite. Just to prove he meant it when he said he took this seriously.

You crossed the room in quick, practiced steps, flipping through your clothes without ceremony. You didn’t want to overthink it. You couldn’t overthink it. You were still a little warm from the shower, your skin flushed and hair damp, and the last thing you needed was to feel sweat pooling under a too-thick hoodie while trying to understand whatever theoretical mind game was about to come your way.

So you grabbed a soft t-shirt–a light heather grey, already worn thin in spots from too many washes–and a pair of black workout shorts that hit mid-thigh. Functional. Comfortable. No-nonsense. You pulled them on in a few quick motions, not bothering with makeup or overthinking how the shorts made your legs look in the soft afternoon light that filtered through the slits of your blinds. It wasn’t about that.

You hung up your towels quickly on the hook by the door, turned to your desk, and yanked open the middle drawer with a quiet clatter. Your whiteboard markers were all crammed into a cup at the back–caps loose, labels fading. You pulled out four of them–blue, green, red, and black–and lined them up on your desk next to your notebook like you’d planned it that way all along. Some kind of subconscious need for control, maybe. Or maybe you just didn’t want Bob to see you fumbling for supplies mid-conversation.

Then you reached for the test. The test. The damn 68, still folded and creased and red-inked like a bruise on paper. You slapped it onto the desk with a sigh, the sound small but sharp in the quiet of the room. Your hands slid to your hips. You stared at it for a long second.

This was where it would start. Hopefully where it would turn around.

And then–just as your breath settled and you were about to pull your chair out–

Knock knock.

Two firm taps.

Not tentative. Not obnoxious. Just…Precisely delivered. Like he’d rehearsed it.

You sighed. Not from dread–but from inevitability. From the knowledge that this, right here, was the moment it would all shift. You rolled your shoulders once, exhaled through your nose, and crossed the room in five brisk steps.

You pulled the door open.

And there he was.

Bob Floyd stood just outside, backpack slung over one shoulder, a black three-ring binder hugged awkwardly to his chest like he didn’t quite know what to do with it. He had changed. He was wearing a navy t-shirt that clung just enough to his chest to remind you that he was broader than he looked seated in a lecture hall. His jeans were dark again–clean, cuffed slightly at the ankle because they were a little too long for his legs–and his sneakers looked freshly wiped down, as if he’d paused just outside the dorm building to rub them clean against the concrete.

His glasses were perched on his nose again, slightly fogged at the corners from the outside humidity. His hair was still a little mussed, like the wind had gotten to him–or maybe he’d run his hand through it on the walk over. His eyes met yours instantly, wide and a little unsure, like he was trying to memorize the moment.

“Hey,” He said, and it came out just a little too soft.

You leaned against the doorframe, one hand curled around the edge of it, the other still resting lightly on your hip. You didn’t mean to look casual–but you did. Warm skin. Damp hair. Legs bare in your shorts. You were dressed like comfort, like late afternoon, like a version of home he wasn’t expecting to see.

“Hey,” You returned. A small smile tugged at your lips. “Right on time.”

“I–uh, yeah.” Bob adjusted the strap on his backpack like it gave him something to do. “Didn’t wanna be early. Or, you know, too early. But also didn’t wanna be late.”

You stepped aside. “You’re good. Come on in.”

He hesitated just slightly before crossing the threshold, like he was stepping into a space that demanded a kind of reverence. And maybe, in a way, he was. His eyes swept the room instinctively, slow and deliberate–not nosey, just observant. His gaze skimmed over the bed, the desk, the glow of the warm lamp light, the closed bathroom door. Then back to you.

You watched him take it all in. The details. The neatness. The quiet hum of your diffuser still at work in the corner.

“This is…Nice,” He said finally. And he meant it. “Like, really nice. Kinda cozy.”

You smirked like you hadn’t been panic cleaning for the past hour or two, “I try.”He nodded once, still a little awestruck, like he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up here.

“Smells good too…Like you baked something.” You raised an eyebrow at him and gave a small laugh, motioning behind him.

”It’s just my diffuser.” Bob’s gaze drifted toward the thin plume of steam rising from your dresser, his face going slightly blush.

“Oh…” He blinked. “Didn’t notice that.”

The corners of his mouth twitched upward in a sheepish little smile, soft and crooked. He ran his palm over the front of his jeans like it might smooth over the awkward pause that followed.

You glanced over your shoulder at him, brow arched.

“Well,” You started, already moving toward your desk, “You can sit anywhere you’d like. I’m just gonna pull my whiteboard out so we have somewhere to work.”

He opened his mouth–maybe to respond, maybe to stall–but you cut in before the silence could return. “Do you want anything to drink? I’ve got water, Sprite, or…” you paused with a shrug, “an emergency stash of energy drinks if you’re into heart palpitations.”

Bob let out a short laugh, ducking his head as his fingers scratched the back of his neck. “Water’s good, thank you. Do you… need any help with anything?”

You shook your head with a quiet chuckle, already crouching to slide the whiteboard from behind your desk. “It’s all good, I got it.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” you replied with a grin. “Just get comfortable.”

Bob hesitated for a beat–then nodded once and toed off his shoes with quiet care, tucking them neatly beside the frame of your bed. The soft creak of your mattress followed as he eased himself up onto it, adjusting his binder across his lap. He settled back against your pillows like someone trying not to disturb a shrine. His back met the wall in a slow, deliberate lean, shoulders squaring before his legs stretched out in front of him, one knee bent just slightly.

You were still crouched in front of your desk, tugging the whiteboard forward and flipping the eraser out of the marker tray with practiced ease. When you stood and propped the board upright against the far wall–angled so you could sit beside the bed and still reach it–Bob’s gaze caught on you again.

He wasn’t proud of it. But he couldn’t help it.

The soft sheen on your legs caught the warm light from your desk lamp, the moisture from your shower still clinging in subtle streaks across your skin. Your shorts were tight–they were the kind that followed the natural dip of your thighs when you bent forward, holding you in all the right places. Every angle pulled his attention. The curve where your hip met your waist, the shadow along the back of your knee when you adjusted your weight. You were only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, nothing scandalous, nothing remotely calculated–but Bob felt like he was seeing something private.

Like you’d invited him into something sacred and forgot to mention just how much of you lived here.

He cleared his throat and glanced out the window beside your bed, the blinds slatted just enough to let in the softest touch of late afternoon sun. The light was golden. Low. Hazy in the kind of way that made everything look suspended in time.

He told himself to focus. On the equations. On the test in your hand. On the notes in his binder.

Not on the way your legs moved when you crossed the room again, not on the lotion-sweet smell of you that lingered now even stronger than it had that first day in class, and not on the sight of you–relaxed and warm and totally unguarded–in a way he hadn’t seen before.

You crossed the room with a bottle of water and handed it to him without fuss, and when your fingers brushed, he felt the jolt of it deep in his chest.

“Thanks,” He said quietly, cradling the bottle like a peace offering.

You gave him a smile. Not teasing, not knowing. Just kind. Grounded. Unbothered.

And that made it worse somehow. Made it harder not to stare. Harder not to wonder what this was becoming, and how much trouble he was in already.

Because he could memorize equations. He could build models, ace problem sets, and calculate theoretical orbital mechanics in his sleep.

But none of that had prepared him for you.

You didn’t sit right away.

Instead, you hovered just beside the whiteboard for a moment longer, the test clutched in your hand, thumb brushing over the red mark like maybe you could fade it out with friction alone. But Bob waited patiently–quiet, composed, the bottle of water still nestled in his lap like he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands yet.

You held the test out toward him. “Alright, let’s see how bad it really is.”

Bob offered a faint, crooked smile as he took the folded packet, careful not to smudge the corners with condensation from the bottle. He flipped it open to the first page, eyes scanning the first problem set. His gaze moved quickly–but not dismissively. He was reading, really reading, lips parting slightly as he traced your work with his eyes.

Then his brows lifted, just a touch–not surprise, but curiosity.

“Can you…” He glanced up at you, the glint of his glasses catching the light again, “show me how you got this answer? Go through it with me…I just want to pick your brain first. See your logic a bit.”

You hesitated, just for a beat.

Not because you didn’t remember how you got the answer. You did. You remembered every painful minute of trying to pull it out of thin air, piecing together old lecture notes and half-remembered formulas from late-night readings. But the thought of speaking it out loud? Of saying it in front of him?

That part felt…Vulnerable.

You bit the inside of your lip for a second, eyes flicking from the board to his face, then back again. Then, without a word, you bent down and picked up the black marker.

Bob leaned forward just slightly, shifting the binder onto the mattress beside him as you uncapped it with your teeth and started writing on the board. The soft squeak of dry erase on the surface filled the room.

“Okay,” You said finally, your voice steadier than you expected, “So the question was asking about particle behavior in a non-inertial reference frame, right? So I assumed we were supposed to use the rotating frame model the prof showed us last week. The one with the centrifugal and Coriolis corrections?” Bob nodded slowly, eyes locked on the board, on your hand.

You started to draw–carefully, neatly, the way you always did when trying to make sense of something. A circle. A line to represent the radius. Arrows for velocity, angular acceleration. You wrote out the base equation next to it, then began working through your substitutions.

“I plugged in the knowns here,” you continued, underlining as you spoke, “and then tried to isolate the pseudo-forces…but I think I misapplied the coordinate system. I used polar, but I think the solution assumed Cartesian.”

Bob made a small hum in the back of his throat–soft, thoughtful. You glanced back at him.

He was watching you. Focused, engaged. Almost the look a professor would give when they saw potential flickering just beneath a student’s mistake, and that made your throat tighten from the nerves that began to bubble over in your stomach.

Bob shifted again, the mattress dipping softly beneath his weight as he leaned forward, one hand braced on the bed beside his binder. “No, that’s good,” He murmured. “That’s actually really good. You weren’t wrong to try it that way. I think the issue’s just here–”He reached for the red marker from your stack, uncapping it with a soft click.

“See how you treated this term?” He pointed gently toward a partial derivative in your equation, careful not to touch the board. “You factored it like it was independent, but because it’s nested in the rotating frame, it still has angular dependence. That’s what threw the rest off.”

You blinked at the board, then at him.

“Wait…So if I’d just accounted for the cross-product instead of canceling it…”

“You would’ve landed within the margin of error,” He finished, smiling softly. “Easily a B. Maybe even B+ depending on how much partial credit he gave.” You stared at your own math like it had betrayed you and then slowly dropped your hand to your side, still holding the marker.

“That…Makes so much more sense,” You said, voice a little quieter now. Not embarrassed. Just a little humbled.

Bob stood up slowly, the mattress giving a soft groan beneath him as he rose. His steps were quiet but sure as he moved to stand beside you at the whiteboard, marker still poised in his hand like a baton he didn’t quite realize he’d taken control of. You stepped slightly to the side to give him space, though your shoulders still nearly brushed.

His voice came low, steady, as he started to rewrite the middle portion of your equation. His handwriting was sharp and balanced–blocky print with just a hint of slant, the kind of penmanship that spoke of hours spent copying down formula after formula with care.

“Your approach wasn’t bad,” He started, glancing at you just briefly before continuing, “Seriously. You just went too fast on the middle step, that’s all…And honestly?” He let out a breathy, half-laugh. “That’s the part that gets everyone.” You let out a quiet, half-aware chuckle–more breath than voice.

“Well…Evidently it doesn’t get you. You’re the one that got a 97.”

Bob flushed immediately. The back of his neck went pink first, then the tips of his ears. He ducked his head as he kept writing, though his next words carried a little laugh of their own.

“I’m a physics major,” He said. “So I better be getting that mark or else I’d be needing a refund from the school.”

You let out a real laugh at that–light, short, amused–and crossed your arms loosely over your chest, watching him scribble through the rest of the correction with a kind of practiced rhythm.

“No wonder you’re so good at this…” You muttered, more to yourself than him, but loud enough for him to catch.

Bob’s head tilted slightly toward you. “What’re you majoring in?”

You scratched the back of your neck, mildly self-conscious. “Engineering.”

He paused–just long enough to let the silence feel deliberate–and then let out a short, knowing laugh. “Ahh. Now it makes sense.”

You raised a brow, narrowing your eyes in mock warning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You guys are chronic overthinkers,” He stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

You scoffed, uncrossing your arms. “And you guys aren’t? Please. Look at all the work you need to do just to get a simple solution. Two extra diagrams and four substitutions just to prove a particle moves left.”

He rolled his eyes, the kind of eye roll that had barely any edge–just enough sass to keep the playfulness alive. “Least if I took an engineering course, I’d still hit an 80 on the tests.”

You blinked at him. “Wow. Bold of you to assume you’d survive statics.”

Bob turned toward you a little more, raising an eyebrow, eyes glittering behind the faint reflection on his glasses. “I’d thrive in statics.”

“Oh, really?” you said, grinning now. “You think you would have a handle on it?” He cleared his throat lightly and gave you a soft smirk, the corner of his mouth curling.

“Maybe if I had the right tutor.” You blinked once. And then…Smiled.

He turned back to the board and finished the last line of the solution with a soft swipe of the marker.

“There,” He said, voice quieter again. “That’s how I did it.”

You stared at the board, then at him. The space between your shoulders eased a little. The knot in your chest began to loosen.

”Well…That’s one question down…At least I know where I went wrong…” Bob nodded, tapping the cap of the red marker softly against his palm.

“Let’s go to the next one.”

You reached over to flip the test packet to the next problem set, fingers skimming over the thin paper before tugging the top page aside. The math was already crowding your vision–variables stacked in tight lines, subscripts nestled between integrals and force vectors–and you let out a breath as you raised the black marker again.

He stepped back slightly to give you room, standing just behind and to your left. You could feel the warmth of him, the quiet energy he held so close to his chest, just skimming your shoulder. You swiped the board clean with the eraser in a few broad, practiced strokes until nothing remained but the faint sheen of leftover marker ghosting the surface.

“I’m gonna admit,” You started, glancing at him from the corner of your eye, “I winged this one. So I’m definitely not gonna have an explanation for it.”

Bob shrugged, unbothered. “Then solve it,” He said casually. “Or attempt to. I’ll guide if you need it.”

There was a subtle shift in his tone–something a little less guarded, a little more drawled than usual. A slight southern cadence that lilted through the last few words, soft but present, like a warm hush pulled from somewhere deeper than lecture hall confidence. You felt your cheeks heat slightly at the sound.

Still, you nodded. “Alright.”

You started from scratch–no notes, no copying, just your best attempt. The marker glided smoothly under your hand as you worked through the logic piece by piece, pausing every few steps to reassess. You murmured quietly to yourself as you went, instinctively talking through the math aloud, and Bob said nothing–just watched. You could feel his eyes trace the path your gaze took, from the top of your diagram down through the first few steps of your math. Then–

“Nope. Wrong,” He interrupted, it came gently but firmly.

You blinked at the board, your hand frozen mid-step, and let out a quiet sigh. “Why?”

He stepped forward again, lifting the red marker. He didn’t correct it for you–just circled one specific term, the ink smooth and patient.

“This,” He pointed out, “You forgot to convert the mass into angular components. You treated it like a point mass.”

Your stomach sank just slightly. Not out of shame, but frustration. You dipped your head and started erasing that line.

“Sorry,” You murmured, almost under your breath.

