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mightydragoon · 2 days ago

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Why did Staff of Hermes convince me Percabeth is going to break up in the future?

The nail in the coffin for me when I was rereading the series in terms of me foreseeing that Percabeth will not make it as a couple in the future was this short story. The Staff of Hermes. Not the Judo Flip in MOA mind you which is pretty controversial or even the ending for The Bronze Dragon which is rage-inducing when I reflect upon it, but this short story.

It spoke to me how distant Percabeth were with each other and in terms of their rushed dynamic, how they are doomed as a couple.

Percy has never really been fully comfortable around Annabeth. Even their most romantic moments in BOTL for instance are tinged with anticipation for violence.

Like the volcano kiss

and Percy crashing his funeral

And of course, this comes up briefly in Staff of Hermes as well

The moments are presented as sweet, but the very fact that Percy anticipates being punched or slapped by Annabeth is revealing. It proves that the judo flip is in character for Annabeth but in many ways, Annabeth got worse as she got older. Given she actually flips Percy over and kicks his leg when he talking to Jason in MOA.

That's not even delving into Percy's major emotional insecurities when he is in a relationship with Annabeth, and how in MOA, he is constantly scared to open up to her about the future and uses the analogy of a "glass sculpture" to describe how fragile it feels to him to accidentally break it. Or even how it feels more apparent that Annabeth uses knowledge as a weapon of power to make Percy feel stupid in the relationship to feel superior.

That doesn't come across as someone who is eager to share information because they want to out of genuine passion, that's someone who uses it as a means of power and control.

The sad thing is for Annabeth's character, it makes way too much sense. MOA is a revealing glimpse into her personality but there was already hints of it in her interview in the Bronze Dragon. She does seem to like Percy, but any compliment she might have for him is backhanded at best and insulting at worst.

With that, Annabeth comes across as genuinely believing Percy is annoying her deliberately.

It reminded me of a TikTok I saw just recently where a woman was chatting with her husband about seeing Thunderbolts but he shut her down as it being just a movie. When she got upset, he said to her in order to try and ease the situation was "I love when you get excited it's just annoying sometimes." It was gutting to hear not to mention she was visibly upset and she excused her own husband's faults as a part of his healing journey. You can imagine the comment section in that video btw.

It reminded me of another scene, in fact just before the Judo Flip where Annabeth was blaming Percy for "leaving". She thought this.

Excruciating...

Not to gonna lie. That floored me when I reread that scene. I genuinely couldn't believe anyone would even think that about someone they loved. It's a bit like a man saying how much he hates his wife. Conflict does arise in relationships, but this seems like Annabeth is torn between loving and hating Percy and it's not the healthy sort either.

Not to mention she also said this later in the same book.

I know the flip was bad, but this was another layer where it feels like Annabeth genuinely dislikes Percy and oscillates between hate and love for him. Later on she also develops a fear of Percy after Tartarus, which begs the question why they are even together at this point. Annabeth also admitted she hated Percy does fit with her behaviour as she genuinely seems annoyed with Percy in the books but it becomes really questionable as she gets older and even how she acts towards him.

At one point, can we excuse Annabeth actions as a quirk of "trauma" as she is too young to know differently and using that as shield to excuse shitty behaviour as someone who is meant to be a role model.

Riordan doesn't understand the implications that is here. How it's not a healthy dynamic with Percy, who is also an abuse survivor with a fatal flaw of loyalty. His story means a lot to people and to not look into any of his relationships and how that impacted him would be doing that a disservice with the focus that was presented onto it.

Personal loyalty to stick with people no matter how they might treat you, good or bad. It provides a tragic lens onto Percy who might have Gabe as a reference but Gabe's abuse was more direct; he insulted Percy's intelligence with "brain boy", threatened to punch Percy lights out (and probably did that on occasion) and also financially took advantage of him. Annabeth's is a little different. I don't think Annabeth herself is aware of it completely, but it still doesn't erase the emotional belittling and pressure she puts on Percy throughout the series.

It doesn't change the fact that Percy asked her to stop with the nickname in the Bronze Dragon (and probably before as hinted in TTC) refusing to respect that boundary of Percy, who is never really fully at ease around Annabeth and has major emotional insecurities that have emerged so much more poignantly as a result of the relationship.

So why is the Staff of Hermes so special when this is littered throughout their dynamic across the books? Why was this the nail in the coffin for me?

Well, it's rather simple, actually. It's control.

The pair of them are on a date. Percy had clearly arranged matters. The Great Lawn is a lovely place in Central Park and the internary shows Percy took considerable care into the thought process behind it. We know from the first book Percy in not that fussed on olives and he had chocolates and lemondades with them.

Percy is not made of money, we know this firsthand from the first books but even the fact he able to do something like this for date is quite sweet and thoughtful.

Like that is the Great Lawn for reference. Not a bad place for a first date. On a lovely sunny day at that is.

Now it's infered from Frederick's background even before we further learn in Magnus Chase they come from generational wealth in Boston (and Annabeth technically inheriting the Mansion in the end) he is on the richer end. No one can afford housing in San Francisco that easily or be able to work on Sopwith Camels in TTC without a bit of money. That or Annabeth's stepmother is an underrated breadwinner.

Why is this relevant?

It's essentially Annabeth's expectations of what the date is meant to be in her mind versus what Percy could actually do.

Annabeth's character is one of privilege in the books (she is explicitly white coded not only from her appearance, along with her siblings, but also wealth), both from her home life and Camp by Chiron. Chiron informs Annabeth on nearly everything and presumably allowed her to be a Camp Counsellor at a young age. Despite not ready for some of those responsibilities as we see in her introduction, she is very rude to Percy who she should be able to empathise with his situation of losing a loved one (missed chance there to connect them by Rick), acts out against him and is deeply impatient in answering basic questions about Camp, which is her job. This is part of their poorly constructed Meet-Ugly in the books, and by the time Piper arrives, Annabeth is much better at her introductions but it doesn't change the fact that she wasn't fit for the task initially and presumably treated other Campers like that in search of the One. (I doubt she made many friends because of that)

We learn in The Lost Hero, Chiron rarely kept anything from Annabeth (with the exception of the initial theft of the Bolt and the Romans), and from what we see in the series, this is fairly true. Chiron allows her to know about the Great Prophecy from ten, but she also has information about the Labyrinth in BOTL, despite that being a secret. TLO also explores this, and one of the reasons she has the infamous "You're a coward" Percy scene is because Chiron informed her about where Percy was, and crucially neither of them informed Percy of the wartime developments like with Typhon.

I was never fussed on the You're A Coward scene and especially the dissipated resolution in it meant that the tension between the pair was never truly resolved. It never struck me as particularly romantic so to learn that was some people's favourite scene in TLO had me confused because of how frustrating it is. Especially since Percy was asking for confirmation about Rachel's vision and the possible direction. But because it's Rachel, Annabeth refuses to even entertain the possibility, despite the fact SHE said it.

Annabeth has never really liked Rachel but a part of that, I think comes down to mortality itself. Annabeth constantly dismisses Rachel is because she is "just a mortal." But even the way Annabeth talks about mortality is squint-worthy, given that she is meant to be his mortal tie through the Curse of Achilles.

Like the hidden meaning behind these scenes is Rachel and Annabeth are fighting over Percy but honestly, I think that is poorly done given how spiteful it comes across and how Annabeth says mortal like a slur. It's not even the first time we see her dismissive towards mortals either, she doesn't have a high opinion on her stepfamily in the first books and authorities like cops (which honestly fair) but it does spell a different layer to Annabeth's dislike of Rachel is connected with that dislike of mortals.

It's understandable that another reason why Annabeth might act the way she does is linked to her family and also her inherent pride in being a demigod, a divine child of Athena (Athena is the best after all), and a gift onto her father. Either way, it makes her a poor fit as a mortal tie for the Curse of Achilles.

I do think Riordan was using the Curse of Achilles as a crutch to pair Percy and Annabeth together and to rush the romance between them, given that is the primary reason they got together. But it still doesn't change the fact narratively as a mortal tie, Rachel or even Sally would've made more sense.

I don't even ship the pair but throughout TLO Percy and Rachel have a crucial impact on each other and the choices they make. As we see to Percy, Rachel is a reminder that there is something there for him in the mortal world and, you can see Rachel seeing Percy as an escape from her own life, given how she joined him on the Labyrinth quest on the spot. Rachel is present in reminding Percy he is not the Hero of the prophecy and was there when Percy gave the pithos to Hestia. Later on Percy does the same for her when her moment came with the Oracle.

This is the precursor to Percy turning down immortality and Rachel plays a critical component in that, but is ultimately the reminder for Percy of the broader picture, much like Annabeth is when Percy looks back and thinks of Camp and all those who died when he declines immortality. the only time I believe Percy's mortal tie to Annabeth made sense beyond a romantic level.

Percy is clearly more comfortable around Rachel.

And Percy made to feel guilty for his interactions around Rachel throughout TLO and much later with Annabeth, this is revealed she does this deliberately to Percy even after they have gotten together in order to assert control.

So at this point, it goes beyond Annabeth's jealousy and possessiveness and into control. Annabeth is a complicated character, but it still doesn't change how one can read into her actions and that in the text and present for all to see. Back to the Coward scene in TLO.

Annabeth is emotional and she does have decent reasons to be. She is scared for Percy. We see this when Percy reacts to the prophecy.

More than anything Annabeth is projecting her own emotional insecurity onto Percy in this scene. About his oncoming death and also his feelings towards her.

She is annoyed with Percy presumably not confessing to her when she clearly has emotions for him and for him spending time with Rachel instead. But she presents it as Percy being the coward and for running away, scared. Rather than actually confess her feelings herself. It should be Percy to be the one to do so. Percy is clearly not a coward running from his death and even in terms of their "romantic relationship" at this point, apart from a kiss which came out of nowhere there is not really a lot of reasons for them to be together (yet) Percy reads between those lines over why she is really annoyed.

This, among many scenes, continues a tension between Percy and Annabeth which is never truly resolved and its' not helped with Annabeth and Rachel making up off-screen, which doesn't make sense given how Annabeth seemed to have genuine emity towards Rachel's perceived crush on Percy.

This connects with who is well established as Annabeth as a prideful character but as controlling as well. Annabeth's pride possibly can't accept what she deems as a mediocre dinner for their first month anniversary.

It is genuinely gutting to see Percy, who was doing something nice and presumably this IS the special dinner Annabeth was thinking Percy "promised" her and what she expected him to do instead.

I presume this was the dinner Percy had in mind if he did promise, but for Annabeth she wanted something grander and more important; this wasn't it.

Annabeth wanted to pressure Percy despite him doing something nice; she wanted to keep Percy on his toes, as it were. That's not healthy.

Percy gives a lot in this relationship. He feels obligated to and as we see her, Annabeth expects a lot out of this relationship. A month anniversary is materialistic as hell. Annabeth is also not expected to do anything similar. I would understand Percy's anxiety even further if Annabeth had done something similarly nice, but that isn't the case here.

More often than not, Percy is expected to GIVE and Annabeth often TAKES in the relationship.

As someone who works on celebrating special occasions, this feels petty and ridiculous to expect from a partner. But it's also telling how the picnic dinner was not enough for Annabeth as well since Percy did still do something on their anniversary, even if unintentionally on the anniversary itself. It might not ever be enough for something so "simple".

We know from the series a lot of Percabeth moments are focused on grand and impressive feats. They had their first kiss in a volcano. Annabeth is his mortal tie. They both turned down immortality for each other(they hadn't) and they fell through in Tartarus and walked out together. Etc, Etc.

In many ways they have done a lot together, but it doesn't have the emotional weight it deserves. Percy and Annabeth frankly don't have the chemistry or a real emotional connection as people. Part of that, I think, is due to Riordan clearly trying to push them as a couple before them being friends, and Annabeth's character in particular suffered from this. Stranged from the Red String as it were.

This is meant to be a sweet and domestic moment, and it isn't even a bad idea for a date but it isn't enough. Annabeth had widely different expectations, which can also be a microcosm of how they have completely different views for the future and ideas on how that will turn out. Percy didn't believe a month anniversary was really that important or significant and honestly. He's right. It's not. But Annabeth is not satisfied with a mere picnic for a special dinner and talks about it being more like the year anniversary than a single month.

This is arguably one of their better stories together, too where we see good teamwork and some nice moments between them compared to others. One day I will get into the Bronze Dragon. But for me the focus on the dinner overshadows everything and that is a frequent problem with Percabeth, where there are so much negativity in the relationship I feel gobsmacked whenever I'm expected to clap like a seal whenever they do something positive.

It speaks to me how Percabeth don't really have a lot in common apart from being with each other, fighting threats, or just knowing each other for years.

Percy doesn't appear all that interested in architecture, and Annabeth isn't much into sea life or skateboarding. While Percy had few common threads with Rachel in BOTL which he acknowledged, they both have mutual interests in the environment and peace with each other, which we don't really get with Percabeth. Percabeth feels so performative and stale in comparison that I still struggle to even read them as friends, let alone lovers. Particularly as Annabeth doesn't really respect Percy all that much.

Percabeth desperately needed more time to develop, getting together on the same time a lot of their peers died and the pressure from Camp I don't believe helped later down the line.

Like this comes across as sweet and it is, after all, it's them getting together and then getting chucked in the water. It's a great and grand way to get together for the Finale, YAY!!!!. But it has way too many unresolved issues that we only see blossom even further in HOO with how rushed it was. I find it esoteric. The Curse and by extension, Percy's choice to turn down immortality, feeding into it. Grand reasons to get together but fragile on examination as you wonder what really connects them together and I refuse to see them as this cute and perfect couple, which is the gold standard when they are ironically quite basic.

It makes sense why Percy compares their relationship to a "glass sculpture" and how he really doesn't know Annabeth nor does she in return about Percy. A glass sculpture is something that is so fragile and can break with a good push. It is destined to crash and break. In contrast to Annabeth's grand ideas of making something that will last for thousands of years. (Annabeth also has a connection to glass in her architecture, which I will not get into today but trust me it is there and it is haunting me)

Percy has so much love for Annabeth and treats her with utmost respect in his narration, but that is not really shared to the same degree. It feels so jarring reading their perspectives and how idealised Percy pictures Annabeth in his head, like him remembering her in SON, versus how she acts towards him in MOA

Percabeth is built on grand and lofty moments from the first book which is highlighted with the forced one-sided rivalry all the way to the present to justify them being together. Rather than having something more genuine and real connecting them together.

Annabeth's expecting something more from Percy for their month anniversary is, I feel, emblematic of everything I despise about it.

The fact that Annabeth forgot proves it wasn't about the dinner but control. It was making Percy uncomfortable over "forgetting" despite him doing something nice for her anyway, and that was presumably what he originally had planned for her anyway. It was keeping him on his toes. It's small but very present.

The only reason she isn't mad is that she did get the dinner in the end, and presumably Annabeth knew full well Percy "forgot" but she kept pressuring him anyway. But the fact that she tells Percy to start planning for their second month anniversary...

I don't find that sweet, funny or the one bit pleasant. It feels so materialistic and inconsiderate to Percy, who had a lovely date planned for her with some of her favourite treats and foods. And it didn't look like she cared for that one bit.

That more than anything kills me. The lack of appreciation. And that killed any hopes of their relationship going forward for me.

In fact, she urges Percy to do more. Annabeth doesn't say she will try anything special herself for Percy. No, it's on Percy to pick up the bill here. As I said, Percy is the giver, and Annabeth is the taker in this relationship and that fact is constant.

This story made me read the series completely differently and this is more than a dinner. All Percy can think about is "surviving" a month as Annabeth's boyfriend and hopefully her seeing a future with him, which is quite bleak.

More than anything to me, it just feels tragic reading Percy's attempts to do something nice for his girlfriend being brushed off or discarded like this. Annabeth has a commanding personality, and she promised she would never make things easy for Percy. In that she's right.

This story proves to me, Annabeth will never be satisfied with Percy's attempts and Percy will never feel good enough in this relationship to feel content and genuinely happy in a way that doesn't feel like he's forcing himself to be.

But it did open my eyes and made me consider so much more about why Rick might write a certain way, what he might have been considering when writing Percabeth himself and the likely future they will have in a peacetime without the same worries of a war on the horizon. Cause I can't see it work.

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velvetvisionsaurora · 2 days ago

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Synopsis: When talented producer Y/n (known professionally as the mysterious "Celeste") accepts a position at JYP Entertainment to help Stray Kids with their comeback, she expects to focus solely on creating music. What she doesn't expect is the immediate connection she feels with Han Jisung—the group's quick-witted, sensitive rapper and producer who's been following her career from afar.

Pairing: Han Jisung x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Smut, Heartbreak

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Masterlist Ko-Fi☕️

Chapter 14: Interventions

"Your productivity-to-sighing ratio is becoming problematic," Changbin observed dryly, watching Han stare blankly at his notebook for the fifth consecutive minute. "At this rate, we'll finish the album sometime next century."

It had been ten days since Han had ended things with you, ten days of carefully choreographed professional interactions and studiously avoided personal conversations. Ten days of Han's increasingly obvious distraction despite his best efforts to focus on work.

"I'm just thinking through some lyrical adjustments," Han defended, though the empty page before him betrayed the lie.

"Right," Changbin nodded with exaggerated agreement. "Those invisible lyrics look very profound."

Han closed his notebook with perhaps more force than necessary. "Did you need something specific, or is bothering me just today's entertainment?"

"Both, actually," Changbin replied, unfazed by Han's irritation. "Lee Know and I wanted to talk to you. Privately."

Something in Changbin's tone—unusually serious beneath the casual delivery—sent a ripple of unease through Han's system. First Felix, then Hyunjin, and now Changbin and Lee Know. The circle of members taking interest in his personal life was expanding in concerning ways.

"About what?" Han asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

"About why you've been walking around like someone stole your soul for the past ten days," Lee Know answered, appearing in the doorway of their shared room. "And why our producer has developed a remarkable ability to look both perfectly composed and completely devastated whenever you're in the same room."

Han's stomach dropped. While he'd known Felix and Hyunjin were aware of the situation given their prior knowledge of the relationship, he hadn't realized his behavior—or yours—had been obvious enough to draw attention from the others.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he attempted, the denial weak even to his own ears.

Lee Know's unimpressed expression made it clear he wasn't buying it. "Let's skip the part where you pretend nothing's wrong, we pretend to believe you, and everyone wastes valuable time. Something happened between you and Y/n. We want to know what."

The direct approach was characteristic of Lee Know, who had never been one for social niceties when straightforward questions would suffice. Han glanced between his two friends, finding no escape route from the conversation.

"It's complicated," he hedged, the same insufficient explanation he'd offered Felix and Hyunjin.

"We've got time," Changbin said, settling more comfortably on his own bed across from Han's. "And unlike Felix and Hyunjin, we don't have preexisting knowledge clouding our perspective."

The casual reference to Felix and Hyunjin confirmed Han's suspicion that information had been shared among the members, though how much remained unclear. Had they revealed the full extent of his relationship with you, or merely their concerns about the current tension?

