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sunsburns · 4 months ago

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forget it — joaquín torres (marvel) !

⟢ synopsis. request: reuniting with ex!joaquín after his near death experience, but you’re the nurse assigned to his care after he gets out of surgery. you broke up a couple years ago because of your very demanding careers, and you don’t see him until you realize they put YOU on babysitting duty to nurse him back to health, yikes!

⟢ contains. spoilers for brave new world! joaquín torres x nurse!reader, so much angst you’re gonna want to block me!! mentions of death, blood, gore, possible inaccurate medical procedures (i am not a nurse idk how that works), open ending but it's honestly realistic and cute.

⟢ word count. 13.7k+

⟢ author’s note. i learned medical terms for this

You like to think that every decision you’ve made has shaped you into the best version of yourself.

A better student, a better nurse, a better person. You’ve spent years honing your skills, pushing yourself past limits, ensuring that when it matters most, you’ll be capable—prepared. You might not have superpowers, enhanced genes, or combat training, but you have your mind, your steady hands, your patience. That’s what makes a difference in the field you’ve chosen. That’s what saves lives.

And it’s paid off. You don’t work at just any hospital—you work at this one. A private facility that caters to soldiers, government agents, and the kind of people who make headlines when things go wrong. The kind of people who disappear into classified reports. The kind of people you don’t expect to see lying unconscious under your care.

But you love your job. You love the structure of it, the control. You love the fact that, in a world constantly spinning off its axis, you can still do something that makes sense. You have your patients, your colleagues, your friends, your family. You still go out when you can, still make time to shop, and still remember to water your plants. Life is steady. Good.

And yet—

There’s something missing.

It creeps in during the quiet moments, when the hospital halls are still, and the steady beep of a heart monitor is the only thing filling the silence. It lingers in the space between breaths, in the pause before you check a chart, in the phantom weight of something you can’t quite name. A presence that once was, or maybe never was, but should have been.

You have everything you’ve ever worked for. So why does it still feel like something’s missing?

You don’t let yourself dwell on it. It’s ridiculous. You have your health. You have your life.

And you know better than anyone how fragile both of those things can be.

You remind yourself of how lucky you are because you’ve seen the alternative too many times. Lives wrecked and ruined by things far beyond anyone’s control. You’ve watched the light fade from seven pairs of eyes. Seven people who didn’t make it. Seven moments that carved themselves into your memory, no matter how hard you try to forget.

You haven’t even been working for three years.

And yet—

You’d hate to see the day when someone you love is one of them.

The thought grips you too tightly, too suddenly, and you only realize you’ve been staring at your hands under the running faucet when the sound of your name cuts through the fog.

“Look what I made!”

You blink, water still rushing over your fingertips, skin already pruning. A slow exhale leaves you as you reach for the faucet, shutting off the tap. The chill lingers on your skin even as you tear a paper towel from the dispenser, crumpling in your damp grip as you turn.

Maria is sitting up in bed, dark eyes bright with excitement as she holds out a carefully folded piece of olive-green paper.

She beams at you, her small fingers cradling the delicate shape with a reverence that makes your heartache. It takes a second for recognition to click. An origami bird.

“What’s this?” you coo, stepping closer.

Maria is a few weeks shy of nine. She should be at home planning her birthday party, picking out a cake, laughing with friends. Instead, she’s here. Confined to this sterile room, surrounded by too-white walls and the soft beeping of machines monitoring the inexplicable changes in her body. She isn’t dying. But she isn’t getting better, either.

Exposure to some strange quantum disturbance in San Francisco had led to her transfer here, to Washington, under your care. Away from reporters, away from speculation, away from anyone who might pry too closely while the government tries to figure out what happened to her.

“It’s a bird. Like the one on TV.” She explains, her tiny fingers carefully adjusting the wings.

You glance at the television, expecting to see another nature documentary—the kind she’s grown fond of in the past few weeks. But when your eyes land on the screen, you freeze.

A news channel. A live interview. Captain America and the Falcon, still in their gear, standing at an Air Force base. The headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen is a blur. Something about a mission. About another near disaster averted.

Falcon stands just behind Captain America, posture sharp, hands clasped loosely in front of him, expression serious but composed. His suit still bears the scuffs of combat, a faint tear along the armoured plating at his ribs. You wonder if it hurts. If he’s bleeding. If he even let anyone check.

A small huff leaves your lips before you can stop it.

You can’t remember the last time you saw him. Now, here he is again, on a screen in a hospital room, larger than life.

“You like superheroes, Maria?” You force a lighter tone, turning back to her, moving to check her monitors. It’s unnecessary—you already did this when you came in—but it gives your hands something to do.

“You like superheroes, Maria?” you ask, forcing a lighter tone as you move to check her monitors. It’s unnecessary—you already did this when you came in—but it gives your hands something to do.

“I love superheroes,” she exclaims, voice full of unshakable certainty.

“Yeah?”

“Yes!”

She watches you closely, studying your face with a look that’s far too perceptive for someone her age. Then, after a beat—

“Who’s your favourite Avenger?”

You pretend to think about it. “Hmmm... I don’t know. Maybe... Hawkeye?”

Maria immediately groans, rolling her eyes so hard it nearly makes you laugh. “That’s so boring!” She throws her arms up in exasperation, nearly tugging her IV loose in the process.

“Hey, hey—“ you reach out, gently taking her hands, steadying her before she can do any real damage. “You’re really gonna judge me for that?”

“So boring,” she insists, her signature sass making an appearance. “My mom likes Thor because he has big muscles.”

You snort. “Wow. Okay. And what about you?”

Maria’s expression turns mischievous, blushing slightly as she glances back at the screen.

“The Falcon.”

The words land like a punch to the ribs.

You swallow hard, but the lump in your throat stays put. You should have seen it coming, the way she lit up at the sight of him on TV, but it still catches you off guard.

Because for Maria, it’s admiration.

For you, it’s something else entirely.

“He’s so cool,” you manage, your voice lighter than you feel. “I don’t think he’s an Avenger, though.”

Unless he is and you have missed that entire chapter of his life. A lot had happened in the last few years—you wouldn’t put it past him to just forget to mention something like that. Not that either of you were on speaking terms anyway.

Maria grins, a small, mischievous thing, and before you can move, she takes your hand in hers and presses something into your palm.

“Here.”

You glance down.

The bird.

You blink at the delicate folds of olive-green paper, the slight tilt of its wings. It’s small, fits perfectly in your hand, but somehow, it feels heavier than it should.

“You have it.”

You open your mouth—to tell her she should keep it, that it’s hers—but the words never leave your throat. The sincerity in her gaze keeps you quiet, so instead, you close your fingers carefully around the paper bird, holding it like something fragile.

“Thank you, Maria,” you say softly.

You still have the bird.

It sits on your nightstand even now, weeks later, its delicate folds untouched, a reminder of that small moment. Of Maria.

You hadn’t thought much about that conversation at the time. Maria’s gift had been sweet, and you had found it endearing—the kind of innocent kindness that children offered so easily.

It wasn’t every day you cared for someone so young in this hospital, and while that was a blessing, it didn’t make it any easier when that child was rolled in on a stretcher.

And it wasn’t until a week later that you remembered Maria’s words.

Not until you watched a familiar face get wheeled into the hospital.

You had heard about it first—on the news, in passing conversations between coworkers. Another mission. Another near-tragedy. Another casualty.

And then you saw it.

The frantic rush of bodies in the emergency bay. The whine of a helicopter’s rotor blades still echoing through the halls, rattling against the glass doors. The sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic burning your nose, mixing with the metallic tang of blood—so much blood, too much of it pooling beneath the stretcher, staining the floor, the sheets, the hands of every ER staff trying to keep him together.

Your coworkers moved fast, their voices sharp and urgent as they swarmed the broken, battered body like bees to a collapsing hive. You barely recognized him at first. His suit—scorched in places, torn in others—hung off him in tatters, the once-pristine armour dented and smeared with something dark.

His skin was pale—too pale.

His lips were slightly parted, chest rising and falling in short, uneven gasps like every breath cost him something.

The blur of medical jargon barely registered in your mind, words overlapping, breaking, reforming into pieces that didn’t quite fit together. But certain ones still made it through the haze, lodging themselves somewhere deep inside you, where they twisted like a knife.

“Heart palpitations—“

“Severe burns—“

“Broken arm—“

“Breath is weak—“

“We’re gonna need a defibrillator—“

“Won’t make it to the OR—“

Your heart stuttered.

You would’ve rather never seen Joaquín Torres again for the rest of your life than see him like this. Like that.

And after that, you were moving on autopilot.

The rest of the day blurred together, slipping through your fingers like sand. You went through the motions, nodding when spoken to, keeping your hands busy, but nothing really stuck. The only thing that did was time—how it crawled, stretched, and bled into itself.

One hour turned to two.

Two turned to four.

Four turned into a sharp, sickening pause.

You were just about to punch out for the night, car keys hanging loosely from your fingers when you heard it.

“His heart gave out. Medically dead for T-minus 30 seconds. Extra hands needed.”

You froze.

The words echoed, hollow and distant like they were being spoken underwater. A strange ringing had started in your ears. You weren’t sure if it was real or just something inside your own head—maybe both.

You had already been hesitant about leaving without checking in on him. You could’ve gone in. You had clearance. But you didn’t.

And now?

Now, you were hearing his heart gave out?

Your mind ran ahead of you, filling in the gaps before you could stop it—could almost hear the faint, dull whine of the machines, the inevitable, lifeless flatline.

The surgeon calling out the time of death.

Your own heart lurched violently in your chest.

Your feet were moving before you even made the decision, carrying you faster than you thought possible. You nearly crashed into the doors of the emergency wing, swiping your card into the OR viewing room, stumbling into the dimly lit space. Your breath came short, choppy, your pulse hammering in your ears.

Your eyes locked onto the glass.

And then—

“Clear!”

Joaquín’s body jerked violently, his back arching off the table before collapsing again.

From where you stood, you couldn’t see or hear the monitor. Couldn’t tell if there was a beat or if it was still that awful, empty silence.

“Clear!”

His body seized again, limbs convulsing before falling limp.

You flinched, a breath hitching painfully somewhere inside you.

The panic clawing up your ribs only loosened when you saw the doctors start to relax, their frantic movements easing back into precision. You watched, rooted to the spot, as they worked—saw the ventilator strapped tightly around Joaquín’s face, the way they were cutting into him, the deep burns covering his side.

But it didn’t feel like him.

He looked dead.

He looked so, so dead.

Your fingers dug into the ledge of the viewing window, knuckles white.

And suddenly you can remember the last time you saw him. A memory that grabs you like a vice.

He was so alive, and he was crying.

His eyes were red and bloodshot, but he wasn’t making a sound. Just staring at you, jaw clenched so tight you swore you could hear his teeth grind. His hands—warm, steady even in their trembling—gripped yours, his touch so familiar, so safe. His fingers curled around your palms like he could keep you here just by holding on tight enough. Like if he let go, he knew he would never get to touch you again.

His skin burned beneath your fingertips.

Like home.

But the warmth of him, the heat of his touch, it didn’t reach his eyes. And you knew—God, you knew—this was the last time.

The ring that sat on your finger was like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

You hadn’t even noticed the way your breath had started to shake, the way your shoulders had drawn in like you could shield yourself from what was coming. The weight of his forehead pressing against yours was the only thing keeping you grounded, the rise and fall of his chest meeting yours in a rhythm that was almost enough to trick you into believing, for just a second, that nothing had to change.

And then he pulled away.

It was slow like he was giving you time to stop him. Like he wanted you to stop him.

But neither of you moved.

His fingers ghosted over your left hand, tracing over the ring like he was committing the shape of it to memory. You swore his breath hitched when he touched it, but he didn’t hesitate. Not when he curled his fingers around the band. Not when he gave the gentlest, barely-there tug.

The metal slipped from your skin.

The absence was instant. A phantom weight. A missing limb.

Your breath stilled.

He turned it over in his palm once, twice, before slipping it into his pocket, the movement almost absentminded. Like he wasn’t crumbling apart inside. Like he wasn’t shattering this thing between you both with his own two hands.

And then you kissed him. And he kissed you back.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t hesitant. It was desperate. A broken thing—raw, aching, more plea than passion. His lips pressed to yours with the kind of hunger that tasted like regret, like grief, like goodbye. There was no hesitation when his fingers slid up to cradle your jaw, no distance between your bodies when he pulled you in, chests flush, like he was trying to fuse himself to you, trying to rewrite the ending of this moment with the press of his lips alone.

You tasted the salt of tears.

Yours or his, you couldn’t tell.

You felt his hands tremble when they skimmed over your skin. It hurt—fuck, it hurt—the way you knew neither of you wanted to pull away, but you would. You had to.

But you stayed. For a minute. For a breath. Lips lingering, foreheads pressed together, hands gripping tighter even as the seconds slipped away from you both.

He was the first to move.

The absence of his lips was instant—a cold, hollow thing. But he didn’t pull away entirely, not yet. His nose brushed against yours, his fingers curled at the back of your neck, like if he could just stay here for another second, one more second, maybe none of this had to be real.

Then, finally, painfully, he let go.

That kiss was one that lingered, burned, long after he was gone.

He was alive then. And so were you.

But when the door shut, a part of you had died.

And watching his body, motionless on that operating table, you thought maybe a part of him had, too.

It was hard to grieve someone who had never died.

You don’t realize how long you’ve been standing there, staring through the glass, until someone says your name.

Your body jolts, and when you spin around, you're surprised to find Sam Wilson standing a few feet away. His voice had been steady, but his eyes—God, his eyes—heavy with something unspoken, something worn. You wonder how long he’s been there. You think it must’ve been a while, judging by the exhaustion shadowing his face. The bags under his eyes aren’t just from one night of lost sleep.

You’ve met him plenty of times before—hell, you’ve had dinner with the guy on multiple occasions—but something about seeing him now, here, leaves you speechless. Maybe it’s because he’s not just Sam. He’s Captain America, the man Joaquín idolized. And he looks... helpless.

You feel your entire body tense. “Sir—“ Your voice cracks at the word, and you hate it.

Sam exhales, long and slow. “I was gonna call. I mean, I don’t know if you know this, but you’re still the kid’s emergency contact.” He rubs a hand over his face. “I just... I didn’t know what terms you guys were on. I know the breakup was pretty bad and...” He trails off, looking at you like he’s bracing for impact. “I didn’t know if you’d show up.”

“I…” You swallow thickly. You should say something. Anything. But you don’t know how to find the words.

“Were you working?”

You glance down at your scrubs as if you need to confirm it. “Yeah... I just... I heard about his heart, um... how long was he...?”

Sam hesitates. He doesn’t want to say it. But he does. “Two minutes.”

You suck in a breath, sharp and cold, and instinctively look back through the glass. Joaquín is still now, the chaos momentarily subdued. He’s always been restless, always in motion, a man who never seemed to sit still to save his life. And now he’s just... lying there. You feel nauseous.

You don’t know what to say. You think Sam doesn’t either.

“I’m sorry, kid.” His voice is hoarse. “I’m sorry. For Joaquín. I never meant for this to happen. I’m always telling him to be more careful, but you know how he is—”

Do you?

You don’t know how much someone can change in the time you and Joaquín have been apart. You think you still know him. You remember how he used to be—stubborn, hard-headed. Kind, too. Always quick with a response, always teasing. Always warm.

You don’t think you’re remembering him the way Sam asks you to.

“Um... sorry.” You blink, realizing how long you’ve been zoning out. You should say something more. Something meaningful. But your throat is tight, and your hands shake at your sides. Sam looks just as lost as you feel.

“Fuck, sorry,” you mutter, rubbing at your face. “Are you okay?”

Sam blinks. He looks genuinely surprised by the question. “Am I—? Are you okay?”

You nod too fast, stuffing your hands into your back pockets. The heart monitor beeps steadily in the background, grounding you in the moment. “Yeah, I just… You were out there too. Did you get hit? I can check for a concussion.”

Sam says your name, and the way he says it—soft, sad—makes your lip quiver. When he steps forward, you don’t resist. You meet him in the middle, letting him wrap his arms around you, his warmth solid and steady. You tuck your face into his chest, only realizing you’ve been crying when you see the darkened patches on his shirt. He smells like coffee, and—funnily enough—a little bit like Joaquín.