“No need to apologize,” Bob said immediately, softer now. “Though I’m hopin’ this stuff sinks in…”

Your eyebrows knit, and you turned your head a little toward him. “Do you think it won’t?”

He shrugged, the barest lift of his shoulders. “It takes a while to apply the theory. Knowing it in your head’s one thing…Applying it to a random question is something else…But being able to fix your own mistakes is the first step to understanding things a little better to apply things properly.” You nodded once, pressing your lips together. Then you went back to work, quieter now, more deliberate. He watched you fall into the rhythm of the solution again, only stepping back when you didn’t seem to need his guidance. You could feel his eyes flicking down toward the test for a second before he moved behind you.

You heard the soft scrape of his hand over the textbook as he grabbed it from your desk, flipping it open with a practiced flick of his thumb. Pages whispered past each other as he navigated straight to the chapter you’d been tested on–like he’d memorized the structure without even meaning to. His eyes scanned the problems, fingers tapping the margin of the page as he skimmed.

By the time he turned back around, you were capping the black marker with a little sigh of effort. “I think I got it?”

Bob came closer again and tilted his head to read your work. His gaze moved from line to line, his mouth twitching just slightly before he nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, you got it.” You caught the smile as it crept over his face–unfiltered this time, soft and a little proud. He adjusted his glasses with one hand, pushing them up the bridge of his nose before holding out the textbook toward you, with his thumb slipped between the pages.

“Try number twelve,” He said, the corner of his mouth still lifted. “New problem. Same concept. Let’s see what you remember.” Your eyes scanned the paragraph of setup–classic physics problem: rotating frame, non-uniform mass distribution, some sly attempt to catch overconfident students slipping past the conversion factor. You clicked your tongue once and let your focus shift back to the whiteboard, grabbing the green marker this time.

He watched you move–quiet, efficient, no hesitation as you picked apart the language of the question, breaking it into manageable parts. You leaned your hip against the desk just slightly, skin catching the late-afternoon light in the softest gleam. Your fingers danced over your phone screen, pulling up the calculator, thumb tapping with precise rhythm as your eyes flicked between the numbers and the formulas.

Bob didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t staring anymore.

There was a faint shimmer along your shoulder from where the light met your skin, a dewy glow from the shower that hadn’t fully faded. You were chewing softly on the inside of your cheek, eyes narrowed in concentration, and he thought–briefly, helplessly–that he could watch you solve problems forever if it meant watching you like this.

You didn’t say anything. Not for the full ten minutes it took you to work it through.

You just calculated, and wrote, and thought. You whispered a few fragments to yourself as you filled in a diagram at the top right corner of the board, then traced your logic through in smooth, deliberate steps. You stepped back finally, the marker hanging loosely from your fingers, your other hand planted lightly on your hip.

You turned slightly toward him.

“Well?” You asked. “What’s the verdict?”

Bob blinked–once, hard. Then blinked again.

“Right,” He replied quickly, moving forward, the textbook now tucked under one arm. He studied your work for a moment, leaning in just enough to squint at one portion of your substitutions. His lips pressed together.

“You did most of it right,” He murmured, pointing to a midsection of your math. “This part’s good…But you forgot to apply the correction here–” He tapped gently on a bracketed term near the top. “That throws the coefficient off. Still–partial credit would be earned. It’s not like you’d lose all the points.”

You let out a breath and nodded. “Got it.”

Bob uncapped the red marker again and leaned forward, elbow bent as he carefully scribbled a correction in the margin beside your step. His handwriting was still annoyingly neat, even in red, even when rushed. He talked you through it slowly, the pace gentle but firm, breaking down the terms like a translation instead of a reprimand.

Your arms crossed as you leaned against the edge of the desk, chin tilted toward him slightly. He didn’t rush, didn’t sound superior–he just…Taught. Like he wanted you to understand it, not just memorize it.

You smirked.

“You should become a professor with the way you teach.”

Bob glanced over his shoulder at you, an amused little tilt to his head. “Why? Am I boring you?”

You let out a real laugh this time, low and warm and amused. “No. Not yet, at least.”

He turned a little more to face you, one hand still holding the red marker.

“Don’t speak too soon,” He warned, the corners of his mouth pulling into a slow, boyish grin. “I’m sure I’ve got a lot more opportunities to do that.”

And even though the whiteboard still glowed behind him, filled with formulas and diagrams and half-solved questions, all you could see was the quiet crinkle at the corner of his eyes, and the way his voice–soft, sincere–almost sounded like a promise.

————————

Bob’s elbows rested on his knees, fingers loosely laced, binder long forgotten beside him on the bed.

You were pacing.

Again.

Back and forth in front of your desk, your physics textbook open in your hands like it might suddenly say something different if you glared hard enough at the chapter title.

“I don’t understand,” You huffed, fingers tightening around the spine of the book. “We’ve been working through these questions almost every night for the past two weeks. I’m getting them very close to right when I do them here. I know what I’m doing on the whiteboard, I’m getting partial credit in class–but then I sit down during the quiz and it’s like…Like my brain just decides to take a smoke break.”

Bob watched you quietly from the bed, his gaze flicking down briefly as your shirt lifted with your movements. The hem rose just enough to show the waistband of the boxer shorts you’d thrown on after your shower, the edge of soft cotton skimming the top of your thighs as you turned in another sharp step.

He didn’t say anything. Not at first. Just watched. Like he always did when you got worked up–like his stillness might balance out your storm.

You dropped the book onto your desk with a soft thud, dragging both hands through your hair before planting them on your hips in frustration.

“I mean, it’s ridiculous,” You muttered. “I can do it here. I’ve done it. You’ve seen me do it. What the hell happens between here and the classroom?” Bob leaned back slightly, hands now braced behind him against the bedspread, one leg bent, the other stretched long.

“Do you feel anxious when you’re writing the test?” He asked, tilting his head just a little.

You turned to look at him, brow furrowed.

“It’s a normal amount of anxiety,” You said flatly. “What, are you about to tell me that’s why I’m still not doing well on quizzes? A little test stress?”

He shrugged, his lips quirking upward like he knew he was about to toe the line. “Could be,” He replied simply. “Or…Maybe you just need some kind of…Positive reinforcement.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Positive reinforcement?” You repeated slowly, curious and suspicious of how he was bringing up the topic.

He nodded, straight-faced. “Affirmations. Encouragement. Rewards. You know. Psychology stuff.” You crossed your arms, the motion slow and deliberate, as you turned fully to face him. Your hips settled just to one side, weight shifting into that slightly challenging posture–the kind that said you weren’t going to let this slide, but not in the way he should be afraid of. Your head tilted a little, eyes narrowed like you were sizing him up. Watching.

Noticing.

And God, was he blushing.

Not a violent flush, but that creeping kind–the kind that started at the tips of his ears and crawled slowly down the sides of his neck like embarrassment blooming from the inside out. He wasn’t meeting your gaze now. Just staring down at the binder on his lap, his thumbs rubbing over the edge of the plastic like it had something important to say.

You didn’t say anything at first. Just stared. Took him in.

The soft slope of his shoulders where they leaned back into the pillow. The subtle indent his jaw made when he clenched it without meaning to. The flush of red creeping into his cheeks, all while trying to keep that composed, helpful tone–like he was still just your tutor and not someone who thought about kissing you when you leaned too close during derivatives.

The silence held for a beat too long.

Then you spoke.

“So you’re trying to condition me?”

Bob’s head snapped up, and his eyes met yours–wide, startled, and already bracing for the tease he knew was coming. But then, to your surprise, he laughed. A real laugh. Short and soft and so genuine that it made the tips of his ears go even redder.

“N-No!” he said quickly, shaking his head, that lopsided smile overtaking his face. “Jesus–no, I wasn’t–conditioning you?”

You smirked, keeping your arms crossed like a challenge. “It kinda sounds like you’re conditioning me.”

He laughed again–this time accompanied by a quiet snort he couldn’t quite swallow down fast enough. It made your grin widen.

“I’m not trying to train you like a dog,” He commented, wiping a hand down his face with mock-exhaustion. “I just meant…If you associate physics with something good, maybe your brain will stop freaking out every time you’re handed a test.”

You blinked at him once. Raised an eyebrow.

“So…” You started, slowly, carefully, “You’re trying to open my third eye for physics?”

Bob looked at you. Deadpan. “That’s not what I said.”

You stepped closer, a teasing lilt curling into your voice now as you gestured with one hand. “No, no, I think that’s exactly what you said. You want me to transcend. Find academic Nirvana through external praise.” He rolled his eyes.

”Okay. Now you’re just twisting my words.” You raised your eyebrows.

”Am I?” You grinned. He gave you a look. A very Bob look. One part fond, one part I walked into this with my eyes wide open and it’s too late to leave now. But the pink still hadn’t faded from his cheeks.

You leaned your hip against the edge of the desk again, bare thighs catching the warm glow of your desk lamp, watching the way Bob’s eyes flicked toward your legs and then immediately back up again.

“Alright, Professor Floyd,” You said lightly, “I’ll bite. What kind of positive reinforcement are we talking about here? You handing out gold stars? Stickers? Should I bring a report card for you to sign?” Bob cleared his throat. It was soft but unmistakable. A nervous reflex that made him sit up a little straighter on your bed, one hand rising to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose even though they hadn’t really slipped.

“I mean…” He trailed off, eyes fixed on some distant point above your shoulder. “I was thinking more like…A kiss.” Your entire body stilled, hands still loosely clasped in front of you from your teasing posture, your weight half-shifted against the desk. A beat passed–just long enough to wonder if you’d misheard him. But then his eyes flicked back to yours, just for a second, and the heat in his gaze made it impossible to pretend he hadn’t said exactly what you thought he did.

You could feel your cheeks warm–instantly, helplessly–heat blooming beneath your skin like it had been waiting for the right moment to spill forward. But you masked it with a slow raise of your eyebrows and a smirk, playful but laced with that sharp new curiosity curling low in your gut.

“Yeah?” You said, voice softer now. You shifted your weight and tilted your head. “A kiss? That’s what you had in mind?”

Bob’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Hard. His eyes flicked to the space beside your head before dropping to the floor–then back up to you, like he was trying not to look too long but couldn’t help it. He shifted on the mattress, fingers brushing over the edge of the binder like he needed something to hold onto. “I-I mean…It was just an idea. One of…Several.”

You stepped closer.

“Is that what you’ve had in mind this entire time?” You questioned, voice low, the smile on your lips laced with something sweeter now–teasing, but sincere. “Kissing me?”

Bob let out a nervous little laugh, breath catching as he tried to string together a reply. His knuckles were pale where they gripped the binder now, eyes flicking toward your legs again before jerking back up to your face.

“I–no, I mean, not… I never really got that idea till today,” He muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just thought—I don’t know. It might help.”

You took another step forward.

“You sure about that?” you asked, the words curling in your throat like heat, low and just a little amused. Now you were standing directly in front of him, and the change in height made it impossible not to notice how he looked up at you–head tilted back slightly, wide blue eyes tracking your every move. His glasses slid a fraction down his nose, but he didn’t dare lift a hand to fix them.

His mouth opened and closed once before he found his voice. “I personally…Think it might work,” He murmured.

Your eyes flicked down to his lips–soft, parted slightly, flushed–and then back to his eyes. He was blinking slow now, like your presence this close was physically slowing his thoughts.

You bit your lip. Slowly. Purposefully.

“So you’re telling me,” You said, almost whispering now, “That you want to reward me with kisses…Whenever I get a question right?”

Bob exhaled through his nose. His legs had parted slightly where he sat, not intentionally–but enough to suggest his body was reacting faster than his brain. He nodded once, tentative but clear. His voice dropped lower, barely above a whisper.

“I could…Do a whole lot more than kisses,” He said.

The second the words left his mouth, his eyes widened slightly, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Like he hadn’t even known he was capable of it. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of the binder, his spine curving slightly forward as if he could fold himself up to hide from the boldness that had just escaped him.

Your breath caught–just barely–and something about the way he said it, almost reverent, almost pleading, sent a shiver down your spine. You watched his throat work, his chest rising and falling in subtle, shaky breaths.

He wasn’t cocky. He wasn’t teasing you back with confidence.

He wanted you.

Desperately.

You leaned in, closing that last bit of space between your knees and the edge of the bed until your thighs brushed his. The binder slid from his lap onto the comforter with a soft thud, forgotten.

“Yeah?” You murmured, voice warm, velvety, almost indulgent. “You think you could do more?” Bob nodded, slowly–eyes wide, lips parted, breath coming a little uneven now, fanning over your face.

“If you’d let me,” He said quietly, “I’d do anything.”

The words landed between you like a weight, heavy with longing, trembling with truth.

And you believed him.

Because Bob Floyd didn’t say things he didn’t mean.

He didn’t play games. He didn’t flirt to win. He offered, quietly, completely–like giving a piece of himself to someone felt holy.

Your hands moved before your mind fully caught up, instinct carrying you as you lifted them slowly–deliberately–and rested them against the sides of his neck.

He was warm.

The kind of warmth that radiated from beneath the skin, the kind that felt like it could seep into your palms and settle somewhere inside your chest if you let it. His skin was soft under your thumbs, his pulse fluttering just beneath one, and when your fingers brushed lightly over the edge of his jaw, you felt the tiniest hitch in his breath.

Bob stilled.

Completely.

The kind of stillness that only came when something sacred was happening–like he didn’t want to risk breaking the moment by breathing too loud.

And then you leaned in.

Not rushed. Not hungry. Just slow–measured. Confident in the space he’d given you. Confident in the way his knees shifted to make room for you between them, in the way his lips had parted already, waiting, hoping.

Your nose brushed his cheek softly. His glasses tilted just slightly from the nudge, slipping down the bridge of his nose in a slow, unbothered drift. You felt the ghost of his breath over your mouth, shaky and warm, and then–

You kissed him.

Gently. Just once. Lips pressed to his like the start of a sentence that would take its time to finish.

Bob breathed into it–exhaled a soft, shuddering hum from the back of his throat that vibrated against your mouth. His hands came up slow, tentative, like he didn’t want to assume. But then they settled–one sliding to your lower back, warm and careful, the other ghosting over your hip before stilling there.

And then he kissed you back.

Really kissed you.

Slow at first. So slow it made your knees weak.

He lingered on your upper lip, plush and steady, then pulled back half an inch and tilted–just enough to brush your bottom lip between his with soft, seeking pressure. His lips moved with purpose, not urgency. Thoughtful. Intent. Like he wanted to memorize you in pieces, to map the shape of your mouth one breath at a time.

You made a soft, involuntary sound into him–a quiet, pleased little “mmm”–and he kissed you again like he needed to drink it in. His thumb pressed lightly against the small of your back, grounding him, grounding you. Every motion of his mouth was reverent, restrained, and dripping with a kind of intimacy that made your skin burn.

You pulled back just an inch–lips brushing his, breath warm between you.

His eyes fluttered open slowly, lashes sweeping against flushed cheeks. His pupils were blown wide behind his fogged glasses, lips pink and slightly parted, his chest rising and falling with careful, controlled breaths. He looked dazed. Unmoored.

You smiled.

A quiet, knowing smile, and let your thumbs brush the sides of his jaw.

“Better go get the next question right, huh?” You whispered, teasing but breathless. “Gotta meet my end of the bargain.”