"There's nothing to discuss," Han insisted with forced casualness. "Y/n and I had a minor disagreement about production approach. It's being handled professionally."

Lee Know snorted, the sound conveying his complete disbelief. "A 'minor disagreement' doesn't result in you looking like you haven't slept in days, or her flinching when your hands accidentally touch over equipment."

The observation was uncomfortably accurate. Despite both your best efforts at professionalism, small tells had apparently been noticed by more perceptive members.

"Has there been an impact on the album production?" Han asked, attempting to redirect the conversation to safer territory.

"Not yet," Changbin acknowledged. "You're both professionals. But the tension is affecting group dynamics, and eventually, it will affect the work if not addressed."

"There's nothing to address," Han maintained stubbornly. "We're adults handling a temporary awkwardness. It will pass."

"Cut the bullshit, Han," Lee Know said bluntly, his patience visibly thinning. "We know you were involved with Y/n. We know it ended badly. What we don't know is why, or whether it's going to become a problem for the comeback."

The direct statement confirmed Han's worst fears—somehow, knowledge of the relationship had spread beyond Felix and Hyunjin. His mind raced through possibilities. Had one of them broken their promise of secrecy? Had someone else seen something suspicious? Or had his own behavior been so transparent that the others had pieced it together themselves?

"Who told you?" he asked finally, abandoning the increasingly futile denial.

"No one needed to tell us," Lee Know replied with a hint of exasperation. "We have eyes. And unlike some members, we also have functional brains that can connect obvious dots."

"The lingering glances, the 'coincidental' scheduling of early arrivals and late departures, the way you light up when she compliments your work," Changbin elaborated. "Followed by ten days of you looking like someone died and her maintaining professional composure so rigid it might snap at any moment."

Put that way, Han wondered how they hadn't been discovered sooner. "Does anyone else know?"

"Chan suspects but hasn't said anything directly," Lee Know answered. "Seungmin is too focused on his own projects to notice. I.N. definitely knows something's wrong but probably hasn't figured out exactly what."

The assessment was both concerning and slightly relieving—the situation wasn't completely public yet, but neither was it as contained as Han had hoped.

"So what happened?" Changbin pressed, returning to the original question. "Things seemed to be going well, from what we could observe. Then suddenly, nuclear winter."

Han sighed, recognizing that some level of explanation was necessary, even if he couldn't share the whole truth about Manager Kim's warning. "I ended things. It was getting too complicated with her contract ending in a few weeks, the professional boundaries being crossed, the risk of discovery."

"That's the 'what,' not the 'why,'" Lee Know pointed out. "Professional complications existed from the beginning. Something changed. Something specific."

Han had forgotten how perceptive Lee Know could be beneath his usually disaffected exterior. Like Felix, he sensed there was more to the story than Han was revealing.

"I realized it wasn't going anywhere," Han said, repeating the explanation he'd given you, the words feeling even hollower now. "The intensity was situational—the secrecy, the forbidden aspect, the creative collaboration. Once I thought about it logically, continuing made no sense."

"And when exactly have you ever approached relationships 'logically'?" Changbin questioned skeptically. "You're the same person who wrote twelve songs about a crush who smiled at you once in high school."

The reminder of his typically emotional approach to romantic feelings made Han's constructed narrative even less convincing. "People mature. I've learned from past mistakes."

"Right," Lee Know drawled. "You matured suddenly and completely, overnight, with no precipitating event. That sounds extremely plausible and not at all like a convenient excuse."

Han ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "What do you want me to say? That I made a mistake? Fine, maybe I did. But it's done now. She'll be leaving for LA in eight weeks, and we'll all move on with our lives."

"What we want," Changbin said with unusual gentleness, "is to understand what's really going on with our friend who's clearly miserable despite insisting everything's fine."

The concern in Changbin's voice threatened to crack Han's carefully maintained composure. It would be so much easier to share the truth with his closest friends, to explain the real reason behind his actions, to have someone understand why he'd made the painful choice he had.

But the risk remained too great. The more people who knew the truth, the more likely it was to eventually reach you, and the possibility of you taking actions that could harm your career for his sake was exactly what he was trying to prevent.

"I appreciate the concern," Han said finally, his tone softening slightly. "But this is something I need to handle myself. The important thing is that the album production isn't affected."

"The album isn't the only thing that matters," Lee Know pointed out quietly. "You do too."

The simple statement, delivered with Lee Know's characteristic bluntness but unusual warmth, threatened Han's emotional control more than all the direct questioning had. It was easier to maintain his deception when faced with skepticism or accusation than with genuine care and concern.

"I'll be fine," Han insisted, though the hollow promise convinced none of them. "Just need some time to readjust to normal professional boundaries."

Changbin and Lee Know exchanged a glance that communicated volumes without words—neither believed Han's explanation, but both recognized they wouldn't get anything more from him now.

"Well, when you're ready to talk about what really happened," Changbin said, standing to indicate the interrogation was pausing rather than ending, "we're here."

"And in the meantime," Lee Know added, "try to look less like you're auditioning for a tragedy. People are starting to talk, and not just within the group."

The warning sent a chill through Han's system. If his behavior was noticeable enough to cause speculation beyond their immediate circle, the risk of rumors reaching management—or worse, you discovering the truth about Manager Kim's warning—increased substantially.

"I'll work on that," he promised, making a mental note to better police his expressions and actions moving forward.

As Changbin and Lee Know left the room, Han remained on his bed, the notebook still open to its blank page. The conversation had revealed concerning new complications—more members aware of the relationship than he'd realized, his own behavior less controlled than he'd believed, the potential for wider discovery growing with each passing day.

Eight more weeks suddenly felt like an eternity, each day a minefield of potential slips, revelations, or confrontations that could undermine the very protection he'd sacrificed your relationship to ensure.

---

"You need a distraction," Hyunjin declared, flopping dramatically across your couch as if he owned it. "This professional zombie routine is getting depressing."

It was Friday evening, nearly two weeks since Han had ended things, and you'd been attempting to enjoy a quiet night alone when Hyunjin and Felix had appeared at your door, bearing takeout and determinedly cheerful expressions.

"I'm not a zombie," you protested, though the protest lacked conviction. "I'm just focused on work."

"You're focused on not focusing on Han," Felix corrected gently from his position in your armchair. "Which is understandable but not actually helping you feel better."

You sighed, unable to deny the assessment. The past twelve days had been an exercise in deliberate distraction—throwing yourself into production details, reviewing tracks that were already near-perfect, maintaining such rigid professionalism that even Chan had asked if you were feeling well.

"What do you suggest? More baking? Another movie night?" Your tone was more resigned than enthusiastic, though you appreciated their concern.

"A date," Hyunjin announced triumphantly, sitting up with the air of someone revealing a brilliant plan. "A hot, distracting, completely unrelated-to-work date."

You stared at him, momentarily speechless. "A date," you repeated flatly. "With whom, exactly? I don't exactly have a large social circle in Seoul."

"That," Hyunjin declared with a flourish, "is where we come in. Felix and I know people. Non-idol, normal, attractive people who would be thrilled to take our talented producer friend to dinner."

Felix nodded, though with slightly less enthusiasm than Hyunjin. "It might actually be good for you to get out, meet someone new. No pressure, just dinner and conversation not related to the album or... recent events."

The suggestion was so unexpected, so completely at odds with your emotional state, that you couldn't immediately formulate a response. The thought of sitting across from a stranger, making small talk while pretending your heart wasn't still in pieces, seemed both exhausting and vaguely disloyal—though to whom, you weren't entirely sure anymore.

"I appreciate the thought," you said carefully, "but I'm not ready to date anyone."

"Who said anything about dating?" Hyunjin waved dismissively. "This is a strategic distraction. One evening of being reminded that there are other attractive, interesting men in the world besides Han Jisung."

The direct reference to Han made you wince slightly. Despite regular interactions in the studio, you and the others had developed an unspoken agreement to avoid mentioning him by name in personal conversations.

"I'm well aware that other men exist," you pointed out dryly. "I just don't particularly want to make awkward conversation with one over dinner right now."

"What about Minjun?" Felix suggested, ignoring your objection. "He's Chan's friend from university. Producer, understands the industry, good sense of humor."

"Or Jiwoo," Hyunjin countered. "Dancer, incredibly hot, works with one of the choreographers. Excellent conversationalist."

You stared between them, realizing with growing horror that this wasn't a hypothetical suggestion but an actual plan they'd already begun implementing. "Have you been discussing potential dates for me behind my back?"

"Not discussing," Hyunjin corrected innocently. "Just... inventorying suitable candidates. For when you were ready."

"Which apparently is now," Felix added, his expression turning more serious. "Y/n, you've barely left your dorm except for work since... you know. It's not healthy."

"I went to dinner with you both last week," you pointed out defensively.

"Once," Hyunjin emphasized. "One dinner in twelve days. Otherwise, it's been studio-dorm-studio-dorm like some kind of depressing pendulum."

The assessment, while slightly exaggerated, contained enough truth to make you uncomfortable. You had been isolating yourself, avoiding social situations that might strain your emotional control or lead to awkward questions from members who didn't know about your relationship with Han.

"Look," Felix said gently, "no one's saying you need to find a new relationship. Just that spending one evening with someone completely unconnected to your current situation might help clear your head."

Put that way, the suggestion held a certain logic, though you remained skeptical about your ability to be good company for anyone in your current state.

"And," Hyunjin added with a mischievous smile, "it might be satisfying to see Han's face when he realizes you're moving on with your life instead of pining over him."

"I am not pining," you protested automatically, though the defensive response only made Hyunjin's smile widen.

"Of course not," he agreed with excessive politeness. "You're just sighing dramatically whenever he leaves the room because the air quality improves."

Felix stifled a laugh at Hyunjin's description, earning a betrayed look from you. "He's exaggerating," Felix assured you quickly. "But you do get this certain look when Han's around—like you're trying really hard not to look at him while being hyper-aware of his exact location."

The uncomfortably accurate assessment made you wonder what other tells you'd been unconsciously displaying. If Felix and Hyunjin had noticed these details, who else might have observed the same patterns?

"Fine," you conceded reluctantly. "Maybe I could use an evening away from... everything. But I'm not promising to enjoy it."

"That's the spirit!" Hyunjin exclaimed with clearly excessive enthusiasm. "Nothing says 'fun date' like preemptive determination to be miserable!"

Despite yourself, you smiled at his ridiculous encouragement. "Who exactly did you have in mind? And please tell me you haven't already set this up without my consent."

Felix and Hyunjin exchanged a quick glance that immediately raised your suspicions.

"Define 'set up,'" Hyunjin hedged. "If you mean 'mentioned to an eligible friend that our extremely talented, beautiful producer friend might be available for dinner this weekend,' then... maybe?"

"Hyunjin!" you exclaimed, equal parts horrified and reluctantly amused. "You can't just arrange dates for people without asking them first!"

"I believe I just demonstrated that I absolutely can," he countered with unrepentant cheerfulness. "Besides, Jiwoo is genuinely interested in meeting you. I may have talked you up a bit."

"A bit?" Felix questioned skeptically.

"I maintained a reasonable ratio of truth to embellishment," Hyunjin insisted. "Eighty-twenty. Ninety-ten, tops."

You buried your face in your hands, wondering how your quiet evening alone had transformed into this bizarre intervention. "What exactly did you tell this Jiwoo person about me?"

"Just that you're a brilliant producer working temporarily with our team, that you're talented and beautiful and currently in need of pleasant company unrelated to K-pop idol drama," Hyunjin summarized innocently. "All objectively true statements."

"And that you've just gotten out of something complicated and aren't looking for anything serious," Felix added, apparently wanting to ensure full disclosure. "So expectations are appropriately set."

The thought that they had discussed your recent heartbreak with a stranger sent a fresh wave of mortification through your system. "So you told him I'm emotionally damaged and using him as a rebound. Fantastic."

"I phrased it much more elegantly," Hyunjin assured you. "Used words like 'transitional period' and 'focusing on career priorities.' Very professional."

Despite your embarrassment, you found yourself oddly touched by their well-meaning if misguided efforts. The fact that they cared enough to orchestrate this elaborate distraction spoke to a depth of friendship you hadn't fully appreciated until this moment.

"I can't believe I'm considering this," you muttered, more to yourself than to them.

"That's the spirit!" Hyunjin encouraged, clearly interpreting your resigned tone as agreement. "Tomorrow night, eight o'clock, that new fusion restaurant in Gangnam. I'll text you the details."

"I haven't said yes yet," you pointed out, though your objection lacked conviction.

"But you will," Hyunjin replied with complete confidence. "Because deep down, you know we're right. One night away from your apartment and your thoughts is exactly what you need."

Felix, perhaps sensing your continued hesitation, added more gently, "If it's terrible, you can leave after one drink. No pressure, no expectations. Just a few hours of different scenery and conversation."

Put that way, the proposition seemed less daunting. A brief distraction, a few hours away from the painful orbit around Han and your broken relationship, might indeed offer some temporary relief from the constant ache you'd been carrying.

"Fine," you conceded, already questioning your judgment. "One dinner. But if it's awkward or uncomfortable, I'm leaving and blaming both of you entirely."

"Fair," Felix agreed immediately.

"More than fair," Hyunjin confirmed with a triumphant smile. "Now, what are you going to wear? Please tell me you brought something more exciting than production-appropriate business casual to Seoul."

The sudden pivot to styling concerns was so perfectly Hyunjin that you couldn't help laughing despite your reservations. "I think I can manage to dress myself for a casual dinner without your fashion consultation."

"Are you sure?" Hyunjin asked skeptically, eyeing your current outfit of comfortable loungewear. "Because Jiwoo is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, extremely attractive. Like, 'why aren't you modeling instead of dancing' attractive."

"Hyunjin," Felix interjected with the patient tone of someone accustomed to managing his friend's enthusiasm, "maybe don't make her more nervous about this."

"I'm not nervous," you insisted automatically. "It's just dinner with a stranger. I've taken business meetings with intimidating industry executives. I can handle one casual date."

Even as you said it, though, you realized it wasn't entirely true. Business meetings were professional interactions with clear parameters and expectations. Dating—even casual, no-expectations dating—involved a different kind of vulnerability, one you weren't sure you were ready to embrace so soon after having your heart broken.

But the alternative—continuing your current pattern of work-focused isolation punctuated by painful encounters with Han—seemed increasingly unsustainable. Perhaps Hyunjin and Felix were right. Perhaps a different kind of distraction was exactly what you needed to break the cycle of hurt and avoidance that had characterized the past twelve days.

"Tomorrow at eight," you confirmed with a resigned nod. "But I'm still blaming you both if it's a disaster."

Hyunjin's delighted expression suggested he considered this a significant victory, while Felix offered a more measured smile of encouragement. As they launched into detailed descriptions of Jiwoo's many apparently excellent qualities, you found yourself wondering what Han would think of this development—and immediately chastised yourself for the thought.

His opinion no longer mattered. He had made his choice, had ended things with calculated precision, had made it clear that whatever had existed between you wasn't worth the complications it created. Your social life, your attempts to move forward, were no longer his concern.

The thought brought both pain and a strange sense of freedom. Perhaps this dinner, regardless of its outcome, would be the first step toward reclaiming your autonomy, toward remembering who you were beyond the relationship that had briefly consumed you.

Eight weeks remained before your return to LA. Eight weeks to complete the album, to maintain professional composure, to prepare for the transition back to your real life. Eight weeks that would pass more easily if you weren't spending every moment outside the studio dwelling on what might have been.

One dinner with an attractive stranger wouldn't heal your broken heart, but it might at least remind you that your story hadn't ended just because one chapter had closed more painfully than expected.

---

"What do you mean, 'a date'?" Han's voice rose sharply, drawing curious glances from the other members gathered in the dorm's living area. "With whom?"

Felix's expression remained carefully neutral, though something like satisfaction flickered briefly in his eyes at Han's reaction. "Some dancer friend of Hyunjin's. Jiwoo, I think? Tomorrow night, that new place in Gangnam."

Han stared at Felix, trying to process this unexpected information. The thought of you sharing a meal with someone else, smiling across a table at a stranger, potentially enjoying someone's company in the way you'd once enjoyed his—it sent a wave of something hot and unpleasant through his system.

"Whose idea was this?" he demanded, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

"Hyunjin's, originally," Felix confirmed. "But I supported it. Y/n's been isolating herself since... well, you know. She needs to get out, meet people, remember there's a world beyond the studio and her dorm."

The reasonable explanation did nothing to soothe the irrational anger building in Han's chest. Intellectually, he understood that you had every right to have dinner with whomever you pleased. He had ended things, had pushed you away with deliberate cruelty, had forfeited any claim to opinions about your social life.

But emotionally? The thought of you moving on, potentially finding connection with someone else while he remained trapped in his necessary deception, was almost unbearable.

"It's just a distraction," Felix continued, watching Han's reaction with perceptive eyes. "She's not looking for anything serious. But it might help her stop looking so heartbroken every time you walk into a room."

The direct reference to your ongoing pain sent a fresh wave of guilt through Han's system. He had known you were hurting—had seen it in the careful way you held yourself in his presence, the professional mask that never quite reached your eyes—but hearing it confirmed so bluntly made the reality of what he'd done even more difficult to bear.

"She's free to do whatever she wants," Han said finally, his tone deliberately even despite the turmoil beneath it. "We're not together anymore."

"No, you're not," Felix agreed, something harder entering his usually warm voice. "By your choice, if I recall correctly. So this shouldn't bother you at all."

The challenge was clear—if Han truly believed what he'd told you about his feelings not being deep enough, about the relationship being primarily circumstantial, then your dinner with someone else should be irrelevant to him. The fact that it clearly wasn't supported Felix's ongoing suspicion that Han's stated reasons for ending things weren't the whole truth.

"It doesn't bother me," Han insisted, the lie transparent to both of them. "I was just surprised."

"Right," Felix nodded with exaggerated understanding. "That's why you look like someone just canceled your birthday. Surprise."

Han turned away, unable to maintain the pretense of indifference under Felix's knowing gaze. "I need to work on some lyrics. For the album."

"Of course," Felix agreed easily, allowing Han the escape he clearly needed. "The album always comes first, right?"

The echo of Han's own justification for ending things with you felt like a deliberate jab, one he had no defense against given the partial truth of the statement. The album did matter—but it hadn't been his primary concern when ending your relationship. Your career, your future beyond this temporary assignment, had been what he sought to protect.

A protection that suddenly felt hollow as he imagined you smiling across a table at some attractive dancer, perhaps finding connection with someone who didn't come with Han's complications, someone who could appreciate you openly without fear of professional consequences.

As Han retreated to his room, closing the door perhaps more firmly than necessary, a new, unwelcome thought presented itself—what if this date went well? What if you found genuine interest in this Jiwoo person? What if the distraction Hyunjin and Felix had orchestrated became something more meaningful?

Eight weeks remained before your scheduled return to LA. Plenty of time for a new relationship to develop, for your wounded heart to begin healing in someone else's company, for the bond that had formed between you and Han to be replaced by fresh connections without the weight of secrecy and professional complications.