“I’m sorry, kid.” His voice is tight, thick. Like he’s been holding back his own grief for too long.

You hum under his hold. “It’s not your fault,” you say because you think it’s what he needs to hear. You don’t know what happened out there, don’t know who made what call, but Sam relaxes just a fraction at your words. You hug him back.

The hours bleed together after that. You sit with Sam in the waiting area, watching the surgery unfold from a distance. Neither of you leave for long—only to grab coffee, maybe splash cold water on your face—but you don’t sleep. Sam doesn’t either, even when you suggest it. He stays rooted to his chair, jaw clenched, watching the clock.

He doesn’t move until the surgery is almost finished, until the surgeon is finally stitching up Joaquín.

And even then, he stays put.

So do you.

It’s nice, in a way, sitting in this heavy, aching silence. You don’t know what you would’ve done if Sam wasn’t here. You don’t know what he would’ve done if you weren’t.

Sam seems to relax even more when a friend of his shows up—Bucky. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him in person before, but you recognize the way Sam’s shoulders loosen just slightly like something fragile inside him can take a break. Bucky nods at you, then at Sam, and without a word, he takes a seat next to him.

You don’t say anything either.

Because you don’t need to.

For the first time in hours, Sam exhales like he’s not carrying the world on his shoulders.

You leave only when he urges you to, though it takes less than a minute after Joaquín is sent out for recovery.

You barely remember the drive home. The world outside the hospital blurs past in streaks of streetlights and empty roads, your hands gripping the wheel just a little too tightly. Every red light feels longer than it should, every breath harder to take. By the time you step inside your apartment, exhaustion settles in your bones, but sleep never truly comes. You close your eyes and see glimpses of him—Joaquín on the operating table, still and silent in a way he never should be.

You wake up before the sun rises, restless, your body aching with the kind of fatigue that sleep can’t fix.

By the time you return to the hospital, it’s at a strange hour—too early for the day shift, too late for the night crew. The hospital is caught in that eerie in-between where the halls are too quiet, where the few people still moving about do so in hushed voices. The fluorescent lights overhead hum, stark and artificial against the pale blue of the walls.

You’re running on espresso shots and the growing pit in your stomach, a weight that presses heavier with every step.

Joaquín is here. You know that. You have known that for almost twenty-four hours now.

But the thought still makes your hands cold. It was easier when you didn’t know what State he was in, or what he was doing—if he was even in the country.

You don’t let yourself think too much about it. You go through the motions, moving from patient to patient, checking vitals, signing off charts, trying to push through the fog in your mind. It almost works—almost—until you step out of Maria’s room and spot Amanda, the Chief Nursing Officer, walking toward you.

She smiles, clipboard tucked under her arm, but there’s something in the way she looks at you. Something unreadable.

You can already feel the dread start to wrap itself around your ribs.

“Hey, how’s it going?” she asks, falling into step beside you.

“Good,” you reply automatically. “What’s up?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she takes your tablet, her fingers brushing against yours for just a second too long. You furrow your brows, taking it from her, but your stomach twists at the hesitance in her gaze.

“There’s been a bit of a change,” she finally says. “Kit’s taking over Nicholas now.”

That makes you pause.

You've been taking care of Nicholas for a little over a month, an older man who came back from the blip different, well… different was a nice way to put it.

“Oh?”

Amanda nods, opening a new file on your screen before watching you closely. “Here,” she says, passing you the updated patient file. “Your new assignment.”

You take the tablet, adjusting your grip as you glance down at the screen—only to feel the air sucked from your lungs.

Captain Joaquín Torres.

The name alone makes your heart lurch, when did he become a captain? But then your eyes drop to the image beneath it.

You freeze.

Joaquín, unconscious. His skin is bruised, his face pale under the harsh lighting of the hospital room. The ventilator is taped to his mouth, bandages covering his side where the burns must be. He looks… wrong.

Your stomach turns.

“Um.” You barely recognize your own voice. “I don’t think I can take this one.”

Amanda’s brows knit together. “Why not?”

“It’s…” You swallow, suddenly hyperaware of how dry your throat feels. “It’s a personal case.”

“I know.”

That makes you look up, and when you do, Amanda is already watching you with that same careful expression—understanding, but unwavering. “That’s why I’m assigning it to you,” she says, soft but firm.

You stare at her, trying to process the words.

“Familiar faces help in recovery,” Amanda says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Waking up to someone he knows might do him some good.”

Your grip tightens around the tablet, fingers pressing into the smooth surface as your pulse pounds in your ears.

“Not everyone gets shot out of the sky by the military and lives to tell the tale.”

She’s right. You know she’s right.

But Joaquín isn’t just anyone.

And it’s been a long time since you’ve been a familiar face.

Would he even want to wake up to you?

You don’t ask that. You don’t let yourself. Instead, you swallow around the knot in your throat and force a nod. “Okay.”

Amanda watches you for a moment, searching your face like she can see everything you’re trying to hide. Then, she squeezes your shoulder, her touch warm and grounding. “You got this.”

You wish you believed her.

You suck in your pride as Amanda walks away and your fingers tighten around the tablet as you glance down at Joaquín’s medical file, his name printed in bold letters at the top. You already know his blood type, his medical history, his baseline vitals—things you shouldn’t still remember but do anyway. It feels strange seeing them laid out so clinically like he’s just another patient.

Your thumb swipes down the screen, scanning through his injuries. Severe burns on the left side of his torso. A broken radius and a fractured humerus on his right arm. The notes estimate he’ll be unconscious for a few more days, maybe a week at most. The doctors don’t think it’ll be a long coma.

He might wake up anytime.

Your stomach twists.

The live security feed on the tablet shows a grainy, black-and-white image of him, still and silent in the hospital bed, wrapped in layers of bandages and hooked up to machines that beep in steady intervals. The sight of him like this, unmoving, is almost more unsettling than the injuries themselves.

The elevator ride to his floor feels endless, but when the doors finally slide open, the hallway ahead stretches on like something out of a dream—too long, too empty, too quiet. The soft hum of fluorescent lights overhead fills the silence, and your shoes barely make a sound against the polished tile.

You’ve never hesitated like this before. No patient has ever made your heart pound this hard before you’ve even stepped into their room.

You stop in front of the door, your ID card clutched tight between your fingers.

He is hurt, you remind yourself. A wounded soldier. He needs care. That’s all this is. Just do your job.

Your hand trembles slightly as you swipe your card for clearance, and for a second, your eyes flicker down—out of habit, maybe—toward your left hand. The ring is gone. Has been for a long time.

You press your lips together and push the door open.

The room smells like antiseptic and fresh flowers.

Your eyes find him instantly.

He’s barely recognizable beneath the layers of medical care—IV lines, gauze, the rigid brace securing his arm. But it’s still him. His curls have grown out, the longer strands curling over his forehead, though the sides are still neatly trimmed. His face is slack with unconsciousness, lips parted slightly as he breathes in slow, measured rhythms.

There’s already a small collection of bouquets on the bedside table, a mix of bright yellows and deep reds—he always liked bold colours. You know more will come, especially once his mother finds out what happened. You pity whoever has to make that phone call.

Your pulse is loud in your ears as you move toward the sink, washing your hands on autopilot before slipping on a pair of gloves. The scent of hospital soap clings to your skin even beneath the latex.

You set the tablet down and step to his bedside, the weight in your chest settling heavier now that you’re standing this close. You can see the damage now. The discoloration where the burns peak through the bandages, the bruises blooming beneath his skin. His arm rests stiffly in its brace, fingers curled loosely at his side.

You hesitate before touching him.

Then, with careful hands, you reach for the hem of his hospital gown, lifting it just enough to expose the bandages on his torso. The dressings are damp, already beginning to seep through.

Too gentle.

You’re taking too long, moving too carefully. This should be routine—cleaning, reapplying, monitoring for infection. But your hands linger a second too long over his skin, your fingers ghosting over the edge of a bandage before you force yourself to focus.

You work in silence, methodical but deliberate, peeling away the old dressings and replacing them with fresh ones. His chest rises and falls steadily beneath your hands, the only sign of life in his otherwise motionless body.

When you finish, you pull the blanket up to his chest, tucking it carefully around him.

You don’t leave right away.

You should. You have other patients to see, and other rounds to make. But you linger for a moment longer, just watching him.

Being here—being this close—feels like stepping into something half-forgotten. Something you’re not sure you’re ready to remember.

With a quiet exhale, you turn away, stripping off your gloves and tossing them in the bin before grabbing the tablet again.

This is just a job.

And you have work to do.

The next few days slip into a pattern—one you follow carefully, almost methodically, because routine is easier than thinking too much.

Joaquín remains unconscious, but his condition improves. You can see it in the subtle things: the way his breathing becomes steadier, how his colour starts to return beneath the bruising, how the tension in his features eases little by little. His body is still healing, but it’s doing what it’s supposed to—recovering, piece by piece.

Somewhere along the way, his mother and grandmother are flown in.

You make sure you’re nowhere near the hospital that day. You tell yourself it’s because you need the rest, that you’ve been pulling extra shifts, that you could use the break. But you know the truth.

You aren’t ready to face them.

You can barely bring yourself to stand in the same room as Joaquín, let alone look his mother in the eye. She always had a way of seeing right through you, of reading between the lines of what you said and what you didn’t. You don’t want to know what she’d find if she looked too closely now.

So you take a sick day. You ignore the tight feeling in your chest when you imagine them sitting at his bedside, his mother smoothing down his curls, his grandmother murmuring quiet prayers over him. You wonder if she blames you. If she thinks you should’ve been there when it happened. If she wonders why you’re here now, after all this time.

But you don’t ask. You don’t want the answer.

The next morning, when you step back into Joaquín’s room, there are more flowers.

The table beside his bed is overflowing now—bouquets of sunflowers, carnations, lilies, roses in every colour. Some are from coworkers, others from people you don’t recognize. A small card tucked between them catches your eye. You don’t pick it up, but you already know who it’s from.

His mother’s handwriting is easy to recognize.

A fresh wave of guilt washes over you, but you push it aside. You busy yourself with checking his IV, adjusting his blankets, making sure everything is in order. The steady beep of the heart monitor is the only sound in the room, save for the occasional rustling of flower petals when a breeze drifts through the open window.

Sam visits often.

He comes at random hours, able to bypass the strict visiting times the hospital has set up, sometimes lingering for only twenty minutes, sometimes staying for hours at a time. You catch glimpses of him in the security feed before you even enter the room—his tall frame slouched in the chair beside Joaquín’s bed, one ankle resting on his knee as he flips through a book.

He plays music sometimes, a quiet hum of familiar songs drifting through the room. You recognize the playlist—the same one Joaquín used to blast while working late, the one he’d force you to listen to whenever he got too excited about a new artist. It’s a mix of genres, the kind that shouldn’t work together but somehow do.

You pretend you don’t notice the way Sam watches you when you walk in, his eyes lingering like he’s waiting for you to say something. But he never pushes. He just nods, sometimes offering a small update about Joaquín’s family or a passing comment about work before settling back into his chair.

Neither of you talk about the fact that Joaquín still hasn’t woken up.

Instead, you go through the motions.

His burns are healing faster than you expected. The bandages come off, revealing raw, pink skin that will take time to fade. His arm is no longer suspended from the ceiling, the rigid brace replaced with a looser sling. His body is catching up with itself, putting itself back together the way it always does.

You try to keep the windows open as the sun sets later and the spring weather gets warmer, letting the sun come into the room. You hope it might bring back that golden tan to his skin.

The air in his room changes as the days go by. The tension shifts—subtle, but there.

The sun sets later now, casting golden light through the blinds in the evenings. You start leaving the windows cracked open, letting the spring breeze filter in, replacing the sterile scent of antiseptic with something softer.

It makes the room feel less like a hospital and more like something else. Something warmer.

But warmth can be deceptive.

Because the closer he gets to waking up, the more real this all becomes.

And you still don’t know what’s going to happen when he finally opens his eyes.

One day, while cleaning his burns, you notice something—something small, but enough to make your breath hitch.

The heart monitor.

The steady rhythm you’ve grown so used to suddenly shifts—just a faint change, barely noticeable, but it’s there. You freeze, your gloved hands hovering over his burned skin, waiting to see if it happens again. The beeping stabilizes after a moment, falling back into its familiar, constant pattern.

You swallow hard, exhaling slowly through your nose.

Maybe it was nothing. A fluke. You’ve seen it happen before—small involuntary fluctuations that don’t mean anything. You force yourself to shake it off, to keep going.

But the moment your hands brush against his skin again, the heart monitor spikes.

This time, you see it. The sudden jump, the erratic beep, the undeniable reaction.

You pull back immediately, like you’ve been singed. Your heart lurches, panic flashing through you because—did you hurt him?

Your pulse pounds in your ears as you scan his face, searching for any sign of pain. His expression doesn’t change. His eyes remain closed, his body still. But the numbers on the monitor flicker with every beat of his heart, betraying what his body won’t show.

And then it hits you.

He feels it.

He’s not just lying there, unaware of the world around him. His body is reacting. It means he’s drifting, slipping from unconsciousness, slowly clawing his way back to waking.

Your chest tightens.

This is what you’ve been waiting for. What you should want.

You should be relieved.

But you’re not.

Because for all the times you’ve wished he’d open his eyes, you never stopped to think about what it would mean when he finally did.

What if the first thing he sees is you?

What if he looks at you and all you find in his face is resentment?

What if he asks why you’re here? Why you even bothered?

Your breath catches in your throat, torn between anticipation and fear. Your fingers curl into your palms, gloves crinkling under the pressure. You wait, holding yourself still, eyes locked on his face, waiting for the inevitable flutter of his eyelids, the slow, unfocused squint as he adjusts to the light.

But it never comes.

His breathing stays even, his lashes unmoving, his expression unchanging. His body is stirring, but his mind isn’t ready yet.

Your hands feel cold.

You force yourself to take a step back, creating distance—just in case. You reach for the tablet to record the change in his vitals, trying to make sense of what just happened, of what almost happened.

You practically jump out of your skin when a voice cuts through the hallway, sharp and frantic.

“¡Mija!”

Before you even see her, you feel her—Esperanza’s presence sweeping toward you like a storm, her heels clicking against the tile. The next thing you know, you’re wrapped in her arms, your face pressed against the soft fabric of her floral blouse, caught in a hug so tight it knocks the breath out of you.

“Mi amor, ¿cómo andas?” she asks, her voice thick with worry and affection.

You barely have a chance to respond, still stunned by the unexpected embrace. She smells the same—warm vanilla and roses, a scent so deeply tied to holiday dinners that it nearly knocks you off balance.

When she finally pulls back, she doesn’t let you go completely. Her hands clasp yours, fingers curling over your knuckles like she’s afraid to let you slip away again.

“Esperanza,” you manage, breathless.

Her eyes shine with unshed tears, her lips pulling into a grin so familiar it makes your chest ache.

“What are you doing here? Visitors can’t be here for another hour,” you point out, grasping for something—anything—to ground yourself.

She waves a dismissive hand, scoffing like the very idea is ridiculous. “Ay, enough with that,” she chides. “When has that ever stopped me?”

And then she stops. Really looks at you.

Her expression softens, and suddenly, you're under a gaze so warm it makes your throat tighten.

“Wow, look at you, my dear. Hermosa,” she murmurs, shaking her head like she can’t believe it’s really you standing in front of her.

You let out a small, breathy laugh, flustered. “I look like a mess,” you correct, glancing down at yourself. You’re in scrubs, nearing the end of a long shift, and you know you must look exhausted. Especially after dealing with Maria throwing up glowing vomit all over you earlier today. There’s no way you look anything close to hermosa.

But Esperanza just smiles knowingly, squeezing your hands once before tugging you toward the chairs lining the hallway. She sits down, keeping her grip on you like she’s afraid you might disappear through her fingers if she lets go.

You follow, hesitating only slightly before settling into the seat beside her.

"It’s been so long," she says, her brows furrowing with something between disappointment and relief. "You haven’t called in months. I thought you were sick! Do you hate me?"

"I could never hate you," you say quickly, shaking your head, a little horrified she would ever think that.

And then she smacks your arm.

"Then why haven’t you answered my calls?" she scolds, her voice laced with exasperation. "Your mother tells me you moved away and what? I don’t hear a word from you?"

You blink. Your mind stutters at the revelation.