And just as you started to pull back, maybe to reach for the marker again, maybe to hide the way your heart was slamming against your ribs like a drum–

Bob’s hand on your lower back pressed just slightly.

“Wait,” He murmured, voice low and husky now. “How about we suspend the studying for now?”

The words came quiet. Careful. But you could hear the edge beneath them–that hunger he’d tried so hard to suppress now curling softly around the syllables.

You arched an eyebrow at him, still close enough that your noses brushed.

“Hmm…” You started, a smirk pulling at your lips. “Now you’re just going to end up distracting me.”

His eyes flicked down to your mouth. Then back up.

You ran a finger gently down the side of his neck, your voice warm and teasing.

“Let’s stick to the plan…” Bob exhaled slowly. Like it took everything in him not to pull you back in.

His hands didn’t move. But he nodded.

Barely.

And when you stepped away and turned toward the whiteboard again, you could feel the heat of his gaze trailing after you–like he was trying to sear every inch of the moment into memory.

———————

By the second correct answer, you were setting a timer for yourselves.

Ten minutes. That was the new rule.

Ten minutes per problem, per kiss. No exceptions. No shortcuts.

Because the last time you’d leaned in for one–intended to be short, controlled, just enough to make good on the deal–you’d ended up in his lap. His hands had slipped under your shirt almost instinctively, like they knew where to go before he consciously gave them permission. And when his palms flattened against the small of your back, warm and strong and bare, your breath had hitched in a way that surprised you.

Not because it was too much.

But because it was exactly what you hadn’t realized you’d been needing.

His fingers pressed into your skin–not harshly, not possessively, just enough to ground you. Like he couldn’t believe he was touching you and needed to memorize the shape of your body with his hands before you slipped away again. You’d gasped into his mouth, not even meaning to, and felt him inhale like the sound had gone straight to his chest.

And then you kissed him harder.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, wrecking the neatness of it with the kind of carelessness that only came when heat outweighed hesitation. You pulled, just a little–testing, exploring–and he moaned softly against your lips like it cracked him open. His glasses were crooked by then, fogged from your shared breaths, and neither of you bothered fixing them. The world could stay blurry if it meant this stayed sharp.

Somewhere in the haze, Bob’s shirt had come off. You hadn’t meant for it to escalate. It had just…Happened. One minute your hands were sliding beneath the hem, feeling the heat of him, the tension in his abdomen, the ridges of muscle that lined his stomach, and the next, the shirt was gone. Flung off to the side without a single graceful motion. You hadn’t even looked where it landed.

He was solid beneath you. Not chiseled in a gym-rat kind of way, but strong in that natural, everyday way. Like he was built for work. His skin was sun-warmed with just a pinch of colour, a faint line of tan cutting across the middle of his arms where T-shirts always stopped. You touched him like he might disappear. He held you like he never wanted you to.

And God…He was good.

Surprisingly good.

Not in the way of someone who practiced, but someone who paid attention. Someone who kissed with focus. With reverence. Like your mouth was an answer he’d been solving toward for weeks. He kissed like he studied–slow, thorough, intentional. His tongue was gentle at first, coaxing. His teeth grazed your lip once, barely, and you swore you could feel it in your spine. When he kissed you the second time–after the next problem, when your timer dinged again–you already knew it wasn’t going to stay brief.

And it didn’t.

He pulled you in with hands that were just slightly rough from calluses and pencil grooves, fingers curling tight around your waist, your ribs, like he needed to feel you under his hands. And when he slipped those same fingers under the hem of your shirt again—this time slower, surer–you let him. You wanted him to. His touch wasn’t greedy. It was searching. Savoring. Like he was learning every inch of you the way he learned his formulas.

And you didn’t realize how touch-starved you’d been until then.

Until the heat of his hand met the curve of your spine, and you arched into him like your body had been waiting for permission. Until he kissed down the side of your jaw, slowly, reverently, and you felt the hum of it in your chest. Until your own hand traced the broad slope of his shoulder, down over the rise and fall of his ribs, and found nothing but steady strength and gentle restraint.

You didn’t say it out loud–but he could feel it.

The hunger in the way you kissed him. The gratitude in the way your hands explored him. The desperate edge that slipped into your breath every time you whispered his name between kisses like it wasn’t something you’d meant to do.

And maybe it wasn’t about physics anymore.

Maybe it never really was.

Because as Bob pulled back, breathless and flushed, his glasses still askew and hair mussed into soft waves from your fingers pulling and tightening, he looked at you like you’d changed something fundamental inside him. Like you’d opened a door he didn’t know was locked. Like he couldn’t stop even if he tried.

Your timer buzzed again in the background. Neither of you moved.

“…You got that one right,” He whispered, lips brushing your cheek “Think you deserve…A break.” You let out a breathless little laugh, your chest still rising and falling with the aftermath of the last kiss. Your hair was a bit mussed from his hands, your lips slightly swollen from the soft, reverent press of his mouth–and you were dizzy, absolutely dizzy with the way he looked at you.

“Bob…” You murmured, voice playful, warm, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve got some sort of ulterior motive.” Bob, still slightly breathless, hand still planted firm and reverent on your thigh, sat back just a little. Enough to give you a look. One of those boyish, guilty-but-not-really guilty grins that curled slow at the edges and made your heart skip.

He pressed a hand flat to his bare chest, wide-eyed in mock innocence.

“Me?” He said, lips twitching. “No…Definitely no ulterior motives here. I’m just…” He leaned in again, close enough for his breath to dance against your jaw, “Trying to do something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.” Your brows lifted, pulse tripping.

“Oh?” You murmured, teasing but curious. “And what’s that?” He pressed a kiss to your jaw–so gentle it nearly didn’t register as a kiss at all. Just warmth. Just intent. Then another, lower, slower, right beneath the curve of your ear. And then:

“Going down on you,” He whispered.

The words landed hot, like they’d been spoken directly into your bloodstream.

Your breath hitched audibly. You swore you could feel your pulse flutter in places you didn’t think could react to words alone. Heat pooled low in your stomach like syrup spilling into something hollow. Still, you managed a quiet, almost incredulous laugh, voice tightening as you tilted your head to look at him again.

“Now I need to know,” You said, fingers threading back into his hair, “How long you’ve been thinking about that.” Bob let out a soft laugh, one hand splaying open against your hip, the other bracing himself still, like he needed to keep steady before he admitted anything to you. He kissed down your neck again, slower this time–each inch of skin passed over with the kind of devotion that said this wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment confession.

And when he reached the collar of your shirt, where the fabric hung loose from earlier tugging, he nosed at it gently. Not greedy. Just wanting more.

You tugged lightly on his hair, not to stop him, but to coax him to pause–just enough to get him to look up.

“Hey,” You said softly, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips. “How long have you been thinking about doing that?”

Bob’s eyes flicked up to yours–blue and wide and already glassy with the weight of how badly he wanted you. And then his face turned a shade deeper, that telltale blush painting up his cheeks and crawling behind his ears.

“Since…” He paused, like the words were too embarrassing to say. “Since the first day of class. When you came in late…Dressed in that skirt.”

You blinked, lips parting slowly.

“The black one?”

He nodded, eyes darting to your mouth like it might give him the courage to keep talking.

“It rode up just a little when you walked past. And you sat a few seats down and didn’t look at me once. And I–” He broke off for a second, laughing nervously. “I dropped my pencil because of how you smelled and how your legs looked and because you didn’t even notice me looking.”

You stared at him.

Then grinned, slow and wicked.

“Well,” You murmured, leaning in again until your lips were just barely brushing his, “Guess it’s a good thing you’re getting your chance now.” Bob exhaled a shaky breath–one of awe, of disbelief, of absolutely overwhelmed want.

And then he kissed you again.

The kiss that followed was nothing like the first.

It was deeper. Hungrier. Your lips opened beneath his without hesitation this time, and he drank in the permission like it was oxygen–his hands curling tighter around the backs of your thighs before lifting you effortlessly into his lap. You gasped softly against his mouth as your knees bent around him, your weight settling against the solid warmth of his thighs, your hands sliding up the broad slope of his bare shoulders.

He kissed you like he’d waited for this.

Like every moment you’d spent leaning over equations, brushing fingertips, trading teasing words had led to this exact point–and now he had you here, soft and open in his lap, your legs bare and warm against denim, your breath stuttering into his mouth every time he tugged you closer.

His hands slid beneath the hem of your t-shirt again, palms hot against your back, and this time he didn’t hesitate. The fabric peeled upward in one smooth motion–up, over your ribs, brushing your chest–until you lifted your arms and let him tug it off completely. He tossed it somewhere behind you, neither of you looking to see where it landed.

His eyes dropped.

The moment he saw what you were wearing underneath, his breath hitched—and for a second, he didn’t move. A soft cotton sports bra in a worn, dusky pink–simple, comfortable, a little faded from wash after wash–but the way it hugged you? The way it molded to the curve of your breasts, straps digging gently into your warm skin?

Bob Floyd looked like he’d forgotten how to speak.

He swallowed once. Then again. His glasses had slipped slightly lower on his nose, giving him that boyish, dazed expression he got whenever something completely wrecked his train of thought. You watched his eyes trail over you, caught between reverence and want, and then–

He hummed. A soft, breathy sound from deep in his chest. Something unfiltered. Something warm.

Then he looked back up at you.

And kissed you again.

His hands gripped your hips now, anchoring you down in his lap like he didn’t want you to shift an inch. He kissed you harder–open-mouthed, deep, letting out a quiet groan as your hips rocked forward ever so slightly. He didn’t say anything. Just let the noise fall between you, ragged and raw, swallowing your gasp as he shifted his grip and guided you until your back hit the mattress.

The room spun gently with the motion, soft yellow light from the lamp catching in the lenses of his glasses as he leaned over you. His body followed—broad shoulders, warm bare chest pressing down as he settled between your legs. He braced his hands on either side of your ribcage, framing you like a question he couldn’t stop asking. His eyes searched your face for just a second, but you nodded–softly, wordlessly–already reaching for him again.

He dipped his head.

Kissed your throat.

Then lower.

And lower still.

He took his time.

Every press of his lips trailed down the line of your collarbone, across the top swell of your breasts where the fabric cut gently across your skin. His glasses slipped again, nearly falling off–but he didn’t stop. Didn’t even lift a hand to adjust them. He kissed you through the blur, lips brushing the tops of your breasts like they were something sacred.

You let out a quiet sound–half gasp, half moan–and threaded your fingers into his hair again. His tongue flicked out, tasting the salt of your skin as he groaned softly against you.

“Are you always this sensual?” you whispered, voice thick, dazed, breathless.

Bob let out a quiet sigh, like your question made something in him ease and deepen at the same time.

“Let’s just say I love giving…” He murmured, kissing the center of your chest. “…A lot.”

The way he said it–low, quiet, honest–made your legs clench involuntarily around his waist. Your mind flooded with images far too filthy for someone as sweet as Bob Floyd to inspire.

But then again, the way he looked right now–glasses fogging, lips red and glistening, his chest moving in slow, hungry waves with every breath–maybe he wasn’t that sweet after all.

His fingers reached for the thin straps of your bra.

“Hope you don’t mind,” He whispered against your skin, lips still pressing hot kisses between every word.

You shook your head quickly. “I don’t mind at all…”

With a reverent kind of care, he slipped the straps off your shoulders. One. Then the other. His fingers brushed your arms on the way down, the backs of his knuckles ghosting over your skin like he was memorizing it. Then–slowly, carefully–he tugged the fabric down, baring you to him inch by inch.

His breath hitched.

Your breasts, soft and flushed from heat and touch, rose with every breath you took. Bob didn’t reach for you right away. He just…Looked. Let himself take it in. His hands slid up your sides again–rougher now, purposeful–and when they cupped the curve beneath your breasts, his thumbs brushed upward, stroking slowly until your nipples tightened under the attention.

His glasses fogged completely.

Still, he didn’t take them off.

He leaned in and kissed the soft mound of your left breast, then your right, each kiss dragging slower than the last. His lips were gentle, his hands firm, and when he finally brushed the tip of his tongue over your nipple, your hips bucked without warning.

“God,” You whispered, your hands fisting in the sheets beside you. Bob just smiled. Quietly. Like he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Sensitive?” he murmured, lips hovering just over your nipple again, breath warm and teasing.

You shook your head slowly, fingers curling into the sheets. “I call it anticipation.”

His low laugh rumbled against your skin. “Didn’t know we were calling it that now… but okay.”

Then he kissed you again–this time firmer, lips wrapping around your nipple with a slow, aching pull that made your hips twitch beneath him. His tongue was wet and warm, lapping slow circles around the soft peak before closing over it again, sucking just a little deeper now–just enough to make you moan quietly, enough to send a thrum straight between your thighs.

His hands didn’t stop, either–broad palms sliding up and down the sides of your ribcage, thumbs sweeping in careful, reverent passes. He alternated between breasts with the same kind of concentration you’d seen in study sessions: deliberate, measured, like he was solving you.

And when he finally pulled away, lips red and glistening from worship, he blew a soft, chilled stream of air across your saliva-slick nipple–then the other.

Your entire body arched. He watched it happen with wide eyes, completely entranced.

Then–without a word–you sat up.

He blinked in surprise, hands still resting on your sides as you reached behind yourself and unhooked your bra the rest of the way, slipping the fabric down your arms and flinging it off the bed. The second it landed somewhere behind you, you laid back down–bare, flushed, and completely open.

Bob’s breath hitched hard. His glasses had slipped lower again, fogged beyond all reason now, and he still hadn’t touched them. He didn’t even seem aware of the state he was in–just that you were laid out beneath him, chest rising in unsteady waves, eyes soft but daring.

He exhaled shakily.

And then he moved lower.

He kissed the center of your sternum once, then again, trailing down past your navel with slow, reverent care. When he reached the waistband of your boxer shorts, he paused. His hands came to rest just above your hips, fingers curling slightly under the band.

He looked up at you, eyes glassy and dark behind the silver frames.

You nodded–slow, sure.

That was all he needed.

He pulled the fabric down just an inch. Then another. Just enough to reveal the top of your hips, the soft line of your lower stomach. His lips followed–kissing each inch as it was exposed, trailing warmth into places that had never felt this kind of attention before. The contrast between the heat of his mouth and the cool air made your thighs twitch, and he hummed softly against your skin.

“God, you’re beautiful,” He whispered. “You don’t even know, do you…”

You didn’t respond. Couldn’t, really. Your fingers were tangled in the sheets again, breath catching every time his lips brushed lower, every time he said something in that breathless, reverent voice that made you feel like he was seeing you for the first time.

When he reached the base of your hips, he gave the waistband a firmer tug, and you lifted your hips to help him–knees bending slightly, thighs parting as he pulled the shorts down your legs. He slid them off with practiced care, and you watched as he tossed them aside with the same nonchalance he’d flung his shirt–like every barrier between you was one more step toward something sacred.

He paused there.

Just knelt between your legs for a second, hands resting on your thighs, eyes locked on yours like he needed to anchor himself before continuing. Then–without saying anything–he pushed your thighs up gently, spreading you open just enough.

His mouth pressed to the inside of your knee.

You gasped.