The possibility sent a wave of something dangerously close to panic through Han's system. He had ended things to protect your career, had sacrificed his own happiness for your professional future—but he hadn't considered the possibility of you finding happiness with someone else while the wound of your separation was still raw for him.

Selfish, a voice in his mind accused. You want her safe from professional consequences but alone and hurting rather than happy with someone else.

The uncomfortable truth of this assessment made Han wince. He wanted to believe his motives were purely selfless, that his only concern was your wellbeing and future. But the visceral reaction to news of your dinner plans suggested something more complicated—a possessiveness he had no right to feel, a jealousy he couldn't justify given his own actions.

Tomorrow night, while he was working on tracks or practicing choreography or whatever distraction he could find, you would be sitting across from someone new. Laughing, perhaps. Engaging in conversation that had nothing to do with production techniques or comeback preparations. Possibly even enjoying yourself, taking the first steps toward moving on from whatever had existed between you and Han.

The thought was almost physically painful, a tightness in his chest that made breathing difficult. But what alternative did he have? To confess the truth about Manager Kim's warning? To ask you to remain in emotional limbo while he maintained his necessary deception? To expect you to honor a connection he himself had publicly devalued and dismissed?

None of these were viable options if he truly cared about your wellbeing—both professional and personal. The truth would only place you in an impossible position, forced to choose between career safety and emotional honesty. And asking you to wait for some undefined future resolution would be deeply unfair when he himself had framed your relationship as less significant than it was.

No, Han had made his choice. Had sacrificed what might have been for the certainty of protecting your career. That choice came with consequences—including the possibility of watching you move forward while he remained trapped in the painful limbo of his own creation.

Eight more weeks. He had believed he could endure anything for eight weeks, even a broken heart disguised behind careful professionalism.

But watching you potentially begin healing with someone else's help? That was a test of endurance he hadn't anticipated and wasn't sure he had the strength to pass.

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chaifootsteps · 2 days ago

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Idk if you remember that episode of courage the cowardly dog called The Mask, but like…

Kitty and Bunny are literally better sapphic/lesbian representation than anything Spindlehorse has ever put out.

They’re only in ONE episode and yet that episode deals with escaping an abusive relationship and learning to accept reality and reject prejudice. As a kid I could tell that there was a HEAVILY subtextual romantic relationship between Bunny and Kitty.

Like. How do you fumble the bag so badly on your female queer rep that kid’s cartoon from the early early 2000s blows you out of the water???

Idk, man, I’ll try not to harp on it much longer, but I just get so annoyed with people telling me to be satisfied with scraps and poor representation.

“If you keep criticizing it we’ll never get more queer representation!!!”

If the lgbtq+ community hadn’t criticized the ways we were depicted in media throughout history, we would still only have horrible offensive stereotypes to represent us.

I seriously need some of these stans to go watch the celluloid closet …

—Peanut Anon 🥜

The standom genuinely does behave as though Viv gathered them all in a room, whipped out one of those memory things from Men in Black, and wiped their knowledge of all other forms of media. They talk about Viv as though queer media begins and ends with her.

John Dilworth didn't have Kitty and Bunny ride off on the back of a train to spend the rest of their life together so these people could do that.

youtube

#Anonymous #Peanut Anon #viv stuff #vivziepop critical #actual blog post #video reply

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spookykestrel · 3 months ago

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Girl who has only been listening to three bands recently makes an OC

#kinda messy but finally got the pictures in my head out #there's this whole storyline I have about these two characters #one of which is he descendent of another character #who was in a relationship with an actual character who has a real story they're a part of #I've decided for all my stories to take place in the same world #anyway this will probably never become anything #basically she touches this star of indeterminate name #and sees these crazy truths of the universe learns things she never dreamed #and is left with so much knowledge crowding her brain #but the things he really wanted to know (where his parent left to what the end to the war will look like)#she doesn't get #so basically fundamentally irreversibly changed he is just consumed by this hunt to find the star again #the star leaves its mark as well leaving his appearance in that in between state #eventually she finds the star again and is granted this like terrible ominscence her former self completely erased #the god who sent the star sees this knowledge as a gift but really obv it's a curse and tears her close relationship apart #that's basically what the story is sad gays ofc bc it's based off cshr #this world is full of meddling gods and situations such as this #which is how the original original character ended up so messed up #yipee #kestrel calls #chitter chatter #mostly I just needed a character to think about when I listen to this music #so I just made some #kestrel doodles #undescribed

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quietwingsinthesky · 1 year ago

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there’s a progression in there, somewhere, of even going from ‘the master might kill me any day now :(‘ to ‘the master is going to kill me :) she’s not going to let someone else do it after all this time’

#i wouldn’t call it hubris exactly. more like this pretty secure surity that that’s how they’re going to die.#and to them that makes sense. they chose this. they keep choosing it after the doctor offers them a way out.#because this is. they understand this. and they feel safe in the reprieve before their death.#how do you control death? choose who kills you. the last defense of a prey animal.#something something dark mirror to clara’s ‘i am owed’ speech for even is if this ever. doesn’t work out the way they thought it would.#clara tried to threaten the doctor so that he’d reverse death for her. even would turn on the master if she tried to spare them.#i am owed better. i am owed the death you promised… i am owed the knowledge that you don’t care enough to save me… you know. something like #that.#even is. kind of. meant to mirror the doctor’s companions at the time. they are a martha who can’t leave him. they are a donna who has to #remember and never speak about everything they know. they are clara if during deep breath clara reached back and truly didn’t expect. truly #hoped. that no one would take her hand. because if they can be certain it will happen they can know never to reach again.#jesus christ. go to therapy boy. you have so many trust issues.#but that’s why they’re Like That with the master because at the end of the day. who is easier to rely on? the guy who comes in to put out #fires but only sometimes. or the guy who. really really fucking likes starting fires.#better to get burned hoping someone is coming or get burned knowing that’s what would happen. and even. chooses the latter.#AND ALL OF THIS. for me to say thats why i cant actually let the master ever kill them.#i think she needs to do something worse to even. i think she needs to abandon them.#and that will either set them free to go have healthy normal relationships or. lets be honest much more likely. completely fucking break #them. which would be fun :) for me.#dw oc

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rearranging-deck-chairs · 10 months ago

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hang on are cougars like panthers

#'the cougar also known as the panther' SCREAM #dont mind me rewatching carmilla as a side effect of my newfound interest in vampires #you'd think it was renewed interest in vampires but no #i actually have never been all that interested in vampires as their own thing i was just gay #and i dont think carmilla really explored the concept itself #like A* in using the medium. D or whatever in exploring their subject matter #actually tbf their subject matter was lesbianism so. again probably an A. they knew what they wanted and they did it well #idk how letter grades work tbh #also not actually sure how much they got into the vampire thing which is why im rewatching to check #bc i was reading iwtv and i was like damn carmilla left stuff on the table #but i also think a lot went over my head #even just english wise im a little stunned at how much i didnt catch. like i was fluent in 2015 for sure but. you do keep learning words #also carmilla is like a popculture remix and i dont have a lot of popculture knowledge so a lot of that went over my head too #now i have just enough to know that im missing a lot #like theres a line in s1 where laura goes 'im living with a vampire. an honest to lestat vampire' and like. never caught that #bc i didnt know how the fuck that was fhkjghgh #but anyway im watching s2 and laura's like 'vampire seductress here is just crabby bc im not falling for her 17th century idea of game'#and like they keep calling armand Ancient right? but carmilla is not much younger #just the difference in framing is what made me start thinking abt it all #like carmilla is 400smth and laura is aware abt that to joke abt it and probably thinks it's a little hot but then you think abt how they #depict that kinda age with armand like what he says to madeleine. 'how do you go on when everything from your era is gone'#and sure carmilla has that loneliness but DAMN. like fuck. shes been doing this same trick. being like the abigail hobbs to the dean for #centuries? i mean there was that century or idk how long where she was buried alive or whatever. but THAT TOO #like damn fuck!!!!!!!!!! ive been going through the fanfic again this week and like there really isnt much #at least doesnt seem to be much that explores this. unless it's in all the aus bc i filtered those out (and still got them)#also interesting difference is if i remember correctly the hollstein happy ending is that carmilla becomes human #in iwtv of course like every important relationship is between vampires. and every lover turns vampire. and every vampire is a lover #sorta. bc abuse themes and stuff. so the inversion makes sense but wouldnt it have been kinda cool if she turned laura tho #anyway. can you believe they were like 'well shes a cougar thats her job and also her supernatural power' dhfkhjgkh as i said: A*

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itspileofgoodthings · 2 years ago

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watched a Dolly documentary and both the best and the worst part of it was watching other people talk about her and try and fail to explain her magic in words

#dolly parton #one of my favorite moments was Lily Tomlin being like ‘we had a pajama party while working on 9 to 5’#‘It was only later we realized Dolly had confided nothing’#an I c o n #a boundary having faith having icon #Also the Taylor parallels were off the charts #many sharp differences! but the creativity is the same—almost restless but never-ending—the deep deep well they both draw on #the star power is too. the longevity #the star power AS love and connection #And the knowledge of how to be themselves that nobody can do better than they can #there are so many parallels (including a need for both of them to be entertainers FIRST)#(Anyway things I want for Taylor that Dolly has: Dolly’s relationship with God and possibly her own Carl Dean lol)

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that-sarcastic-writer · 3 months ago

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Serenity

Michael “Robby” Robinavitch x f!doctor!reader

Summary: Robby has had a really shitty day, maybe he just needs his girlfriend to comfort him

Follows the pacing of the show so minor spoilers if you’re still not caught up

Warnings: explicit sexual content, minors dni, unprotected sex, p in v, creampie, oral (fem receiving), he talks her through it (yes he does and yall can’t tell me otherwise), age gap (reader is 35 and Robby is 50) (ik he’s probably Noah’s age but just bare with me here), established relationship, just vanilla sex really

WC: 6.3k no I’m not sorry

A/N: bahahah nobody look at meeeee. I think I outdid myself with this, I’m never beating the daddy issues allegations. This man just makes me so feral I couldn’t help myself. I’m hoping some of yall have been down bad too otherwise just ignore me (if this flops I’ll cry). Also tagging my bestie bc she has experienced my madness in real time🩷 @wittyjasontodd

You knew today would be an absolutely abhorrent day. You could feel it, the second that dumb clock hit six a.m, you knew. You knew it when you texted him if he wanted to eat dinner at your place after your shift, and he told you that he didn’t know when exactly he would get off his. He was working today and that made you sick to your stomach, a deep sense of anxiety and worry settling in. And you couldn’t shake that feeling all fucking day.

You didn’t want to worry about him, coddle him and suffocate him like he was a teenager, he surpassed you by quite a few years for you to be doing that. Still, you couldn’t not worry about him down there. His day was normally absolutely draining as it was, but having to deal with that today out of all days, it concerned you just how well he could compartmentalize his own issues and the issues of dozens and dozens of other people.

You were tempted to come downstairs yourself and check in on him under the excuse of bringing him coffee and something to eat. But then that would be weird. Then people would know. Well, you had a suspicion people did know by now, it was a bit hard to hide a relationship after two years. Though it was a bit easier considering you were all the way up in the pediatrics ICU and not in the Pitt. Still, you definitely noticed the knowing glances of Perla and Princess whenever you came down for a consultation or if they saw you sneak into the doctor’s lounge.

Dana knew, though you never told her. You didn’t think Robby told her either. You thought it took her maybe a month to figure it out. You prided yourself on how discrete you were about it, and still are. You walk together whenever your shifts align, hands locked and headphones in as you both enjoyed the short time you had in each other's calming presence before you didn’t see each other for twelve-plus hours. And then you went your separate ways, a quick kiss and a hushed ‘love you’ before going through completely different entrances to be extra cautious. You have been doing this since day-one. How Dana figured it out was beyond your extensive knowledge.

You both would like to think other than Dana’s superhuman ability to read people, you had managed to keep things private. It was better that way, doctors were such odd creatures, you almost positively knew that ‘favoritism’ would end up circulating around sooner or later, since, once upon a time where you were a bright-eyed and still a had will to live first-year resident, Robby was your attending. Albeit he was married at the time and you were engaged, you knew someone would find a way to turn it into something it wasn’t.

Today, however, you weren’t quite such how reserved you could be when you knew he was struggling.

You sat on your desk, a long exhale of exhaustion leaving your lips as you ran your hands over your face, enjoying the few minutes of peace and quiet you had managed to find. And then you heard a ping. You sat up, eyes shooting open as you reached for your phone with annoyance. You thought it was the hospital, but when you unlocked your phone you saw it was a message from Dana.

Well, fuck.

Dana: can you check on Robby? The overdose kid is hitting him pretty hard

A long sigh left your lips as you read over the message, heaviness settling in your chest. You had been keeping up with it since earlier this morning, you had hoped maybe the kid would respond to treatment. You guessed things hadn’t been so easy down there.

Me: you don’t think the kid is gonna make it?

Dana: Robby doesn’t think so. Come check on him please. He was gone for a while earlier

Another heavy sigh left your lips. Today was not the day for this.

Me: he doesn’t like it when I make him talk about his feelings

You weren’t entirely exaggerating. Robby wasn’t emotionally unavailable, the opposite, if anything, he was painfully aware of his feelings. He just didn’t like talking about them, especially when they were ER related. He would send you into a psych ward if he told you everything he experienced on a daily basis, he told you. And you respected it, your year in the Pitt definitely wasn’t the highlight of your life, and you admired him for choosing to stay there for so long.

Dana: you’re not. You’re just being a supportive girlfriend. Come, now.

You didn’t have to be in front of her to know she was being serious. You figured if you didn’t come down at some point she would physically come get you herself if that’s what it took. So best not to test the universe today. You had some time before your next appointment anyway. And Dana was right, you wanted him to know you were there, even if he didn’t always want it.

It came as a shock to no one that you ultimately found your way downstairs. It was always loud on your floor, but nowhere near as bad as the pitt. You tried your best to not draw attention to yourself, though with everything going on down here and all the people that came and went, you figured you would blend in for the most part. You hoped to find Dana at her desk, preferably alone, as to avoid awkward small talk and questionable looks since nobody actually called you down here for any medical reasons. You internally thanked the universe when you spotted Dana on her computer.

“Hey.” You spoke quietly, hands shoved into your pockets a bit sheepishly as you glanced around before looking back at her. She gave you a warm smile of gratitude and nodded at you.

“Don’t make that face, it’s not that bad down here.” She teased, calling out your hypervigilant mannerisms and the uncomfortable look on your face. You didn’t mind being here, but only when you had a reason to be, you definitely didn’t want to have to explain you came down here to check in on your boyfriend.

“I know.. But you know..” you gave her a look. But you didn’t have to say anything, she knew what you meant, she just liked teasing you about it.

“South 16 is empty. I’ll tell him I need him for something. Just be quick, we might need the room.” She told you in a hush, resuming her typing away at her computer. You quietly nodded, briefly reaching to lightly squeeze her shoulder as a silent thank you.

You waited a bit anxiously, shooting a glance at your watch. Shit, you had to be back upstairs in ten minutes to check up on a patient. But you didn't want to leave without at least making sure he was okay. Even if he was just going to brush you off and tell you that everything was fine, you at least wanted to see him. You waited another minute, and with a sigh you turned to pull the curtains out, but someone beat you to it. You jumped back a bit, eyes wide for a second before you realized.

He wasn't quite looking at you, or maybe he just wasn't paying that much attention, he thought he was in the wrong room at first.

“Sorry—oh.” Robby glanced behind him for a second, bit confused as he closed the curtain behind him. You smiled lightly as he looked at you both with confusion and relief to see you. Now matter how hectic or chaotic his day had been, how many times he had to chase down his residents, or many patients were a pain in his ass, seeing you always brought him a sense of calmness. He was ashamed to admit he was completely infatuated with you. His racing mind ultimately landed back on you, and he realized; he didn't remember calling you down. Maybe one of the residents did? But they didn't check with him first. “Hey, what uh.. What are you doing down here?”

“Just wanted to check in, I heard you’ve had a rough day.” You said quietly, lightly nibbling on your bottom lip as you stepped closer to him. He looked down at you, a heavy sigh leaving his lips and his jaw clicked lightly as he reminded himself to curse Dana out later. He didn’t want you to worry. He said nothing, so you continued, “The college kid, you don’t think he's gonna make it?”

He tried to hold back another sigh, but he couldn't help it, he squeezed his eyes shut and scratched the back of his head with exasperation. He considered not going into details, giving you the same bullshit answer he gave the parents. He never wanted to burden you with his issues, with the baggage that came with the ER. He always wanted to keep out of the relationship, though he found that to be quite the challenge. When he opened his eyes again and found your pretty eyes looking back at him, with that warmth and kindness that made him want you in the first place. Maybe he should open up, to you at least.

“Uh, no. He’s braindead so there’s nothing we can do.” The words left him like a ton of bricks, heavy and sharp. Your face immediately fell and your lips parted open lightly. You tilted your head at him, but said nothing. He wasn’t quite looking at you as he continued, “I keep ordering all these tests for the parents, but I know. And I don’t know if giving them false hope will make things worse for them.”

You nodded softly and rested your hands on his chest, you felt him exhale unevenly. You gave him a warm smile as you lightly rubbed his chest.

“Maybe they just need more time to make peace with it. Maybe they just need to know you did everything you could to help their son.” You knew how he felt, there had been so many times where nothing you did was enough to help someone’s child, and you had to tell them that. But you knew he did his best, he always did. Though you weren't sure if he knew that.

“Yeah.. yeah, maybe.” You felt him slightly tense under your touch and he avoided your eyes. He slightly angled his head to look behind him, like he was getting ready to sneak his way away from you and get lost in the chaos of the ER. you would let him, in a minute.

“Michael.” Your voice was a warning, quiet, stern. He snapped his head in your direction and looked at you with concern and confusion. You almost mever called him that. Only sometimes, when you were annoyed with him. With that scolding tone of yours. He didn't like it much.

“I don't like that. Why’d you do that?” He tilted his head at you, and you had to hold back a smile at the way he looked at you.

“‘Cause, you’re being difficult. There’s bad days and there’s worse days. Today is a shitty day, and that’s fine. You're doing your best, don’t be so harsh on yourself.” You sighed, running your fingers through his beard and he almost instantly leaned into your touch.

“How come you didn't go into psychiatry?” He commented and you snorted, leaning your forehead into his chest. You felt a slight chuckle rumble in his chest, and with that your deed was done for now.

“Well, I did a minor in psychology in undergrad, did I ever tell you that?” You leaned back, a small smile on your lips, and he had the little wrinkles around his eyes that you found to be so cute.

“Once or twice.”

You shrugged playfully, leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek, but he turned his head and caught your lips instead. You were definitely okay with that. A groan of annoyance rumbled in your chest when you felt your phone buzz, alerting you that it was time for your next appointment. You pulled back, much to your dismay and took a glance at your phone, you were definitely going to be late.

“I mean it Robby, I’ll know.” You shot him a playful warning look and he nodded, a tiny grin pulling at the corner of his lips. You leaned up, actually leaving a kiss to his cheek this time. “Love you.”