"Wait—" you pause, trying to piece it together. "My mom… and you? You’ve been talking?"

Esperanza gives you a look, like it should be obvious. "Of course," she huffs. "What, you thought just because you and Quino broke up, I was going to stop talking to my comadre?" She rolls her eyes like the very idea is ridiculous. "Por favor."

Your mouth goes dry.

Your mother and Joaquin’s mother—keeping in touch this entire time. Behind your back. Talking about you, probably about him, too.

Your stomach churns, and suddenly, there’s something heavy pressing against your ribs.

You open your mouth, but she’s already shaking her head.

"Oh, lo sé," she sighs, exasperated. "The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. If it were up to me, you two would’ve been married by now. Given me a grandchild, too."

Your laugh comes out a little too flustered, a little too forced. You glance around the hallway, avoiding her gaze, trying to ignore the way your heart wrings at the thought.

"Yeah," you mutter because you don’t know what else to say.

Esperanza exhales, her posture softening. She lets go of one of your hands just to reach up and brush your hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear with the same gentle touch Joaquín used to.

The same way he always did when you were talking too much, or overthinking, or when he just wanted an excuse to touch you.

You let out a long, quiet sigh, blinking hard against the sudden sting in your eyes.

It’s too much.

Too much familiarity, too much of your old life creeping back in all at once. You don’t think you’ve gotten enough sleep to process any of it properly.

"Mija," she murmurs, her voice softer now, more careful. "I don’t care whether you and Quino are together or not. I loved having you around. I still want to have our little chats. You are like one of my own. And when he told me you broke up, I just…" she shakes her head, pressing her lips together like she doesn’t want to say it. "I hate that it took him getting hurt for us to talk again."

"Esperanza…" you start, but she just shakes her head again.

"I know, I know. Perdóname," she says, waving it off as she stands up. She smooths down the front of her dress and sighs. "It’s so good to see you again, mi amor. You keep taking good care of my son. I’ll be in the city for another week, so please—call me. Maybe we can get coffee."

Before you can respond, she scans her visitor’s pass on the key panel and walks into Joaquín’s room, disappearing behind the door without another word.

But she leaves the question hanging in the air, thick with nostalgia and something painfully close to longing.

And she leaves the scent of rosy perfume lingering in her wake.

You stare at the closed door, your heart thudding unevenly in your chest.

You should go. You need to go—your tablet is already beeping, pulling you back to reality, reminding you that there are other patients who need you, that there’s a crisis waiting for you three flights down.

Still, you hesitate for just a second longer, swallowing hard against the lump in your throat before finally turning away.

There’s no time to process this right now.

But you have a feeling that, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to shake this conversation anytime soon.

Maria’s hand grips the IV pole tightly, her small fingers curling around the metal as she rolls it beside her, careful not to let the wheels catch on the tile. The fluorescent hospital lights cast a soft glow over her—too pale against her skin, too sterile—but despite it all, she beams.

You’ve never seen someone so excited just to walk.

But today is special. It’s her birthday.

She didn’t ask for much—just this. A chance to stretch her legs, to be somewhere other than her hospital room. Her parents had begged you to keep her busy while they decorated, slipping streamers and balloons inside the room like they could somehow make up for lost time.

Maria hadn’t argued. She had just grinned up at you when you asked if she wanted to go outside.

Now, she’s practically glowing, her feet sinking into the grass as you lead her through the small hospital garden.

She tips her head back, eyes fluttering closed as the breeze ruffles her hospital gown, lifting strands of hair from her shoulders. Pink cherry blossoms sway on the branches above, petals drifting onto the ground like delicate confetti.

"Did you know cherry blossoms only bloom for a few weeks?" you tell her.

Maria gasps. "Really?"

"Yep. It’s called hanami in Japan. People go outside just to watch them bloom."

Her eyes widen in pure delight. "That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. They should be watched. They’re so pretty."

You smile. "Yeah, they are."

For a moment, she just stands there, soaking it in. And you let her.

It’s one of those rare times when she doesn’t look like a patient. No tubes, no machines, no sterile smell of antiseptic—just a kid. A kid enjoying the sun, the air, the simple beauty of something fleeting.

She sighs, finally pulling herself away. "Okay. I’m ready to go back in."

"Are you sure?"

She nods. "Yeah. I don’t wanna get in trouble for being outside too long. It’s my birthday, but I think Nurse Kate would still yell at me."

"Yeah, probably," you say with a chuckle.

The hospital halls are quieter than usual, the usual hum of voices and distant beeping fading into soft background noise. Maria walks beside you, still clinging to her IV pole but with a bit more confidence in her steps.

She doesn’t drag her feet anymore. That’s new.

Her body is stronger than it was weeks ago—no more trembling hands, no more laboured breathing after short walks. It’s a victory, even if it’s small.

Maria suddenly gasps, gripping your arm and her feet skid against the floor. You barely have time to react before she jerks to a halt, her entire body going rigid, eyes locked on something ahead.

Her mouth falls open.

"The Falcon?!"

Your stomach drops.

"Maria—"

"The Falcon is here?!"

Before you can stop her, she takes off, darting toward the digital display outside one of the hospital rooms. The screen flickers with patient information, vitals, and medication logs—

Torres, Joaquín

Maria’s hands slap over her mouth. "Oh my God."

"Maria," you warn, but she’s already clambering onto one of the chairs lined against the wall, pressing her face to the glass window beside the door.

"Oh my God! It's him! It's really him!" She whirls around, panic-stricken. "Is he dead?"

You lurch forward. "What? No." Your hands instinctively find her waist, steadying her before she tips over. "He’s just sleeping."

"Can I go say hi?"

"No."

"It’s my birthday."

"Maria—"

"Please!"

You close your eyes, inhaling slowly.

This was not in your job description.

You glance at the window, frowning. You weren't supposed to let anyone into a patient’s room unless they were authorized. Especially not another patient. There were rules. Strict ones. The last thing you needed was for someone to get sick, for someone to get hurt, for someone to wake Joaquín up before he was ready—

But then you look at Maria.

She’s practically vibrating with excitement, hands clasped tightly like she’s holding back from bouncing on her toes—the youngest patient in the entire building. Wide-eyed and full of wonder, she’s looking at Joaquín because he’s a real-life superhero, someone she’s only ever seen in headlines and shaky phone recordings.

And Joaquín… Joaquín loves kids.

He always has.

You’ve seen it firsthand—the way he kneels when he talks to them, the way his face lights up whenever he makes one laugh, the way he always offers high-fives like it’s second nature. Even now, even unconscious, the thought of him being the reason behind Maria’s uncontainable joy tugs at something deep in your chest.

It feels like something he would want.

And maybe… maybe this is okay. Maybe this is good—a reminder that people out there care about him, even the ones who have never met him.

Still, you hesitate.

You’re comfortable taking care of him now.

Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

No more denial. No more excuses. No more pretending that seeing him like this—unmoving, caught somewhere between here and wherever his mind has drifted—doesn’t scare the hell out of you. You’ve accepted that you miss him, that you still... care for him, even after everything. But stepping into that room again—with Maria, of all people—feels like a step toward something you’re not sure you’re ready to face.

Because Joaquín is here. So close. Close enough to reach out and touch, to whisper his name and wait for that slow, teasing smile to appear—the one he always gave you when you were being too serious. Close enough that you should feel relieved.

But he’s also impossibly far.

No teasing smiles. No dumb jokes. No knowing looks from across the room. Not even anger of having you near. Just silence. Just the faint rise and fall of his chest, the machines working to keep him stable.

For days, you’ve watched him. Sat beside him. Checked his vitals. Changed his bandages. Waited.

But then Maria looks up at you, eyes round and pleading.

"Okay," you exhale, already regretting it. "But you have to be really quiet so he doesn’t wake up, okay?"

She nods, lowering her voice, "Okay."

Maria is practically bouncing with excitement as you swipe your keycard and push open the door. Sunlight spills in through the half-drawn blinds, cutting warm streaks across the floor, across Joaquín’s blankets, across his still form. The midday hum of the hospital filters in from the hallway, muffled but present. The steady beeping of the monitors tracks his heart rate, a slow, even rhythm, while the IV beside him feeds a clear solution into his veins.

Maria tiptoes inside like she’s afraid of disturbing something sacred.

You don’t blame her.

Because up close, he looks even more unreachable. The bruises along his temple have faded from deep purple to a softer yellow-red, but the cuts on his face are healing. His lips are chapped. His hair is messy against the pillow, a sharp contrast to how put-together you remember him.

You move—more out of instinct than anything—because lingering in the doorway makes it worse. The small cart beside his bed is stocked with fresh bandages, antiseptic, gauze—everything you’ve used to help keep his wounds clean these past few weeks. Without thinking, you pick up his chart because you've forgotten your tablet, scanning the latest notes, his most recent vitals. Stable. No new concerns. No change.

Maria whispers something, but you don’t catch it.

You blink, glancing at her. "What?"

She’s staring at Joaquín, her small hands gripping the edge of his blanket like she’s afraid to touch him, but wants to.

“He’s even prettier up close,” she breathes.

Despite yourself, you smile. "Yeah? You think so?"

She nods seriously.

There’s something achingly familiar about the way she looks at him—like she’s trying to memorize him, like she’s afraid he might disappear if she blinks.

You know that feeling.

Because you’ve caught yourself staring at him the exact same way.

Like if you look long enough, you might commit him to memory all over again. Like you can make up for the lost time, for the time that has slipped through your fingers. You study him—not just the broad strokes of him, not just the familiarity of his face, but every little thing you’d forgotten during your time apart, the things that had slipped from your mind.

There is a faint stubble that’s started to grow along his jaw. And now you notice little moles dotting his skin, scattered in ways you don’t recognize from your memories or dreams of him—they were always focused on the bigger picture, the way he smiled, the way he laughed, the way he loved you.

Now, it’s the details that root you to the present.

The soft rise and fall of his chest beneath the hospital blanket. The steady hum of the monitors. The warmth of his skin when you reach out, pressing two fingers to his wrist, feeling the familiar, comforting rhythm of his pulse beneath your touch.

You check his vitals—his heart rate is stable, his oxygen levels are good, and his IV fluids are running properly.

Maria exhales softly, still watching him, her voice quiet as a breath.

"I think he’s gonna be okay."

You let out a slow, measured breath, your thumb grazing over the back of Joaquín’s hand—just for a second, just enough to feel the warmth of him.

"Yeah," you whisper. "Me too."

It’s enough. For now.

Your fingers slip away from his, the warmth vanishing almost instantly, and you start to usher Maria back toward the door. But as you move, something shifts—so small, so quick, you almost think you imagined it.

Joaquín’s fingers twitch at his side, just as yours leave his.

Your heart stutters.

A rush of warmth blooms in your chest, something fragile and desperate, something that wants to hope, to believe that it means something. That he felt it.

Swallowing, you make a quick note on his chart, recording the small movement even though it could be nothing.

Even though it could be everything.

You exhale, trying to ground yourself, trying to shake off the way your heart is pounding now, loud and heavy in your ears. You don’t even realize you’re holding your breath until Maria tugs at your sleeve, glancing up at you, her own expression somewhere between curiosity and uncertainty.

You force yourself to move. To turn away. To guide her toward the door, because whatever flicker of hope just sparked inside you is too fragile to hold.

But then—

A sound.

Low. Faint. Hoarse from weeks of silence.

Your name.

Spoken.

Maria gasps softly.

And you—you freeze.

The breath leaves your lungs in a sharp, startled exhale, and your fingers go rigid against the door handle. A slow, involuntary shiver runs down your spine, your pulse hammering against your ribs.

Did you imagine it?

You must have.

But then you feel it—Maria’s small fingers wrapping tightly around your hand, clutching at you with quiet urgency.

Because she heard it too.

Your name. A whisper, raw and barely there, but there.

And it came from him.

Joaquín.

The hospital room feels smaller now, charged with something delicate and terrifying all at once. The air thickens, pressing against your chest as you slowly—slowly—turn around, terrified that if you look, it’ll be gone.

That it was just a trick of your desperate mind.

But it’s not.

Because Joaquín’s fingers twitch again.

His brow furrows, lips parting slightly, throat working as he struggles to form a sound, his voice raw and unfamiliar after so many days of silence.

Maria gasps, gripping your sleeve, her excitement barely contained, but you don’t register it.

Because Joaquín’s eyes are fluttering open.

For a moment, he stares blankly at the ceiling, his chest rising in a shallow, uneven breath. His body remains rigid, like his muscles haven’t caught up with the fact that he’s conscious. There’s no immediate recognition in his gaze—just a hazy sort of confusion, as if he’s somewhere else entirely.

Then, he moves.

His fingers twitch against the sheets, then curl. His breath hitches. The faint beeping of the heart monitor quickens. His body tenses, his shoulders pulling in as if bracing for impact.

His gaze shifts—and lands on you.

The second your face comes into focus, his entire body jerks.

A sharp, ragged inhale drags through his chest. His pupils constrict. His hand flinches at his side, like he wants to reach for something—like he’s searching for something solid.

His breathing changes. It’s not just uneven anymore—it’s too fast, too shallow. The rise and fall of his chest is quick, erratic, his ribs barely expanding with each breath.

Then, a whisper, barely a breath—words spilling from his lips before he even realizes he’s speaking.

"Me morí."

The words repeat, over and over, almost like a prayer.

"Me morí. Me morí. Me morí."

His voice trembles. His fingers fist the blanket. Tears well in his eyes and slip down his temples, silent, unchecked.

Your heart lurches.

You move instinctively, stepping closer, hands steady even as your pulse pounds in your ears.

"Hey, hey," you soothe, voice low and careful, placing a gentle hand on his good shoulder. "It’s okay. You’re safe."

Joaquín flinches at the touch, his muscles twitching beneath your fingers. His head turns slightly, his gaze darting, frantic, searching—taking in the room, the medical equipment, the IV in his arm. You can tell his body wants to move, to fight, to run, military instincts kicking in. But he’s still weak, his limbs heavy, uncooperative.

His pulse pounds beneath your fingertips. Too fast. His whole body is reacting before his mind can catch up.

"Joaquín." You keep your voice steady, careful, like speaking too loudly might shatter him completely. "Can you hear me?"

His gaze snaps back to you.

Something flickers in his expression. Recognition.

His chest is still rising and falling too quickly, his hands still tremble against the sheets, but his shoulders drop just barely. Some of the tension bleeds away.

His lips part, but no sound comes out at first. His throat works through the effort.

Then, at last, a hoarse, broken whisper.

"Hi."

Your breath catches.

Your fingers twitch against his shoulder, the warmth of his skin grounding you as much as you hope you’re grounding him. You press your palm there just a little longer, just to reassure yourself he’s real, that he’s awake.

"Hi," you whisper back.

His lashes flutter as he blinks at you, slow and deliberate, his eyes still wet with tears. Still searching. His gaze drifts over your face like he’s trying to map every detail back into his memory.

Like he’s afraid you might disappear.

"Hi," he says again, quieter this time.

Your chest tightens, a lump forming in your throat.

"Hi, Joaquín."

A slow, trembling exhale leaves his lips. His body sags into the pillow, exhaustion catching up to him all at once. His fingers unclench from the blanket, the tension in his muscles fading—but not entirely.

Because when you start to let go, when your fingers begin to lift from his shoulder, he twitches beneath your touch.

The hesitation is so subtle that you almost miss it—almost.

A flicker of something crosses his face, something unspoken, something aching. You worry he's hurting.

It reminds you of another time, a different moment in a different place. Years ago, Joaquín slouched in the passenger seat of your car, showing you his newly earned stitches after getting beat up by a Flag-Smasher, laughing through the pain while you frowned.

"You gotta stop scaring me like this."

"I’m trying, I swear."

You remember the way his eyes had softened in the dim streetlight, the way he had looked at you then. The way he kissed you to take your mind off of his pain—how neither of you had wanted to let go.

And now—now, as your fingers hover over his shoulder, as he doesn’t look away—it feels exactly the same.

Only this time he can't kiss you.

Only this time you can't wipe his tears away.

You force yourself to pull back, to let your fingers drift away, even as your hand aches to stay.

Joaquín swallows hard, blinking sluggishly as his gaze flickers to the IV in his arm, the monitors beside him, then back to you. His lips press together briefly as if he’s gathering himself before a rough, scratchy mutter escapes him.