It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a claim. A promise. His lips lingered there for a second, and then they moved–trailing up the inside of your thigh in slow, wet presses, each one firmer than the last.

“You’ve got no idea,” He murmured against your skin. “How long I’ve wanted to do this… How many times I’ve imagined being between your thighs just like this…”

His teeth grazed the sensitive skin just above your inner thigh, and your hips jerked slightly at the contact. He didn’t move away. Just kissed the spot he’d grazed. Then again. Higher this time.

“Wanted to take my time with you,” He whispered, voice low, breath hot. “Make sure you know what it feels like when someone actually wants to do this…” Your hands gripped the comforter.

“I want to hear the way you sound when it’s good. When it’s real. When it’s slow…”

He kissed the top of your inner thigh–right at the edge of where you needed him most.

Then, finally, he glanced up–his glasses slightly crooked, cheeks flushed, mouth slick with his saliva and swollen.

“I’m gonna take such good care of you,” He said softly. “You’ll never forget it.”

His tongue moved with devastating precision–slow, savoring, like he had all the time in the world and wasn’t about to waste a single second.

He started with a kiss-low, just at the edge of your folds, then dragged his tongue up in one long, warm stripe that made your legs twitch. You gasped, hands flying instinctively to his hair as he groaned into you, deep and low, like he’d been starving for this.

“Jesus–Bob–” You whispered, voice cracking on the edge of a moan.

He didn’t answer. Just licked you again, slower this time, tongue flattening against you with such gentleness it made your stomach tighten. Then he did it again. And again. Until the room dissolved into heat and breath and the wet, obscene sound of him eating you like you were the only thing he’d ever wanted.

And maybe you were.

He used his mouth like a worshipper—like this wasn’t about getting you off, but about tasting everything he’d been dreaming of for weeks. He kissed your clit softly at first, then circled it with his tongue—just enough pressure to make you cry out, just enough to leave you chasing more. Your hips rocked against his mouth before you could stop them, and instead of pulling back, he moaned again, deeper this time, and grabbed your thighs—holding you open like a man possessed.

His fingers dug gently into your hips as he sucked on you now, lips wrapped around your clit with wet, deliberate pulls. His glasses were fogged beyond saving, the lenses glinting in the dorm light as they slipped further down his nose. He didn’t stop. Didn’t lift his head once. Just kept tasting and kissing and groaning like your body was the only thing he needed to study for the rest of his life.

You whimpered.

“F-Fuck, Bob–too good–”

That finally earned a reaction. He groaned again, louder, like your words were gasoline, and then–God–he slipped two fingers between your thighs, slick with your arousal, and pushed them in with a slow, practiced ease.

Your back arched.

The stretch was perfect. His fingers curled immediately, searching for that spot–and finding it like he’d mapped it out ahead of time. His mouth never left your clit, tongue flicking faster now, suction intensifying just slightly, just enough to send a full-body tremor through you.

“C’mon,” He murmured between strokes, voice ragged, lips brushing against you with every syllable. “That’s it… Just like that. Let me hear you.”

You did.

You let go of any remaining shred of restraint and moaned–loud, broken, lost to the rhythm of his fingers and the warmth of his mouth. Your thighs shook, your body tightening, unraveling. The dorm room felt like it might dissolve around you.

“G-Gonna–”

“I know,” he whispered, breath hot, eyes glassy as he looked up at you from between your thighs. “Go ahead. I got you.”

And then he did something devastating.

He sucked harder.

Curled his fingers deeper.

And moaned into you like your orgasm was his reward.

You shattered.

Your hands clutched his hair, your legs tensed around his head, and your breath broke into a stuttering cry as he licked you through it–never stopping, never letting up. He worshipped you all the way through your high, his mouth messy, eager, lips slick with you as he kept kissing, kept groaning, like your pleasure was the only thing that mattered.

When you finally slumped back, shaking, panting, spent–he didn’t move right away.

He kissed your inner thigh.

Then again. And again.

Then trailed up your body with soft, slow presses of his mouth, leaving a trail of your own taste on his lips as he made his way back up. His chest hovered over yours, his weight warm and solid, and when he finally kissed your mouth again–full and deep–you could taste yourself on his tongue.

And he let you.

Let you feel it.

Let you know exactly what he’d just done to you.

He pulled back from the kiss, hovering above you, mouth swollen from all the work he had done, lips slightly parted. He looked wrecked in the most beautiful way–hair mussed from your fingers, flushed cheeks, chest rising with the weight of restraint.

Then, like a flicker of light through the haze, he let out a breathy laugh. Quiet. Disbelieving. Joyful.

You laughed too–soft, breathless, dazed–your palm dragging slowly down his bare chest before reaching up to push his glasses back up his nose. The lenses had slipped almost entirely off his face, smudged and misted at the edges. You caught the little fingerprints and streaks near the bottom and smiled, chest still heaving slightly as you murmured:

“Where…The hell did you learn that?”

Bob’s laugh deepened this time, short and warm, his entire face flushing deeper crimson. He covered his face with one hand for a second, then dropped it to your waist, eyes shining with both amusement and bashfulness.

“From…My past partners?” He said, half like a question, half like a confession. “I told you I’m a giver. I may look timid but…As you can tell, I know my stuff.”

You grinned, your heart skipping at how proud–but still modest–he sounded. You leaned up, catching his mouth in another kiss, slower now, languid. He hummed against your lips, eyes fluttering shut as his hands pulled you just a little closer.

“Bit surprising,” you whispered against his mouth.

He nodded, kissing you again, hands smoothing down your sides. “I know.”

And it would’ve stayed gentle, dreamy, lazy like that–until your hand drifted between your bodies.

You hadn’t been trying to tease. Not really. But when your palm brushed over the thick bulge in his jeans, the way his breath hitched immediately had you curling your fingers lightly around him, just enough to feel the weight of him. The heat. The hardness pressing insistently behind the denim.

You smiled, eyes soft but mischievous. “Your turn?”

But to your surprise, Bob flinched—barely, but it was there. His hand caught your wrist gently, not to push you away, but to pause.

“It’s okay,” he said softly.

You blinked, your palm still resting against him. “What?” You tilted your head. “You don’t… even want to have sex?”

“It’s not that,” he said quickly, eyes darting to yours before lowering again. “I just…It’s really okay. You don’t have to.”

You sat up slightly, just enough to bring your faces closer again, concern slipping behind your smile.

“Are you…” Your voice gentle. “Are you nervous?”

His lashes fluttered. A breath stalled in his throat. And that was all the answer you needed.

You reached for his cheek, thumb brushing gently beneath his eye. His skin was hot, his jaw tight, but he leaned into your touch like he needed it.

“Bob,” You said softly, a smile curling into your voice. “How can you be nervous after you just gave me the best orgasm of my life?”

That made his eyes shoot open–just a little. You watched his expression shift. Like he’d heard something he hadn’t expected. Like praise landed harder than touch ever could.

“Seriously,” you continued, your voice warm and slow, “That was unreal. No one’s ever touched me like that. Not like they wanted to. Not like they were…Memorizing it.”

His mouth parted. You didn’t miss the way his breath trembled now. His hips shifted slightly against yours, and when you glanced down, you could see he was getting harder from your words alone.

You kissed the corner of his jaw. “You’re incredible, Bob.”

A sound left him–barely a sound, more of a low exhale, like it physically knocked something loose in him. His hand tightened slightly on your waist.

“You made me feel so good,” You whispered. “Safe. Wanted. Perfect.”

His eyes closed, lips parting with a shaky breath, and his hips rolled the tiniest bit into your palm. You could feel how much he wanted it now. How much he wanted you. He just hadn’t known if he was allowed.

And God, the way he responded to praise–it made something ache inside you.

Your foreheads rested together, breath shared in the quiet space between words, between heartbeats.

“Let’s do it together, hm?” You murmured, your voice warm and coaxing–softened with affection, laced with intent.

Bob let out the tiniest breath of a laugh, and his lips brushed yours as he smiled. “Okay.”

The word was nearly a whisper, but it carried weight–an unspoken trust folding itself into the syllables.

You leaned back just enough to reach between your bodies, your fingers brushing against the button of his jeans. He inhaled, shaky and quiet, watching you as you popped it open, then tugged the zipper down. The sound broke the hush of the room, loud in the stillness.

Bob shifted, lifting himself up just enough to hook his thumbs into the waistband. He wriggled out of his jeans with a little bit of awkwardness, and when the denim bunched at his ankles, he kicked them off with a grunt.

You both laughed. Low and breathless, the kind of laughter that came when something was too intimate not to be a little bit funny.

His glasses slid further down his nose.

“Sexy,” You teased, bumping your knee gently against his side.

He rolled his eyes–blushing, flustered, but grinning–and settled back between your thighs, his hands bracing himself on either side of your hips now. The closeness allowed you a better view of him, and you didn’t waste the opportunity.

Your gaze drifted downward. His boxer briefs were tented–straining. You could see the thick outline of him pressed against the fabric, the darkened patch of wetness at the tip where he was already leaking.

Your hand slid slowly down the middle of his torso–over the soft rise and fall of his stomach, the faint ridges of muscle, the trail of hair beneath his navel. Bob held perfectly still, his breath shallow, watching you.

When your fingers ghosted along the inside of his waistband, just above the swell of him, he sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“Tease,” He muttered, voice tight.

You didn’t deny it.

Instead, you slid your fingers a little deeper. Tugged the fabric down just enough to expose him.

He sprang free with a soft, needy sound escaping his throat.

Your eyes widened slightly.

He was…Big. Thick, flushed, already glistening with precum. The head was ruddy and swollen, shiny with need, and your stomach fluttered at the realization that he’d gotten like this just from pleasuring you.

He looked desperate.

You wrapped your fingers around him slowly, your palm sliding up his length with soft pressure. His breath hitched immediately, head tilting back slightly. His glasses slid another fraction down his nose, but he didn’t move to fix them–just closed his eyes for a moment, his chest lifting in a shallow, shivering inhale.

You stroked him again–long, slow, deliberate. Your grip was just firm enough to make him twitch, your thumb swiping over the slick bead at his tip.

His hips bucked. He gasped, and then let out a shaky laugh.

“Sensitive?” you murmured, lips tugging into a knowing smirk.

Bob’s head dropped forward a bit, cheeks flushed to hell. His voice cracked slightly.

“N-no…Anticipation.” He corrected jokingly, using your own words against you.

You laughed softly. So did he.

But you didn’t stop.

You kept stroking him, slow and sensual, your hand gliding up and down the length of him, savoring every tremble in his thighs, every shift in his breath, every twitch of his fingers against the mattress beside you. He was fully braced now, arms trembling slightly as he rocked into your touch.

His voice came out thin, frayed at the edges.

“I’m really…Really not gonna last if you keep doing that, and…” He swallowed hard, voice dropping to a whisper, “And I really do want to have sex with you…”

His eyes met yours. Wide. Pleading. Vulnerable.

Like he wanted to say more but couldn’t figure out how.

You leaned up slowly, hand still wrapped around him, lips brushing his ear.

“No need to beg…” You whispered, voice thick with heat. “But if you want to come inside me, Bob…Then you better hurry up and get these off.”

His whole body jolted.

A groan–low, raw, helpless–escaped him.

His boxer briefs were gone a second later. Pushed down and kicked away without a single thought, like he couldn’t bear another second of distance.

He came back over you with reverent slowness–climbing the length of your body like he was rediscovering it inch by inch.

His bare chest skimmed yours, warm and solid. His hips dipped low, the hard length of him brushing against the inside of your thigh, and your breath hitched at the contact.

“God,” he whispered, voice raw as his lips brushed against your neck. “You feel so good already.”

You arched into him just slightly, your hands finding his shoulders–broad and warm beneath your palms, still trembling faintly from restraint. His glasses were fogging again, slipping lower, but he didn’t seem to notice. Didn’t care.

He kissed the side of your neck.

Then your jaw.

Then your cheek–lingering there with a kind of gentleness that made your stomach twist.

And then he kissed your mouth again. Slow. Sweet. Deep.

You moaned softly into him.

The tops of his thighs pressed flush to the backs of yours now, his cock resting heavily between your legs–leaking precum that smeared slightly against your inner thigh as he shifted to fit himself against you perfectly.

His hand rose to your cheek, cradling it, thumb stroking lightly against your skin as he pulled back just enough to speak.

“You sure?” He asked softly, voice shaking with the weight of everything he was holding in. His eyes searched yours, pupils blown, cheeks flushed.

You nodded. Slow. Certain.

“I’m sure,” You whispered. He let out a shaky breath, then he reached down between the both of you, eyes never leaving yours.

You felt the warm glide of his knuckles against your folds first, then the soft, slick drag of his cock as he slowly ran the tip of himself through your arousal.

Your breath caught.

He swirled it over your clit once, twice–just enough to make your thighs twitch.

And God, the way he looked at you while he did it.

Eyes locked. Lips parted. Worship written into every line of his face, made you feel dizzy.

“You’re so wet,” He murmured. “You feel…Unreal.” You whimpered, your nails digging lightly into his shoulder as your other hand wrapped tighter around his bicep.

“Bob…” You whispered, voice already trembling. “Please.”

He leaned down, pressing a kiss to your lips–soft and slow and steady.

Then–finally–he began to push in.

You both moaned.

The stretch hit immediately, slow and burning, a delicious ache that made your spine arch and your mouth fall open.

“F-fuck,” Bob gasped, his forehead dropping briefly to yours as he sank in inch by inch. “God, you’re–you’re so tight. So warm. You feel so good…Wow…” Your hips shifted, trying to take more, and his hands immediately gripped your thighs, grounding you.

“Easy,” He said, kissing the corner of your mouth. “I got you. Just breathe.”

You nodded, your head swimming.

He pushed deeper.

You could feel every inch–every throb of him, every shudder in his breath as your walls stretched around him.

“Just like that,” He murmured. “Doing so good. Taking me so well.” You whimpered, and the sound cracked open something in him.

“You like that?” He whispered, kissing your cheek again, his hips rolling just the slightest bit deeper. “You like hearing how perfect you feel around me?”

“Yes,” you gasped. “God, yes, Bob–keep talking–please–”

“Fuck,” He breathed, his voice breaking again. “You’re gonna kill me.”

He rocked forward the last inch with a soft, helpless moan. Your body trembled beneath his as you adjusted, your thighs hugging his hips, your hands gripping him tightly. Bob groaned into your neck, voice ragged.

“God…You’re perfect. I swear, you’re–Jesus, I don’t even know how to describe this–” You turned your head, catching his mouth again in a deep, desperate kiss. You could feel him trembling above you, his muscles taut, breath stuttering with the effort of staying still.

“You feel so fucking good, Bob–so full–so deep–” His breath hitched.

“Say that again,” He whimpered, “Please.”

You kissed his neck, your voice thick with heat.

“You fill me up so good…God it feels amazing.” Bob let out a deep moan.

Then he began to move.

Just a tiny thrust at first–barely pulling out before pressing back in, the friction slow and hot and devastating.

Your mouth fell open.

His lips ghosted over your cheek as he whispered, “Gonna make you come on me just like this…” Your back arched at the words, your cheek bumping against his glasses. “You like the sound of that?” He added. Your fingers curled into his shoulder blades, nails dragging softly over warm skin as you nodded, breath catching on a moan.

“Yes…Yes, please.”