“Love you too hun.” He called after you as you disappeared behind the curtain. A long sigh left his lips as he ran a hand over his face. If he wasn't the attending he would go after you and would purposely get locked inside an exam room with you for a little while. But alas. He waited a minute, making sure it didn’t look too suspicious before he came out too, back to the madness he went.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today was just the gift that kept on giving. You eventually came down for the walk of honor. You knew you wouldn’t really talk to Robby, but you wanted him to know you were there. You truly hated to see him like this. Hours on end only for the answer to have been what he knew from the beginning. It was hard to look at the brightside. And then you heard Dana got assaulted and you were absolutely freaking out. You hadn’t been able to come down until the end of your shift, when you were on your way to head home. Robby still had another hour left of his so you were just going to your apartment alone, he almost never got off on time, anyway.

You damn near ran off the elevator and a sense of relief washed over you when you saw Dana sitting at her desk. A long sigh left your lips as you approached her and you nearly gasped when you saw the bruising on her face.

“Dana.” You said quietly, your eyes big. She shook her head at you dismissively, but it was hard not to worry. “They told me a patient hit you?”

“Yeah. Don't worry, I don't have any fractures, just a little sore.” She half smiled at you, but the look on your face never changed, you frowned even deeper.

“It's unbelievable. With all the patient satisfaction bullshit Gloria shoves down our throats you’d think they would invest a little more in making sure the staff is protected. Are you sure you’re okay? It bruised a lot.” You leaned down to inspect her closer and she rolled her eyes at you, but you couldn’t help it.

“Yes I’m sure, Robby made me get a CT and made me take a break, I’m fine.” She waved you off and you nodded.

“Oh, speaking of that pain in my ass, where is he? I’ve been texting him since the walk but I haven’t heard from him.” You frowned softly, adjusting your bag over your shoulder. Dana gave you a look, one that you definitely did not like.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t wait on him too much. Just go home, okay? While you still can.” Now that worried you even more. You knew today had been rough but you didn’t think it had been that bad. It took a lot for Robby to lose it, though you were unsure what exactly happened if that was the case.

“Yeah, okay. I’m glad you’re okay. I was very worried.” You offered her a tiny smile, which she returned and you exchanged goodbyes for the night.

Dana’s words lingered in your mind, and you were definitely more concerned for Robby than you were earlier today. Usually he would text you back, even if it was an hour or two later, but it had been hours and nothing. With a sigh, you started to head for the exit, and as you walked you saw Robby walking out of one of the exam rooms. You debated whether to pretend you didn't see him and to just go home. But that really wasn't the type of person you were.

“Robby, hey.” You called out to him as quietly as you could as you walked up to him. He visibly tensed at the sight of you and he looked like a fucking mess. You narrowed your eyes, your lips pursing at him but you continued. “I uh.. I’m going home. I don’t know if.. If you wanted to come over when, well whenever you get out. I’m picking up food on the way so..”

He was silent for a while, too long for your liking and you were starting to feel a little tense as well. He clicked his tongue, scratching the back of his head like you had picked up he did when he was stressed. You probably should have listened to Dana.

“Yeah, uh, I don’t know. I don’t really know what time I’m getting off, and truly I think maybe I should go to my place tonight.” He said with exasperation, his tone harsh and laced with tension. It almost took you aback how he was talking to you.

You blinked at him, mouth slightly agape. It took you a couple seconds to process what he was saying. You counted to five in your head, took a deep breath in and just nodded. “Uhm, okay. Yeah, cool, I just wanted to make sure you were okay before I went home.”

“Yes, yes I’m okay, why does everyone keep fucking asking me that.” He raised his voice before quickly realizing what he did and his lips fell in a flat line. You stared at him in shock, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. It was almost like it dawned on him that you were the last person in this hospital he should be snapping at. And he did just that. He reached to grab your arm and you backed up.

“No, it’s fine. I got it. Sorry. I’m gonna go home now.” You forced a smile, you could tell Robby wanted to say something, he opened his mouth but you just shook your head at him. “It’s fine, you need space and I get that. Text me when you can talk to me like a fucking adult, yeah?”

You didn’t even give him a chance to reply, you were turning around and hurrying to the exit before he could get a word in. Was that the most mature response you could have given him? No, not really, but you didn't particularly enjoy being yelled at by your boyfriend in the middle of the ER. You knew something else must’ve happened to him, but you didn’t really want to find out when he was that upset. You hadn't seen Robby angry often, stressed? Sure, all the time. But he looked pissed and you didn’t like that whatsoever. He was always so calm, so patient and so collected, it was unsettling to see him so easily ticked off. You tried not to think about it too much, he knew where to find you if he wanted to talk, calmly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robby couldn’t stop thinking about you for the rest of the night. He felt horrible for yelling at you, when his problems were not your fault and all you wanted to do was be the loving girlfriend that you were. He always loved how attentive and caring you were, when you asked him about his day and when you would listen so attentively to the little he would tell you. You were the last person on this earth he should’ve snapped at today, and now he had to go home feeling guilty when all he wanted was your comfort. He debated about just going to his place and calling you tomorrow, maybe he would get you some flowers to apologize. But then thought that would be too long. It was so late, he definitely didn’t get off when he was supposed to, but maybe you’d still be awake. You usually waited up for him anyway.

Without much thought, he ended up at your apartment. He had a key to your place, he slept there most nights to be completely honest. He was rehearsing in his head the apology he would give you when the door got stuck.

“What the fuck..” he muttered to himself as he tried to force the door open, thinking maybe it got caught on the rug or something. But no, he looked down to find that the latch was on. You put the latch on. He took a deep breath and clicked his tongue, trying to look into the apartment to see if he could see inside. This was definitely going to be his last straw.

You weren’t asleep, it wasn’t quite midnight yet, but even if it was, you weren’t sure if you could get much sleep tonight. You heard the sound of your front door unlocking along with muffled shuffling. You sat up, confused. You suspiciously came out of your bedroom, only to find Robby’s awkwardly tall frame trying to reach inside to undo the latch. You almost wanted to laugh, you would have, if you hadn’t still been a bit upset from earlier.

“Really?” You called out to him, arms crossed over your chest as you padded along the wooden floors, the floorboards creaking under your bare feet. Robby looked to find you, in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of cozy pants. He always found it endearing how cozy and comfortable you looked outside of the hospital.

“You put the latch on? Really?” He huffed quietly, annoyed that he got stuck outside your apartment, he definitely was not amused by you trying not to laugh. You shrugged.

“You said you weren’t coming over. I put the latch on when you’re not here.” You said like it was obvious, taking your sweet time in walking to the door. It served him right. He would’ve rolled his eyes if he didn’t know you were right.

You stood for a few seconds and made direct eye contact with him as you shut the door in his face, just to make a point, before you unlatched the door and opened it. You took a step back, crossing your arms over your chest again as he quietly stepped into your apartment, closing the door behind him. He dropped his backpack like it had offended him, and he crowded your space. His nose brushed over yours, and you could hear his breath. You were holding yours.

“I’m sorry.” He offered so quietly, so much so that you wouldn’t have heard him if he hadn't been so close. You inhaled sharply, slightly nodding. You threw your arms over his shoulders and he breathed out a sigh of relief. “Yeah? You forgive me?”

You nodded again, as you leaned up to meet his lips. “Yes, now shut up.”

“Yes ma’am.” He chuckled softly, his large hand squeezed your waist as he leaned down to meet your eager mouth. He definitely said nothing after that. God, he had been wanting to do this all fucking day. It probably would have made his day a whole lot less shitty. But he was here now, and he had you all to himself.

You weren't sure when you ended up being carried to your bedroom, or when your back was laid flat on your soft covers. All you could focus on was his lips claiming yours, his lips trailing kisses all over your jaw, down to your neck, and anywhere he could find, really. He wasn't normally this messy, perhaps the stresses of today had finally worn on him.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” he muttered against your skin as he half-assed shrugged his hoodie off his shoulders and tossed it somewhere he would be scrambling for in the morning. You hummed along, only half listening. “Let me make it up to you.”

Confused, you sat up on your elbows as he settled between your thighs. You watched him with big eyes and a heavy chest as he silently pulled your pj’s down your thighs. You held your breath as you instinctively closed your legs. He shot you a pointed look as he pried your thighs open, fingers digging into your plush thighs as he settled between them. You gasped softly at the delicious burn his beard left on your thighs. You loved that you could always feel the tingle of where his mouth had been, even the day after.

He took his time with you, he always did. You never understood how he could stay so calm, so patient. You had no patience, and you knew that he knew. Maybe he enjoyed seeing you desperate. His tongue lapped at your pussy with such calculated movements. From your hole to your clit, circling and sucking before diving back into your walls. Squirming, you were chasing his mouth with your hips, body overcome with pleasure as he worked your walls with his tongue. You felt like such a whore for asking like this, but you couldn’t help it.

“That feels so—ugh—feels so good—please.” You didn’t know what you were pleading for. Mercy? Sweet release? You didn’t know. Robby raised an amused eyebrow at you, wet lips curled up the slightest bit as he moved his tongue back to your clit and he slipped two fingers inside your cunt. He licked and sucked to match each delicious drag of his fingers. The sounds leaving him were just as filthy as the things he was doing to you, groaning and grunting.

It was no surprise that he had you shaking and sobbing, overcome with pleasure, eyes blurry with tears of pleasure, your release rapidly approaching. You latched on to his hair, tugging and pulling at the strands as your pathetic sounds filled the room. You chased his mouth, and he let you, always so amused by how quickly you would fall apart.

“That’s it, just breathe through it.” he hushed, his own breath heavy as he replaced his tongue with his thumb and he crooked his fingers just the right way, knowing each and every one of your tells, each twitch of your body, he had memorized all of it.

Your release was hard and sudden, your loud sounds were almost as overwhelming as the feeling of his fingers scissoring you wide open. Your head was thrown back, eyes rolled into the back of your head. He dug his fingers into your thigh, his tongue slipping into your hole when his fingers left you.

“Shit Robby.” You gasped, your thighs shaking as you weakly reached to grab his face. You ran your fingers along his face, threading through his beard and you silently ushered him up. He complied, in an instant settling between your open legs to find your mouth again. You could taste yourself on his lips, on his tongue, it was all so much for your clouded mind.

“You’re okay, just breathe for me.” He said against your lips, brushing your hair away from your face softly. You breathed out a laugh.

“You should yell at me more often,” you snorted, and Robby shot you a pointed look. “So you can make it up to me.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not done, so.” He pressed another kiss to your lips, leaving the lingering taste of yourself on your tongue before he flipped you over on your stomach. You bit your lip softly, pulling your t-shirt over your head and tossed it somewhere. You heard him shuffling behind you for a bit. You turned your head to look back at him, and with a smile he leaned over your back, leaving a kiss to your bare shoulder. “Hi sweetheart.”

“Hmm hi.” you hummed softly as you braced yourself with your arms in front of you. He pressed his lips to the back of your head, inhaling your sweet scent as he slowly sank into you.

You gasped, your eyes rolling back into your head he sank into you until his hips rutted against your ass. The side of your face was flat on the mattress when he sneaked his hand into your hair and held you there. His pace was slow at first, slow strokes that allowed you to revel in the feeling of his cock in and out of your walls. But as you both began to grow desperate, pathetic sounds leaving your lips and groans of pleasure leaving him, his pace picked up.

“Thought about this all day baby. With the fucking day I’ve had.” His words left him with a groan, and he gave you a particularly sharp thrust that had you sliding up the mattress. “Just wanted this. You're the only thing that isn’t wrong in my life.”

His raspy words in your ear made you moan, and you blindly reached behind you to touch him, any part of him. He leaned down, his chest flat against your back and his lips found yours, pulling you into a messy kiss.

“Mhm, should’ve called me down for a quickie then.” You teased him and he chuckled, his cheek pressed against your jaw, the new angle making him sit so deep you could feel him in your fucking guts. God, you didn’t fucking care that he was so much older than you, the way he fucked you, so passionately and so gently at the same time, you didnt care for anyone younger.

“I don't care for quickies.” he replied with an edge to his voice, despite the sass of your mouth, he could feel the way you squeezed the life out of him everytime he hit that perfect spot, getting you closer and closer to your release.

“You’re such an old man.” you managed to reply, but your witty remarks quickly left you when he slipped his free hand to find your swollen clit, which made you painfully aware of how close you were. But Robby could tell.

“Uh-huh, and this old man is gonna make you come,” There was a bit of amusement in his voice at the way your body twitched under him and the way your face twisted with pleasure. You were so close. “Yeah, thought so.”

“Fuck, I’m gonna come.” you choked out, followed by a silent sob when he hit that one spot and you saw white. You were gasping for air as your whole body shuddered. Robby shushed you softly, slowly fucking you through your orgasm. He left wet kisses along your jaw as he whispered sweet words in your ear.

“Atta girl, you did so good.” He hummed as he left a kiss to the side of your head as you dropped your face flat on your blankets, your breath heavy as your body twitched in aftershock. You gasped softly when he slipped out of you, leaving you empty. You wanted to whine, but he gently grabbed your arm and flipped you on your back, and he settled between your legs with ease.

“Alright, lemme look at you. Just want to see how pretty you look.” He ran his fingers over your face, brushing your hair away from your forehead. It was always such a intoxicating feeling to have him on top of you, his pretty brown eyes watching your every move, his chain a reminder that you were about to get fucked (again). You fucking loved this feeling. You couldn’t even make a sound when he slid into you again, your eyes simply fluttering shut and your body twitching with pleasure.

“O-oh my god—!” The way you sounded so utterly fucked out, cock-drunk, it made him feel lightheaded as he fucked into you. He felt a little bad, with how exhausted you both always were, you never fucked this long, or so intensely. So he knew you were going to be so sore for your morning shift tomorrow. But fuck, with the way you squeezed your eyes shut, lips parted, he didn’t want to stop until you were both spent with exhaustion because you just felt so fucking tight and so goddamn heavenly.

“Mhmm I know, I know hun. Feels good hm?” He panted above you, his chain dangling above your face like a mockery of your current position with each thrust he gave you. You nodded harshly, a string of uh-uh-uh’s leaving your pathetic mouth as your nails dragged down his back.

“Feels so good baby.” You squeezed your eyes shut, his voice shooting straight to your pulsing walls, making you whimper.

He gritted his teeth as he felt your walls squeeze the life out of him, a grunt leaving his chest as he reached for your hand, lacing his fingers with yours. You squeezed his hand so tight as he pinned your hand above your head, and he planted his other arm beside your head, attempting to ground himself.

“There you go sweetheart. That’s it.” His raspy voice grounded you as you spasmed around his cock for a second time. Your sounds were so pathetic, the way you sobbed his name was enough to make him completely lose the very little self-control he was holding on to. He fucked you through your orgasm, gave you two, three more sharp thrusts before he fell into his own release, a breathy fuck falling from his lips

Sounds of exhaustion filled the room, drowning out the still on TV you had in the background, your show being completely forgotten the second Robby was at your door. A thin layer of sweat covered his skin as he ran a hand through his hair. Your eyes were screwed shut, your forearm thrown over your face as your racing heart matched your shuddering breath. He sneaked under your arm and left a kiss to the side of your forehead. You giggled a bit and opened your eyes to find his soft brown eyes staring back, there was a smile there, too.

“You want pizza? I bought some earlier from the place you like.” You spoke eventually, your chest now rising and falling in a steady rhythm as you rested your head on Robby’s arm. He turned his head to look at you and smiled in that way that made the corners of his eyes wrinkle a bit.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll take some.”

Much to the protest of your legs, you threw yourself on your feet, ignoring the way Robby was chuckling at your struggle. You managed to find a t-shirt, you didn’t know whose it was, probably Robby’s but it was yours now. After making a stop to the bathroom, you were in the kitchen for a bit. Getting fucked made you hungry, so you heated up some pizza for yourself.

“Here’s your delivery, and I do require a tip.” You announced as you came back into your bedroom. Robby looked up from his phone, and he had managed to find his black framed glasses that you loved to tease him about. And a playful smirk formed on your lips. “I definitely want a tip.”

He looked at you confused for a few seconds then he realized and he blew out a laugh, shaking his head with disappointment. “You know, after a certain age one just gets really tired, can’t keep up with people your age. Not that I would know about that.”

You snorted as you flopped down on your bed, handing him his pizza and a can of coke because that was all you had in your fridge. “It’s okay, you’re my favorite old man.”

You leaned up to kiss his cheek, bumping his glasses with your nose. He gave you a look out of the corner of his eye that was anything but amused. Which made you laugh even more as you took a bite out of your pizza.

“I hope I’m your only old man.” He chuckled, squinting his eyes the slightest bit as he typed a text on his phone. God he wished he could turn this fucking thing off. He couldn't even be out of the hospital for an hour before he got bombarded with messages. He caught the way you shot him a glare and he gave you a quick ‘sorry’ before he set his phone down.

“I dunno, the chief of peds is quite the catch.” You couldn’t help but snort at the look he gave you, and you just shot him a smile. “Jokes. Totally joking babe.”

You ate in silence for a while, you kew you had to be up again at six in the fucking morning, but you just wanted to enjoy having him all to yourself for just a little longer. There was still a lingering thought in your mind, you’ve had it all night. It never left your mind. Robby was watching whatever you decided to play on the TV when you turned to look at him.

“Robby,” you said softly, he hummed as he turned his head to look at you. “Do you want to talk about today? It's okay if you don’t… I just think you should talk to someone, and I want to listen.”

You saw the hesitation in his warm eyes, the tension and dread from such a shitty day coming back to him. His lips fell in a flat line, and his jaw locked the slightest bit. You offered him a soft smile as you sat closer to him, leaning your head on his shoulder with a soft shake of your head.

“Not tonight, okay? We can talk about it tomorrow.” He sighed out, leaning to leave a kiss to the side of your head. And you nodded with a reassuring smile.

You didn’t know how he was prior to the pandemic, maybe he was worse, or maybe he had gotten better since. But you didn’t mind putting in a little work to break down his walls and help him open. You would do anything, and you were okay with waiting.

#Michael robinavitch x reader #dr robby x reader #Dr Robby smut #Dr Robby x you #michael robinavitch #dr robby #the Pitt

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butyoudidthis4what · 1 month ago

Text

No Man's Land

Jack Abbot x f!Reader

5.1k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || C.W.: mentions of blood, mentions of guns and shootings, mentions of death/dying/coding, CPR, anxiety about partner's safety, Jack's traumatized, reader's traumatized, mentions of dissociation and compartmentalization, poor description of medical events, potentially incorrect medical descriptions/knowledge, very very light smut, angst, age gap kind of implied with Jack but not explicitly referenced, no use of y/n or related, not proofread, no beta, I think that's all but if I missed any please (nicely) let me know.

Summary: This is my Pitt-Fest-But-Not fic. Development of your relationship through vignettes of the past and conversations between Jack, Dana and Robby. There's a shooting where you work. Jack is at the ED when the dispatch comes in and is terrified when he can't get in touch with you.