"Ah, shit. I screwed up so bad."

The sound of his voice—dry, raspy, but carrying the faintest hint of that familiar humour—makes something in your chest crack wide open.

A breathy, wet laugh slips from your lips before you can stop it, and you quickly swipe at your eyes, shaking your head.

"I'm... I'm gonna go call a doctor, alright?"

Joaquín doesn’t say anything. He just watches you.

There’s something in his gaze—something unreadable, something too much. It makes your pulse stutter, makes your breath feel too shallow in your lungs.

You don’t give yourself time to process it.

Instead, you turn, pressing the call button for the doctor. "Come, Maria," you say, voice quieter than before.

Maria, who's gone strangely silent since Joaquín woke up, rushes to your side without hesitation. But she does nearly break her neck to keep looking back at him until you pull the door shut, sealing that moment away.

You exhale, resting your back against the wall for half a second longer than necessary before forcing yourself to move.

The doctor arrives quickly. You straighten up, rattling off Joaquín’s vitals, every detail you can remember—his initial reaction, his moment of panic, his response to stimuli, everything. The words come automatically, like muscle memory, like routine. You focus on that, on the familiar rhythm of procedure, handing off the responsibility to the doctor so she can begin running tests, checking his neurological responses, assessing how much damage—if any—his body has endured after so many days in forced stillness.

The weight of your exhaustion presses heavier against your shoulders as you upload his files to the system, sending them over before turning your attention back to Maria.

"You did good, Maria," you tell her softly as you lead her back to her room.

She just nods, but there’s something distant in her expression now.

You get it.

She’s just witnessed the moment. The one where everything changes.

It’s the moment where the panic stops being panic and turns into something else—something messier, something heavier.

It’s the moment where the question “what if he never wakes up?” turns into something just as terrifying:

“He’s awake. Now what?”

Her parents are waiting when you bring her back, and you don’t stay. You let them have that moment for her birthday, closing the door gently behind you before turning back into the hallway.

And then you’re alone.

For the first time in hours, in days, you’re alone with nothing to distract you.

Your hands are shaking. You hadn’t even noticed at first, but now you can’t not notice—the tremor in your fingers, the way your pulse hammers too fast against your ribs, the way your body suddenly doesn’t know what to do with itself now that you’re not running on pure adrenaline.

You sink into one of the chairs outside Joaquín’s room, bracing your elbows on your knees. The motion feels stiff, foreign—like your body isn’t quite yours anymore.

Your eyes sting.

Joaquín is awake. He’s awake.

He spoke. He looked at you. He recognized you. He remembered you.

You should feel relief. You should feel something good.

And yet.

It’s like coming up for air after being stuck underwater too long—except just as you’re about to take a full breath, it’s ripped away again.

Because now that he’s awake… he can speak to you.

He can react to what you say, to what you do.

Maybe he’ll ask for a different nurse. Maybe he’ll ask to be transferred to another hospital back in Miami or something. Maybe, when his voice isn’t so raw and broken, he’ll tell you exactly what he thinks about the fact that you were the one sitting by his bedside all this time.

And God, you don’t know if you can handle that.

You drag your hands down your face, pushing out a breath. You don’t have time for this.

The sound of hurried footsteps in the hallway reminds you that Sam—or Joaquín’s mother—is bound to show up any minute now. The news will spread fast, and soon, his room will be filled with people who have been waiting for this moment, praying for this moment.

Shit.

You squeeze your eyes shut for a second before forcing yourself up. You should be in the room right now with the doctor, checking over Joaquín’s vitals, taking actual notes instead of spiraling in the hallway. Get your shit together and do your job.

Your movements feel sluggish as you reach for your tablet, swiping your ID card at the door. The scanner beeps, and for a split second, you hesitate—your fingers still lingering on the door handle, your chest tight.

Then you force yourself to step inside.

The room is brighter now, bathed in soft afternoon light filtering through the window. Dust motes drift lazily in the warm glow, a stark contrast to the sterile white walls and the quiet hum of machines. The steady rhythm of the heart monitor is too steady, too real.

The doctor is already mid-assessment, having raised Joaquín’s bed into a slightly upright position as she runs through a neurological check-up.

Joaquín is watching you.

His dark eyes flicker to you the second you enter, and you feel it in your chest, hot and unrelenting.

You swallow hard, gripping your tablet like it’s a lifeline, and take your place near the doctor, prepared to focus on numbers and stats and anything else except the weight of that stare.

You wonder if you’ll get kicked out for distracting him.

"Oh, great, you’re back," the doctor says, breaking through the static in your brain. "Do you mind grabbing some water for Captain Torres? I’m just about done here. Everything looks good and healthy. He’s recovering well."

You nod, already moving before your thoughts can catch up. Autopilot. It’s the only thing keeping you grounded at this point.

Still, you feel it.

The way Joaquín’s gaze follows every single one of your movements, tracking you like you might disappear if he looks away.

You crouch, retrieving a bottle from the mini fridge, fingers twisting at the cap before stepping back toward the bed. That’s when it hits you—he can’t take it. His muscles are still sluggish, his coordination not quite there yet.

You pour some into a paper cup instead, stepping closer when the doctor gives a nod of approval. Joaquín doesn’t say anything.

The tremor in your hands is almost imperceptible, but you feel it when you lift the cup to his lips. The moment your fingers brush his skin, a muscle in his jaw tenses.

His heart monitor beside the bed jumps.

Your eyes snap to the screen, but the doctor catches it first.

"Interesting," she hums, her tone just teasing enough to send heat creeping up your neck. But she lets it go.

"So, Joaquín," she continues, "We’re gonna have to do some blood work tomorrow, just to make sure everything is alright internally. We’ll up your dose of painkillers now that you’re awake."

"Awesome," he mutters, voice scratchy but laced with dry sarcasm.

She smiles. "They’ll make you a little drowsy, which is normal, but we’ll need you to try and stay awake until sunset. Just to make sure you’re not slipping in and out of consciousness. But I doubt it."

Then she turns to you.

"I’ll let Amanda know he’s awake. But you did a good job—woke up sooner than we expected."

You blink, caught off guard by the compliment.

"Thanks."

"I’ll come back later for a check-up."

And then she leaves.

The door clicks shut, and there is a silence that follows.

You stand there, hands gripping the tablet against your chest, unsure of what to do. Well, you know what to do—your duty is clear. You should be checking his vitals, updating his chart, making sure he’s comfortable.

But that’s not what’s stopping you.

It’s him.

Awake. Looking at you.

Joaquín Torres, alive and conscious and blinking at you like he’s still trying to convince himself this isn’t just another fever dream.

His voice comes quiet, hoarse, a low grumble you barely hear over the rhythmic beeping of his heart monitor.

"You took care of me?"

Your breath catches.

It’s a simple question, but it knocks something loose in your chest. Because it’s him asking. Because he’s here to ask it.

You swallow, shifting on your feet. Your gaze flickers over him—not just the wounds, but all of him. The way the sunlight filters in through the window, warming the stark white of the sheets, reflecting in the deep brown of his eyes. He looks more alive now, and maybe it’s the light or the steady rise and fall of his chest, but for the first time in weeks, you allow yourself to believe it.

He’s here.

Breathing. Talking. Alive.

And yet—his dead face still haunts you.

The memory lingers in the corners of your mind, just out of reach but never truly gone. His stillness, the unnatural slack of his features, the too-loud silence of a body that had once been so full of energy, of life. The image is burned into your brain, playing over and over again like a cruel loop. The moment you thought you lost him.

The tears in his mother’s face.

The look of dread on Sam.

The guilt.

"Uh, yeah. I did."

Your voice is barely above a whisper.

Joaquín exhales, long and slow, as if processing your words. Then, he tries to smile.

It’s small, faint and unsteady like he isn’t quite sure how to do it yet. The corners of his lips curve, but there’s a hesitation in the movement, like his face isn’t used to the motion after so long.

Still, he tries.

And when his eyes meet yours again, your stomach twists, sinking deep like an anchor dropping into dark water.

"I… I know it’s just your job, but—" His voice falters, but his gaze doesn’t. "Thank you."

Right. Your job.

The words settle into your chest like a weight—familiar, suffocating.

Because you remember the last time he said that to you.

Your last fight.

Well—it wasn’t really a fight, was it?

Not the kind with screaming and shattered glass, not the kind where anger built up and spilled over, reckless and sharp. It was quieter than that. Heavier. Because in the end, it wasn’t about anger.

It was about exhaustion. About wanting so badly to hold on to each other but realizing, little by little, that neither of you had hands free to do it.

You had barely been sleeping.

Between overnight shifts at the hospital, classes, training, and trying to be the best nurse you could be, your time wasn’t your own. It belonged to the people who needed you—the patients, the emergencies, the long nights where your body ached and your mind ran on fumes.

And Joaquín?

He had thrown himself into working with Sam, into proving himself, into becoming something bigger. His missions got longer. The risks got greater. He was gone more often than he was home, and when he was home, he was bruised, exhausted, a shadow of himself trying to piece together the scraps of a normal life between deployments.

You tried to make it work. God, you tried.

You spent so much time missing each other—passing like ships in the night, phone calls that never lasted long enough, conversations cut short by a code blue or a mission call.

At first, you thought it was temporary. That one day, things would slow down. That eventually, you’d find a rhythm that let you breathe with each other again.

But that day never came.

Instead, the gaps between you grew wider.

The distance stretched, and stretched, and stretched—until one night, you were sitting across from each other, and you both knew.

"I can't do this anymore, Joaquín."

You had whispered it.

Not because you didn’t mean it, but because saying it any louder might have broken you.

He had looked at you, like he was waiting for you to take it back.

Like if he just held on long enough, you’d change your mind.

"I know... You know, I love you," he had said, low, firm, desperate.

And that had been the worst part.

Because love wasn’t the problem.

It had never been the problem.

It was everything else.

Your job. His job.

The nights spent apart, the exhaustion, the never-ending fear of opening your front door to a folded American Flag. You couldn’t stand watching him bleed.

And he couldn’t stand knowing that one day, you might not be there to stitch him back up. That was the last time he said it. "But it’s my job."

Like that was supposed to make it better.

But now, you’re standing in his hospital room, staring at proof that it never got better. Because you had left to protect yourself from seeing him hurt. And now you had seen him dead.

"Of course," you manage to say, wincing when you hear your voice break.

Joaquín hums softly, but his eyes don’t leave you. He’s looking for something in your face—like he’s searching through memories neither of you have spoken aloud in years.

But then, his gaze flickers away. Over to the table. To the mess of flowers stacked in unsteady vases, their petals bright in the afternoon sunlight. The kind of display that only happens when someone is lucky enough to wake up.

His brow creases. "How bad was it?"

You swallow, feeling something sharp lodge itself in your throat. "You were shot out of the sky by a missile."

His lips part. "Right."

"It was pretty fucking bad."

A beat.

"Right."

You don’t know what you were expecting. Some kind of reaction, some flicker of acknowledgment for the hell he’s put you through. But instead, he just takes it—like it’s another report, another piece of intel.

You hesitate, something bubbling up inside you. You can’t tell if it’s anger or sorrow. "You died."

The words hit the air, heavier than you expected.

Joaquín blinks, his breath hitching almost imperceptibly. His fingers twitch against the blanket.

"I died?"

You nod, biting your cheek so hard you taste iron.

"Yeah," you force out. Your throat tightens. Don’t cry. Not in front of him. Not again. "Two minutes."

He’s staring at you now. Eyes wide. Disbelief creeps into the edges of his expression, but not enough—not enough for someone who actually understands what that means.

What it means to you.

"Oh."

You scoff. "Yeah. Oh."

Your laugh is brittle. Sharp around the edges. Because what else is there to say? Joaquín dies for two minutes, and you’ve spent days living inside them.

He exhales, dragging a hand down his face.

"God," he mutters. "Sam’s gonna be so mad at me."

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because this wasn’t how you imagined seeing him again.

In your head, there were a million other ways this could have gone—maybe you’d run into each other in the future when you were older. When things had settled. When you’d moved on.

Maybe you’d both be married to other people.

The thought makes you sick. But this? This is so much worse.

"Do you, um, do you need anything else? Are you hungry?"

"No."

You nod, but you don’t believe him. Patients are usually peckish when they wake up—a sign of life returning to their bodies, a reassurance that things are moving forward. And while he’s not allowed solid foods for another twenty-four hours, you could bring him a smoothie, something light.

But if he really wants something, he can call you.

You tell yourself that as you turn toward the door.

"Can you stay?"

You linger because you didn’t expect it.

Because you kind of hoped he would ask.

Because he didn’t ask you to stay last time.

Your fingers twitch at your sides, gripping your tablet a little tighter, as if the tension in your body could be contained in that single movement.

"Yeah," you say softly. "I can stay."

You turn back to him, and Joaquín is already looking at you.

His eyes are pleading.

It takes everything in you not to break right there. To not spill over.

You force yourself to move, careful, measured steps toward the chair beside his bed. It feels like you’re wading through something thick, something unseen, like grief or memory or all the what-ifs you’ve tried to bury.

You sink into the chair slowly.

A strand of hair falls into Joaquín’s face as he leans back against the pillows, the bruising on his cheekbone catching the light just enough for you to hate it.

Your fingers twitch again. The urge to brush it back is unbearable. But you don't.

He exhales.

"When was the last time you slept?" he asks suddenly.

You blink, caught off guard.

"Last night." you answer, almost automatically.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Not really."

A beat.

"Nightmares?"

"Something like that."

"Something on your mind?"

"Lots on my mind."

The words slip out easily, like an old habit. No walls. No defences. It’s like no time has passed at all, like the space between you hasn’t been filled with anger, regret, and time apart. Just raw, open honesty in the quiet of the room.

The weight that’s been crushing you for days feels a little lighter in the space between his questions and your answers. You exhale, and only then do you realize you’re holding back tears.

You wipe at your face absently, surprised to find wetness there. You hadn’t even known you were crying.

Joaquín shifts in the bed, his gaze sharpening. There’s concern in his eyes, guilt, and maybe something else—something deeper. He looks away, clearing his throat, as if trying to fight it.

"I hope it's not me you're worried about,"

"I'm always worried about you."

You glance away from him, pretending it’s nothing, but the words hang between you both, too heavy to ignore.

His breath catches, something in him faltering, and then you catch the slight, almost imperceptible way his fingers curl into the sheets. His ears are pink, the flush spreading down his neck. He’s always been terrible at hiding how he feels, and you’re helpless against it. You always have been.

You can’t look at him. You don’t want to admit how much you’ve missed him. How much you’ve been carrying around since the breakup. How much he’s haunted every quiet moment since you walked away.

"Joaquín," you start, tugging at the ring finger on your left hand, the absence of his name there like a wound you forgot was still open. "When they brought you in here—"

"I miss you."

Your chest tightens. "Joaquín—"

"It's true, I do." His voice is quiet, almost vulnerable. "I’ve been looking for an excuse to talk to you again, and I just…" His gaze drifts from yours, like he’s struggling to put it all together. "I couldn't get it out."

You swallow hard, feeling that familiar ache well up in you. “I miss you too. It’s been... it’s been really hard.”

"Yeah." He nods slowly, his voice softer now. "It has. But, you know, I’m the Falcon now. Can you believe that?" He chuckles, but it’s almost nervous, as if he’s trying to lighten the mood, trying to make you smile. "I work with Captain America. I’ve got big shoes to fill. I’ve got to show up, but this... this is all I’ve ever wanted, since I was a kid. I’ve got it now. But... there’s something missing."

You look at him, really look at him, seeing the difference in his eyes now—less brash, more tired but still so much the same. "Yeah. Yeah, I feel it too. It’s like a nagging feeling, right? No matter what we do, it’s there."

"Make me feel guilty." His lips curve into a faint smile, but it’s tired.

"Like I wanna vomit," you reply dryly, the familiar banter slipping back into place before you can stop it.

Joaquín’s eyes soften as he lets out a breath, and there’s an edge of regret in the way he says, “I’m sorry I left.”

Your heart aches at the words, and you feel the old wounds crack open. "I’m sorry I made you leave." You’re not sure whether you’re trying to make him feel better or punish him with your own guilt. Either way, it burns.

“No,” he says quickly, “It doesn’t work that way.”

"But it does," you insist, your voice soft but firm.