The quiet plea cracked something open in him.

He kissed you again–mouth hot, searching, needier this time–and his hips began to move.

Slow at first.

A deep roll forward, dragging his length out almost completely before easing back in, the friction molten, smooth, aching. You gasped into his mouth, your body lifting slightly to meet the next thrust. Bob groaned–low and husky–and pulled back just enough to look at you.

His pupils were blown wide, sweat dampening the hair at his temples, glasses fogging up again from your breath. Still, he didn’t take them off. He looked wrecked. Gorgeous. Reverent.

“God, you feel…” He whispered, voice thick and ruined as he rocked into you again, a little harder this time, “So good…So tight around me, baby–oh god.” Your breath stuttered. The nickname, unintentional or not, hit low and warm and made you clench involuntarily around him.

He felt it.

He swore softly–“Jesus”–and dropped his head to your shoulder, the next thrust coming sharper, more instinctual.

Your hands roamed—up his back, over the rise of his shoulders, down to his hips where your fingers dug in just slightly. He kissed your neck between thrusts, then bit gently just beneath your ear, and the second his teeth grazed your skin, you gasped.

Your body clenched again.

Bob moaned, full and broken.

“Fuck, that–You like that?” He murmured, voice hot and desperate against your ear. “You like when I do that?”

“Y-Yeah,” You whispered, trembling, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “You feel so good, Bob…You’re hitting every part of me.”

He groaned–long, low, filthy in how soft it sounded. His hips began to move faster now, deeper, each thrust dragging a moan from your throat, and his hands slid beneath your thighs, hiking them higher around his waist so he could sink in even further.

“God, you’re perfect,” He praised. “You’re so perfect for me. Every inch of you–I swear–fuck–”

Your head fell back against the pillow. You were gasping now, barely able to respond, but you tried. You wanted him to hear it. You wanted him to know.

“You’re so good at this,” You panted, voice trembling. “So good at making me feel good–God, you’re incredible, Bob–”

His whole body stilled for half a second, as if praise struck something too deep.

Then he moved faster.

A rougher thrust–still controlled, still measured, but heavier now, thicker with want. He let out a moan against your neck, raw and hot, and your back arched at the sound.

You could feel him everywhere–his chest brushing yours, his lips at your throat, his hands gripping you tight like he needed to feel every part of you at once.

You cried out, hips lifting into his, clenching around him with every thick, slick stroke. He felt it. Groaned again. Slid one hand up your body to cradle the side of your face.

“Look at me,” he breathed, voice hoarse.

You did.

And the second your eyes locked, his pace stuttered–just for a heartbeat–like the sight of you, soft and dazed and open beneath him, was enough to make him lose rhythm.

Then he started thrusting again. Deep. Steady. Hot.

“I want you to come on me,” He whispered, voice cracking with the weight of it. “I want to feel you come again–want to hear how good it feels.”

Your lips parted. Your thighs trembled.

“Bob,” You gasped, desperate now. “You’re so good–please don’t stop–please–”

He kissed you again. Deep. Desperate. All tongue and breath and heat. His thrusts got heavier, faster, until you could feel your climax curling up your spine like a fuse.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” He murmured, hips stuttering with restraint. “I can feel it, baby… You’re so tight–so fucking wet–come for me–please–“

You shattered.

With a cry that broke in the middle, your walls clenched around him, waves of heat and release rolling through you so hard your vision blurred. Bob moaned your name–ragged, reverent–thrusting into you a few more times before he groaned loud against your shoulder and came with a shuddering, broken gasp. Bob’s entire body tensed as he came–his cock pulsing deep inside you, hips stuttering against yours in involuntary thrusts as thick, hot ropes of cum filled you.

You felt everything.

The way his muscles tensed above you, taut and trembling. The low, broken sound he made as he buried his face in your neck. The way his arms curled tighter around your waist like he needed to hold onto something to stay connected to consciousness

“F-Fuck,” He choked out, hips giving one more weak, slow push. His release was hot and endless, spreading warmth low in your belly as his body finally started to give in. His breathing was ragged, the heat of it ghosting over your skin. He didn’t pull out right away.

Didn’t move at all for a long moment.

Just slumped forward, his bare chest sticky against yours, the last tremors of orgasm still rolling through him. His forehead pressed into your shoulder, and you felt him exhale with all the weight of a man undone.

Even the frames of his glasses were warm.

You let your arms slide around his back, hands splayed wide across the muscles there, sticky with sweat, anchoring you both. The only sounds in the room were your shallow, echoing breaths, and the soft hum of a distant hallway light buzzing just outside your dorm door.

Bob’s weight against you felt right. Heavy in the best way. Settled. Natural.

Your fingertips traced slow, thoughtless patterns over his back as you both lay tangled together, letting the afterglow settle around your limbs like warm syrup. Your heartbeats synced slowly–yours still fluttering, his gradually calming.

And then–

He shifted.

Lifted himself slightly on one trembling arm, the other brushing your hair back from your forehead. His cheeks were flushed, his lips pink, and his glasses crooked beyond saving. His smile was dazed. Soft. Glowing.

He leaned in and kissed you again. A soft kiss. Lingering. The kind of kiss that said thank you, and also more, and also stay.

When he pulled back, still breathless, still inside you, he murmured:

“We’re gonna have to start going to the library to study.”

You blinked. Confused. Flushed and blinking at him through the haze, your breath still catching a little in your throat.

“…Why?” You asked, voice hoarse but amused, one hand reaching up to gently smooth the short, light brown strands of his hair that were now sticking out in every direction.

His smile widened–lopsided and boyish, just a little cocky.

“Because we’re never going to get any studying done if we’re near a bed…” He murmured, pressing a kiss to your jaw. “The temptation will be too strong.”

You laughed–light, breathless, your chest shaking under his with the sound.

“Well,” You teased, trailing your fingertips down the curve of his back, “There goes that positive reinforcement idea, then.”

Bob leaned in and kissed your cheek. Then the tip of your nose.

“I’m sure we can figure out a replacement,” He replied, “Something that can be done in public spaces.”

You burst out laughing.

He did too.

And you stayed like that–wrapped up in each other, laughter echoing soft and breathless into the quiet room.

[spidervman]

My favorite boy Rhett🦬, and 🌽. With the prompts of dating the bad boy/secret romance!

Congrats on 3k Leah! 🫶🫶🩷🎉🎉

dog days | rhett abbott

❝ i tried so hard to quit you, like i promised my momma i would ❞

warnings: 18+ mdni, religious themes, smut, "but daddy i love him!" trope

🍓 part of my summer picnic event 🍓

as the local pastor's daughter, you were expected to marry a man in the church. a good, christian boy who loved jesus more than he loved you. there were a few eligible men in the church who fit that exact criteria. the new youth pastor, wide-eyed and hopeful of finding a wife. the choir director's son, who was fresh out of bible college and wanted twelve children.

but you didn't want any of them. you only had eyes for one man. one dirty, rotten, no good man. at least, that was what your parents would say. but when you looked at rhett abbott, you didn't see something rotten. you saw only goodness. kindness. respect. unlike the men your family wanted you to marry, rhett listened to your wishes. he didn't expect you to be his submissive, obedient little wife who bore him dozens of children. no, he saw you for who you were.

it was no surprise when you found yourself head over heels in love with him.

he wasn't a church going man. but his momma was there every sunday, while her husband lingered in the back, clearly only there because she'd asked him to be. you always stood at the door, per your father's request, to greet the parishoners every sunday. cecilia abbott always gave you a hearty handshake and a warm "good to see ya!" and you always got the sense that she meant it. her young granddaughter, amy, always gave you a hug. her husband, royal, always gave you a nod, a friendly twinkle in his eye, though standoffish as he was.

you liked the family. not because you knew them well, but because they were just the kind of people that were likable. the kind of people one might feel themselves led to get to know better. which was why you found yourself at their home one tuesday morning, basket of homemade jam, butter, and freshly baked bread tucked into the crook of your elbow. you expected cecilia to answer the door, or maybe even amy. but you were surprised when the door open to reveal a young man. tall, broad shouldered, and handsome as could be. scruff shadowed his jaw. his eyes told a story, as if he had seen some things. endured a few hard punches life threw at him.

he looked surprised to see you standing there on the porch, in your unassuming sundress that swept over your thighs when the late spring wind blew past. his mouth curved into a curious smile. "mornin'. you're the preacher's gal, right?" his voice was low. easy. smooth like golden honey.

you were caught slightly off guard over the fact that he knew you. "yes! i didn't know cecilia had kids." then you blanched slightly. "i-i mean, obviously she had kids, since she's got a granddaughter. but i just didn't realize she had...sons." inwardly, you cringed at yourself. great introduction. fantastic.

rhett smirked. "yeah, well, she probably don't talk about us much at church. must figure the good lord'll hit the place with a bolt of lightning if she does." his tone was light. testing the waters, to see if his bad joke would land with you, or if he'd overstepped and upset the preacher's daughter.

you laughed softly, shaking your head. "oh, that's not true. and i promise no mysterious lightning bolts would fall out of the sky if you ever decided to attend our church."

he hummed. "i ain't the church goin' type. nothin' against folks who are. just ain't my thing."

you nodded in understanding. "i get it. it's not for everyone."

that struck him, and his lashes fluttered as he looked at you, taken aback. he would've expected the preacher's daughter to be pushy. to tell him he needed to come to church, lest his soul end up in hell. but you didn't tell him that. grateful that you respected his wishes, he changed the subject, nodding toward the basket resting on the crook of your arm. "whatcha got there?"

you startled slightly, as if you'd just remembered why you'd come. "oh! sorry, this is just some goodies i made for your family. strawberry jam, butter, some homemade bread." you held the basket toward him, heart fluttering at the awe that softened his face.

once again, his lashes fluttered, and the apples of his cheeks rounded as he smiled. and what a pure smile it was. "wow. that's...that's really nice of ya. i'm sure this'll be gone real quick, all of us love bread."

you beamed at him. "i'm happy to hear that. there's plenty more where that came from, so, if you ever want more, i'll be happy to make it!"

"thank you. that's real sweet." his gaze lingered on you, as he reached out to take the basket. when his fingers brushed yours, warmth rushed up your arm.

neither of you realized it then, but that was the beginning of what would become a whirlwind romance.

the next time you saw him, it was at the rodeo. cecilia had invited you, and you decided to take her up on the offer. your parents came with you, and the three of you sat in the same row alongside the abbotts. this type of setting most definitely wasn't your parents' scene. according to your father, it was "worldly". but they came anyway, because it was the polite thing to do, since the abbotts had invited them.

when rhett was announced over the loudspeakers as the next rider, your heart caught in your throat. it didn't leave until he'd landed safely on the ground. thrumming with adrenaline. whirling around to look at the scoreboard, to see if he'd made good time. when his named soared to the top of the board, the crowd cheered. you found yourself jumping to your feet, cheering his name along with them.

afterward, you waited in the parking lot with your parents and the rest of the abbotts, waiting for rhett to come out so that you could congratulate him. when he came sauntering out into the lot, beaming from ear to ear, your breath caught in your chest. he was beautiful. glowing with pride. and that moment was what started your descent toward falling head over heels for him.

"you came!" he said, when he saw you, grin playing at his mouth.

"of course! wouldn't miss it," you assured him. his lingering gaze made your tummy flutter with butterflies.

as you followed your parents back to the truck, your mother murmured something about the abbott boy being promiscuous and sinful. something stung within you at the way she spoke about him, with disdain. she was merely repeating the gossip she'd heard. funny, when the bible clearly spoke against it. however, in your experience, christians were the worst gossips. your mother, the pastor's wife, was not exempt from that, it seemed.

ignoring your parents' feelings about rhett, you decided to attend every one of his rides from that night on. you were always there, whether your family attended or not. in the stands, cheering him on, steady and constant. and that was not lost on rhett. you would wait around at the end of the night to greet him, whether he had a good ride or not. eventually, you started going out to celebrate after his successful rides. he was the one who shyly suggested going out for ice cream that first time, as he wasn't about to take the preacher's daughter to a dingy old bar.

you shared a chocolate milkshake at odessa's diner, sitting side by side, knees touching. you laughed at his stupid jokes. you gave him your full attention. and he realized, as he reached out to wipe a drip of chocolate milkshake from the corner of your mouth, that he was falling for you. that night, he kissed you for the first time. he drove you back to where your car was still parked on rodeo grounds, and he stared at you for a moment, eyes burning with shyness and want. "i...i'd really like to kiss you right now," he breathed. but he didn't want to overstep.

"and i'd really like you to kiss me," you echoed. he leaned across the bench seat of his truck, and his lips met yours. tenderly. sweetly. not rushed or salacious. he didn't take, he let you give. let you lead. when you deepened the kiss, he melted into it. when your hands went to his hair, fingers weaving into the thick strands, his chest burned, his heart hammered.

when you parted, you were both breathless. your eyes were wide. his ears had gone red. "i...i should be getting home," you whispered. but you didn't want to leave. you wanted to stay here, in his truck, and kiss him until the sun rose. but you knew that you wouldn't be able to stop things from going further. the weight of desire had already settled in your belly, warm and not entirely unfamiliar.

"yeah," rhett agreed, voice wrecked. "d-drive safe." watching you leave broke something open within him. he wanted you to stay, but he didn't want to be too forward. it was a wonder you were even attracted to the likes of him. you were so good, and he was so...well, he was rhett abbott, who'd been not so subtly labeled as the town whore. the man who'd been through countless buckle bunnies. but that wasn't the case. not really. he let them believe it anyway, because it was easier than correcting them.

but you? he didn't want you to think of him that way. he didn't want you to see him as used, damaged goods. he wanted you to know that he had so much love to give. that he would respect you and your body, that he wouldn't just use you and toss you aside. he wasn't that kind of man.

thankfully, you didn't see him that way. you thought he was wonderful. a little rough around the edges, but his heart was gold. that was why you kept coming back. why you watched every ride. why you came to the abbott household every tuesday to drop off more bread and jam. and soon, you found yourself seated on his front porch, each with your own respective slices of toast with butter and jam.

you kept looking at him, and he felt like the luckiest man on planet earth. he found himself speaking before he could chicken out. earnest words that spilled from his mouth like water from a spring. "look, i know i don't bring much to the table. i ain't even worthy to breathe the same air as you. but i really like you, and i...i wanted to ask ya to be my girl. if you want to, that is." he held your gaze, fighting the urge to look away. he couldn't do that. you deserved eye contact.

something painful flashed in your chest, because you knew, if you said yes, you would have to keep it a secret. your parents would never approve. the church folk would be horrified. so you leaned forward, placing your hands over his own.