A.N.: If my Robby reads like John Carter I'm sorry, except that a little bit I'm not. I feel like I'm struggling with my Jack characterization but can't tell if that's just me hating everything I do. This is my take on one of my fave tropes where reader is in mortal danger. I needed a physical location that could be associated with reader and settled on a courthouse, but what it is reader does there is not described. Probably (definitely?) needs a part two. If you get the nickname, thank you, I feel seen. If you don't I explain it at the end. This is absolutely something I would call him, in part to fuck with people who know his real name. I would love to know if you enjoyed and to hear any thoughts you'd like to share.

“He has a girlfriend,” Robby smirks at Dana.

She blinks at him. “I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about Jack Abbot.”

“Oh we fucking are.” Robby stifles his smirk and forces his lips to remain closed and as neutral as possible.

“You’re shitting me.” Dana’s incredulous look breaks Robby a bit and he starts to laugh, tries to turn it into a cough when both he and Dana look up to find Jack staring at them as he takes his snow dusted beanie off. He gives Robby a ‘really?’ look even though he knew Robby would rat him out to Dana the second Robby had dragged it out of him.

Dana looks back at Robby. “Who? How did they meet?”

Robby holds up his hands. “You now officially know as much as I do about her.” Dana makes a noise of vague discontent but knows Jack well enough to know Robby is telling the truth. That’s all that’s been revealed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s not worth it,” you whisper. Jack blinks and looks around, unsure if you’re talking to him. He has no idea who you are, has never seen you before in his life but it appears that you are in fact whispering to him in the middle of this bookstore.

He raises his eyebrows. “It’s not?”

You shake your head, give him an almost conspiratorial smile. “No, he must have gotten a new ghost writer. It’s really bad in comparison to his other stuff. Save your time and money. I’ll give you a summary right now for free if you’re that curious.”

Jack smiles to himself a little bit as he sets the book back on the shelf. There’s something about you, your smile, the way you just randomly spoke to him. He’s drawn to you. An alarm goes off in some part of his brain telling him to ignore it, ignore you, he could get hurt. He pretends to weigh his options as he turns to face you fully. “How about for a cup of coffee?”

Your brows furrow in confusion for a moment. There’s simply no way this unfairly attractive man is asking to buy you a cup of coffee. “The summary?” You clarify. “That I’d give for free. You want it to cost a cup of coffee instead?” You let out a nervous laugh and some part of his heart aches because you’re so adorable. “I just want to make sure I understand before I potentially make an even bigger fool of myself.”

“Yep.” He can’t help but laugh a little. “You give me the summary over coffee. Actually, you know what? You’re going to have to give me a recommendation too because now I’m going to have nothing to read.” He clicks his tongue at you.

“Well,” you laugh out, all breathy as you try to pull yourself together. “You drive a hard bargain but I think I’m willing to accept those terms…” you glance at his name badge, “Dr. Abbot.” You give him a full smile and Jack knows then and there he’s totally fucked in the best of ways.

“Jack.” He smiles at you as you both begin walking towards the café. “Call me Jack.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything quiet enough after handoff, Robby walks out with Jack into the morning sun that does little to warm the breeze pulling leaves off the trees. “Any chance you can cover a shift on Thursday night?” Robby is asking, yes, but he knows it’s not really a question, Jack is always willing to work.

“Can’t.” Jack says simply, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry.” There’s an expectant silence that hangs between the two as they keep walking.

“Care to elaborate?” Robby finally asks.

“No.” Jack turns and smirks at him. “It’s none of your and Dana’s business.”

“Ha!” Robby laughs. “So it’s her, it’s about her! The ever elusive girlfriend. Will we ever get to meet her? Or does she not want to meet us? Is she real?” Jack stops walking and gives Robby one of his looks. “Holy shit, is it someone here?”

Jack snorts at that. “No it’s not someone here. She’s not even in the medical field.” He sighs, half longing and half resignation of some kind. “She’s honestly dying to meet you guys, especially you and Dana, but I’m trying to protect her from this hellhole. It’s hard with schedules too, to find a time.”

“That’s such fucking bullshit,” Robby laughs. “Are you afraid to truly commit? Think bringing her here will make it too real?”

It’s a valid question but one that Jack nevertheless resents. “No, actually, if you must fucking know Thursday is our one year anniversary. We have plans. So you’ll have to find someone else to cover. But I’ll bring her around soon,” he laughs through his nose to himself at your stubbornness, “if I don’t she’s liable to just show up one of-”

“A year?” Robby laughs, incredulous. “A fucking year? How the hell did you hide it for three months before I dragged it out of you?”

Jack ignores him. “Also, I’m moving to days. It’s better for us.” He’s so nonchalant about it, just states it like he’s saying the sky is blue, like it’s not going to make Robby’s eyes widen and mouth drop open like it does.

“I don’t,” Robby huffs a laugh, “I don’t even know where to fucking begin.”

“Then don’t.” Jack smirks, starts to walk again while Robby stays frozen, running a hand through his hair. “Go do some actual work.”

“I thought you found comfort in the darkness?” Robby yells after him.

Jack slows and turns around but keeps walking backwards, one hand holding the strap of his backpack to keep it over his shoulder. He glances down at his phone and the photo of you that is now his wallpaper. He smiles to himself a little, yells back. “Guess I find it somewhere else now.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You giggle, honest to god giggle and Jack could lose his damn mind as he nibbles at your collarbone. “You know if my anatomy class had been this fun, I might have become a doctor too.”

You’re laying on your back in bed as Jack kisses your sweat slicked skin all over as you both come down from your last round. He’s taken to 'teaching you anatomy' like this, identifying different parts of the human body with his mouth.

“Hmm,” Jack hums against you. “I’m glad it wasn’t then. Fuck doctors.” He starts to kiss down your chest.

“That has become quite the favorite pastime of mine, yes,” you smirk. “Fucking one specific doctor, actually.”

“Getting fucked by one specific doctor more like it,” he murmurs into your sternum. He kisses laterally, lips hitting your breast and moving towards your nipple.

“I think we’ve established what those are,” you moan softly as he takes your nipple into his mouth. You let your hands run through his salt and pepper curls that you adore so much.

“Can never be too thorough.” You giggle at him again and can feel him smile against you. “But fine, you want something new?” You nod, let your nails scratch gently at his scalp.

“Nipple,” he kisses your nipple and then down your torso to right above your belly button, “to navel is no man’s land.” He continues to lavish kisses on the soft skin of your stomach before looking up at you when you don’t respond.

“I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or not.” You eye him with mock suspicion.

He laughs and it’s your favorite sound in the whole world, you swear. Well maybe second, only behind hearing him tell you that he loves you.

“I’m not. Nipple to navel is no man’s land. It’s a real thing. It’s one of the worst places to get shot or stabbed because there’s so many organs that could be hit and the place we’d expect to get hit would depend on whether the person was breathing in or out at the time, whether their lungs were inflated or deflated. And we generally have no way of knowing. It can be difficult to get clear imaging.” He starts kissing lower, down below your belly button, rubbing his stubble along your skin to tease you as he gets lower and lower. “It’s never a good time. Lots of poor outcomes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s supposed to be his day off and yet Jack finds himself staring at the board and running a hand over his face. “It’s still so fucking weird seeing you here during the day and it not meaning something catastrophic has happened.”

Jack turns to look at Dana. “I’ve been working days for a month now and it’s my day off.”

“You can go, we’re fine for now,” Robby nods at Jack. “Thanks for the brief assistance brother.”

“No, no,” Dana interjects, “he’s not allowed to leave until we nail down a time to meet his girl.”

Robby raises his eyebrows and starts to tilt his head and open his mouth to agree with Dana. A dispatch comes through before anyone can say anything else and Dana grabs it, pinning Jack down with her eyes, daring him to leave before discussing meeting you.

“Saved by the bell,” Jack huffs, taking his stethoscope off and starting to walk away.

“Shooting at a courthouse,” Dana relays to Robby, “not a mass cas, just a few people, two a little iffy, one they’re already doing CPR on, a few caught in the race to get out. Two dead on the scene.”

It takes a few seconds for Dana’s words to truly register with Jack, but when they do his hearing fades to only a sharp ringing in his ear. This wasn’t happening. He’d been so reticent at the beginning of your relationship, waited so long to give in and define it and hand his heart over to you, terrified he’d lose you because of himself and who he was, his imperfections, his past, his trauma, his PTSD, his baggage, as he thought of it. He feels so stupid now, in the moment, not having worried about how he could lose you from a random act of violence, that in the moments he can’t be there to protect you somebody could come in and rip you from him. Just like that. With the pull of a trigger.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You know, I can confidently say this is the most unique date I’ve ever been on,” you tease Jack.

“Hey,” he pants, “me teaching you CPR is a great date.”

“It would be better if you took your shirt off,” you whisper and wink at him before letting your eyes linger on his arm.

“If I did that you’d be so distracted you’d learn nothing,” he smirks at you, sweat glistening on his skin just a little. Just enough to drive you nearly feral for him.

“I think I’ve got the compressions part down, but I may need more help learning the mouth to mouth part.”

He rolls his eyes at you. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You fucking love it,” you shoot back at him, leaning into his space and bumping him with your shoulder.

He can’t help but kiss you. “Yes,” the word is muffled against your lips, “yes I do.” He gives you a firmer kiss this time before he pulls away. “But really. You should know how to do it, just in case. It will help you feel in control in the moment if the need for it ever arises. You’ll know what to do.”

You bite your lip and smile at him.

“What?” He eyes you with suspicion.

You shrug. “Nothing, I just love you so much. Sometimes it overwhelms me, how much I love you.”

He can see it in your eyes, how much you love him, can almost feel it physically squeezing him like a tight hug. He’s really not sure what he ever did to deserve you or your love. “I love you too, Doll.”

“I love you more, Peter.” Your face pulls up into that usual self-satisfied and silly grin you get sometimes when you call him that nickname. It’s a recent thing. You’re calling him it more and more though, it’s becoming a natural way of referring to him. From anyone else he would hate it, hearing it between another couple would make him roll his eyes. But from you? He loves it more than you’ll ever truly know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack spins around.

“Jack you can still go, we’ve got it covered.” Robby looks at Jack for a minute and then meets Dana’s eyes as she looks to him after taking her own look at Jack.

“What courthouse?” Jack asks. It’s quiet, controlled and clipped and almost missable in the chaos of the ED. He’s not looking at either of them, staring past them at a wall with a chest heaving more and more by the second as his face grows paler.

He tries to keep it together. Dana will say the name and it won’t be your courthouse and he’ll go straight to your actual courthouse, grab you, take you home and never let you leave. A perfectly reasonable reaction, he thinks.

“Jack-”

“What fucking courthouse?” It’s louder this time, almost enough to pause the chaos of the ED.

Jack’s voice drips with what sounds like rage to most of those who hear him but is unmistakably fear to Dana and Robby.

Neither of them have ever seen Jack like this, this scared, struggling this hard to keep it together, truly raising his voice for anything other than to quiet down an unruly patient. His eyes find Dana’s and they’re glassier than she’s ever seen them, the intensity of his gaze making it painfully clear he’s hanging on every word and the wrong ones will shatter him.

She swallows and opens her mouth and Jack knows what she’s about to say before she even says it. And she does. The name of your courthouse.

“I’ll triage.” He says it before Dana has even finished, the words hollow and breathless and commanding all at once. He spins and starts off to the bay doors with nothing more. He obviously knows from the report Dana gave that they won’t need triage. He just needed to get out of there and try to create an excuse to stay in the ambulance bay. He knows Robby won’t let him, that Robby and Dana already know you’re at that courthouse, could be a victim.

Robby and Dana share another look, So you work at a courthouse. This courthouse. “Fuck,” Dana mutters, “I really hope we don’t end up meeting her today.”

Jack’s hand dives in his pocket as he strides to the ambulance bay. He already knows in his heart that there’s not going to be a text from you saying that you’re okay. He hasn’t felt his phone buzz. He never even kept his phone on him until you.

Even though he knew he wouldn’t have any messages, waking his phone and seeing none hits him like a freight train all the same, right in the chest. It threatens to bring him to his knees, make him sick, but he can’t. He sets it all aside. If you do come out of one of the ambulances he can hear in the distance you’re going to need him at his best. But what if you’re one of the two people dead at the scene? He has to shove that out of his mind too, can’t give into the complete panic that threatens to consume him.

Disassociate. Compartmentalize. Do the job. ABC. Assess. Stabilize. Repeat.

His fingers fly across his phone automatically, calling you having become so routine. He prefers it so much to texting, hearing your voice, communicating more directly. “Call me,” he starts, “the second you get this message. Or fucking text me,” his voice breaks, “please. Fucking please.” He hangs up and calls again, knowing he’ll get your voicemail again but trying anyway because it’s all he can do.

He’s helpless, powerless, he can’t do anything to try and save you and that threatens to swallow him whole.

Your voicemail recording telling people to leave a message plays again and all Jack can wonder is if this is all he’ll have left of your voice in his life. Your voice on your mailbox, maybe some voicemails you’ve left him, videos, voice memos you’ve sent. All distorted by recording, not your real voice. He can’t remember what your real voice sounds like all of the sudden. What your laugh sounds like, how you sound when you’re sleepy or in the throes of pleasure or telling him you love him. God, did he even tell you he loved you the last time he saw you, when he said goodbye?

“I need you to call me,” he says into the phone again, pauses. “I love you.” He takes a ragged breath in and speaks through his teeth. “I love you so fucking much, so you have to be okay and you have to fucking call me.”

He sends a series of texts asking you to call him or text him or call the hospital or do anything to let him know you’re okay, asking if you are okay, asking where you are as though you’re going to respond. He already knows you’re in the back of one of those ambulances because of fucking course you are, because he’s not allowed to have anything good in his life apparently. How could he be so stupid to think differently?

“Hey, we don’t need triage for this. The numbers are controlled.” Robby walks out to stand next to Jack in the ambulance bay. “If you want to stay you can, but you can’t wait out here to see who shows up, you have to-”

“Yeah, yeah, jump on the first patient that pulls up, I know, I got it,” he interrupts Robby.

There’s a silence as Robby passes him a gown and ties for him before he does the same for Robby.

“Jack, if she’s in one you cannot-”

“Like fuck I can’t.” It’s just a statement. Cool and collected and a projection of indifference. It scares Robby more than if Jack had yelled.

“No, actually brother, you can’t. I’m telling you right now. You’re not working on her. We don’t work on family, on significant others, and you would tell me the exact same thing. It’s too risky, you’ll be too clouded.” Robby watches Jack’s jaw clench and roll as he stares out at the street.

He wants to argue that of course he’ll be clear, he’ll be focusing on saving you, he’ll have never been so clear in his life. But part of him knows that seeing you like that on his trauma table, your blood all over the table and him and his hands might make him freeze.

“Fine.” Jack whispers. “But if she’s,” Jack has to pause and take a shuddery breath. “If she’s gone or really going and it’s inevitable you have to let me in. You have to let me try to save her. You have to let me code her, Michael.”

He can taste the rising bile in his throat just at having to talk about coding you.

The first ambulance pulls up before Robby can respond and Jack’s on it so fast Robby’s surprised Jack doesn’t get smacked in the face by the door opening.

It’s not you. It’s someone who is very much not you and is clearly one of the iffy ones.

Disassociate. Compartmentalize. Do the job. ABC. Assess. Stabilize. Repeat.

Jack forces himself to go emotionally numb as he listens to the paramedic rattle off vitals and history, trying so very hard to focus on this, something he can do, even if it’s not for you. By the time they hit trauma one Jack’s fine and in full swing, running it like he would any other trauma. Nobody on the team in the room with him suspects anything is amiss.

He hates the way he can’t see the other’s who come in, that he has to stay with this patient until they’re stable and can’t go looking for you. He chastises himself for not having brought you here before or at least having you meet Dana and Robby. They don’t even know what you look like, couldn’t identify you.

“Jack!” He glances at Dana who stands at the door as he preps for the chest tube. “What’s her name?”

He yells your name at her, impassive and stoic as he reaches for the scalpel, ignoring the looks everyone throws each other at the slightest tremor in his voice.

“I’ll look for her.” Dana promises. He doesn’t respond. He can’t. He’ll fall apart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The restaurant you’re at has to be the fanciest place you’ve ever been to. It’s the hottest place in the city and you have no idea how Jack snagged reservations here for dinner to finish out celebrating your one year anniversary.

The lighting and low hum of other patrons talking to each other and glasses and silverware and plates tinkling is cinematic. You feel like the main character. But then that’s always how Jack makes you feel.

“I got you something.” He pulls out a wrapped rectangular object.

You click your tongue and tsk at him. “We said we’d do them at home! I didn’t bring yours!”

“I know. I have something for you at home too.” His eyes sparkle in the flickering candle light, a little smirk pulling up. “I didn’t mean for it to be a double entendre, but both are true.” You snort a laugh at him and take the gift from him. “Open it.” He’s still smiling, eyes still sparkling, but there’s something there. He’s nervous. It makes you even more curious.

You carefully unwrap the object until it reveals itself as a hardcover book. That same one Jack had in his hand a year ago and that you told him was bad and gave him a summary of over coffee.

“Oh, Jack,” you say softly, eyes getting a little watery. It’s so perfect. So sweet and sentimental. The book that brought you together, that gave you each other. It’s almost like a physical representation of the foundation of your relationship in a way.

“You have to open it,” he instructs you in a whisper.

You raise an eyebrow but do as he says.

‘Move in with me?’ is written on the blank first page.

You look between the page and Jack. “Is this?” You look back at the page and then up at him again. “Are you really asking…?”

He nods. “Move in with me. Or move somewhere with me, we can get our own place, it doesn’t have to be my apartment. We basically live together anyway at this point. Let’s just make it official, yeah? Wherever you want, you can decorate however you want. Just as long as it’s our place.”

You bring a hand to your mouth for a second before using your napkin to dab at the inner corners of your eyes to stop the tears from falling and look back at him.

“You’re a romantic, Jack Abbot,” you hum all dreamily.

“You better not tell anyone. Can’t have you ruining my street cred.” He smirks, but his expression and the way he fidgets show he’s still anxious. “So?”

You realize then you never actually answered him. Sniffling a little laugh and letting a few tears fall you give him his answer, voice thick and full of emotion. “Yeah, I think I’m willing to accept those terms. I’d love to move in with you… Peter.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He hears you counting to yourself before he sees you. “One, two…”

It’s not loud, just said in a normal voice, softer if anything because of how you’re panting, but Jack is so on edge and so desperate to find you he’d subconsciously been listening closely to his surroundings, military training kicking in. His head snaps to you and he doesn’t even know what to think when he sees you being rolled in on top of a gurney, performing CPR that would rival the quality of his own.

“Why is she..?” He hears Robby question the paramedic as you roll in.

“She was performing them just as well as we could and it was better to just scoop and run,” the paramedic explains. “She must have had one hell of an instructor.”

“Peter!” You yell, without looking up, not sure if he’s still here. You’re so used to it by now that the nickname is just what comes out of your mouth as you look for him. He’d texted you to let you know he was going in for a bit.