He presses his lips together, brow furrowed, as if trying to work through what you’ve just said. "I should’ve fought harder," he murmurs, voice cracking just slightly.

"Joaquín... c’mon. Let’s talk about this later, okay? You just woke up from a coma. I can’t be putting this much stress on your mind."

"But I wanna talk about it," he presses, desperate.

“I know, I do too,” you admit,

“Then let’s talk about it,” he says, leaning forward just a little.

"Rest first." You place a hand on his shoulder gently, urging him to lay back. “You’ve been through a lot. I can’t let you burn yourself out again.”

“I’ve been resting. Had the best nurse in the world take care of me,” he teases, trying to distract you with a smile.

You feel the tug in your chest at his words. "And I will still take care of you. But you need rest. We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow," you confirm, trying to smile, to soothe the tension you’ve both built up.

"Will you still be here?"

You glance down at him, a familiar warmth flooding your chest at the sight of him so vulnerable, so human. "I’m not going anywhere. Will you still be here?"

His smile softens, a quiet promise in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

#listen to blood orange while reading 🫶🏽#they make out and fuck after this i promise #faye’s writing ⭑.ᐟ #joaquín torres #joaquín torres x reader #joaquin torres #joaquin torres x reader #joaquin torres x you #joaquin torres imagine #joaquin torres fluff #joaquin torres fic #joaquin torres fanfiction #the falcon #the falcon x reader #joaquín torres smut #joaquin torres smut #joaquín’s wings

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lgbtlunaverse · 1 year ago

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There's a version of the "don't go grocery shopping while hungry" rule specifically for writers where you should never under any circumstances be allowed to touch your draft within 3 hours of reading a really good story. Because sometimes when you read something great your head goes "fuck this is so much better than my stuff I should make that more like THIS instead!" Look at me. That's the devil talking and you should close the document NOW.

#you will make superficial edits that do not gell well with the rest of your work #and won't actually capture what you thought was so good about that story #close the doc. sit down. think about it for a while. inspiration is fine. getting a 'eureka' moment from another story is fine #but if you find yourself comparing your work one to one with someone else's and taking any differences to be flaws on your part then STOP #you will never write good stuff by trying to make it look less like you wrote it #writing #writing advice #guess who just had to go into her google doc history and undo a bunch of panic-induced edits #because she read a fic about the same characters she's writing for?#meeee. they aged badly within just a few hours of hindsight. learn from my mistakes #self-hatred is not a good motivation for creation #fic writing

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h20milk · 5 months ago

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tfw you fall in love with the magicless prefect that keeps running around campus 🤦‍♀️

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theobservatory · 4 months ago

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｡⁠☆Loser Boyfriend｡⁠.ﾟ⁠+⁠

☆Cw: one use of "her", Mina calls you girl once, embarrassment, fluff, humor, rookie!prohero!deku

"Izuku, dude, no offense, but how did you land that?"

Izuku turns to Denki, looking just as lost as he does. There's a little flush on his cheeks and a wide eyed expression on his face. The boy looks like a confused baby dear, which truly only adds to Denki's confusion.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Teach me your ways." Denki says, comically whipping out a notepad from his pants pocket. "Did you grovel? Cry? Feed her a love potion but disguise it as juice so that she would drink it, but have no clue what it was?"

"N-No of course not!... And I'm pretty sure that would be illegal anyway..."

Denki shrugs, "Hey I don't know your life. You could be into some weird shit on the down low, you seem the type!"

Izuku responds with an eye roll. If anyone 'seems the type' it's Mineta and Denki himself. They turn back towards you instead of continuing the conversation. You're still in the same position you were in before; fully leaned over the back of the couch, legs closed with one slightly hanging in the air, while the rest of you is inside Mina's personal space giggling at something she's showing you on her phone.

You're in some cute little outfit that Izuku helped you pick out, a rare case, since Izuku still wears almost exclusively punny t-shirts and sweats. The only reason he helped is because it's your first time meeting his friends and former classmates, you just wanted to make sure the outfit wasn't too little or too much. This is not to say he was much help.

Izuku feels almost entranced by you, and you're not even looking at him. You haven't glanced his way since Mina took your attention, actually. Izuku could start pouting if he wasn't too busy ogling your backside. He's so busy he misses the picture Denki snaps at the enraptured look on his face.

"C'mon man, let's go raid the snacks before Kaachan forces us to leave the kitchen."

Denki's arm around Izuku's shoulder shakes him out of his stupor and he nods in agreement, not really having heard what he said at all. He allows Denki to lead him to the kitchen with only minimal glancing behind his back, just to get a little more time to soak in your image.

But he doesn't expect your eyes to catch. He has no time to prepare for the heat in his pink cheeks to spread to his ears, no time to prepare for your smile to make his heart thump in his chest. It makes him lightly stumble in his steps and turn to face forward again, feeling incredibly embarrassed.

"Oh, Izu! Can you come back for just a sec?"

Izuku breaks out of Denki's hold with not a single lick of hesitation, embarrassment be damned. His world shortens and zooms in when you talk, the feeling of embarrassment, as well as Denki's voice, becomes muffled in the face of it. None of that matters if you're the one who needs him.

"Look at this picture Mina has of you!"

It's the picture All Might took of him before he bulked up. The one where he's dirty and sweating and crying after trying to haul a fridge across a beach. Izuku thinks he might die. Where did she even get that picture?

His face must say a lot, because both you and Mina burst out laughing. You're trying to reassure him, but you're laughing so hard you're struggling to gain a breath to string words together. If the floor swallowed Izuku whole right now, he would be grateful. It was a terrible idea to bring you to meet his classmates, especially a gossip like Mina.

"Oh, baby no, don't look like that!" You gasp, placing a hand on his shoulder. It's not nearly as comforting as you're trying to make it be.

"Izuku you look like a total loser, good thing you gained some muscle there, pipsqueak!" Mina chortles.

"Oh stop it! He doesn't look like a... Loser... I think it's cute!"

"Keep telling yourself that!"

Izuku has never considered the merits of getting hit by a bus before, now is a better time than ever to start.

Your arms wrap around him, and he instinctually hugs you back. You press your still smiling face into his chest, and turn towards Mina, still a little breathless.

"It's okay Izuku, I'll protect you from Mina's mean words." You giggle.

Mina is quick to start booing you, but Izuku doesn't miss the picture of him being sent to an unsaved number in her phone. Oh she's going to get it next time they spare together, and he will make absolutely sure it is soon. She doesn't get to run away from the enemy she has created today.

"Whose side are you even on, girl?" Mina huffs playfully, turning back to her phone and sitting back down on the couch.

The party goes smoothly after that, mostly because Izuku doesn't leave your side for the rest of the night. He refuses to let any of his other classmates show you blackmail. Even when you go to the bathroom he stands right outside the door, waiting for you to come back. At one point during the night Katsuki told him he looks like a stray puppy, and before he could deny it, you responded, "it's cute, part of his charm". He elected to ignore the way it made his chest puff out.

He likes to believe you think of him less as a puppy and more of a guard dog. He will not be confirming or denying this with you.

Before long, the party is over. Despite the little mishap with Mina earlier, he's satisfied. You were both fed well, and you very clearly had a good time with his friends, so he considers the night a success. He knew that you'd been nervous about the whole thing, his reassurances hadn't done much to sway you, but you had a great time. Just like he said you would.

As he's pulling the car out of the driveway, you turn to him, a mischievous smile spread across your face. Izuku hopes you don't notice how heavily he swallows when you look at him, your expression is making him nervous.

"Mina sent me that picture of you."

The car lurches as he slams on the brakes. "She gave you her phone number?! Noo she's gonna show you how much of a loser I am!" He whines, putting his head into the steering wheel.

"Izu, my love, you are a bonafide prohero who's about to hit the top 30 barely two years out of highschool, you are not a loser."

Izuku turns to you with a wobbly smile, forehead still lying on the steering wheel. "U-Uhm no, I totally am. Hero work aside."

You giggle, his heart stutters again.

"Well you're my loser then."

"Yours?" Izuku flushes.

"Mine."

And well, being a loser isn't so bad if it means he gets to be yours. Your boyfriend. Your guard dog. Your puppy. Your loser. Your anything. He can be anything, as long as he's yours.

Love men who are losers and very smitten for their sweethearts, what can I say

｡⁠☆Requests open

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bluerosefox · 1 year ago

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Kidnapped Persephone Style

Me: *tossing prompt idea up and down in the air before chucking it into the Void we call the internet*

Jason is dating Ghost Prince (not yet King) Danny and goes on a really awesome and romantic date on his day off. He forgot to tell the fam though. So when Red Robin comes to give Jason an update on some entil, he watches in muted horror as Jason is 'kidnapped' by a glowing entity in black armor and a nightmare looking horse (Danny is a bit busy doing paperwork, so he had his Fright Knight pick Jason up) off of a Gotham rooftop and into a green portal, while the knight had proclaimed Jason as their future Kings 'intended'..

No one on coms is ready for Tim to yell out

"I THINK JASON JUST GOT KIDNAPPED PERSEPHONE STYLE!!"

#danny phantom dc #danny phantom #danny fenton #crossover #dp x dc #blue rambles #writing ideas #random idea #dpxdc #dead on main #Jason todd #the batfam freaks #they all try to figure out wth just happened #Bruce is on the verge of a breakdown #his son was taken from him again #meanwhile Jason is in Danny's study reading his signed copy of Jane Austin unpunished works while Danny finishes his paperwork #after that theyll take a stroll in the gardens and have their date #Jason gets to live err unlive his romantic fantasies in Danny's castle #he does not know the chaos he left behind

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choccy-milky · 7 months ago

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nowhere in hogwarts is safe to snog 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨🤺 one of my fav scenes from @myokk's oneshot "clumsy" which you can read here! its about seb and mc being stubborn idiots in denial of their own feelings while also pining after each other the entire time 🥰 GO READ IT!!💖💖

#my first fanart of a fic that isnt mine/about seb and clora......WHO IS SHE😳😳#maddy writes seb so good GO READ IT i got an ask asking me for fic recs and this may be the only one ive actually read but... I REC IT #OBVIOUSLY.... if my fanart of it wasnt obvious endorsement enough LMAO #i just love this trope/scene BAHHAA seb is that meme of the girl covering her ears while her brother blares a trumpet at her #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy fanfic #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x oc #sebastian sallow x mc #sebastian x mc #sebastian sallow fanfiction #sebastian sallow fic #omg i go into autopilot when i tag and i almost tagged clora clemons by accident but nuh uh not today #today its faceless nameless mc who totally isnt eloise or clora #choccyart

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learnelle · 1 month ago

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My uni semester is done done done ! I received my good results, so I can finally exhale. My friends and I reread the Bell Jar and went to see the Dead Poet’s Society in theatre, and it was SO nice to think about something other than my uni assignments ☕️

#I feel so differently about the book now #I first read it right before I started my psychology degree. I liked the writing but didn’t think much of Esther #Now I’m older and felt suffocated while reading about Esther’s internal world. The writing beautifully exhausted me #On a lighter note: me and the girls giggled when Esther chose a pen name that had six letters… S y l v i a we saw what you did there 👀#Studyblr #the bell jar #Sylvia Plath #studyblr #dark academia #study inspiration

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kiranokira · 2 months ago

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You could have atleast kissed the brick before throwing it at me 💔💔

#The new Martin model feels so much at home for me #LIKE #My 9 year old self is SCREAMINGGG #i was pouring out my heart into those Martin lives AUS I made while literally still learning how to read and write #it was the peak of my lifetime to be honest #oblivion #martin septim #tes #the elder scrolls #oblivion remastered #Martin Septim my wife

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neros-left-pec · 2 months ago

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GAMING WITH THE DMC MEN

🌷 pairings: dmc men x fem!reader 🌷 warnings/tags: just fluff + probably OOC 🌷 author's note: i have really bad dmc brainrot but ive never even played the games (don't ask how this happened) LOL. i kinda see these as crack hcs since im not actually familiar with their canon personalities but i hope u can enjoy it regardless!

DANTE SPARDA

always picks the worst/unhinged dialogue options bc he wants to see what happens

starts laughing if it ends up with people getting mad at each other, bonus points if they start fighting for real

"Ooooh no, he didn't like that! OH SHIT, HE PUNCHED HIM! GET HIM!!"

refers to every protagonist as dude, regardless of gender or species

adores mariokart. gets waaaay into the motion controls and nearly destroys the living room coffee table

sits behind you while you play and narrates everything to piss you off. makes a big deal when you mess up to tease you

"In a world... where she messes up every single quick-time-event-"

absolutely cracked at rhythm games, just dance is his SHIT. also really enjoys osu!

loves playing coop with you and distracting u with tickles or kisses till you get mad

he loooooooooooooooooooooooves making you mad bro is a master at ragebait

VERGIL SPARDA

he says games are a waste of time, but once he finds one he likes he will memorize every mechanic almost instantly.

huge fan of strategic games. his favorites are fire emblem, civ and mahjong. mahjong counts right?

loves playing mahjong online with other losers and beating them. however is sooo annoyed at all the fan service in mahjong games. he likes playing riichi city but had to turn on the family friendly setting and only plays with the default character.

hates RNG. avoids gachas like they are the plague

you normally game in the living room while he sits next to you reading a book. if you start to get emotional over the story, he will arch an eyebrow. he ever so slightly leans into you to comfort you

you definitely notice and give him a pointed look. he sees you staring, but keeps his eyes focused on the book. but damn him, you can see a little smirk form in the corner of his mouth

pretends like he isnt paying attention but definitely is. gets invested if the story is really good

makes a surprisingly good partner in coop games. he'll act annoyed but will carry you anyway lol

teaches you how to play mahjong so you both can play

you love it when he explains things to you

whenever he catches you staring lovingly when he explains the rules to you, he blushes a tad and his eyebrows kinda raise in surprise. but its sooooooooooo subtle.

he catches himself pretty quick but you dont miss it hehe

NERO SPARDA

loves horror games but jumps at EVERYTHINGGGG LOL ITS SO CUTE

screams like a bitch honestly

gets weirdly competitive about mario kart. he will not hesitate to obliterate you with blue shells but he'll give you lots of smooches after to make up for it

always wants to name his character something stupid.

"I'm calling him Boob lord" (he would name a pokemon this)

teases you if you get flustered over flirty game characters

"Is your face red?? Oh my god, it is, are you serious? You're gonna fall for that? It's so corny!"

thinks he can do better hehe gets a bit jellyyyy

loves couch coop. will sit way too close and will flick u in the forehead if you cause him to lose

"No you forgot the- oh my god, fine, I'll get it!"

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sabos-husband · 2 months ago

Note

Hi! was hoping for a request (this might get really specific) reader as a strawhat member who grew up with luffy (by extension also ace and sabo) back in foosha village, but actually used to be a slave for the celestial dragons before she arrived there, maybe never told luffy because in her mind, luffy was the epitome of freedom and she was ashamed of her past. The scenario I had in mind for the reveal was maybe in the middle of battle, her clothes gets torn and her mark is seen, maybe some strawhats have an idea of that mark is (maybe jinbei, robin and alike) while others don't (ussop? maybe?), while making the enemies ridicule her and how the strawhats react, but you can choose another scene that you think are more fitting! i just wanted to see how you'd write luffy because i love your writing style! the way you write flows perfectly and it's never out of character, you're my current fav writer on tumblr! so thank you!

★ Around the World

Monkey D. Luffy and Reader ★

Fishman Island Spoilers!! ~ Straw Hat!Reader ~ Feminine Reader (she/her) ~ Hurt/Comfort

a/n: Aww, that's so sweet of you! I appreciate that so much! Specific asks are wonderful, it makes it easier to write something as close as possible to what you want. Thank you for the request <3 I put the majority of this between Fishman Island and Punk Hazard, but there aren't major spoilers. Sorry this took a while!

As well, there's description of the reader's history with slavery and the trauma that came from that. I left it vague for the most part, though.

For so much of your life, Luffy's been a constant. Even when you ran around Gray Terminal with Sabo and Ace, terrorizing all the people you could find for all the money you could grab, Luffy wasn't far behind for most of it. It took the Bluejam Pirates torturing Luffy for hours before his loyalty dawned on the three of you.

It then took Bluejam setting fire to Gray Terminal for you to truly consider Luffy special.