"i would love to be your girl. but i should tell you, i'm not in a good place, as far as my family, and the church goes. i can't tell them about you yet. we'd have to keep our relationship a secret, because if they found out...they'd be awful to you, rhett. i don't want you to have to deal with their judgment."

he swallowed, throat bobbing, eyes watering slightly as he shook his head. "i don't care about all them. i only care about you. they can say what they want. won't change how i feel about you."

your heart ached. "i just need time, okay? i have to figure out how to tell them about you."

rhett looked at you in earnest and said, "do what you gotta do. i know it can't be easy to figure out."

you should have given each other space after that. you should have allowed yourself to figure things out. yet, you found yourself returning to him. seeking him out, because you wanted to be near him. and, somehow, a secret relationship ensued. you kept it from your family. from the church. from everyone.

in a way, it was thrilling. exhilarating. you gave yourself to him in every way. he was your first everything. part of you felt ridiculous. he'd had experiences before you did. he'd lost his virginity when he was seventeen. and here you were, having lived a sheltered life, where purity was emphasized as the most sacred thing you could have. but you were so tired of minimizing yourself. so tired of being careful and perfect and everything a good pastor's daughter should be. so you threw caution to the wind, and you let rhett have you. all of you. and he handled you in a way that surprised you.

it wasn't that you'd expected him to be rough and inconsiderate. but you didn't expect him to be so attentive. the first time he had you, it was in the bed of his truck. blankets spread over the cool metal, in the middle of a moonlit field. you'd sneaked out of the house that night, though it felt silly to admit. you were an adult, after all. you could come and go as you pleased. but you were still trying to figure out who you were, and what you could do, out from under your parents' roof. but right then, spread out beneath rhett as the warm summer breeze rippled across the prairie, you didn't care about anything else but this.

his lips, hot and reverent against your skin. tongue swirling around your peaked nipples, hands exploring, but never taking. "you're so beautiful," he rasped against your skin, leaving goosebumps in his wake. his words were so sincere. he wasn't just saying it because he thought it was something you wanted to hear. he said it because he meant it. he was in awe of you, and your beauty. hardly knew what to do with himself when you spread your pretty thighs and whined for his heavy, swollen cock.

he fucked you achingly slow. savoring every moment. whispering praises. how good you felt, how he loved the sounds you made. you were his pretty little flower, and he was so enamored, so amazed that you would give him this honor. you, the preacher's daughter, allowing the filthy, rotten cowboy between your legs, buried deep, claiming you. and you wanted it, you begged for it. no one else was worthy of being inside you but him.

you didn't want any of the men your family wanted for you. you only wanted him. rhett, and his mouth that spoke profanity, but not to you. rhett, and his strong hands that were always dirty, but not when he touched you. rhett, with his eyes that only looked upon you, and no one else. because there was no one else. no other woman. just you. always only you.

that night was the first of many. you would find yourself in rhett's arms countless times. in the bed of his truck, in the loft of the barn, and, on a rainy night, he invited you into his room. his bed was small, but you made it work. you found yourself on top of him, body sheathed in the warm glow cast by his bedside lamp. he gazed up at you like you were the goddess of love herself, sent down to earth to bless him. his large hands splayed over your hips as he guided you. reverently. lovingly. you had to be quiet, because the rest of his family was in the house, but it proved difficult when he began to cant his hips up into yours, pulling broken whimpers from you. he had to shove his fingers into your mouth just to keep you quiet.

though it was hurried and you were forced to stay quiet, it was still filled with love and tenderness and everything your soul had been craving your whole life, you curled around him that night, after both of you were sated. bodies naked, pressed against each other in the close quarters of his bed. you brushed his curls away from his face and breathed, "i love you."

and as you drifted off, you heard him murmur, "i love you too."

but that tender quiet was shattered the next morning when incessant pounding rippled through the house, the source of it standing behind the front door. you woke with a start, gasping sharply, because you knew what day it was. sunday. how could you have been so foolish? so careless? you knew you were expected to be at church that morning. it was already past nine, and the service would begin at ten fifteen. you were supposed to help set things up for sunday service. naturally, your father would come looking for you.

rhett woke with a start, arm tightening protectively around you. he could see how frightened you were. see the shame on your face. "it's my dad. it has to be," you whispered.

"i can go talk to him. tell him you're not here," rhett offered. cautious. but there was something in his eyes. danger, perhaps. the desire to protect you.

too late. you already heard raised voices downstairs. you both bolted out of bed, and you searched for your clothes, haphazardly throwing them on, hands shaking as you did. rhett had just managed to get his jeans on and his belt buckled when the door swung open. instinctively, he moved to stand in front of you, broad shoulders shielding you. beyond your angry father was cecilia, who looked equally as angry, but not at you.

"pastor, you can't just come storming through my house!" she exclaimed.

"i'm taking my daughter home!" he insisted.

"she doesn't have to go anywhere," rhett countered. voice low. eerily calm.

"you don't get a say in this. you're the one who led her astray," your dad snapped.

at that, you reached out, grabbing rhett's forearm, stepping forward. you wouldn't stand for him to be insulted in front of you. because of you. "dad, don't. he didn't lead me anywhere that i didn't willingly want to go." your hand slid down to intertwine with rhett's. pledging your loyalty to the man you loved, because it was about damn time you stood up for yourself.

your father stared, incredulous. "you don't know what you're saying!"

"yes i do! i love him, and i want to be with him. i'm sorry i didn't tell you and mom, but you made me feel like i couldn't. but it's time i made my own decisions. and being with rhett is part of that. i won't leave him just because you tell me i should."

"you're going to throw away all your mother and i taught you, for some sinful, worldly man?"

you squeezed rhett's hand, anger snapping up your spine. "he's a good man. and even if he wasn't, doesn't jesus call us to love sinners, and not condemn them? i love rhett, and nothing you could ever do or say will change that." your tone left no room for argument. you stood your ground, though your heart pounded in your chest. never in a million years did you think you'd be standing up to your father. yet here you were, defending the man you loved, uncaring of what the consequences will be.

"you're making a mistake," your dad tried to reason.

"for the first time in my life, i'm actually not making a mistake. i've made my choice, and i know it's the right one."

your dad looked like he wanted to say so much more. but the clock was ticking. he had a sunday service to attend to. "this conversation isn't over," he finally said. but it was. you both knew that.

when he left, with cecilia trailing after him, clearly unhappy with the way he had stormed into the house, your body sagged against rhett's. "i'm so sorry," you whispered. "this whole mess could've been avoided if i'd just told them about you from the get go."

he turned your chin up toward him, already shaking his head. "no. they would've reacted the same, no matter when you told 'em."

he was right. with a deep sigh, you wrapped your arms around his waist. "all those things he said about you...i'm sorry. i want you to know i don't see you that way, alright?"

he nodded. "i know, darlin'."

you let him kiss you, before you brought your hands up to cup his scruffy cheeks. "we'll figure all this out. i promise."

"hey, i'm with you. no matter what happens, it's you and me."

—

*leaving this open-ended because i'm sort of considering writing a full length series on this!

[spidervman]

justin in annie's new tiktok!! he's so silly 😭😭

[spidervman]

justin's junior highlights :)

[spidervman]

he looks so young and boyish in these 🥹

📸 (c): chargers

[spidervman]

that first clip lmao he's such a boy

🎥 (c): Annie Buerk

[spidervman]

someday 

summary - justin and his wife have been trying to get pregnant for two years with no luck, and eventually she loses hope of ever having kids (tw. trouble conceiving, mentions of miscarriage, overall depressing themes) pairing - justin herbert x fem!reader  wordcount - 8.2k   masterlist

Trying for a baby was supposed to be the happiest and most exciting thing, and in the beginning it was. Justin was over the moon, practically shaking with excitement and nerves every single day the entire month after they decided to start trying, a smile on his face that couldn’t be erased.

He tracked her cycle more closely than she did, staying on top of every ovulation test and giving her a reassuring and only slightly disappointed hug every time her period came, promising her that it would work next time. He wouldn’t let her take pregnancy tests without him there and sat next to her on the ledge of the bathtub as they waited those painfully long minutes to find out if this time was it. 

He so desperately wanted to be there when it finally stuck. When they finally saw two lines instead of one. His excitement and hope and never ending support was what kept her going.

But of course, nothing could be that easy.

The first test was no surprise, they hadn’t expected a positive so soon. Justin brushed it off, kissed the pout off of her face, and told her they’d just have to try again with that flirty grin of his, lightening the mood without a second thought.

The next test, they weren’t surprised either. But this time, the disappointment ran a little deeper. Still, their spirits and hopes were high. After all, they were still in the first month of trying, there was no reason to be alarmed, not yet. 

But test after test, month after month, it all became exhausting. During the season, she was expecting the daunting single line to stare back at her every time they took a test, knowing that their sex life was anything but regular during the fall, no matter how they tried to fit it in along her cycle and his injuries, the aches and bruises, his exhaustion and football tunnel vision.

They still didn’t push it aside, though. And on Justin’s day off, usually on Mondays before he went to the facility, they’d take a test and just hope that maybe this could be it, even when they both knew it wouldn’t be. She’d read online somewhere that almost everyone somehow knew before even taking the test. And she didn’t know, so it couldn’t be it. But Justin was so hopeful and so supportive, she couldn’t give up.

Not when it was the thing Justin wanted more than anything in the world, something she knew would bring him joy for the rest of his life. That’s what made it hurt the most. It was all he’d ever wanted and she wasn’t sure anymore that she could give it to him. Two whole years into trying, she still hadn’t gotten pregnant. She felt like she’d somehow failed as his wife, even though she knew he’d never even think of putting that burden on her, he wouldn’t even think to blame her. 

Logically she knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault per se. But she couldn’t help the intrusive thoughts poisoning her mind, no matter how many statistics and articles she read on lowered fertility rates and how many people had to try for years before getting pregnant, if they did at all. But most still fell pregnant within a year. And two years in, they hadn’t managed to. 

There was another thing, too, haunting her, always stuck in the back of her mind.

Once before, a couple years ago, before they were married, she had been pregnant. She didn’t even know before it was too late. They never even got to hear its heartbeat. She only got to around four weeks, back then, according to the doctors.

It was easily the worst day of both their lives, and no amount of doctors telling her it was completely normal or parents sharing their stories on the internet made her feel any better. Justin was the only person who helped her see a light at the end of the tunnel.

In her mind, her body had already failed her once and she was sure it would again. And she was terrified that if she ever did manage to get pregnant again, it wouldn’t last.

The thought that she was just incapable of ever having kids was one she couldn’t shake. Scared to death that she was doomed to always try and get close but never quite cross the finish line.

But even that fear couldn’t override the all consuming want for a family. No amount of anxiety, failures and tears would ever take that away. She hoped all that fear would someday be worth it, but she wasn’t too sure anymore.

Thinking rationally, she knew they should probably go to a doctor to find out if all their trying was in vain. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have the means to go to a fertility specialist to really find out if something was wrong and then take the eventual next steps. But she wasn’t sure she had it in her to know she was letting Justin down. She could think it and survive, but knowing for certain was something else entirely. 

The worst possibility of all, though, was the one that there was something “wrong” with Justin, as if anything ever could be. Because even if he never even saw any reason to forgive her, reminding her over and over again that it wasn’t her fault, she knew he wouldn’t forgive himself if it was because of him they didn’t have biological kids of their own. 

One late night during the season, with Justin on a plane home from the game that had just ended, she couldn’t help herself. They hadn’t taken their weekly pregnancy test yet, and while she knew she shouldn’t have been doing it on her own, especially not when she’d promised him she wouldn’t, for some reason she felt like she had to.

So she sat on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, absentmindedly biting her nails as she stared at the test in front of her. It would be negative, she already knew it, so she didn’t even flip it upside down. Instead she stared at it, as if she could will it to turn positive if she wanted it enough. And god, did she want it. 

Minutes passed, five, ten, then fifteen, but nothing. The single pink line stared up at her, taunting her for her failures. 

Then, a whole new kind of guilt kicked in.

Even if the news weren’t what she’d hoped for or wanted, they should’ve still been together for it. Justin should’ve had the chance to be there, to experience all the emotions that came with it, good or bad. She knew he had started losing some hope, too, though he refused to show it, least of all to her. He always pushed his own sadness aside to comfort her, something he said helped him cope, and she couldn’t even do that for him.

Without even realizing it, tears had started streaming down her face, leaving salty trails on her cheeks. She wasn’t sobbing, she was barely moving. She sat completely still, knees tucked close to her chest and a blank expression on her face as she stared at the test in front of her. 

The house was nearly completely quiet, the quiet hum of the air conditioner and Nova’s soft paws hitting the hardwood floors as she padded into the bathroom the only sounds she could hear, besides her own sniffles and slow, labored breaths. 

Gently, so she wouldn’t spook her owner, Nova pushed between her thighs and her stomach, forcing her to uncurl her body and invite the cat into her lap. Nova wasn’t usually the most affectionate of cats, except for the occasional cuddle naps on the couch and cuddles in bed at night, but it seemed like the Bengal knew exactly how much the simple touch was needed in the moment. 

Nova curled into a ball in Y/N’s lap as the woman legs stretched out straight in front of her, the cat began to gently purr the second she laid a hand on her back, moving back and forth across her furry back in soothing motions – more for herself than for the cat. 

“Seems like you’re not getting a sibling this year either,” she mumbled, her eyes finally shifting down to the cat with the purse of her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular, knowing that if anything, Nova was happy not to share her attention with anyone else. 

Minutes ticked past slowly, her back growing tired of leaning back against the tub. But instead of moving, she only slumped in her place, hands stilling on Nova’s back.

“I knew this wasn’t going to be it,” she quietly admitted, scared to break the nearly sterile silence of the tiled room, where every slight noise bounced off of every wall and echoed for longer than she would’ve liked. “I don’t know why I keep hoping.”

Nova only purred in response. Well, she couldn’t respond at all. But Y/N felt less insane imagining the cat could actually hear and understand her. 

“Your dad’s gonna be disappointed with me. Which is honestly worse than him being mad. I’d rather have him yell at me than pity me, again,” she sighed, a hand gingerly moving up to her head to rub the bridge of her nose. “He wants to be a dad so bad, I wish it could be with me but I’m not so sure anymore.”

It was somewhat therapeutic to finally say all her thoughts aloud, instead of leaving them to echo inside her head, alone late at night. She knew she should’ve been telling Justin all these things, letting him know how horrible and depressed she felt lately, but she just couldn’t bring herself to. So Nova would have to do. 

After a beat, she started talking again, her voice slow and full of cracks. “Maybe we could try some fertility treatments, or IVF, or maybe even adoption if none of that works. I just really want a baby,” she cried, head slowly lowering to Nova as she let her tears soak her fur. “I hate that I’m letting him down. He never lets me down.”

She didn’t say anything more after that and just sat there silently crying instead. She should’ve gotten up, put on another load of laundry or emptied the dishwasher. But she just couldn’t bring herself to move.

And once again, that dream of someday holding her own baby in her arms felt further away than ever before. 

────────────

The house was dead silent when Justin walked in through the front door, just before midnight. His back ached from the plane ride in the seat that was too small for his body, his muscles burning with each step from the extreme physical exertion of a football game. But still, he kept walking, hoping his wife was still awake upstairs. But just in case she wasn’t, he kept quiet so he wouldn’t accidentally wake her.

All the bruises and pains were worth it, this time, as the team had come out with a win, something Justin’s relieved and cheerful mood reflected. 

Letting his bag fall from his shoulder onto the floor beside the foyer, something felt different. Looking around the house, he quickly realized what it was as his eyes locked onto the ridiculously big cat tree in the corner of the living room that his wife had insisted they get their cat to keep her entertained and happy.

Nova hadn’t come to greet him like she usually did, winding between his legs, pressing up against his shins and purring so loudly he swore the neighbors could hear. It wasn’t much, but it was routine, and Nova always greeted him when he came home. She had every time since he’d gotten her.