Jack could sob and the entire team in the room with him can feel a crushing tension shatter. Maybe he does get a little teary just from the sheer relief. He tells himself it’s sweat in his eyes.

“Yeah Doll?” He yells back, not giving a fuck about everyone hearing him call you Doll, and you calling him Peter, knowing full well he’s going to have so much explaining to do about this entire situation, the confusion in the room palpable.

“I’m okay!” This time he does laugh to himself.

“Yeah I’d say so,” he mutters, smiling. He’s still anxious to see you, get his own eyes on you, feel you with his own hands.

It’s only about thirty more seconds before his patient is stable enough and he can rip his gloves and gown off and start putting fresh gloves on as he walks into the trauma room you’d been wheeled into. Normally he’d yell out for someone to talk to him or ask what they’ve got but not this time. This time he doesn’t even care about who’s on the table, only the person who came off it. Only you.

You’re standing to the side now, watching Robby and the rest of the team work, impassive as pink tears stream down your face from the dried blood on it. You’re just so fucking overwhelmed by everything and now that you’re not doing CPR everything that’s happened is hitting you at once.

Jack says your name as he moves to you, needs his hands on you.

“Are you hurt? Were you hit?” He rushes out. His voice brings you back and you look up at him with wide, terrified eyes. He goes to look you over but you latch onto him, hugging him tightly, shaking a bit.

“I’m fine, I’m okay, I’m, I’m sorry,” you start to rattle off, fisting at his scrub top and clinging to him like he’s the only thing keeping you tethered to reality. In the moment he might just be.

He hugs you back just as hard, kisses the top of your head. He doesn’t care who sees right now, all he cares about is you. “It’s okay, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m just so fucking glad you’re okay. I thought… I thought you were…” He doesn’t have to finish, you know what he means. “I can’t fucking lose you. I love you way the fuck too much.”

You’ve been so wrapped up in each other neither of you have noticed that Robby’s patient, the one you were doing CPR on, has started to code again. “Abbot, need you here!”

You let him go, nod at him. “Go on,” you whisper, “I’ll be right here. I’m okay. I love you more.” Jack nods at you and walks over, jumping in and assisting Robby.

It’s once you’re out of Jack’s arms, away from his warm body and more grounded in reality that you notice how cold you are, how you’re swaying because he was supporting you far more than you realized, how lightheaded you are, how your abdomen and chest really fucking hurt. You chalk it up to the adrenaline wearing off and being sore from the chest compressions you just did.

On the other side of the room an instrument tray gets knocked over, metal hitting the floor in a loud clang. It startles you, makes you jump and twist quickly to see what it was, if it was another gun, another shot. You feel something almost tearing, a sharp pain across your abdomen and lower chest, a feeling of sticky warmth against your shirt.

You sway a little, start to realize how much worse the pain is now. It’s bad enough that you can’t even make noise to express the pain. There’s no air in your lungs, you swear. You realize your lightheadedness is now much, much worse, that you’re shivering from how cold you are. Or are you just shaking? You can’t tell. It doesn’t make sense. The room isn’t even that cold. You shouldn’t be so cold. Not unless.

You pull your shirt up slowly and look down and run your hand over your skin and sure enough, there’s a bullet hole seeping blood, about half way between your nipple line and belly button, skin now covered in a dark bruise.

You cough a little, it’s quiet. It starts feeling like there’s water in your lungs. Like you can’t get any oxygen in even though you’re in a room full of it. The metallic taste in your mouth is what manages to seep into what’s left of your consciousness next. You cough again, into your hand, and feel something wet hit your skin. Blood.

It hits you. You’re drowning in your own blood. That’s why it feels like you can’t breathe. You’ve been shot. In a bad place, one of the worst places, Jack had told you that night. You get scared, feel your heart pounding. It feels like you’re dying. You don’t want to die, don’t want to leave Jack. You’d just finished moving into your new place together, were going to spend all weekend unpacking and painting and getting furniture where you wanted it. You were going to make your home.

Time. You were supposed to have more time together.

“Hey, Jack,” you slur softly, struggling to keep yourself standing. Luckily he hears you. Your use of his first name and the slur to your voice has him panicking again already. Time slows as he turns around to take you in, eyes going from your face and the blood coating your teeth and trickling from your mouth as you try and smile reassuringly at him, down to your torso where you’re still holding your shirt up just enough for him and everyone else in the room to see the bullet hole and bruising marring your skin. “I think, I think I’m not good, it’s not good.” Your vision tunnels so fast you can just barely see Jack’s expression of sheer abject unadulterated horror and panic as you get out your last words. “Nipples to navel… no man’s land.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter. Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. Yes, I worked in a bookstore through college.

Part Two is up!

#jack abbot #jack abbot x reader #dr jack abbot #dr jack abbot x reader #jack abbot imagine #jack abbot fanfic #jack abbot fanfiction #jack abbot x you #the pitt fanfic #the pitt x reader #the pitt fanfiction #jack abbott #jack abbott fanfic #jack abbott x reader #jack abbott x you #dr jack abbott x reader #dr jack abbott x you #dr jack abbot x you #jack abbott imagine

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sidsinning · 1 year ago

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Apothecary Diaries is pog as fuck bc serious political issues and dynamics from a woman's POV are rarely depicted in ANY form of media

It's always a man's world where women's issues surround him. Even if we get a female perspective once in awhile- it all comes back to how it facilitates his game in the end. She's a footnote in the overarching scheme of things. Misogyny exists. Back to the real plot.

Apothecary Diaries is strictly from a female perspective and how each class of woman has to act, what limits they have, what rights they have and don't have between each class, etc. These women have to behave a certain way under a patriarchy, which you would think makes it a man's story, but it never is. The women are THE focus of this show, their struggles are THE plot. The focus is about how the patriarch effects them.

Take the concubines for example. The show dives into how bearing a child affects their rank, how traumatizing it is to lose that child, the consequences of that, etc. We have barely seen the emperor who sired all these kids because this is not about him.

Jinshi's personal plot is secondary to Mao Mao's journey- he is mostly there to provide new cases for Mao Mao to solve and to learn more about the shortcomings of his class when taking care of citizens like Mao Mao.

Jinshi is not a bad person, but by virtue of his position in the higher classes, he cannot understand how harsh life as a poor WOMAN is specifically- he can only catch glimpses of it from what Mao Mao tells him and feel outrage but powerless in his wealth and luxury

Mao Mao is a fortunate commoner woman for what privileges someone in her class should and shouldn't have. She happened to be adopted by a knowledgeable man. She is allowed to read, write, learn, and has enough skill to be a poison tester and have a job EXTREMELY out of her class limit as an apothecary, also a job not traditionally meant for women

Mao Mao is not a "noT lIkE oThER gIrLs" protagonist, she is FOR THE GIRLIES. She only wants to help the women around her, and women are whom she has the closest relationships to. She sees a woman being harassed and can't let it stand. She sees a frail, traumatized woman dying from the recklessness of those who should be caring for her and spends day and night nursing her back to health, while also punishing the people who were so careless with her needs.

My girl has STUDIED UP on THE BODY to TEACH these upper class ladies on how to really HEAT things up in the BEDROOM

Sex depicted in Apothecary Diaries is both something women are not shamed to be enjoying, while at the same time being acknowledged as an unfortunately huge economic necessity to market themselves.

Like shit is just so real in this series???

Listen, I can go on and on about how GOATED the series and especially Mao Mao is but you get the picture

#the apothecary diaries #apothecary diaries #mao mao #sidrabbles #Kusuriya no Hitorigoto

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msunitedstatesjames · 6 months ago

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I've touched on this in a couple of other semi-related posts before, but I find it hilarious and I appreciate how much Johanna Hezenkoss thinks Emmrich is the protagonist of Veilguard. Like, this woman could not give less of a fuck about Rook. She almost always refers to Rook only by their relationship to Emmrich. She refers to Rook as "one of Volkarin's hangers-on," "that impudent whelp following [Emmrich] around," "Volkarin's companion," and as Emmrich's "paramour." None of these imply that she thinks Rook has much agency. Instead, she acts like Rook is just helplessly following Emmrich around like a puppy, helping him complete tasks (which I guess is partly true).

If Rook romances Emmrich, Hezenkoss assumes that Emmrich seduced Rook and not the other way around, even though Emmrich is noticeably older than Rook and has hardly left the Necropolis in years. She's seemingly amazed by it, and yet it never once crosses her mind that Rook might have initiated the relationship (which is actually the case).

She also refers to Emmrich as the one who destroyed her construct, which is technically true, but she ignores the major assistance he had from Rook, another companion, and most notably Manfred. He couldn't have pulled it off without their help, and had in fact given up, but Hezenkoss acts like Emmrich was her sole opponent in that battle.

I've said before that part of the reason for this is that Hezenkoss seems to think of herself as the main villain of the story, so Emmrich must be the main hero. Hezenkoss says that some of the other big bads of Dragon Age, the Venatori, were nothing more to her than slightly useful and genuinely annoying. She clearly thinks herself above an entire organization of some of the most powerful mages in the world. And she sees Emmrich as pretty close to her in terms of raw power, since she almost invited him to her Vengeance Party but ultimately decided he was too much of a danger to her plans. She also states that she tried to get him to join her in the past, which I don't think she would do for anyone she considered to be less than her equal. Emmrich is genuinely the only person in the game she shows any respect for. Though she mocks his age and finds him to be too sentimental, too moral, and too fearful, she shows signs of agreeing with him on some topics, and she obviously respects his abilities if nothing else. No one else in the game acknowledges his frankly ridiculous knowledge and skill level (except Solas in the end) as much as Hezenkoss does.

And really, Emmrich does have main character energy. Though he does have some age and mortality related fears, dude is overflowing with confidence. When you first meet him, looking for a Fade expert, he has absolutely no problem telling you he's the best possible person for the job. Though he apparently hasn't left the Necropolis in years, he's totally down to join the team and go anywhere you want him to go. If you romance him, he is initially surprised, but he quickly turns into the smoothest dude around, and throughout the game you can hear him comment on some of his many relationships through the years. He's well-dressed, well-spoken, charismatic, highly educated, unfailingly kind, extremely powerful, and he's done so well for himself that Harding mistakes the son of a butcher and a cook for a member of the Nevarran nobility. No wonder Hezenkoss thinks he's the protagonist. The real protagonist is just out here winging it on guts and good luck alone.

#dragon age #dragon age the veilguard #emmrich volkarin #emmrich x rook #johanna hezenkoss #Spoilers #Dragon age the veilguard spoilers #emmrich my beloved #Hezenkoss my beloved #Video games #Bioware #Rpgs #Mine #video game romances

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luviestarz · 11 months ago

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mark lee fic recs!

⪩⪨ Operation: First Kiss - @ncityrave (Mark turns to his friends for help to build up the courage for his relationship's first kiss.)

⪩⪨ Sunday Kind of Love : Frat Mark - @smileysuh (Mark is fine with having a crush on the girl in the library. He’s fine watching her from afar. And he’s fine with never speaking a word to the girl who he spends many nights chasing in his dreams. But fate, and a few nosey frat brothers, think Mark would be much better if he was forced to talk to the cute girl from the library that he can’t seem to get out of his head.)

⪩⪨ tis the damn season - mark smau - @najaemism (in which your ex-boyfriend comes back to your hometown—and he wants to talk to you.)

⪩⪨ Delphinium - @ncteez (It wasn’t intentional. You don’t even know why you cared that he didn’t believe in pre-marital sex, but it didn’t stop you from arguing with him about it. You didn’t intend to win the argument either. Then again, he kind of let you.)

⪩⪨ 9:10 PM - @neochan (possessive! mark)

⪩⪨ WITH YOU | MK.L - @sehunniepotwrites (There are many things Mark Lee wants to do with you. He wants to walk you home. He wants to dive into the deep blue sea with you. He wants to go on a drive with you at his side. But mostly, this crazy, head over heels in love boy just wants to make it with you.)

⪩⪨ spidey boy ; 이민형 - @martiniblues (mark has tried to hide his secret identity from you for as long as possible, to keep you safe, of course. little does he know that you’ve untangled his web of lies long ago and will do anything in your power to get him to admit it. just when you've had enough of him lying to you, he ends up getting caught in the act trying to save your life.)

⪩⪨ eyes on me. (m.l) - @mrkis (mark wants you to keep your eyes on him as he pleases you.)

⪩⪨ GOLDEN HOUR. | L.MK - @onyourhyuck (You’re a waiter and Mark Lee the local biker and infamous bad boy loves the eggs your diner makes, but now he wants a taste of you.)

⪩⪨ madly in love - mark lee - @p0ckykiss (mark had always been the hopeless romantic type)

⪩⪨ it’s too bad you’re married to me | m.l - @yojeongin (all mark ever does is use weaponized incompetence to get out of small tasks you ask of him. when he finally realizes you resort to his close friends to do what he can’t— nothing can prepare him for what’s in your pandora box; now karma is set in motion.)

⪩⪨ Pretty Boy. (m.l) - @ncteez (Mark’s favorite thing to do is sit alone at the library and enjoy the knowledge that his university offers. In contrast, your favorite thing to do is go to parties and enjoy as much chaos as possible. However, upon realizing your grades have dropped drastically due to this lifestyle, you have no choice but to approach Mark for help. or the one where your new favorite thing to do is seduce the most inexperienced man you’ve ever met and watch how desperate he gets for you.)

⪩⪨ gelato | lmk - @hazyhae (a high slip up cost you mark lee years ago, and you’ve spent years burying your memories of him ever since. the universe has other plans for you when your old friend starts a new career, smoking his way back into your life.)

⪩⪨ ꒰ 𝐍𝐎 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 ꒱ 이민형 - @loserlvrss (one thing about your boyfriend, mark, is that he would always take care of you — even if you were annoyingly drunk — and he was embarrassingly in love)

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17020 · 7 months ago

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first kisses with okarun, momo, & jiji are slightly different.

okarun's first kiss is actually him acting on impulse and quickly pecking your lips goodbye, walking away before he can even process what happened and he falls to the floor in confusion and utter shock. when he tries to kiss you again a few weeks later, his eyes are shut close and his lips are puckered. he waits until you close the gap between you and him, and you can feel how hard he's puckering his lips.

okarun needs guidance, as he was hit with a 2 in 1: no knowledge, and no practice. your first kisses with okarun are about learning the basics, as well as getting comfortable with each other. when you finally kiss him with all your might, you breathe out one word: ken. he never knew that hearing his own name after months of not doing so could feel so good, especially since it rolled off your tongue so naturally.

momo is very eager. when she notices you're leaning in to kiss her, her eyes flutter shut and so do yours. however, you weren't really expecting your puckered lips meeting her open mouth. from all the media she's consumed and previous (but limited) experience, momo really seemed to dig the french. when she notices the clear miscommunication between you and her, she apologizes and laughs it off before kissing you nice and slow.

second time's where she goes all out, asking you to recreate some of her favorite scenes in movies she watched as a child. your first kisses with momo are all about experimentation, dabbling in what both you and her like, as well as finding out which ways you can kiss her best with seiko kicking her bedroom door open every five minutes.

jiji's kisses are short, sweet and fun. his first kiss with you is him practicing his silly faces while getting closer and closer to you every time his expression changes, until he leans in and places a sweet kiss on your lips. jiji's kisses are all about being playful, so at the start of your relationship, he never asks for a kiss directly. you have to deal with his many games, each one ending in his lips locking with yours. he also takes advantage of treats like ice cream and fries to kiss you at first, or even cliche snacks like pocky.

his second kiss with you happens when he asks you to share a can of ginger ale with two straws, asking you to lean down to drink from it at the same time as he does, with him pulling the can down and pecking your lips in return. jiji likes to make you work for his kisses, even if the tedious 'work' is just indulging him with his savory and sweet quests.

(new & open) taglist: @stunies @okkotsushi @moon-cakiie @maruflix @nyxypoo @littleplantfreak @heartkaji @vinomino please keep in mind that if you filled the old taglist with all the series i’ll most likely tag you in everything i post 🪷 if you have the time , please fill the new form. sorry for the inconvenience!

#dandadan x reader #dan da dan x reader #momo x reader #okarun x reader #ken takakura x reader #jiji x reader #jin enjoji x reader

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yuechihua · 18 days ago

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your love is the greatest sin.

summary: As a humble librarian, you're only interested in stories. Anaxa promises to give you the grandest story of them all.

notes: 8.9k words, author's notes, spoilers for 3.2, chest cavity and organ touching, ambiguous relationships

You were eighteen the first time you heard about Anaxa, though you didn’t think much of him at first.

“Watch out for that mad alchemist. If you’re going to survive here, then avoid Anaxagoras,” someone joked to you, and you nodded numbly.

Back then, in those first few days of your arrival at the Grove of Epiphany, you had little time for anything outside of survival. You had nothing save the clothes on your back and the torn edges of a few slim books you managed to save before the black tide swallowed your home and your family.

If you weren’t staying up late each night reading the books your father cherished, then you were disoriented by the swaying whispers of divine branches that woke you every morning, the eternal night that shadowed your window, the internal politics of a people entrenched deeply in academia.

Still, you couldn’t escape Anaxa even then, infamy blooming with his every odd experiment and reckless movement. His name was always on the tips of everyone’s tongues, accompanied by admiration or reprobation.

He was mad, people said. A heretic, using the intelligence Ceres blessed him with for all the wrong reasons. The sages should kick him out for the ideas he held, ones that seemed more intended to outrage than to produce any meaningful discourse.

“It’s better to stay out of his way,” one of your gossipy classmates advised you. You had decent enough relationships with your peers, but you primarily kept to yourself and took internal notes of the various topics that fascinated them. “He’s so rude, and he doesn’t care about anything but his experiments!”

“He’s very smart, though,” someone else chimed in. “If you can stomach the way he talks, you can ask him for his notes. Best ones I’ve ever seen.”

Anaxagoras, Anaxa, the Great Performer. What an odd man. You kept his name tucked away in the corner of your mind to turn over like a golden coin, spied his fluttering hair out of the corner of your eye, saw the sheen of black fabric covering his eye, and heard the echo of his brisk steps passing you in the halls.

He was an oddity that sparked your interest, even if he never seemed to notice you. That was fair enough; you were only another pair of eyes in a crowd of them, and he must have grown used to the attention by the time you arrived.

Still, you had little time to worry over Anaxa outside of those stray moments when your paths collided, heretic or not. You had fled to the Grove of Epiphany for a particular reason, out of all the other city-states you could have taken refuge in.

You were here for the library, which housed the largest collection of stories Amphoreus had ever seen. Its wealth of knowledge would have fed a starving man for centuries, and you were a supplicant begging for even a morsel.

You were weaned on stories from your very first memories. Your father read you books from his private collection, and your mother spun stories from her own imagination or that she remembered from the words of others. Even your older brother took you out to see travelling storytellers or the nearby temple to hear about the myths of gods.

“Stories are the most beautiful things in the world,” your father told you. “They can house a world’s memories, a culture’s legacy.”