When Sabo took to the sea, swallowed by flame, you held Luffy tight as he wailed. When Ace left for the sea, aided by nothing but a burlap sack on his shoulder and the wind in his sails, Luffy had promised he would follow. When Luffy left for the sea, you were there, standing by his side. His very own first mate, meant to weather the Grand Line by his side.

You hoped with all your heart it'd stay that way. You hoped that it was all he'd know about you—you, his first mate, with nothing else of her past beyond the Grey Terminal's walls and Foosha Village's people.

Of course, nothing you want ever comes so simply.

You can still remember the shrieks of laughter that burst from Luffy as you both clambered into barrels—it made sense that he would wind up into trouble on the sea, but the first day takes the cake!

Your life has been non-stop ever since. From the very moment you both step foot on Shells Town with Koby in tow, the crew grew and grew to numbers that made your pride in Luffy bloom.

Zoro was tough with a sword and reliable when you need him, but his difficulty with directions always made your head spin. Nami was quick with her hands and quicker with her mind, just like how she could never stand to let a Berri slip by. Usopp was sharp as a tack with his constant innovations and steady sharpshooting, even when he ran at ten knots an hour away from danger. Sanji was nothing short of a first-rate chef and one of the strongest men you knew, despite how often he lost himself in the wild pursuit of women.

Then there came the Grand Line. It brought Chopper, Robin, Franky, Brook, Jinbei; thinking about the people Luffy drew to himself never failed to bring a smile to your lips. It's not like you could ever speak against them for their affection towards the captain—it's what brought you away from the safety of Foosha Village as well, skirting past the World Government you hated and feared for all your life.

It's like second nature, how much you love Luffy. Every single one of you would give anything for your captain.

"Anything" changes for you sometimes, though. Late into the night, long after the moon took its place in the sky, you wrestled with the dark. Could you keep this secret from your captain? From Luffy, the person you've known all your life?

(No, you'd remind yourself, not all your life.)

You think of the little boy you grew up alongside with, with a smile so bright you had to shield your eyes. The wind whipping his hair and threatening to carry away his straw hat as he lights up with laughter. You think of how your captain looks at you with the stars in his eyes, declaring that he will be the next King of the Pirates, and you believe him with all your heart.

Even after Ace died, his flames swallowed up in magma, you were there two years later. Luffy had gone through hell and back with you—couldn't that be enough?

It was thoughts like those that kept your secrets to yourself.

It was some foolish, childish part of you that thought you could have kept it up forever.

The day was as usual. It was nice, even. You had just finished helping Sanji with the groceries—to his chagrin, of course.

As much as he adores your company, he detests making such a sweet lady do manual labor for him, and he lets you know. Often. It was charming for the first while, but by the time you help Sanji put away the groceries, you're just glad it's over with.

The snack he rewards you after with, though, makes you sure that you'll help him next time. After he waves you off to begin lunch prep, you're quick to escape back to the docks.

You have some time to kill, you think. It's the last stretch until the log pose is finished setting and you've sort of lost track of the group... Thinking back, Zoro and Usopp got tied together, so you don't have to worry about searching for the poor swordsman. Nami stole Chopper to carry the clothes she was planning to get with Robin, while Brook and Franky were the ones assigned to watch the ship. That just leaves you with... Oh, seas.

There's a burst of screams that tear through the town's square, punctuated by a shriek of excited, almost maniacal laughter.

You're missing Luffy.

You're off like a shot towards the commotion before you can even think, weaving and pushing your way past the people. The crowd thickens as civilians shove past you. It's like swimming up river, but with every step you take, that familiar laughter gets closer.

When you finally burst from the mob, your feet catch on an unconscious marine. You stumble forward.

It's like breaking through a shield into a bubble—a ring of civilians gather to enclose Luffy as he's circled by marines, too duty-bound to flee but too cautious to fight.

Your captain hasn't put nearly as much thought into his approach. He barrels fists-first into the nearest hoard; the soldiers go flying like playing cards against a cannon. Sure it's charming, but he was supposed to be on board the Sunny, like, a hour ago.

So, Luffy deciding to gather the marines?

It sure isn't ideal.

Gathering your courage and tossing aside your exhaustion, you steel your nerves to storm the castle and extract your captain. And speak of the devil; Luffy whips his head around to stare at you.

"Oh! Hey!!" Luffy yells, with just a bit of manic glee. Great. You step forward—

—And a marine steps in your way. Really great.

As you fall into your fighting stance, you watch your captain dart from view. Well, whatever. You'll find him after you kick this guy's ass.

The marine wielded an odd weapon, like brass knuckles with claws soldered onto the palm. He hadn't bothered to clean the last victim's blood from it, and if the rust near the joints were to tell you anything, it was clear that he neglected to clean the blood of anyone from the weapon.

It feels like a warning.

It feels like a trophy.

Your captain rockets past him without a second thought (it's unlikely there was ever a first thought) to explode into another group of soldiers. It's like dynamite dropped in a haystack, the way navy officers go flying here and there.

The marine's eyes fall on you.

You can barely remember the fight afterwards, shamefully. You remember how it starts though.

He lunges at you with the speed of an animal, his clawed hands outstretched to sink into your flesh.

You dodge, he pivots, you aim to strike before he finds his footing—every move you make is to drive you closer to Luffy so you can cut and run.

Your mindlessness makes you sloppy. You don't even notice the way you're babying your secret, cradling it away from the fight. Of course that fucking marine notices.

Seas, you don't even know this marine's name, and yet he could still read you like a fucking book.

It's your last mistake.

When he slips to the side, too close for comfort, you jump back. His hand raises to tear out your eyes.

You raise your arms to guard, falling for the feint—the marine weaves past you, bearing his claws, and digs into your flesh.

It's over before you can even feel the pain.

You barely hold back a yell as you leap back, clutching your body. Warm blood trickles down the strike until it stained your clothes, sending panic shooting up your spine.

Like a curse from whatever gods left, that damn marine had struck you where you were weakest. There wasn't any time—by the time you whip around to clutch the wound, to hide your shame, it was too late.

"That pirate! She's... branded!"

A chorus of gasps tear through the crowd like a terrible symphony. You cling to the ribbons of your ruined attire like it could still save you.

Shadows claw at your vision as you struggle to breathe. Warm blood trickles down your limbs and your mark aches with a fresh, searing pain—it's grown with you, stretching over your skin in a reminder you can only try to forget.

You hear Robin gasp like she was struck herself. Oh seas, when did she arrive? You want to tuck yourself into a ball and hide from the prying eyes boring into your skin. You're sure she understands, if only because she shares your terror of who gave you this cross to bear, but it scares you. Somewhere, Usopp murmurs to her, "what is that?"

They know. They know.

The marine barks out in a fit of laughter, teeth bared and fingers curled around his claws. "What the hell is Straw Hat doing with government property?"

You think of Foosha Village, dodging your family and bathing in the river at night. You think of the clothes you had to give Makino back, too ridden by fear to wear them.

You think of your crew, sleeping soundly while you were working up the nerve to change your clothes in the dark. You think of Nami, with her skin graft and her new tattoo and the jealousy so strong you choke on it every time you see it. You think of how no one knows what was before that pinwheel tattoo except for the people she wants to know.

You think of your captain. You think of Luffy.

Oh seas, Luffy.

Tears cloud your eyes as you struggle to breathe. When you turn to your captain, you can barely see him—your vision swims, revealing splotches of color you'd recognize anywhere.

His haki rolls off in waves, so suffocating you can taste his rage on the back of your tongue. You see soldiers buckle and civilians collapse.

Your words escape before you can even think.

"Luffy, help...!"

A fist rockets past you. The sound of crunching bone hits you as air whips your cheeks. A mangled yell of pain is the last thing you hear from the marine.

"She doesn't," your captain growls, "belong to anybody."

You're brought into the medbay as soon as the Sunny left the docks. The silence is suffocating. You could barely look at Chopper as you shed your clothes, letting it slip until your shame was bare.

If you could guess, you'd bet it was nothing but professional courtesy that's keeping Chopper from reacting. That fucking mark takes up almost the entirety of the flesh, like a wound that can never heal.

The young doctor is kind when he cleans the blood. His touch hovers above your laceration when you hiss and tense. He's patient too, only continuing his work when you allow him to.

You hate this. Seas, you fucking hate this. You slump forward when Chopper continues his work.

You both pretend to not notice the tears that fall.

When he backs away, wound cleaned and bandaged, you don't turn to look him in the eye. You just turn your head and nod at Chopper.

The doctor straightens up like he always does after he works, but there's a new nervousness to him. His hooves are pressed together, like he's trying to quell the shaking. It makes you grit your teeth.

"The wound isn't bad," he says quickly, "but you'll need to rest. As for t-the rest, I couldn't..."

You nod. "Thanks, Chopper. You don't have to worry about... that. You're the best."

You watch the tension evaporate as he grins at you, leaning side to side. "That doesn't make me happy, you bastard!" He giggles, spinning. He sways a bit longer before he tamps it down, clearing his throat.

"But," he says clearly, "you can talk about it—"

"—Chopper—" you try to say.

"—Listen! It's important!" Chopper stands straighter like it'll give him the confidence his next words demand. "I-If you don't want to talk about it to me, it's okay. But... you should talk to someone. Nami, or Robin, or maybe- maybe if we call Jinbei, he would understand—"

"Chopper," you cut through. It hurts your heart to see the young doctor wilt. "It's okay. Thank you, but I'm alright."

"Okay... But- consider it? Please?"

You look away. "I will," you murmur.

Even though you don't see his face, you know Chopper knows you're lying. You know he won't push you farther, though. He hops down off his stool, shucks off his doctor's coat, and offers you the spare clothes Nami had lent you. She was kind enough to waive the fee this time too. You can't find it in you to appreciate it.

Chopper turns away as you get dressed again, which makes you smile. It makes you feel like you have some control again.

(You can't help but study your bandages. They're wrapped snug around you, but the edges of the brand sticks out like a hand print seared into your skin. You can still see the three pointed claws under the stark white of gauze.

It's the first time in a while you've really observed it. Every other time you forced yourself to look, all you could see was the red-hot brand and the wicked smiles of the demons who held it.

It's just as ugly as you remember.

You wish you had killed that marine, even if it wouldn't have changed anything.)

When you finish getting dressed, you signal to Chopper. He turns around, offers you a smile too bittersweet for someone of his youth, and reaches for the door.

"Oh, Luffy," Chopper comments idly. You can't stop how you flinch at the sound of his name.

You were dreading seeing him. It makes you want to cry again; how long has it been since you've dreaded being near Luffy?

The ringing in your ears swallow up the gentle words Chopper offers. Your bandages crush your ribs as you try to breathe—there isn't enough air, like that fucking marine took it all when he- when he—

The hands on your face smell like sun-warmed rubber. It's hard to say they're cradling your face, when Luffy just smacked his palms against your cheeks and squished them together until you were looking at him. When you blink, he blinks back at you.

"Are you there?" Luffy asks simply.

"Um, y-yes Captain," you force out. He nods thoughtfully.

Though, Captain isn't the right moniker. You aren't talking to isn't Captain Monkey D. Luffy, world-renowned Worst Generation pirate, capable of toppling kingdoms and challenging the World Government, feared by the powerful and adored by the powerless.

No, the boy in front of you is simply Luffy. The Luffy you've cherished since you were small, with a smile so bright and a heart so full—for all your life, you've never known how you got so lucky to have him.

Luffy pushes you to sit before he flops down next to you, bobbing with the mattress springing under his weight. You avoid his eye.

"You have something," Luffy states simply. It isn't a question, nor an accusation. It makes you flinch regardless—through all your tears, you can barely see the way your hands ball into fists in your lap.

He waits until you can find your words once again. It's kinder than you deserve.

"D-Do you- want to see it?"

"I don't care." Luffy just sort of... tilts his head at you. "I want to see you."

It's such a simple sentiment. It makes you feel like you've swallowed a thousand blades.

"I'm-... I didn't- I'm sorry, Luffy," you force out. The nails you dig into the stark white gauze don't put any pressure into the skin below it. Luffy frowns anyways.

"You can't apologize," he states simply. "You don't have to."

"But I- I lied—"

"It's okay." Luffy kicks his feet out. "I know you. I don't care about the rest."

All your words slip from your mind. If Luffy minds the silence, he doesn't show it.

Shame floods your chest. All these years hiding your past, unraveled just like that. You stare at your lap.

"They," you admit softly, "had me for so long. I- I never thought I'd be free."

He doesn't respond. You don't need him to—the words rush out before you can think. You stare into your open hands.

"W-When I escaped, I promised myself something. I said, they'll never control me ever again. But- I just... I've always been so scared! It's like- It's like I never even left—"

"Sabo is dead," Luffy says suddenly. "Ace is dead."

When Luffy looks forward, it isn't at Chopper's desk. It isn't at the medicine scattered along its surface, nor is it the kit the doctor had used to patch up your wounds. No—Luffy's gaze pierces farther, looking past the desk and the ship and the sea.

When Luffy looks forward, it's into the fire he left behind.

"But you aren't. You escaped. You're here with me."

Even without words, you understand. You can see the fire, too. "I am."

"You're not theirs anymore. You're mine," Luffy says just as suddenly, "but you aren't mine."

You don't respond. You wouldn't know how even if you tried.

Luffy turns to you with the same inferno that swallowed up your shared home. "You're my crew. You're my first mate. But I don't own you. No one does. That brand doesn't mean anything."

Before you can gather your thoughts, you feel Luffy's hand press his straw hat into your lap. It feels as warm as the sun he had been standing in just moments before. Luffy grabs at your hands to wrap them around its brim.

"You don't belong to anybody."

You could cry.

Luffy shakes your shared hold. "Say it."

"I-I..." You sniffle, "I don't..."

Luffy's eyes don't look away from you. They aren't mean, nor are they worried—they're fierce, just as sure of your power as they were the day he met you.

"I don't," you say finally, "belong to anybody."

When you collapse into his arms, shaking with every sob that wracks through your body, there is no shame when his hands brush over your mark. All you feel is warmth as he pulls you tighter.

You're not property. You're free.

You're a pirate—and no one is freer than a pirate.

#Unfortunately non-romantic aren't as popular #So while I will be tagging this as Luffy x Reader it doesn't have to be read that way #To each their own! Make your own adventure and whatnot #one piece x reader #one piece fluff #luffy x reader #one piece angst #monkey d luffy x reader #monkey d luffy fluff #monkey d luffy angst #monkey d luffy x y/n #monkey d luffy x you #monkey d. luffy x reader #monkey d. luffy x you #monkey d. luffy x y/n #luffy x y/n #luffy x you #luffy fluff #luffy angst #This was so much fun!! Thank you for sending this request!#It felt like such a personal concept so I tried my best to really write that #Luffy's a surprisingly complex character when it comes to things like this #Especially with how you think about Hancock or Sanji's relationship with Luffy about their traumas #So I hope I did you and your idea justice!#atlas archives

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bl-mitchum · 2 months ago

Text

The most delightful feeling in the world is overcoming a bout of writer’s block and writing, like, 1000 words. It’s like relief for the soul.

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hauntedfawnn · 3 months ago

Text

⟡ Honey, Lemons, And Apple Pie ⟡

(Alpha!Doctor!Steve Harrington x Omega!Fem!Reader x Rockstar!Alpha!Eddie Munson)

You’ve always known in your heart and soul that you are destined to be an omega, scent matched to your bestfriend, Eddie Munson. No matter how hard you try, you can’t shake that feeling. Even Eddie gave up on you. Even if you are almost 30 and still haven’t presented. But when you meet a sexy, goofy doctor, things change drastically. And fast. It doesn’t help that your past is coming back to haunt you.

Warnings: Angst between Eddie and reader(but he makes up for it I swear and Steve is there being sweet and perfect to soothe the burn), best friends to lovers, alpha!Eddie Munson, Alpha!Steve Harrington, Omega!Fem!Reader, mentions of Reader being in therapy in the past and it’s implied that she has shitty parents, soo much flirty banter, pet names, typical omegaverse behaviors, knotting, scenting, marking, heats, rough unprotected sex, minor Steddie, one mention of blood, spanking, choking, pussy eating, hair pulling, face fucking, Eiffel Tower, cum eating happy ending! WK: 17k💀 18+MDNI!