His eyes narrowed, suddenly a little more aware and on edge, trying to figure out what had caused Nova’s sudden change in behavior. He checked the living room and kitchen, even going as far as opening a bag of treats – a sound that usually had her running straight to him, no matter what – but nothing. 

Justin loved his cat a lot, so naturally he was very worried. For a second, he thought maybe she’d found a way out of the house, but all the windows and doors downstairs were locked – he checked them all. 

Releasing a deep sigh, he shut the lights off downstairs and made his way upstairs, hoping his furry feline friend had just fallen asleep somewhere she couldn’t hear him. Maybe she’d managed to get stuck in their closet again? 

The lights were off in the hall and as he peeked into their bedroom, it was completely dark in there too. But enough moonlight streamed in through the crack in the blinds for him to notice that their bed was empty. It was still made, so his wife couldn’t have gone to sleep yet.

Pushing the bedroom door open, his eyes caught onto a sliver of light from the nearly closed bathroom door. Justin smiled, thinking she must’ve been getting ready for bed and not heard him. Maybe she had her headphones on? 

“Honey, I’m home,” he quietly called, with a light knock on the door, hoping not to scare her – at least not too bad – as he pulled his baseball cap off and raked his hand through his hair, which he was sure she’d tell him to wash later. But after the game, he wanted to get home to her more than he wanted to shampoo his hair. “Have you seen Nova? She didn’t come to the door,” he added, not able to keep the slight disappointment and worry out of his voice, though he did his best to assure himself everything was fine. 

A few seconds passed as he waited for her response, but he heard nothing back.

With furrowed eyebrows and a confused pout on his face he pushed open the bathroom door, gently and slowly, so he wouldn’t scare her too bad so late at night. “Honey?”

Inside, he found his wife and cat cuddled up against the side of the bathtub, the cat in her lap as she slept soundly. Nova, on the other hand, was awake, wide green eyes staring up at him. Her tail slowly swished back and forth, and she made no effort to move, not even meowing at him. 

He shook his head, mumbling, “Silly girl,” as quietly as he could before gently picking the cat up and placing her down on the tile beside him, earning him an unappreciative glare and a short hiss, before the cat scooted close to Y/N again and settled against her side. 

This time, Justin let the cat be, and instead focused on his wife. “Sweetheart, babe, wake up,” he quietly said, carefully rubbing up and down her upper arm in an effort to wake her as gently as he could. The last thing he wanted was to startle her and make her accidentally hit her head.

Her eyes gingerly fluttered open as his hand moved to cradle her cheek, his sweet smile the first thing she saw. As she slowly came to, he leaned forward to press his lips to her forehead with a content hum.

“Good morning? Or night, I guess. Did you sleep well?” he laughed, pushing stray hairs away from her face and behind her ears. “Didn’t know we were still sleeping on the bathroom floor. Thought we left that back in college.”

“Huh?” she questioningly mumbled as her eyes got used to the light again. She moved a little, making Nova huff and run out of the bathroom, probably in search of a better (less mobile) spot to sleep, but not before sending Justin another glare on her way out.

Eventually, she managed to gather herself enough to remember where she was, and more importantly, why she was there. Her face fell at the realization, the urge to cry returning, but she pushed it down as much as she could. While she knew she had to tell him about the test, not to mention soon, she didn’t want to put a damper on his mood after the hard fought win he’d had tonight. 

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled in apology for falling asleep and not greeting him at the door like she usually did (if she was still awake when he got back), back straightening as she sat up a little more, a hand landing on his bicep to stabilize her. “You played amazing, I’m so proud of you,” she told him, reaching forward to hug him. Justin had to sink down onto his knees from his crouched position to accommodate her, but he didn’t mind, as his arms wound around her and he inhaled the familiar smell of her shampoo. 

Justin didn’t say much back, just ran his hand up and down her back as he pushed his face into the crook in her neck. “I missed you,” he told her, voice muffled by her skin, before leaving a short kiss where his lips had just been. “I’m happy to be home.”

As much as Justin loved football, playing in games and spending hours upon hours at the facility with his coaches and teammates (read: friends) every week, there was nothing quite like coming home. It was his little reprieve from the pressures and anxieties of his very hectic everyday life, but most importantly, it was someone to come home to. 

“You really had me worried there for a second,” she managed to say in a short laugh, squeezing him a little tighter, suddenly aware of the dried salty trails from the many tears she had shed only an hour or two before, something Justin had somehow missed, probably too distracted by his own exhaustion. 

“Sorry,” he grinned, finally pulling away – much to her dismay, for once, as she hadn’t figured out how to hide her red rimmed and puffy eyes yet. “We took our sweet time shutting the door on ‘em,” he shook his head with a smile, still remembering the crease between his brows and his set gaze like phantom pains at the thought of the game and the painfully long fourth quarter. 

This time, when he set his eyes on her face, he finally noticed the unmistakable signs that she had cried. Her tired eyes along with the way it seemed like she had to fight her own face just to force a smile, told him more than any obvious sign of crying ever could. She hadn’t just cried, she was genuinely sad. Still was. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, hand moving up to cradle the side of her face, her skin warming up under the palm of his hand. “Have you been crying?”

She knew there was no use in lying to him, not when she would need to come clean at some point, either way. Instinctively, her eyes moved to the small white test beside her, and Justin’s followed. 

“Oh.”

He didn’t seem mad at all. But then again, Justin rarely ever got angry at anything – unless competition of some sort or football was involved. He just went quiet, the hand that had cradled her face falling off of her and moving to pick up the test. 

He didn’t do much more than glance at it, he saw no point in torturing himself anymore than he had to. 

There were no reassurances that hadn’t already been said. No sweet or encouraging words that could make the situation any less painful. They had already been through this far too many times. 

Every time Justin opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. And after a few minutes of that all too familiar oppressive silence, he moved to sit down beside her. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and in turn he leant his head on hers.

“Is it ever going to happen?” she asked, quiet to not disturb the silence around them. 

“It has to,” he sighed, turning his head just enough to kiss her head. “I’m sorry you had to go through this alone.”

She shook her head, the guilt from before returning even stronger now, as she realized Justin blamed himself, like he always did. Even when she was the one in the wrong. “No, I should’ve waited for you. I was supposed to wait.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I guess I’m just tired,” she finally admitted, wrapping her arm around his like he was her lifeline. Which, more than he would ever realize, he really was. “Trying to start a family should be fun and exciting, not… exhausting.”

Justin stayed quiet, not trusting his voice not to break. At least neither of them had started crying during the conversation – not yet, at least – so that had to count for something. But realistically, it probably had more to do with the exhaustion his wife spoke of than any mental toughness he wished he had when it came to this topic. 

But she was right. Trying for a baby hadn’t been kind to either of them, especially her. She took each test so hard, never fully believing him when he told her it wasn’t her fault.

He was lucky he had football, otherwise he was sure he would’ve already gone insane. Most of the time, he was distracted enough and too focused on football to notice the pain, but his wife didn’t share the same luxury. She worked from home, and while she had a normal and healthy social life outside of their relationship and a good support system in both of their families, it wasn’t enough to ever truly take her away from their crushing reality. 

Not when she walked past the room they decided would be the nursery multiple times a day, if they ever got lucky enough to paint it. 

He wasn’t unaware of the pressure she felt either, nor the burden it was to keep track of her diet, her cycle and, most of all, keep hoping. Two years of grief for something they didn’t even have and let down after let down had compounded into something much worse than he’d realized. He should’ve probably seen it coming, but he didn’t want to see it.

And while he so desperately wanted to be a dad someday, to have a few kids running around in the backyard that he could play with and dote on, he was a husband right now. The kids didn’t exist yet, but his wife did. And he couldn’t be a good dad if he wasn’t a good husband.

It was a sad realization, but he felt oddly assured when he said, “Maybe we should take a break from trying, just for a while.”

Wide eyed, she looked up at him. “What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. Though the thought of giving up even momentarily pained him, especially when it came to something like this, he knew it was for the better. He wanted her to be happy, and she wasn’t, so something had to change. “Not forever, just a break,” he continued. “We can revisit it in the off season, maybe even go to a doctor.”

It was the mature and responsible thing to do, so of course it was what he suggested. 

“I’d really like that,” she admitted as tears formed in her eyes. She could see on his face it wasn’t what he wanted at all, but the thought of not needing to see another negative test, even if just for a few months, was so freeing. It was a boulder lifted off of her chest, already making it easier to breathe properly.

“C’mere,” he mumbled, gathering her in his arms as she started crying. “We’ll figure it out, I promise,” he said as he pressed another kiss to the crown of her head, rubbing her back soothingly as he felt her tears soak through his hoodie. He could feel a few tears slipping down his own cheeks, but he managed to keep himself at least somewhat together for her sake. The last thing she needed was to comfort him, even if he needed some comforting. Holding her was enough comfort for him, for the time being. It had to be.

“I love you,” he told her.

“I love you too, J,” she sniffled in reply, burrowing closer into him.

────────────

The months passed by quickly and before either of them knew it, it was February. The season was finally over and she had Justin all to herself, at least most of the time, though he still spent a lot of his time at the facility, rehabbing or watching film. She still had more of her husband than she’d had before.

Naturally, she was overjoyed. But it was more than just getting extra time with Justin, she was just happier lately. The hopeful nursery was no longer a sad empty room, but now her own little studio in their home. Before, she’d just painted either out on the deck or in the living room, but she had to admit she liked it more this way.

Walking through the halls of their home didn’t feel as heavy anymore, not when the door to said studio was an open door instead of a closed one, a room filled with color and life and creativity. 

She took up running again, and her anxious baking – a habit Justin both loved and hated, as it meant he got sweet treats but his wife was also feeling stressed – had turned into her baking when she felt like it instead of when she felt she needed to. 

She was coping, in a healthy way, this time.

But most of all, she was happy again. Something that in turn had Justin feeling happier than he had in months. Her eyes were no longer tired, she didn’t dread Mondays – their previous “test days” – anymore and she was acting more and more like herself. 

But with the end of the season also came the promise of starting looking into getting pregnant again. It wasn’t as daunting this time, as they were both in a far better place than previously. So, before anything else, they decided to book an appointment at a fertility clinic in LA. 

It wasn’t fun by any means, but it was something that had to be done. 

It was oddly quiet inside the doctor’s office, with Y/N sitting on the exam table, her legs dangling off the side, and Justin sitting beside her on a chair that he’d moved as close to the table as he could to be by her side. Their hands were tightly clasped together, his thumb every so often running across the back of her hand. It was supposed to comfort her, but she had a feeling he was doing it more for himself, to assure himself that she was right there with him, even when he wasn’t looking at her.

The room was slightly decorated with paintings she assumed were meant to be calming, and the furniture and medical equipment were visibly fancier and presumably better than at most hospitals and clinics – perks of Justin insisting they go to the best clinic in the city. It meant the table she was sitting on wasn’t deathly uncomfortable, and the walls were neither a sterile white nor a dull beige. But still, nothing could hide the hospital smell, not even the diffuser she noticed sitting in the corner of the room. 

Before she could analyze the room any further, and psych herself out in the process, the doctor walked in. Justin immediately stood up and shook her hand, introducing the two of them, before he sat back down on his chair and grabbed her hand once more. 

They had already had a consultation with the doctor a few weeks ago over the phone, and from that they’d booked an appointment. If there was anything wrong with her, any reason why she couldn’t get pregnant, they would likely get an answer, or at least a deferral, today. 

Last week she had come in to get her blood drawn, so she was anxious for those results too, on top of whatever the doctor was going to say and suggest.

As doctor Perez sat down on her spinning stool and moved closer to the couple, wringing her hands together with hand disinfectant gel, she said, “So, I got the results back on your bloodwork yesterday. I was going to call, but seeing as we had this appointment set already I thought it could wait,” she began, making the couple’s heart rates speed up significantly. 

Justin swallowed hard, trying to hide his nervousness as he nodded. His wife squeezed his hand, hoping to reassure him some, though she knew nothing could until the doctor had finally said what she needed to. But holding onto each other helped. 

“And?”

“Your prenatal panel came up clean. Simply said, you have no infectious diseases, you’re immune to chickenpox, you have no sexually transmitted diseases or infections, and your blood and antibody count are completely normal. All good things,” the doctor explained. 

Justin nodded along, trying his best to stay stoic, but the crease between his furrowed brows betrayed him. His wife wasn’t much better, biting her lip and pursing her lips like Justin always did – a subconscious habit she’d picked up from him after seeing him do it so many times.

“Normally, the next step would be to check how many viable eggs you have left or if there is anything physically wrong, but lucky enough, we don’t need to,” doctor Perez continued, letting a smile slip through her attempt at professionalism. 

“Why not?” she asked, the words too alarming for her to realize the doctor was smiling. But Justin had, and his breath caught in his throat as he felt hope grow. 

“Is– Is she…?” he stuttered, eyes growing wide. He didn’t want to say it out loud, didn’t want to jinx it somehow, but he just knew. “Are we actually?”

Realizing only one of the two had caught on, and the other was on the verge of a breakdown, the doctor decided to finally explain. “We did a blood pregnancy test along with the panel. And you, Mrs Herbert, are around six weeks pregnant.”

Before Y/N had the chance to react, or even feel anything at all, Justin was on her, wrapping her in a tight hug as he laughed and swayed side to side with her in his arms. His laughter quickly turned into tears as he pulled away just enough that he could see her face. She was in complete shock, barely even remembering to breathe, before turning to the doctor. 

“Are you sure? Am I really pregnant?”

“Yes, I’m sure, congratulations” the doctor grinned. “I’ll give you two a minute. I’ll come back in a bit and we can talk about the next steps and setting up an ultrasound appointment.”

“That sounds great, doc, thank you,” Justin beamed, trying his best to rein his feelings in. 

When the door closed behind them, leaving the two of them alone, Justin’s lips were immediately on hers. She couldn’t help but smile into it, like he did, as his hands traveled to her middle where he rested his palms on her stomach. 

Pulling apart for air, she couldn’t help but let out a disbelieving laugh, before shaking her head. “Of course we get pregnant the second we stop trying,” she whined, trying her best to pout but the immovable smile on her face made it impossible. “It’s so typical.”

“I mean, honestly? I don’t even care,” he chuckled, leaning his forehead against hers. “You’re finally pregnant, that’s all that matters.”

“You’re just happy you don’t have to pay for any fertility treatments or IVF,” she grinned, pecking his lips. 

“Yeah, well, there’s that too,” he joked, laughing when she swatted at his arm before turning somewhat serious again, still smiling. “We’re really finally gonna have a baby.”

“I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” she admitted. “We’ve been trying for so long and now I’m just suddenly pregnant – which is so fun to say, by the way – and I have no idea what to do with myself.”

Justin smiled at her the exact same way he had when he proposed to her years ago, and then again when she walked down the aisle to him a year after that. It wasn’t like his usual pretty smile that had butterflies erupting in her stomach and heat rising to her cheeks. No, this smile was different.

This smile lit up his entire being. He beamed with joy, and some slight undercurrent of anxiety and worry that always came with excitement of the future for him. But most of all, it was full of hope and light and the purest form of happiness. His eyes seemed greener every time he smiled that way. His shoulders always relaxed and his dimples deepened. 