Stories were the only ways for things to survive, and it was how people could outlive their limited lifespans. After all, if you didn’t tell your family’s story to yourself, then you would have killed them twice. You poured over your memories, even when it was a story that could only end in the same way every time: your mother, pushing you out the backdoor and telling you to run as she gripped a rusty knife in hand. You father, handing you a few cherished books from his private collection, your only inheritance. Your older brother, biding you to hide with shaking hands as he ran out to distract the monsters.

People were finite. Stories were not

In a few more months at the Grove, you wormed your way into an assistant librarian position, content for now with the jobs of shelving books and organizing the catalogue, cocooned in your world of ink and paper, getting to touch the face of every new scroll or book that passed its way into the archives.

For all intended purposes, your life was going according to plan. You were surrounded by stories, and you were certain that after studying library sciences and dedicating all your time here, you could take the role of head librarian one day. Yet, why did it feel like you were still missing something?

That was when you first met Anaxa as he glided into the library with a relaxed arrogance that drew ire and admiration from all of your classmates, robes fluttering behind him.

“I need these books,” he told you curtly, without looking at your face. He slid a sheet of parchment across your desk, scrawled with the names of tedious-sounding titles. His handwriting, you were surprised to find, was an elegant, looping scrawl.

“Some of these books have restricted access,” you said, scanning the list. He was a man you had heard so much about, and yet, he was still just that: a man. Still, there was a gravitas to his bearing. This was someone who would truly do something remarkable in his lifetime. “You need permission from a professor or a librarian before you can check them out. Some of these books are quite controversial.”

“Controversial only because people were unwilling to acknowledge anything that didn’t reinforce their limited worldview,” Anaxa said.

“Well, in a world ruled by the Titans, it’s controversial to posit that they could ever be similar to us.”

“The boundary between divinity and humanity is a false one,” he said. “But you can’t access these books?”

“It’s not within my authority,” you acknowledged. “These books are especially rare because their production was stopped early, or people burned so many copies we only have these few left. So they’re kept under tight supervision.”

Anaxa turned, his interest in you gone now that you couldn’t give him what he wanted.

Your heartbeat quickened at the loss of attention, of how easily this strange man was going to slip through your fingers. Maybe that was why you couldn’t stop yourself from saying, “But I could, technically, find a way. If you made it worth my time.”

Anaxa turned back around, finally looking you in the eyes, observing you in the same way he looked at a lab specimen on a dissecting table, keen gaze intent on flaying you open. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing that would inconvenience you much, really. Something simple. You’re an alchemist, right? Consider it an act of equivalent exchange.” The idea spun itself into existence as you voiced it, an answer to your tedium you hadn’t realized you were considering until now. “I want to witness your story.”

“A story? You’re surrounded by books.”

“I’m curious,” you said, “about a story only you can tell me. They call you a heretic, you know. The things you’ve told me are things most people wouldn’t even dare voice. So I want to see where your path leads.”

Anaxa still watched you, as if the dissection he thought would be simple had suddenly unearthed a new complication. “If you’re going to bring up an equivalent exchange, what am I getting out of this? You’re the only one who benefits from such an arrangement.”

“I know this place better than anyone else. It’s easier to get your hands on something when you have someone on the inside, don’t you think? There’s a chance if you ask for permission from someone else, they’ll refuse your request.”

“And if someone catches and punishes you for misconduct? You would risk your position for a story?”

“Not just any story,” you corrected. “Your story. This is beneficial for both of us. Besides, you’re a performer, right? Don’t you want an audience who’s going to watch you attentively until the very end?”

“That’s a bold proposition, librarian,” he said.

“Are you going to refuse?”

“No. I think it’s an interesting idea. I’ll agree to your terms.”

“It’ll be a pleasure to work with you,” you said.

You held out your hand, and after a beat, Anaxa slid his into your grip. His hand was papery soft and cool, thin, elegant fingers wrapping around yours. They didn’t seem like the hands of a heretic.

“Now. My books?” Anaxa prompted, withdrawing his hand immediately.

“I’ll get them for you.”

Basking in the afterglow of your unexpected meeting and his ready agreement, you relished in the chance to observe him up close. Anaxa was a bizarre character who challenged everything that was determined as an immutable fact, and he would change the Grove.

You would watch him until he didn’t find you useful, or you grew bored. Fate might spin its wheels, and tangle you helplessly in its threads as it wrenched you along, but this relationship, at least, was clear.

In a matter of weeks, you came to recognize Anaxa’s presence in the library by the sound of his light and decisive footsteps and the scent of ink, chemicals, and paper that trailed him wherever he went. He showed up at a similar time every day, and his appearance became so embedded in your routine you didn’t even have to raise your head to acknowledge his presence; he only announced himself by sliding a paper of all his various requested books across your desk.

“I need these books,” he said.

You scanned the list. “This one hasn’t been mentioned in our records in several decades. I’d have to dig through our archives to find it.”

“Well? Is it too hard for you, then?” Anaxa raised an eyebrow in silent challenge.

Asshole. You stood with a clatter of your chair. “Not at all.”

He was one of your most frequent patrons, and easily the most annoying. Every day it seemed he came with new demands and a list of obscure books that you had to dig through the shelves to find. As soon as you brought out his staggering collections of tomes, he perched on the edge of your desk, flipping through them and remarking on their contents.

It didn’t bother you too much as you were always flitting between shelving new returns, sorting through the catalogues, and helping students with their various requests. But no matter how long it took you to accomplish all of your tasks, Anaxa was always waiting when you came back, posture still neat and legs crossed, one over the other. Privately, you’d begun to think of him as the library’s resident cat in the way he lounged in places that most inconvenienced you.

“It took you twenty minutes to assist the student this time, librarian,” he said, without looking up from his book. “Perhaps you aren’t as familiar with the library’s layouts as you claim.”

“It’s still faster than you would be. There are centuries of books to sort through, and sometimes these students only have a general idea of what they want and not a specific title,” you replied. “Wouldn’t it be more comfortable for you to sit in my chair or find somewhere else to read?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Anaxa said. “What do you think about the soul?”

“Immaterial, difficult to work with, and the basis of an overwhelming amount of philosophy books in the library.”

“And the gods?”

“I don’t care much for them, though I am familiar with all of their stories. They only matter to me insofar as they relate to the books housed here.”

Anaxa laughed. “Why, that sounds borderline blasphemous.”

You sighed, slouching back in your chair. Your desk was a curve of polished wood located near the center of the room, in perfect view of every student who wandered the library so they knew exactly where to go for help. Though with Anaxa’s presence, they only approached you when you wandered the stacks, or he was absent for the day.

There were already rumors springing up about your relationship and how much time the two of you spent together. You warded off your classmates’ inquiries with a practiced smile, as you were the more approachable of the two. Even if you wanted to answer them, there wasn’t one you could give. You barely knew what to call the two of you yourself.

Were you close to him? You wouldn’t say that. You hadn’t really let yourself grow close to anyone here on principle. What word described the two of you best? Friend felt too kind of a word. Lover was irrefutably wrong. Partner was at least somewhat correct, but lacked context. If nothing else, then the best explanation was that Anaxa was a planet and you were a moon, drawn into his orbit for no other reason than the natural rules of gravity.

“I believe your only god is memory,” Anaxa said.

You didn’t spare him a glance as you idly picked at the supplies lining your desk, lining the stacks of papers and colorful pots of ink in neat formation. “Then your god is truth, though I’d like to say your god is also yourself.”

“Then we’re not so different.”

“Are you going to keep needling at me, or are you going to fulfill your end of the bargain?”

Anaxa tilted his head. With his hands braced on the edge of the desk, he leaned closer to you, an insufferable smile playing on his lips. “I already am, librarian. A story can only be defined in the retrospective, once it comes to an end. Right now, you’re in the process of witnessing mine, aren’t you?”

“I just hope for more from the person they call the great performer,” you said evenly.

“And what are you hoping for, precisely?”

“A good story.”

Anaxa placed a hand on his chest in mock sincerity. “Then you won’t be disappointed. Have some patience! Good stories require proper build-up.”

He was an infuriating man, through and through. But he was an infuriating man you had decided to tie yourself to, and you would see where his road would lead him in the end.

In the next several years that passed, Anaxa devoted himself to the pursuit of higher knowledge, working as the assistant of professors and pursuing his doctorate, and you pulled yourself up one tedious position at a time until you were working full-time at the library, losing yourself in documentation and categorization. There were always new books being brought in that had to be labeled, sorted, and registered in the library’s catalogue, more stories for you to devour.

No one had a complaint about you as you cared for nothing but your stories, it seemed Anaxa always found a way to needle those in charge, and he never tired of their outrage and indignation. His dreams were lofty, his inspirations grander than anyone could understand. And through it all, you watched him, taking note of all his movements: how he slept little and mumbled to himself, scribbled alchemical equations on any available surface, and the way manic light suffused his eyes when he came to a supposed breakthrough.

Anaxa slid into the framework of your life without any preamble or fuss, as natural as the air you breathed or the blood in your veins. His presence by your side was natural, and you only paused to acknowledge him when someone brought him to your attention. Your strange little relationship eventually expanded beyond the confines of the library. Anaxa still visited you there, but now, the two of you were prone to meeting in courtyards or various classrooms, wherever it was convenient to steal a moment to converse.

Your classmates no longer commented on your relationship, though you did still get the odd stare here and there. The two of you existed in your own little bubble, uninterested in other people outside of what they could offer you.

“Is it true that the two of you are dating?” New students were prone to asking you that question, with all the boldness and innocence that youth commanded. This one was no different, and she watched you with curious eyes.

“I can’t date Anaxa because he’s already in a committed relationship with his research. I can’t ask him to cheat,” you replied dryly.

“I didn’t give you permission to call me Anaxa,” he sniped.

“That’s because I gave myself permission.”

However, the closeness you semi-enjoyed with Anaxa came with one major detriment: a lack of respect for your personal space.

“Librarian, wake up.”

You grumbled, emerging from your fragmented sleep, the cobweb of dreams still clinging to your mind. With sunlight warming your face and a nest of blankets wrapped around your body, you were loath to wake. And yet you did to Anaxa staring unsmiling down at you, arms crossed.

You swore viciously, scrambling upright and drawing your blankets closer to yourself. You launched a pillow at him, which Anaxa promptly side-stepped.

“Good morning,” he said.

“How did you get in here?”

“You left your door unlocked.”

“And you didn’t knock?”

“You didn’t answer, and I needed your assistance. I’ll give you ten minutes to get ready.”

“Make it thirty! And get out of here!” You threw another pillow at his retreating back.

It really was like you had become close to a cat. Without a care in the world, he flounced into your life and took your lack of rejection as an invitation to make himself comfortable. It was simply more effort to chase him away than to let him in.

After making yourself as presentable as you could, you were out the door five minutes earlier than expected. Anaxa waited just outside, and the two of you took off side by side at a leisurely pace.

“So? What do you want?” you prompted.

“I have an invitation from Okhema. One of the Chrysos Heirs came directly to speak with me.”

“And…?”

“They were extending me an invitation to become a Chrysos Heir and join them on their journey.”

It was impossible to exist anywhere in Amphoreus and not hear of the Chrysos Heirs. They always felt more like distant legends than anything tangible, but it was a story you had some vested interest in. “You? A Chrysos Heir? What did you say?”

“Of course, I rejected their offer,” he said. “I have no interest in the Flame-Chase Journey, or going to Okhema for some grand destiny laid out for me by the gods.”

“But once you’re chosen, even if you don’t go to Okhema and you reject their path, you’re a Chrysos Heir for good.”

“So what? Other people can call me whatever title they like, but it has no influence on who I am or what I intend to accomplish,” Anaxa said.

“And what is it that you intend to do?”

“I plan to start my own school of knowledge here, and then I will become one of the seven sages.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of your throat. “Arrogant as always, but I expect no less.”

The two of you had been winding through the various gardens and courtyards that interspersed the Grove. Soft light filtered playfully through the grove, branches and plants twining around marble patios and columns. It was beautiful, and this was the closest place you could call home.

“And you?” Anaxa said. “What do you plan to do?”

“Stay here and work in the library,” you said. “Someone has to manage it. You should know this.”

“And the Chrysos Heirs?”

“They only interest me insofar as they relate to you and whatever you plan to do,” you said. You skim a hand along one of the branches closest to you, an outshooting of the Sacred Tree, the manifestation of Ceres, the Titan of Reason. The wood is full of delicate whorls like the tight folds of a brain, emanating its own heat and humming under your touch.

“You have the capacity to be one yourself. The messenger they sent hinted as much. If you were interested, you could talk to them.”

You laughed again. “Well, I only have the capacity to be one, right? I wasn’t chosen, not like you, and that’s for good reason. I have no interest in being a saviour for other people.”

The two of you come to a stop in a secluded garden. Everywhere you gazed, you saw the soft, verdant green that announced Ceres’s continued presence and blessing. There must have been irony somewhere that Ceres accepted everyone in the pursuit of knowledge, even those who didn’t believe in them, or loathed them.

“You really don’t believe in the gods,” Anaxa mused.

“I don’t believe in anything but my stories,” you said. You couldn’t stop the bitterness that creeps into your voice. “If the gods were truly omnipotent and omnipresent, they would have stopped the black tide.”

A breeze rustled Anaxa’s hair. He watched you in silent contemplation. “You’re angry.”

“Isn’t everyone? I’ve lost my family, Anaxa. They sacrificed themselves so I could escape, but for what? There’s no safety. There’s not even a guaranteed future I can look forward to.”

“You doubt humanity’s ability to succeed, librarian, even after all the stories you’ve read.” There’s a rare note of intense emotion in Anaxa’s voice, like you’re a stubborn student in one of the classes he assisted in. “You should understand more than anyone else humanity’s potential. If the gods can fail, then that means they are no different from us, and we can succeed where they can’t.”

Despite what everyone thought of Anaxa, his mania and arrogance, what you couldn’t stand the most was his unrelenting faith in humanity’s future. It was a clear belief, one you didn’t understand. You strode closer to him until you were only a breath apart. His single eye stared down impassively at you, a brilliant, jeweled shard that you could cut yourself on. “Then show me something I can believe in.”

Before you could pull away, Anaxa gripped your wrist, using your momentary shock to guide your hand to his eyepatch. Your fingers rested gingerly on the fabric, though you had an inkling that if you were to slide them under, Anaxa would let you. It was a dangerous sort of permission, a line crossed in your relationship that hadn’t been breached before.

Neither of you moved. In a conversational tone, as if this was another one of your light-hearted spats, Anaxa said, “I lost this eye when I tried to bring my sister back from death. Like a fool, I had failed to consider that an eye was not an equivalent enough sacrifice for one life.”

“Your sister?”

“Lost to the black tide, like your family.”

You brushed a finger down the fabric covering his lost eye, as gentle as a butterfly’s kiss. “So we’ve both lost people we loved. How do you find it to keep going?”

“Simple. The gods are false shackles, binding us to our uncertainty and passivity. I intend to break those shackles. Isn’t it the same for how you live for your stories? Because you want something more than the pitiful narrative that’s been penned for humanity?”

“So I live for my stories, and you live for your goals. But that does make me wonder. What else would you sacrifice, Anaxa?”

He burned with an unnatural fervor, a pale flame that would never extinguish. “Everything. So if you can’t believe in anything, believe in me. Don’t look away. Watch me.”

His hand on your wrist seared into your skin, the proximity to his body too intense, too much. You wrenched your hand back, rubbing your wrist, and Anaxa let you go.

“I can’t believe someone like you is a Chrysos Heir. Maybe they’ve finally lost their minds,” you muttered. “Either way, you don’t need to tell me to watch you. I couldn’t look away, even if I wanted to.”

You could never let your past go. It was a simple truth you were forced to acknowledge. Anger and pain rotted in your soul, carving out a home in the same way termites burrowed into healthy wood, destroying it from the inside out. It was easier to cling to apathy, to watch people from afar rather than risk destruction from attachment.

You still dreamed of your family, though their faces were starting to fade from your memory. Even your father’s tomes were beginning to disintegrate, no matter how careful you were when handling them. The gods could save nothing, not your family, not your people, not this world, so how could you believe in them?

You were set on being alone, on burying yourself alive in your library. Not much moved you.

That was why it was frightening that Anaxa stirred your heart in ways you dared not dwell on for too long, like the ripples from a stone thrown into a placid pond, spreading farther and farther still.

It didn’t take more than a few years after that for Anaxa to achieve the lofty goals he had presented to you, though you suspected he laid the groundwork for his plans much earlier than he admitted and was simply watching them come to fruition. Despite the opposition, he established his own burgeoning school, and students flocked from afar to study concepts of the soul. He was one of the youngest people to become a professor and a sage, an impressive achievement.

You became the head of the library, and when you weren’t buried among mountains of books and tomes retrieved from the farthest corner of Amphoreus, you still made time to watch Anaxa. You visited his classrooms, shepherded his confused students to the correct materials he required, and chased him down when he returned rare books far past the due date.

Research was always his first priority. You never doubted that he would choose his alchemical experiments over you. It never bothered you, because if you had to choose between the library and Anaxa, you would have sacrificed him in a heartbeat. The way he threw himself into his research with a vicious mania wasn’t new or unexpected.

But the way his clothes hung so much more loosely on him, the sharp bones jutting beneath his waxy skin like outcroppings of rocks in a murky sea, his drawn, pale face: that was all new. His body couldn’t keep up with the strain of what he was doing.

He had told you as much, that he would sacrifice anything for his goals, but it disconcerted you to watch it happen in person. Nothing was sacred, not even his body or his soul.

You knew Anaxa’s schedule as well as your own. When his final class of the day ended, you made your way to his office, where the occasional student milled about in the hallway, chatting with their friends or grumbling about course assignments. It was a familiar sight from your own student days.

“Professor,” you greeted, shutting the door behind you when you entered his office.

“Librarian,” he said. Anaxa flipped through his notes, frowning. He was leaning against his desk, as if the mere act of sitting properly on his chair pained him. “What is it?”

“You’ve been using your body as materials for your alchemy experiments,” you said. Blunt and straight to the point, just as he enjoyed.

“Is that all you came here to say?”

“If you push yourself too much, you’ll die. You’re still only human.”

“I know my limits. There can’t be advancements made without sacrifices.”

“What have you used so far? Your blood? Your organs? Are you going to rip pieces of your soul apart next?”

You’re close to him now, close enough to pin him against the desk, your arms placed on either side of him like bars. Though it didn’t seem as if Anaxa had any intention to; he only watched you with that same curious stare he leveled everyone. It was always a chess game with him, the way he sizes up your next movement, readying his pieces in hand.

“I don’t want a premature end to your story,” you said, “I want to see what you’ll do next. How far you go. You still haven’t given me an impressive performance yet.”

“Oh, librarian,” Anaxa said. “It seems as if you’ve grown soft. Why do you sound so worried? Would you like to check for yourself how I’m doing?”

Coyly, he grasped one of your hands, bringing them to rest against his chest, right above his heart. Your fingers curled over the fabric separating you from him. You laid your hand flat enough against him, and felt the slow, steady pace of his heart, like a story marching toward an inevitable end.