You’ve made a nice life for yourself. You have a good job at a social media advertising company and you were able to save up enough to buy yourself a small two bedroom house. You have your cat, mochi, and your best friend, Lina. Who's also your personal assistant. You have lunch together every weekday and brunch on Sundays. Your life isn’t boring, per say, it’s comfortable. But no matter what you do to try and make yourself happy and secure you always feel like something is missing. What makes it even worse? Is that you know exactly what that void inside of you is and you have no idea how to fix it.

Ever since you were old enough to understand what secondary genders were, you knew you were an omega. Everything in your body and soul told you so. But you’re almost thirty years old and you’ve still yet to present. You thought at first maybe you were just a late bloomer, trying anything and everything the doctors suggested to get your omega to come out. Not only did you not want to disappoint your mother who always assumed you’d be an omega because she is. You also knew for a fact in your heart of hearts that your best friend was meant to be your alpha.

Eddie Munson. He presented when you were both sixteen and you both always assumed you’d follow short after him. You’d never fully crossed the line between friends but you fantasized about and planned your life together, banking on the fact that you’d be each other’s mates. But by the time you were twenty things started to look grim for you.

Eddie had finally graduated and planned on moving to Chicago with the Corroded Coffin guys. A manager there offered them a shot and there was no way they weren’t going to take it, even if they failed. You weren’t quite ready to leave Hawkins yet, you wanted to stay until your little sister graduated since your parents hardly paid her any attention. It was only two years, you could save up and then go be with Eddie. You’d have to present by then. You just knew it.

But your sister's graduation came and went and you were still just a beta. Eddie and the guys blew up fast. He was on his first headlining world tour following the release of their second album. But he still video called you once a week and texted you all the time. He still seemed like he had hope that you’d be together one day. That’s why when out of nowhere, on a random Tuesday in mid August, he called you to tell you he had found his scent match you were completely blind sided.

You didn’t understand how that could be possible when you were Eddie’s scent match. You knew it in your heart and soul. An omega having more than one alpha scent matches is rare, but an alpha having two omega scent matches is essentially unheard of. You felt like your whole world fell apart that day. Suddenly the words of every doctor, every specialist, every peer and even your parents came crashing down on you. Maybe you really weren’t an omega. Maybe it was all in your head. You really questioned your sanity after that. You had a full mental breakdown. It took a lot of therapy, basically brainwashing you into believing what your body was telling you is a lie. Even if you never fully believed it.

Eventually you were able to get to a point where those feelings of anguish were bearable. You pulled yourself out of that dark abyss and got a job at the local diner so you could save up and still move to the city. Not for Eddie, for yourself. It took years to get yourself to this point where you were comfortable with your life as a beta. A whole decade to be exact. But there is still that little piece inside of you that knows that isn’t true. In your heart you still know that you are an omega. Even if you are almost thirty and still haven’t presented yet. You just need to find out why.

Although you’ve worked so hard to achieve the life you have now, a big drive for you has always been being able to afford to go and get a full genome mapping done. To see if maybe, just maybe, there really is a reason you haven’t presented yet. And now, you finally can.

You take in a shaky breath as you look up at the sign on top of the large white building in front of you that reads “Omega Specialist and Treatment Center”. Today is the day that will make or break the never ending war waging inside of you. That gnawing feeling that something is just wrong or trapped. If they don’t find anything, you’ll finally accept yourself for what everyone’s always said you are. A beta. But if they do find something? You might be validated for the first time in your life.

And it’s worth the risk.

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

Your nurse is a nice, bright blue haired, beta woman who takes your vitals with a smile. She draws your blood with ease before kindly telling you that “Dr. Harrington” will be in shortly with your test results. You busy yourself by fidgeting and aimlessly scrolling on your phone. You aren’t even really processing what you’re looking at, your thumbs just idly tapping on your screen as your eyes glaze over. You’re so anxious you feel like you’re going to burst out of your skin.

There’s a soft knock on the door before it pushes open and a whole different type of nerves roll through you. A man who you assume is your doctor walks into the room and he just might be the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen. Besides Eddie. You internalize a frustrated sigh at the thought. No matter what you do, you feel like you’ll never fully escape him. But that doesn’t take away from how absolutely gorgeous this man is.

His perfectly styled, chestnut hair looks silky to the touch and his face is almost unreal. He has soft hazel eyes that instantly make you feel at ease. The pointed slope of his nose causes you have to stop your mind from going somewhere dirty and so do those plush lips, outlined in a thin layer of stubble. Like he hasn’t shaved in a few days. A sharp jaw that looks perfect for kissing and nipping on your way to the side of his neck that looks like it was made for shoving your nose in so you can inhale his scent.

Which strangely enough, when this alpha walks into the room your senses are flooded with the smell of fresh laundry. There’s a hint of lemon and something sweet, like whipped cream. You’ve never had the ability to scent anyone before though, so he must just have a really nice cologne.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Steve Harrington and I'm going to be going over your lab results with you today.” He smiles at you kindly before sitting on the round rolling chair across from you. “So, you are almost thirty years old and haven’t presented yet.”

Your heart feels like it’s going to stop as it sinks into your stomach and you prepare yourself for the worst. Again. “Give it to me straight, doc.”

“Well, although you haven’t presented, your genes are almost entirely omega.” Your heart subtly beats again and you feel it start to rise back into your chest ever so slightly. “There’s just one gene that’s off, and it’s very rare but I think it may be the reason you have yet to present.”

“You’re still beating around the bush, Dr. Harrington.” You glare at him but there’s no malice behind it and it makes the corner of Steve’s lips tilt up. You’re his patient so he absolutely shouldn’t think so, but, you’re cute. And something about you feels comforting to him. Like he’s known you all his life. Even though he’s never seen you until less than five minutes ago.

“Sorry.” He chuckles awkwardly but it’s endearing. “As I was saying, this gene typically only shows up when an omega has met their scent match and their alpha either rejectes them or left their life in some way.”

“Oh…” Your heart sinks so far back down into your stomach you feel like it’s going to fall out of your ass. That or explode out of your intestines from how fast it’s beating. Your hands shake and tears well up in your eyes before silently spilling down your cheeks as you stare at the doctor, speechless.

“I’m so sorry if I said something to upset you!” Steve immediately feels panicked, like he’d do anything to get you to stop crying and destroy anyone in the world that’s ever caused you any kind of pain. But all he can manage is awkwardly fumbling for the tissues in his desk and holding them out to you.

“It’s just- let me make sure I have this right.” You take a wobbly deep breath. “You’re saying that I am an omega. But, I haven’t presented because my scent match rejected me?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, miss.” Steve’s eyes widen at the way you growl and slam your hand down on the paper covering the little plastic bed you’re sitting on.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” You let out a dry laugh that completely contradicts the ocean of tears that flow from your eyes. You’re feeling so many emotions at once that it’s making your entire nervous system confused.

'No, I uh - I’m deadly serious.” Steve isn’t exactly sure what to do or say but apparently his body does. He doesn’t realize he released an extra puff of pheromones until he sees the way your nostrils flare before your shoulders relax. Your tears don’t stop though. “Are you okay?”

“No? Yes? I don’t fucking know!” You throw your head back and groan. “It’s just, for the last decade I’ve been called a delusional beta, put in intensive therapy, and been laughed at.”

You scoff out a dry laugh as you shake your head in disbelief. “And now you’re telling me, that after all this time, I was fucking right? Which I’m stoked about, don’t get me wrong. But you’re also telling me the entire reason I’m broken is because I was abandoned and that’s just- It’s just a lot to process, doc.”

“Abandoned?” A growl rumbles deep in Steve’s chest as he rises to his feet and takes a few steps toward you. He doesn’t even realize his actions until he sees the way your eyes widen and a faint smell of honey and chai tea hits his nose. “Forgive me, I don’t know what came over me. That was extremely unprofessional.”

“It’s - it’s alright, no worries.” You squeak out. Your insides heat at his actions, adding a whole new level of confusion to your emotions. There’s just something about him that you can’t quite put your finger on, something akin to the first time the warm spring sun hits your face after a long winter. You want to drink it in and drown in it. “Is there… Anything I can do to fix it?”

“Other than being around your scent match? I’m not sure, if I’m being honest.” Steve rubs the back of his neck awkwardly as he stands only about a foot away from you. But he can’t seem to get himself to back up. It’s like he’s cemented in place and the only way he can physically move is toward you. “There haven't been many studies on this gene in which an omega presents without the help of their fated alpha. The only exception being if they have more than one scent match and that alpha happens to come into their life, which is extremely rare. Otherwise they can go their entire life without presenting.”

Your head hangs down between your shoulders as a sob wracks through you, tears dripping down onto your bare thighs where your pencil skirt from work rides up. Steve feels awful, the fact that you’re upset is really getting to him. He has to physically stop himself from taking you into his arms. “I won’t give up on you though. I’ll do some research on this gene and see what I can come up with, maybe there’s some type of loop hole.”

That makes your head shoot up, tears still streaming down your face, smudging your pretty makeup. But there’s the tiniest bit of hope in your eyes and Steve feels like he will do anything to keep it there. He closes the distance between you and rests a strong hand on your shoulder while leaning down so he can fix you in a warm, hazel gaze. “We will figure this out, omega.”

You’re taken back the title and it has another wave of tears streaming down your face.

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry! What did I say now?!” Steve’s hand on your shoulder runs down your arm, caressing you gently. The fact that he’s upset sends off alarm bells in your head and you immediately feel the need to soothe him.

“It’s nothing bad! I mean, it is, but it isn’t.” Your hand subconsciously rests on top of his as you're flooded with his warm, clean, scent and it makes your head feel a little clearer. You at least have somewhat liner thoughts for the moment. Steve makes you feel grounded for a reason you can’t seem to put your finger on.

“No one has ever believed me. I have always known deep in my heart and soul that I am an omega and you’re the first person in my entire life to acknowledge me as such. Thank you, Dr. Harrington.”

“I- Of course, miss, I’m just doing my job.” Steve offers you a lopsided smile even though he’s screaming on the inside. He didn’t even realize he called you by your designation title. You’re making his instinics go haywire and he needs to get away from you before he does something truly stupid. You pull your hand off his and he misses your touch immediately. He pats your arm awkwardly before turning around to grab your paperwork. “Here are your test results, my card is attached if you have any questions. I’ll do some research on my end and be in touch.”

You take the outstretched papers and smile sweetly at the kind, sexy doctor, the one who finally listened to you and confirmed every doubt you’ve ever had about yourself. “Thanks, Doc, really. I can’t put into words how much this means to me.”

“Like I said, just doing my job.” He returns your smile with a thousand wat one that makes you swoon. “Have a good day, Omega.”

“OH! I - um - Thank you, Alpha…” Steve turns and leaves after that and you can’t shake the feeling that he’s taking a piece of you with him.

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

You decide you deserve your favorite take out and a comfort movie after the emotional rollercoaster that was that doctor’s appointment so you stop at your favorite Chinese spot on your way home. You ordered your food and you’re waiting at one of the booths but it’s so hot in here you feel like you’re suffocating. It’s a rainy February day but it feels like their AC is broken in the middle of summer. Your work shirt feels like it’s constricting your body and your vision feels hazy.

It also smells horrible in here. It’s like you can smell every individual dish they’re cooking in the kitchen and the scent of the three alphas and two omegas in the restaurant blend together to make one sickly sweet, musky mess. If you didn’t already pay, you would get up and leave.

But they finally call your name and you get up on shaky legs and make your way to the counter. Your body feels like it’s being weighed down by bags of sand and your ears feel like they’re underwater. Your muscles suddenly ache like you just worked out for two hours straight and your mind is so cloudy you can hardly think straight.

You grab your food and right as you turn to leave the door swings open, bringing a scent that is like a saviour among the fragrances flooding the room with it. It’s the scent of a warm apple pie with a cinnamon glaze. One that someone’s cooking on a rainy fall day with the windows open. It reminds you of being at your grandmother’s house on Thanksgiving as a child. One of the few places you’ve ever truly felt at home. Home. It smells like home.

It’s then you realize who the scent is being carried by. A man you haven’t seen in person in ten years but you’ve watched from afar through social media and his very public music career. Eddie Munson.

He’s even more beautiful than any camera could’ve ever captured. His curly brown locks brush against the leather jacket that’s taunt against his thick arms. His big, chocolate eyes hold so much emotion you aren’t even sure you could begin to unpack it. His cute button nose you used to always poke and give innocent kisses growing up has a million memories flashing through your mind at once. It’s the same as it always was, just a little bigger and he has a nose piercing now. His lips are as plump as ever and you want to bury your face in his thick, tattooed neck and inhale his apple crisp scent.

Eddie says your name and suddenly you’re so dizzy you feel like the room is on an axis and you aren’t sure why the floor is coming towards you. Your heart is beating so fast you can hear it pulsing in your ears and your eyes start to roll into the back of your head. Then your mind goes blank.

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

Your nose is filled with the most relaxing aroma. It’s like sitting on a freshly mowed lawn after spring cleaning. The windows are open so you can smell the fresh load of laundry in the dryer wafting out while you have an ice cold glass of lemonade. But when you open your eyes you realize you’re very much not outside.

The fluorescent lights above you are nearly blinding and the medical posters on the wall tell you that you’re in a hospital bed. But not only does it not smell even the slightest bit like a hospital, the bed beneath you is warm and breathing. It takes a second for you to feel like you can move but when you’re finally able to tilt your head up you couldn’t be more surprised.

“Dr. Harrington?” Your eyes blow wide as they meet soft hazel ones and as you look down and take in more of your surroundings you realize you’re laying nearly entirely on top of him in a tiny hospital bed. “Why am I here? What are you doing here? Why am I laying on top of you?”

“Hey, hey, calm down.” Steve’s strong hand runs down your back and that fresh, clean scent thickens in the room, instantly relaxing you. “You presented. You fainted and when they brought you here they found my card on you and assumed I was your doctor so they called me… But when I got here I smelled you and…”

That’s when it clicks in your mind. Steve’s scent. He’s your scent match. You feel that same at home, bone warming, feeling you felt when you scented Eddie earlier and that’s when it all really starts coming back to you.

The doctor's appointment. Stopping to get food. Running into Eddie.

“You’re my scent match.” You can’t help the smile that breaks out on your face despite the events that got you here. You presented and this handsome, slightly goofy doctor is your scent match. “That still doesn’t explain why I’m laying on top of you though…” You giggle.

“You were whimpering in your sleep and your scent was filled with distress…” Steve sighs as he brings his hand up to smooth your hair. “Instincts kind of took over and I felt this overwhelming need to be close to you. I’m really sorry if that’s weird or invasive, I just-”

“Steve.” The sound of you calling him by his name for the first time is like music to his ears. “It’s okay, I’m glad you’re here. I’m feeling sort of… strange. Kind of like I want to cry tears of joy and sorrow simultaneously. If that makes sense.”

“It does.” Steve cups your jaw and rubs his thumb along your cheek. You nuzzle into it and he feels like he could melt. “You’re basically going through puberty again at thirty. Not only that, but you've had a lot of big changes today. It’s only natural that you’re feeling emotionally overwhelmed.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I woke up this morning not knowing if I’d ever present and now not only have I presented but I have two scent matches… It’s a lot to process.” You sigh and subconsciously shove your nose into his chest, inhaling his scent.

“Speaking of that… Your other alpha is here…” You tense in his arms again and Steve lets out a puff of pheromones to try and calm you.

“He’s not my alpha.” You growl. “I don’t want him anywhere fucking near me.”

“It’s okay, honey.” Steve grabs onto your wrist, bringing it up so he can run his nose along it, the smell of chai tea and honey filling his nose. Your scent is much stronger than it was just a few short hours ago.

“He’s in the lobby losing it because they won’t let him see you. He keeps telling them you’re his omega but there’s no documentation of you being mates and you aren’t marked. They can’t just let any alpha back to see an unmated omega. Honestly once they see me in your bed I’m worried they might kick me out too.”

“I won’t let them.” You let out another little growl that Steve can’t help but think is adorable. “This might sound crazy but the thought of being away from you right now sounds like actual torture.”

“It doesn’t sound crazy, we might have just met but we were meant for each other. It’s normal for us to feel an instant attachment to each other. Being away from you sounds like torture too. I feel this overwhelming need to protect you.” Steve runs his nose along your wrist again and it sends shivers down your spine.