It was easily the most beautiful she’d ever seen him, and she had no doubt that same smile – that he probably didn’t even realize or know existed – would make another appearance when their little bundle of joy finally joined them later in the year.

“You get to just relax and be pregnant. That’s all you need to do,” he told her with such care in his voice, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead before bending down to press another one to her covered – and still very much bump free – stomach. “There’s no one else I would ever want to do this with. You really… I mean you’ve just made me the luckiest and the happiest man in the world. There’s no contest.”

“I really love you,” she whispered as tears brimmed in her eyes, a quiet laugh escaping her when her emotions finally overwhelmed her. “You’re gonna be the best dad.”

“I love you. If I manage to be even half the parent I know you’ll be, then I’m sure we’re going to be okay,” he deflected, ever humble. But he really did mean it, his doting eyes showed his sincerity so clearly the thought to question it didn’t even cross her mind.

With a knock on the wooden door, the doctor reentered the room, this time with a smile on her face. But Y/N’s faded at the sight. 

It brought her back to that hospital room years ago, up in Oregon. Where the doctors had told her that she lost a child she didn’t even know she had. Flashes of that conversation appeared in her mind, along with the way Justin had looked that day. He had done his best to keep it together for her sake, holding her hand as he held back his own tears. But she knew how much it had hurt him. He had looked so broken.

That nauseatingly familiar sterile smell combined with the paper sheet under her palms had all that fear from before returning. And suddenly everything around her brought her back to that cold hospital room where she and her boyfriend of only a year got the worst news of their lives.

How could she ever let Justin down again? Or even live in fear of what might happen before it ever did. At least last time, she couldn’t dread it. Now it was all she could think about. 

As the doctor sat back down on her stool and continued talking to a very excited Justin, his hand tightly holding hers and drinking up everything the doctor said, she just stared ahead. She couldn’t listen, or at least, none of the words really registered. She felt like she was stuck underwater, just close enough to the surface to make out a conversation but not enough to hear or take part in it.

When the doctor finally turned to her, she asked, “And you, Mrs Herbert, do you have any questions?”

She hesitated for a second, glancing at Justin whose face fell when he noticed her panicked eyes and slightly parted lips, the same face she made when she was crumbling inside and trying to hide it from everyone else. Usually, no one noticed, but Justin knew her better than anyone else.

The words were bitter on her tongue, and just saying them out loud had her feeling queasy, but somehow she managed to pitifully ask, “I’m not gonna lose my baby, am I?”

Recognition flashed over Justin’s face, and he stood to wrap his arm around her, not caring that someone else was around. She sounded so shaken, so worried down to her very core, that Justin couldn’t help but feel his heart break slightly for her, and for the sad reality that she’d just reminded him was a possibility. 

“Don’t say that,” he quietly told her, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “Everything’s gonna be fine. I’m sure. Right, doc?”

They both turned to a now slightly bewildered doctor Perez, who still managed to keep her composure after what they assumed were years of similar conversations and experience. “You had a miscarriage a few years ago,” she said out loud, only stating a fact that needed to be said aloud no matter how painful, recalling the information in her patient’s file. “And while that could increase the risk of future miscarriages, there’s nothing else to suggest it will happen again. It may very well have just happened by chance. Some studies say as many as one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, others, one in five, unfortunately.”

The doctor knew her words weren’t alleviating any anxieties, nor easing the now more than apparent burden on the mother-to-be’s mind. But she still had a job to do, and she had to be honest for her patient’s sake, no matter if the news were or were not what she wanted to hear. 

“But, there are no obvious reasons why you would be unable to carry to term. By all appearances, including your incredibly healthy lifestyle – largely thanks to your husband, I assume – you can have a completely normal and healthy pregnancy,” she told the couple. “That being said, given your history, I’d like to monitor your pregnancy a little closer than normal, up until at least the twenty week mark. But if you keep eating healthy, exercising and, most importantly, not stressing, everything should be okay.”

After a silent beat, Y/N said, “You want me to not stress?” as if it was the most ridiculous thing in the world, because to her, it was. How could she not worry about the wellbeing of the little thing growing inside her? How could she stay calm knowing that at any second, it could all end? How–

“Honey,” Justin interrupted her train of thought, a comforting hand rubbing up and down her back as the other grabbed hold of her hand. 

He was using that voice he used whenever he was feeling overly affectionate, or whenever he needed to distract her from her own spiraling thoughts – something that happened a lot more than she was willing to admit. He rarely, if ever, used it in the presence of others, but this was an exigent situation, and his wife and her feelings mattered much more to him than the thought of displaying affection in front of someone else.

“We’ll be okay,” he promised, the crease in his brows betraying him some, but the determined edge in his voice had her instantly believing him. “I’ll make sure of it. You and our baby are gonna be okay.”

She could tell how much the thought of it happening again scared him, how he was subtly shaking underneath her fingertips and how his eyes seemed to shift every which way, never truly stilling, except when they met hers, as a frown settled on his face. And the last thing she wanted was to make this harder on him, so she swallowed down her fears and nodded, squeezing his hand. “We’ll be okay.”

And it had to be true. They had to be okay. She didn’t know what they would do if they weren’t. 

────────────

“I’ve got tiramisu from that bakery you like – without alcohol, of course – and strawberry ice tea from that place down by the beach and then… a jar of olives,” Justin called as he walked in through the front door, kicking his shoes off and walking straight into the living room to his wife, eyes not leaving the plastic bags in his hands as he reached for the bottle of anti-nausea gummies he just bought to give to her. “And I also got–”

He finally stopped when he looked up and noticed she wasn’t on the couch where he’d left her an hour and a half before when she’d begged him to go get her ice tea, before calling and adding a few more things to his shopping list and extending what was supposed to be a quick thirty minute trip with an hour. 

“Honey? Where are you?” he asked as he frantically started looking around, a little too hypervigilant as his ears strained to hear every little sound in their LA home. He heard a metallic clattering sound from the kitchen that had him changing directions and nearly sprinting to her within a second. 

When he saw her, he couldn’t help but laugh, his shoulders dropping in relief. She was pouting, an opened peanut butter jar in one hand and a spoon on the ground beside her feet. She was trying – and failing – to pick the utensil up, her bump coming in the way every time she tried to squat down. 

Sighing in defeat, she turned to her husband. “Can you help me?”

With a smile on his face, he shook his head, picking the spoon up and setting it on the counter before wrapping his arms around her and the bump that seemed to be growing by the day. “You were supposed to stay on the couch. The doctor told you to take it easy.”

“I got hungry,” she bashfully replied, leaning her forehead on his chest as his hands rubbed up and down her arms comfortingly. 

“So you thought eating peanut butter by the spoonful would do the trick?” he laughed, pulling her just far enough away from him to dip his head and kiss her, stealing her breath away for just a second before he pulled away again, but not before leaving her with a few more pecks on her lips. “We have prepped meals ready in the fridge, you could’ve had one of those.”

“Yeah but I didn’t want rice and chicken, I wanted peanut butter,” she grinned, completely aware of how absurd it sounded but not caring that much at all. “Did you get me my olives?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re not gonna eat them together, are you?” He’d seen enough of her interesting – to say the least – cravings already and knew not to rule anything out, even when the thought alone of the combination had his stomach twisting. But whatever the baby wanted, the baby got. Those were the rules, at least they were after around the twelve week mark.

“No…”

Rolling his eyes affectionately, he leaned down to steal another kiss before setting his grocery bags down. “I got everything you asked for, plus a few things,” he said as he began to unpack the bags. “I remember you said you were craving pennies last night– which I still find very weird, but pregnancy is weird, I guess – so I googled it and apparently it probably means you might be low on iron.”

With that, he pulled out a few steaks and then iron rich greens, which had her pouting again. 

“I know it’s not as good as tiramisu or ice tea – both of which I got you, by the way,” he proudly smiled, handing them to her as he said it and seeing her face light up. “But it’s good for you, and good for our little bean.”

“Thank you so much,” she hugged him tightly, as well as her bump allowed her, and reached up to press a kiss to his jaw. “And thank you for putting up with me.”

He only waved her off, pressing a tender kiss to her forehead as his hand caressed the side of her face. “What are husbands for?”

“You’re the best husband I’ve ever had.”

“I’m the only husband you’ve ever had,” he shook his head, pinching her hip lightly and making her squirm with laughter.

“Well, you’re setting the bar very high.”

Turning away from her to hide his blush, he unpacked the rest of the bags, putting the groceries away quickly before leading her back to the couch. He tucked her in with her blankets, and not a second later, Nova was curling up by her belly. 

“She stole my spot,” Justin grumbled under his breath, pulling the coffee table closer to place her dessert and drink on, so they would be easier for her to access without moving too much. 

His constant fussing and hovering was sweet and caring, although sometimes slightly overbearing, but Y/N swore Justin was the reason they were still here together at the 36 week mark – all three of them. Without him, she wasn’t so sure she would have managed. 

After finding out they were finally expecting, Justin moved heaven and earth to make sure she didn’t have to lift a single finger or stress even a little. He was making sure dinner was ready every night, keeping the house clean, massaging her aching shoulders late at night, reminding her to take her prenatal vitamins and watching her favorite TV shows with her without a single complaint. 

He was on top of her sleep schedule and eating habits far more than before, too, making sure she was sleeping even more than normal and eating healthier (if that was even possible). Some of the dietary “restrictions” – he called them suggestions, but with him doing most of the cooking it was hard to resist – he’d imposed on her were quickly thrown out the window once her cravings kicked in and her moods started swinging every which way, but she still appreciated his attempt and the thought behind it.

The first few weeks after that first appointment had been rough, to say the least. While they were both undeniably excited, and more hopeful than they cared to admit, they were both scared witless. They both felt so powerless to the situation, and that wasn’t a feeling that Justin particularly enjoyed, so he took control of what he could, which led to all his “helicopter partnering” as she called it. 

And even if it was a little much sometimes, she wouldn’t have wanted to do it with anybody else. That thought was only reinforced when Justin returned to the living room with two spoons in hand, giving her one before settling beside her with his head on her bump and his arms around her, both of them digging into the tiramisu as they watched the show she was currently binging.

She couldn’t really hear exactly what he was saying over the TV, but she could feel his face move against her stomach as he spoke, his chest vibrating with each chuckle and laugh and every soft kiss to the swell of her middle in between sentences. Their kid was already so loved, and she couldn’t wait until she saw Justin interact with them in real time, with them in his arms. 

Life was pretty good, and it was all definitely worth those two rough years of waiting. She already couldn’t wait until they finally got to meet their little one someday soon. 

She couldn’t help herself when she let a yawn slip by her lips, eyes fluttering closed for a second until she blinked them open again. “Justin, sweetheart?”

He hummed against her, turning his head to look at her. “Yes? Do you need anything?” he asked, already sitting up, ready to bring her whatever she needed. “Water? Another blanket? The olives?”

“No silly,” she laughed a little, hands wandering to his shoulders to pull him closer. “Can you just hold me?”

“Of course,” he said without a second thought, molding his body around hers so she could comfortably lean her head on his chest, his arms wrapped around her body with one hand splayed protectively over her bump. Nova shifted to lie by their legs instead, now that Justin took her spot. 

“I love you,” she mumbled as her eyes fluttered shut again. 

Justin’s hand reached for the remote, turning the TV off before moving the now empty tiramisu container back to the coffee table with that same hand. 

“I love you too,” he whispered back, pressing a lingering kiss to her temple before cuddling closer and letting his own eyes slowly shut as he drifted off to sleep, a well deserved nap before he made the two of them an iron rich dinner.

Just one more month left, then their ‘little bean’ would be in their arms, with an actual name, making real noises and moving and feeling and filling their home with even more love. Though Justin couldn’t imagine any more being possible, not with how he was feeling now with her and their little one in his arms.

[spidervman]

⚠️ shirtless Justin alert ⚠️

🎥 (c): Annie Buerk

[spidervman]

@taevincii

I heard some of y'all like back muscles 🤔

[spidervman]

got my wisdom teeth out

[spidervman]

Yet another sleepless night

[spidervman]

thigh guy summer☀️ is for the girlies

📸 (c): chargers

[spidervman]

they went off with this

[spidervman]

You know what isn't a crime, but definitely should be one? The casual mischaracterization of Sentry in fan content. I'm so done😭

1. I hate how he's often depicted as cruel, he's not, look at him, fucking look? And when Ava asks about the hair dye, what does he do? He looks to Val for an answer, he's constantly fidgeting, trying to find an out for the bunch of misfits who previously helped him in the vault.

2. I hate how people try to turn it into a Marc Spector, Steven Grant and Jake Lockley situation when it's. Like. Not?? This is such a disservice to both Moon Knight and The Sentry, and real people who relate to the two characters' (very distinct very different) mental health issues. Bob doesn't have DID, if anything, the movie leans towards him being bipolar. Sentry is Bob, the guy literally tells Yelena in the vault that he has high highs and low lows, the high is Sentry, the low is the Void, that's it. Bob is both Sentry and The Void. What's so hard to understand? It's the mania (Sentry), followed by depression (Void) then he forgets. That's how Bob describes it in the first act of the film, that's how it happens in the third act.

3. This is not a contradiction to point 1, but Sentry is unhinged. He is awkward and somehow soft spoken? But he is unhinged, and invincible, and fucking terrifying. I'm tired of the stoic depictions in fics like🙂‍↔️ idc if you wanna write fics for comic Sentry, just don't tag them as mcu stuff. (WHO AM I KIDDING COMIC SENTRY IS FUCKING SCARYYY STOP THE BABYFICATION)

4. He is not evil (the fact that we have to spell this out... media literacy is truly dead huh), no shit the Thunderbolts* will be scared of him, of course they will be– he kicked the ever-living shit out of them. But he's not malicious, he doesn't use unnecessary force. Call it condescending, but he's going easy on them, toying with them, and deals arguably softer blows to Yelena, John and Ava, the trio he already met at the vault (because he's the same person, yk? jesus)

5. Prespective is a thing, the team wasn't there to see Sentry tell Val he doesn't want to kill them (they're no threat to him), it's the root cause of their disagreement, it leads to the New York Blackout TM, but we, the audience, were. So tell me why the fuck do I see stuff with this guy terrorizing that team for no reason? 😭 bfr guys.

6. So what? So while I can buy you showing me Ava or John or Alexei or Bucky or Yelena being fearful of the Sentry, or Val (hahaha eat shit Val), I simply can't get behind him actually being a threat to them, on purpose and beyond swatting them like flies, because hi hello have you seen the movie? Yeah.

7. Have I mentioned Sentry is unhinged? Yeah. Yeah. We got glimpses of it with Val before Mel pressed the kill switch but!! Sentry!! Is!! Unhinged!!

8. Find a middle ground, he doesn't have to be uwu or straight up satan or stoic as a rock, he is Bob in mania, so that's inherently Bob with high levels of energy and a higher self esteem (more like a GODLY EGO) and impulsivness and dillusions of grandeur (except they're not dellusions anymore? So rip), so do with that what you will.

Fingers crossed for more in-character Sentry content, at least the Sentry depicted by Lewis Pullman, who put his all into this performance but whose character is still somehow misunderstood? Anyways.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[spidervman]

[spidervman]

a sitting platypus