Anaxa barely gave you enough time to settle into the soothing rhythm before he brought your hand to the center of his chest. Instead of solid flesh, there was nothing there but empty space, barely covered by his flimsy robes; you bit back a sharp gasp, driving your teeth hard into your lip.

“Well?” he said. The word fell like a taunt.

This was an invitation, a provocation, really. Anaxa let you go as you pulled back the buttons of his shirt, almost ripping it in your haste. You were met with a milky galaxy, swirls of blue-green and bright stars, the infinite cosmos unfurling in his chest. His skin broke into a jagged scar shaped like a star, all sharp angles made from soft flesh.

“That was quite bold of you,” Anaxa mused. “We’re still in public, you know.”

“No one is going to come in,” you snapped. “And I locked the door.”

“Were you planning on jumping on me?”

“Were you planning on letting me?” You could do nothing but breathe in tandem to the rise and fall of his chest, to the ripple of the galaxy held within him. This foolish, infuriating man. “How did this happen?”

“Consequences from an experiment,” Anaxa said cryptically. You weren’t going to get any more out of him, if the stubborn silence he fell into was any indication.

Instead, you brought one hand to the cracks, feeling the edges of skin. Warm, and smooth. It still felt like his human body, and you let one finger drag along his flesh, tracing the outline of the cracks.

You glanced at him, and met an eye that was watching you with palatable intensity, like you were another equation he was trying to solve. There was nothing else for you to do except gently dip your fingers into the hollow of his chest. It was a warm, smooth liquid consistency, like ocean waters from a sun-warmed beach, inviting you to draw your hand further in.

You noted the way Anaxa tried to hold back a shudder at the first contact. This was affecting him more than he wanted to let on, and you wanted to see his insufferable composure break. He was always so poised, so above everything. You dipped your hand further in, up to your wrist, to your elbow, further than you should have been able to touch.

Perhaps you could fit your entire body in here. It was a strange thought, unbidden, the idea of letting yourself be swallowed up by him forever, nestled close to his heart, so every time it beat he would be reminded of your presence.

“Librarian,” Anaxa said in a strained voice. His eye was unfocused now, his breathing shallow.

“If you’re going to give pieces of yourself away,” you said, swirling your fingers in absent loops in the space inside him. Every part of you felt weightless, like you weren’t really there. “Why not give something to me?”

“And what would you do with it?”

“What do you think?”

Anaxa’s head dipped slightly. “Something untoward.”

“I think you would like it, though. Is your heart still here?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Can I touch it?”

“Only if I let you.”

“Will you?”

You were met with silence, so you spread your arm through the hollow space, bracing your other hand on the desk behind Anaxa. Everything was disorientingly expansive, like the hole in his chest has pushed the pieces of his body apart, a trick room where the space inside was larger than the space outside. You angled your hand sideways experimentally, towards where his heart should be, and brushed the edge of his rib. Clean, hard bone that you held tenderly, gliding your fingers along the length of it.

It was this provocation that proved too much for Anaxa. His head fell on your shoulder, and his hands moved to grip your waist, as if he would fall apart without you to anchor. His hands were still slender and elegant, the sort of beautiful hands built for creation.

This sight, the great Anaxa brought so low at your touch, was reserved just for you. As was his body, the tender caverns of it. You took your time to ghost along his bones, relishing in every shudder that wracked his body, and then you found it. A wet muscle, pulsing ever so gently, the center of Anaxa’s body.

You caressed his heart, squeezing it slightly, feeling it contract in your hands. Anaxa’s hands tightened around your waist, his nails digging into clothed flesh. Still, you did nothing more but hold it gently, feeling it quicken alongside Anaxa’s shallow breathing. Soft, warm, inviting. You stroked a thumb along the tender muscle.

“If you want it, you’ll need to give something else to me,” Anaxa said, his voice a low, hot murmur in your ear. “As is the manner of equivalent exchange.”

Before you could respond, a knock resounded on the door. “Professor? I had some questions about the material covered in the lecture today.”

At the sound, you jerked your hand back, your arm emerging pristine and untouched. It felt heavy, gravity weighing you down, unlike the inviting, weightless expanse within Anaxa. In a few seconds, you straightened your clothing as Anaxa buttoned his shirt back and smoothed his robes, leaning heavily against the desk, hand curled around his mouth. You were across the room and pushing open the door, revealing a surprised student, curled fist raised mid-knock.

You schooled your face into a neutral expression, and threw a quick shout over your shoulder. “You aren’t excluded from the rules of the library just because you’re a sage now, professor! Turn your books in on time.”

And then you hurried on, keeping your eyes straight ahead, flexing and unflexing your hand as you walked. The two of you would never speak of that moment again, though you noticed Anaxa looking unbearably smug in the weeks that followed, and you found a new habit of touching his shoulder when you talked.

In the following years that passed, more Chrysos Heirs came to study at the Grove, working under Anaxa’s strict tutelage and wandering the rows of your library. Your favorite was Castorice, who kept a respectful distance back and asked you numerous questions about the books in your archives. Your least favorite was Phainon, who had a habit of being a little more clumsy with the books than you liked.

“Do you enjoy teaching them?” you asked, hand cupped in your cheek. Anaxa retained the habit of perching on your desk, still preferring to claim your space as his rather than find one of his own.

In turn, however, you had grown bolder with his body. If he wasn’t going to take care of it, you might as well put it to use. His arm lay stretched across your desk, and you scribbled notes on the creamy, smooth skin of his inner arm: alchemical equations he taught you, or reminders of what books he had to return, or doodles of dromases.

“If they’re going to embark on the Flame-Chase Journey, it’s prudent for them to find their own path, instead of blindly believing what they’re told,” he remarked. You put down your pen, and Anaxa glanced at the fresh ink still shining on his skin. “Librarian, what is this?”

“A dromas,” you said.

He examined the inked doodle, eye borrowed. “The proportions of its facial features are off and too close together.”

“How picky, professor. I’ll draw a better one next time.”

It was easy, so easy being with Anaxa that it frightened you. New students of Anaxa’s assumed the two of you were “together,” and it wasn’t right, but it wasn’t wrong, either. The two of you were a pair, and it felt wrong to be away from him, like you were being denied part of who you were.

Did you love him? Did you need him? Your desire took on confusing forms, eluding categorization and convention. Maybe you were simply greedy: like the day he let you touch the galaxy in his chest, you wanted more of Anaxa, to shelter within him forever.

How to understand this? Was there even a way to understand it, or were you helpless to desire’s whims? It was an unsolvable equation.

The years could have passed so sweetly and comfortably, until you heard news of Titankin flooding Okhema and strange new warriors appearing. As Hyacine made to venture into the holy city to treat the wounded, Anaxa approached you one evening while you were in your bedroom, flinging it open without a knock, another habit he retained.

“Go with Hyacine to Okhema,” Anaxa said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re curious about the new strangers in the city, and what happened with Strife, aren’t you? Go with her and learn.”

“Are you kicking me out of the Grove, professor?” you asked.

“I’m telling you to seek new knowledge, and see the center of a new, great story. Or have you grown complacent here, tending to your dusty scrolls?”

“Aren’t you going to miss me?”

Anaxa leaned against the door of your bedroom. “Why should I?”

“You want to know about those strangers and the status of Okhema,” you guessed. “Don’t you?”

“If that’s how you chose to see my words, I don’t see any need to refute you.”

“You’re as frustrating as ever, professor,” you said. You stood, making your way over to him. Idly, you started playing with the hair that fell over his shoulders, silky strands slipping through your fingers. “Why don’t you say you’re also worried about me? Shuffling me, a poor librarian off to the holy city, when there’s so much turbulence in Amphoreus right now… It doesn’t feel coincidental.”

Anaxa dipped his head, chin lowered to his chest. “Will you admit that that sort of concern makes you happy, then?”

“Do you have any evidence to support that?”

“Do you?” he challenged.

“Well, since my expertise doesn’t lie in debating, so I’ll refrain from answering.” You withdrew your hand, reached down, and pulled Anaxa’s hand up by the wrist, placing it over your heart. His fingers rested lightly against your chest, as if he could cage your heartbeat. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, then. Goodbye for now, professor.”

“Goodbye, librarian.”

The road to Okhema was relatively pleasant. Hyacine was cheerful and made for good company, perceptive enough to know when you tired of talking. Still, you couldn’t help but feel a little disoriented. You weren’t attached at the hip to Anaxa, as your duties took up most of your time, and he had his spells where he forgot the rest of the world existed when he was buried in research. But you weren’t used to being far enough away where if you called his name, he wouldn’t be able to hear.

Okhema was still vibrant and bustling when you and your retinue of exhausted scholars approached, shining with a ferocity that denied any rumors of defeat and downfall. Kephale rose grandly above the city in the distance, arms outstretched as if ready to take on your burdens.

“I need to go look at some of the soldiers now,” Hyacine said. “Why don’t you go greet Lady Aglaea first? I’ll follow you as soon as you can!”

It was as solid a plan as any. You trudged through the city, making your way to where Aglaea waited. As you walked through sunlight and vapor from the local baths, through laughter and the splash of carefree citizens: it seemed humanity would prevail no matter what.

When you found Aglaea, she was waiting, patient as ever, an enigmatic smile on her lips and hands folded in front of her, as pristine and flawless as a god carved from marble.

“Hello, librarian.”

“Hello, Lady Aglaea. I’m here from the Grove of Epiphany along with a few of my companions. Hyacine will likely come greet you soon,” you said. There was no need to go through any formalities with her; her golden threads had likely picked up on the vibration of your conversation with Hyacine. It cut down on any need for pleasantries and explanations.

“And I’m sure you’ll be reporting everything we say back to that man?” Her smile was still cool, unruffled; you admired her composure. You had no quarrel with Aglaea, and you could not grudge her need for control and protection of all her citizens. Still, it was a daunting task to stand in front of someone like her.

“Reporting is a strong word,” you said. “I would prefer something more like observation. I’m not here to make trouble, only to note what I see.”

“They say you’re a recluse, a librarian who’s only fond of stories and barely has the time to give to anyone outside of a certain professor,” Aglaea said. “You would have made a good candidate for the Coreflame of Time.”

“Ah, but I’m too selfish to sacrifice myself for humanity,” you said, filling in the gaps of her words. “I know my flaws.”

“Indeed. You’re too caught up in your own stories, narrating everything you see as if it has nothing to do with you.”

“And is that so wrong? It’s simply the most interesting thing for me to do,” you said.

“You and that man are alike in that way,” Aglaea mused. “Caught up in your respective research and acts. You’re a narrator and a performer on the same stage together, though I wonder. It seems as if that man is eager to perform great feats for the distant narrator to watch, so they won’t turn their attention away from him.”

You settled your gaze somewhere over her shoulder, your hands grasped tightly in the folds of your clothing. “Lady Aglaea, I apologize for my bluntness, but I daresay you’re wrong. We both know Anaxa is the sort of man who would only stir to action for the sake of his own goals. Anything else that happens is incidental to what he achieves.”

“Do we both know that?”

“You’ve seen how he acts.”

“Regardless, I only wanted to extend a word of caution to you, librarian. You’ve long refused the invitation to step on the stage, and so your chance to take the spotlight has passed. Are you truly prepared to witness the story playing out in front of you without being able to raise a hand to stop a single event from transpiring?”

“Is this advice from you personally, Lady Aglaea, or is it advice from a demigod?”

She smiled. “What do you think? I’m sure you’ll come to a conclusion all on your own. I only find it a shame we couldn’t work together more.”

That was the end of your conversation with her. But throughout your stay in Okhema, Aglaea’s words rang in your head, like a burr stuck to the folds of your thoughts, even as you found yourself preoccupied by greater worries. The Grove being overtaken by the black tide. Political unrest in Okhema. And Anaxa, who, from all accounts, had seemingly escaped the fate that befell your coworkers and peers.

Once more, your home was lost, but this time, at least one person had survived. Yet, to your growing ire and confusion, Anaxa did not approach you once when he came to the city. You only received reports from Hyacine in the temporary room you took refuge in, provided by Aglaea.

You thought nothing of it at first, certain he would seek you out on his own time. It wasn’t uncommon for Anaxa to rush headlong into whatever project or scheme caught his attention. He would make his way back to you eventually.

As the hours passed, malaise and discontent settled on you like a heavy veil. You were not a Chrysos Heir, so you were not privy to the inner politics of their number. You were nothing more than a civilian. But this was the first time you had to hear about Anaxa’s movements from other people instead of relaying them to others.

His silence was a purposeful message: Anaxa was not going to involve you in whatever he had planned. You were to sit and wait and watch on the sidelines, as you always had.

You could guess at his motivations: he was playing risky games, getting involved with the Council of Elders. He had done something outrageous, brushed right up against the divine, and had to undertake his trials alone. You were not useful to him in these games, and it would be dangerous for him to openly associate with you and alert people of your presence in his life.

People were lost so easily, but stories lived forever. You had believed this all your life, and yet, as you melted in your chaise, stacks of half-finished books piling around you, all your beloved stories felt stale and tasteless.

Someone flung open your door, and you jerked upright as Anaxa strode into the room with the same arrogance as if this was your home back in the Grove. You barely had time to smooth your rumpled clothing and pull your legs to the side before Anaxa was settling at the end of your seat, legs folded.

“Where have you been, you ass?” you snapped, kicking him with your foot.

He didn’t move, taking your kick with stoicism. “I’ve been researching,” he said.

“Well? Are you going to tell me what you’ve been working on?”

“These theories are still being worked on.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from telling me before. Honestly, what have you been doing? The Chrysos Heirs are all over the place, and there’s been talk that you’ve joined the Council of Elders. Not to mention what happened with the Grove. How did you get out? What happened? Why–” You choked on your words, all your nameless frustration and fear surging out. “Why couldn’t I be there with you?”

Anaxa’s eye was focused on you, but his gaze was distant and foggy. His lips moved, as if he was speaking to himself, and you could only wait in impatient silence before he said, “I’m dead, librarian.”

With a furious burst of energy, you lunged at Anaxa, pinning him down to the chaise. His green hair fanned across the cushions, as your hands shook.

“Anaxa, I don’t have time for your games. For once in your life, just tell me the truth.”

“I haven’t lied to you.”

“You’re still here,” you pressed. “If you were truly dead, you wouldn’t be moving like this.”

“That’s simply because I bound my soul to a Titan. I don’t have that much time left.”

“Titan…? You can’t mean… You bound yourself to a god? Are you mad?”

“Only in the eyes of fools,” he said.

“Anaxa. How long do you have left?”

He called your name, said in such a soft tone, as if you were still teenagers in the Grove of Epiphany, still young and foolish with your entire lives in front of you. “Only until the end of today. You know the black tide takes all, and you know the principles of equivalent exchange. A life for a life. It’s fitting.”

“But it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” you whispered. “You were going to show me a grand story. Things I haven’t seen before. A brilliant conclusion.”

“I will.” Anaxa brought his hand to the back of your head, pulling you down to rest on his chest. You closed your eyes, burying your face in the fabric of his clothing. You sought desperately for his heartbeat, but it wasn’t there. “But all performers must leave the stage eventually.”

“I don’t want you to,” you said. It was a childish, petulant protest, the likes of which you hadn’t made in years, not after your family died. “You’re supposed to live forever, Anaxa.”

“I will. I will live forever in your stories, librarian. You should understand this.”

“You infuriating man.”

“You meddlesome librarian.”

“Are you telling me goodbye? Is this what this is?”

“It doesn’t have to be something permanent,” he said cryptically.

“And I’m sure you won’t explain what that means, either, will you?”

“All will be revealed in due time. Have patience, librarian. That’s one of your strong suits.”

“Anaxa!” Your shout came out to a strangled whisper as you fisted your hands in his robes as if in some vain attempt, you could bind him to this earth forever, as if he wasn’t already lost to you. “You’re a wretched, blasphemous fool. But you’ve forgotten something.”

“And what have I forgotten? Enlighten me, dear librarian.”

“You let me touch your heart,” you murmured into the hollow of his chest. “Remember? That day in the classroom?”

“Well, it’s difficult to forget the liberties you took with my body. What about it?”

“You asked me what I would give in exchange for your heart. I never answered you, and as per the laws of equivalent exchange, as you so like to espouse, I’d like to give you something now,” you persisted.

“Oh? And what are you planning on offering?”

“My heart,” you persisted. “If you give me a part of you, then I’ll give you a part of me.”

“Do you plan on ripping your heart out for me?”

“If you asked, then it’s yours, to do with as you please.”

Anaxa did not speak. He only stroked the back of your head, as if he was tracing alchemical equations. “What an audacious claim.”

“You don’t dislike it, though.”

“I told you I don’t lie, librarian.”

“Then you need to understand this,” you confessed, a supplicant before a god, the words tumbling out in a way they never have before. Your heartache, laid raw and bare, the weave of your soul exposed. “I’ve kept myself distance from everything. The Grove. The other scholars. Even Amphoreus itself. But you, Anaxa. You make me act so foolishly, want irrational and unattainable things. I can’t keep myself apart from you.”

“Well, well,” Anaxa said. “The reclusive librarian has finally shown me a bit of what lies in their heart.”

You hit him lightly with your fist, the action carrying no anger or weight to it. “Come on. Is that all you have to say to me?”

“I don’t need to say anything. All you need to do is to keep watching me, like we once promised,” he said. “Come, librarian. If you’ve laid claim to my heart, you should understand it by now. What I do, I do while thinking of you and of the best way to keep you entertained.”

You wrapped your arms around Anaxa. He was still touching you ever so gently, stroking your back in a way that belied the harshness of his words. Neither of you spoke. You closed your eyes, imagining what it would be like to fall asleep in his arms.

“I’ll see you again,” you mumbled. “If not in this life, then in the next. Don’t think you can get away from me so easily.”

You thought you could feel him smile. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

This was the last time you ever saw him. When you did drift off to sleep, you awoke on your chaise, a blanket pulled up to your shoulders, with nothing left of Anaxa but the cooling spot he once occupied.

—

After his death, you dream of him. His body cracking, flaking away to reveal a cosmos birthed beneath his skin. His smile and unfocused eyes, looking at some grand scheme beyond you. The hard, red crystal of heart, the white lines of his ribs.

One day, you will return to your library in the Grove, to your archives and books and your catalogues. But for now, you reside in the holy city, recording what you see, marking history in your own words. The narrator to a play you could not change, as Aglaea called you, in love with a performer who left the stage of his own accord.

Anaxa does not lie, so you know his theories to be true, even if others decry them as blasphemy. You will find him again, in the next life, in the next world. You will find a way to keep his memory alive, weave it into the fabric of the universe itself, so not even the gods could rip him from you even if Amphoreus as you knew it fell to pieces.

You imagine what it would be like, in the next world. You would pull him close, your dear professor, and tell him every story that happened in his absence. This time, you would not let him go.

#liya.writes #honkai star rail #anaxagoras #anaxa #hsr #x reader #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #anaxa x reader #anaxagoras x reader

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