“You smell so fucking good by the way. Like chai tea and honey.” Steve chuckles gently. “Which is funny because I’m not a coffee person. I drink tea in the morning and at night. It soothes me and so does your presence. It’s fitting.”

“You smell so good too, doc.” Steve chuckles at the nickname. He might be goofy but as far as he can tell so are you and he already loves that about you. “You smell like fresh laundry, warm spring days, and perfectly sweetened lemonade.”

“Dr. Harrington, that is hardly appropriate! Get off that patient right now!” You and Steve are broken from your little bubble when your nurse comes in with an alarmed look on her face. You’re sure this looks bad, an unmated alpha in the hospital bed of an unconscious, umated omega.

“No.” You grip tightly onto Steve’s chest and wrap your leg tighter around his waist. Your body heats and you suddenly start to feel the same way you did in the chinese restaurant. You want to tear off all of Steve’s clothes and ride him like your life depends on it right in front of this nurse. “He’s mine.”

“It’s okay, I’m her scent match.” The nurse furrows her brows as if she’s assessing the situation.

“Why are you written down as her provider then? And why wouldn’t you mention that when you got here?” You know rationally that this nurse is just doing her job to protect you but that part of your brain that is starting to feel clouded wants to tear her eyes out because why is she so concerned about what your alpha is doing, does she want him for herself?

“It’s a long story, but the short version is that we didn’t know until I got here. She has a condition that made it so she didn’t present until now so she’s having heat spikes, which is what’s happening right now. But I swear on my medical license there’s nothing weird going on.”

“It’s the truth, he’s mine.” You muster up enough rationality to know you need to defend your alpha but it’s really hard to think about much other than his knot being buried deep inside you.

“Alright, well, in that case you can’t be her physician. But all of her tests came back normal so I’ll send in another doctor with her release forms and get you guys out of here as soon as possible.” The nurse scribbles something down on her clipboard before exiting the room.

“Don’t leave me.” You whine as you squeeze onto Steve and shove your face into his neck. You vaguely processed him saying something about heat spikes but you’re struggling to focus. You just know you can’t be away from him. “Come home with me. Need you.”

“I can do that, honey.” Steve caresses your back and politely ignores the way you’re subconsciously grinding down on his leg. Even if it does make his cock twitch in his pants. “I need to go by my place and get some stuff and then we can go to your house, how’s that sound?”

“Mhm, yes. I just wanna be near you.”

“Me too, sweet girl.” Steve sighs contentedly. “Do you want to sneak out the employee entrance so Eddie doesn’t see you?”

That snaps you back to reality right quick and you feel a rush of embarrassment over your behavior over the last few minutes. You can’t see Eddie like this. You aren’t even sure if you want to see him ever, despite the fact that your body is screaming to be near him. You won’t cave that easily. Not after everything. He only wants you because you’re an omega now. He abandoned you. He lied to you.

“Yes, please.” You whine and you want to slap yourself. God you’re a mess. “I’m sorry for-”

“Shhh, stop apologizing. Being an omega is going to take some getting used to, don’t be embarrassed. I’m here for you all the way.” Steve gives you that sweet, warm smile as he perfumes for you and you can’t help but swoon. “Let’s get you out of here and then we will figure the rest out together, yeah, omega?”

“Yeah.” You sigh dreamily. “That sounds good, alpha.”

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

You’ve been living with Steve for two months now. After the first night he stayed with you, you asked if he would stay for a while. And a week later you asked him to just move in. Your place was bigger and nicer than his so he had no issue giving it up. He brought his clothes, his extensive mug collection, and three full bookcases that now line the living room wall. It always felt like there was something missing there. He also brought his fat orange cat, Puff.

Being with Steve is as easy as breathing. There was no awkward phase, just a getting to know you phase. You wanted to know everything about each other. From your favorite colors to your mom’s middle names.

On days you both work, you get home around the same time and immediately get in comfy clothes. You cook together or order take out before curling up on the couch together. You watch each other's favorite movies, chat for hours, sit next to each other while you read. You’re even binging old Jersey Shore episodes together right now. You drink tea together and he cuddles up with you in your bed every night. But he still hasn’t fucked you.

There’s been lots of kissing and several make out sessions with heavy petting, especially when your heat spikes hit. But it hasn’t gone further than that. And you can’t help but feel like maybe it has something to do with you. Maybe he isn’t attracted to you physically, just your scent. And now he’s stuck with you. You want him so badly though. Especially since your first real heat is coming in the next few weeks or so. You want to be sentient the first time Steve fucks you.

You got off a little early today so you came home and took an everything shower, fixed your hair, and put on your sluttiest pajamas that could almost be lingerie. It’s a little pink silk tank top and shorts set with lace bordering.

Steve got home about an hour ago and he’s now in the kitchen, prepping dinner. In nothing but a pair of fucking grey sweatpants. They’re hanging low on his hips and there’s the tiniest bit of bush poking out of the top. It leads up to his happy trail and all the way up to his delicious chest hair. You swear this man is actually trying to drive you insane. You walk up to him and lace your arms around his waist. He smells so good you can’t help but nuzzle into the skin on his mole covered back and inhale his scent. You place a gentle kiss on his back and follow it with another. And then another.

“Hey beautiful.” You can hear the smile in Steve’s voice and his hand comes up to caress your arm that’s tucked around his waist. You continue your trail of kisses, letting them get gradually wetter and more open mouthed as you go. You’re trying to kiss every single mole on his back and connect them with your lips to form your own brand new constellation. You run your hands up his chest and back down as you press your body tighter against his back. “Mmm, that feels nice.”

“I missed you Stevie.” Steve twirls around in your arms and takes your face in his hands, giving you that smile that makes your insides melt. He leans down to kiss you gently but you lace your hands in his hair to pull his mouth against yours more roughly. You run your tongue along his bottom lip and he immediately grants you access, swirling his tongue with your own. You moan into the kiss and Steve grips onto your hips, pulling your body flush against his.

“I missed you too, honey, so bad.” Steve’s voice is breathless from your kisses and he leans down to shove his nose into your neck so he can scent you. You feel his cock start to harden against your stomach and you can’t help but grind against him. Steve groans before pulling back so he can look at you. “Let me cook for you.”

“Steve. Do you not want me?” You hate how vulnerable you sound but you’re tired of walking around not knowing. If he’s not attracted to you you’d rather find out now rather than later.

“What?” Steve gasps and his eyes blow wide. “Why would you even think that? Of course I want you, baby. I want you so bad it hurts.”

“Then why won’t you fuck me?” You can’t help but pout.

“Honey.” Steve runs his thumbs along your cheeks. “I just don’t want to rush you. I don’t want you to think I’m some meat headed alpha who feels entitled to sex because we are scent matches.”

“That’s really sweet and all, and I’m really glad that you respect me but I really need you to start disrespecting me before I go fucking crazy, Steve. I need you to fuck me before my first heat. I wanna be fully here for it.” You rub your stomach against his now fully hard cock and run your manicured nails down his back to prove your point.

“I’m also nervous, if I’m being honest. I know once I cross that line with you I’m going to lose control and I don’t want to scare you off…”

“Scare me off… how?” You raise a brow at him. You don’t know what he could possibly do to scare you off.

“With my um - sexual preferences.” Steve clears his throat awkwardly as he looks anywhere but you.

“So let me get this straight, doc.” Steve can’t help but smile at the little nickname you’ve given him. Your comforting scent fills the room causing his shoulders to relax.

“You’re telling me that I not only scored an alpha who’s hot as hell, a doctor, you’re goofy, smart and you’re a freak in bed? I think I scored the alpha fucking jackpot.”

“Are you sure?” Steve bites his lip as he looks down at you nervously. “I know I seem like kind of a boring guy but when it comes to sex…”

“Steve.” You giggle. “I want you to fucking tear me to pieces and fuck me like a rag doll.”

“Yeah?” Steve smiles down at you like you just told him he won the lottery.

“Yeah, silly.” You press up on your tiptoes so you can run your nose along his scent gland. “Why would the universe destine us to be together and not make us sexually compatible?”

“That’s good.” Steve laces his fingers through your hair and yanks your head back so you’re looking at him. “Because I’m about to fucking ruin you, baby.”

“Do your worst, Dr. Harrington.” You giggle and smile at him mischievously.

“Oh, now you’re just asking for it.” Steve chuckles as he uses his grip on your hair to spin you around so you’re bent over the counter. Steve leans over you, covering your body with his firm, strong form. He runs his nose along your scent gland possessively before brushing the shell of your ear with his lips.

“I don’t know how you could ever think I don’t want you. You smell so fucking good and then I come home to you wearing this? God, you’re so fucking sexy.”

“Mmm, thank you, Stevie.” You hum as you wiggle beneath him, grinding your ass back on his hard cock. Steve inhales your scent again and licks along the column of your throat before leaning back. He runs his hands down your body, letting the silky material of your pajamas caress his skin. He suddenly pulls his hand back and lands a harsh smack on your ass causing you to moan loudly as you jolt forward.

“I love this perfect ass. You’re so perfect for me.” Steve admires the way your back looks arched over the counter, the way that silk hugs your curves perfectly.

Steve spanks you again and is nearly hypnotized by the way your ass bounces in retaliation. He gives the other cheek the same treatment before taking the globes of your ass into his big hands and kneads it. He spreads you open and not only can he smell the rush of slick that drips from your pussy, he sees it wet that pink silk right before his eyes. A wave of your lust filled pheromones hit his nose and that’s when instinct truly takes over. Steve’s grip on your satin shorts tightens until they rip at the middle seam. The torn material falls down your legs and you aren’t wearing panties so it leaves you completely bare for him with your slick, glistening cunt on display.

“Steve! These are my favorite jammies!” You gasp.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’ll buy you new ones.” Steve gets down on his knees behind you and grips onto the backs of your thighs, pulling you open. Slick drips out of your pussy and onto the floor and he can’t help but growl at the fact that it’s going to waste. “But right now I’ve gotta fucking taste you.”

He shoves his face between your legs, running his nose along your wet slit, groaning as he inhales your honey-sweet scent.

Steve flattens his tongue, licking a long stripe from your hole to your clit. He sucks it into his mouth before bringing his tongue back down to swirl it around your entrance. He shoves his tongue deep inside of you and flicks it against your walls, practically scooping up your wetness.

“Oh my god, Steve.” You moan loudly as your back arches further and it shoves Steve’s face deeper into your pussy.

Steve feels like he’s going to go insane. He’s drunk on your pretty moans and your sweet taste. He could eat your pussy until your legs gave out if his cock didn’t feel like it was going to explode. He needs you to cum on his face first though. His lips wrap around your pulsing clit as he circles two thick fingers around your entrance before pushing them knuckle deep inside you.

“Fuck, that’s so good, you’re gonna make me cum.” Steve curls his fingers against your sweet spot while he circles his tongue around your clit and it has pleasure wracking through your entire body. If you weren’t bent over the counter you’d probably fall on your ass from how bad your legs shake. Steve pulls his fingers from inside you and sucks them into his mouth before licking up the slick that is dripping from your pussy.

“You taste so fucking sweet, just as good as you smell.” Steve mumbles against your skin as he peppers messy kisses on your thighs. He kisses your ass before sinking his teeth into it, not enough to break the skin, but enough to sting deliciously. Steve stands up behind you and pushes his sweats down his hips before kicking them off. He takes his thick, hard cock into his hand and runs his tip through your slick.

“Please Alpha.” You wiggle your ass against him and Steve lines up with your entrance before thrusting balls deep inside you and you both moan in unison at the stretch. He doesn’t give you time to adjust before he’s brutally thrusting into you. Steve grabs onto one of your hands and pulls it behind your back and the other comes up to press your head into the side of the cool marble countertop.

“I’ll never make you beg, baby girl.” Steve uses his grip on your hand and your for leverage as he pounds into you. “Unless you act like a fucking brat, then maybe I’ll make you beg for mercy.”

“Fuck, I guess I’ll make a note to get on your nerves sometime.” You chuckle but it morphs into a loud moan when Steve’s fingers lace through your hair and yank your head back.

“God, you really were made for me, huh?” Steve pulls your head to the side so he can shove his nose into your neck and greedily inhale your scent.

“Mark me.” Steve slows his thrusts to deep pumps of his cock inside you and pulls back so he can look into your eyes.

“Are you sure?” It takes literally everything in Steve to not just sink his teeth into your throat the minute you ask.

“Of course I’m sure, you’re my mate. Mark me. Make me yours forever.” Steve leans down and kisses you messily before yanking your head back to the side by your hair and sinking his teeth deep into your neck. It makes your pussy pulse around him as an orgasm crashes through you like a tsunami. Steve pulls back and licks the blood left behind from his teeth marks and then pulls out of you, manhandling your ass onto the counter. He pushes your legs apart and grabs onto his cock, thrusting back into your glistening cunt.

“Your turn.” Steve bares his neck to you and you feel like he just offered you the world.

You loop one of your arms around his neck and rest the other against his chest as you lean forward to kiss along his scent gland before sinking your teeth into his skin. You feel your bond snap into place and it’s like a piece of you that was always missing is finally a part of you. You can feel Steve in every fiber of your being and it makes you cum so hard your vision goes white.

“Oh fuck, I feel you everywhere, alpha.”

“Mine.” Steve growls and grips onto your thighs as the pace of his hips picks up. It only takes a few pumps of his cock to have him cumming right along with you. His cock twitches inside you, ropes of his cum spilling deep into you. Steve grips onto your face and kisses you deeply. While you’re kissing you feel his knot start to expand inside of you before locking in place. It makes you yelp out but it quickly morphs into pleasure as you cum around his cock a final time.

“Everything feels so right.” You sigh dreamily as you look into your handsome alpha’s eyes.

“Yeah, it really does. You’re fucking perfect.” Steve gives you that boy next door smile that makes you feel like a schoolgirl with a crush. “I’m sorry for knotting you right here on the kitchen counter though.”

“Oh my god, Steve! You’re such a fucking dork.” You giggle and swat his chest playfully. “One second you’re spanking my ass and ripping my shorts off my body and now you’re apologizing for knotting me. I could stay here all night, honestly. I’ve wanted this for so long.”

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

You’ve been doing surprisingly well not thinking about Eddie. Having a super hot, super funny alpha like Steve has helped a lot. But the closer you get to your heat, the more often your mind starts to wander to him. And more and more you start to feel like another piece of you is missing. It’s almost like he can sense it too because you don’t know how he found out where you live but he’s started sending you courting gifts.

A few days ago there was a knock on your door and when you opened it there was no one there, but, sitting on your doormat was a little black box. Your eyes immediately filled with tears when you opened it. There was a silver chain necklace with a little bear charm hanging from it. You didn’t need a card to know who it was from. Your Teddie.

Then the other day when you got home from work there was takeout from your favorite Chinese place sitting on your doormat. The place you passed out in just a few weeks ago. There was a note attached, that read: “I hope this is still your favorite.”

It wasn’t signed, but you’d recognize that messy handwriting anywhere. You’ve seen it a thousand times. Passing notes in class, doing homework together, notebooks filled with pages and pages of D&D campaigns. That combined with the fact that he remembered your Chinese order brought tears to your eyes all over again. It’s like he’s trying to make sure you can’t forget about him when you’re trying everything you can to keep him out of sight out of mind. Even if you are still stalking his socials.

Which you’re doing right now. You’re supposed to be working but you have a few minutes before your meeting with your new client so you took it upon yourself to pull up Eddie’s Instagram.

He hasn’t made any new posts but you look at the old ones like you haven’t seen them a thousand times before. His many pictures from Corroded Coffin shows, pictures of his hands and his toned, tattooed body. He’s so fucking hot it pisses you off. He posts pictures of his nice cars and his husky dog. God, the cats would hate that. You immediately scold yourself for letting your mind wander to thoughts of what it would be like if Eddie joined your little pack.

He hasn’t made any new posts but he did post on his story. A flyer for an upcoming festival, a picture of his lower stomach tattoo that has to be one of the banes of your existence because every time you see it you can’t help but imagine running your tongue across it. And lastly, there was a selfie of him with a caption announcing that he would be going live tonight at 8PM.

“Miss, your 1 o’clock is here.” Your assistant Lina pops her head into your office and you give her a small smile as you let her know you’ll be in the conference room shortly. You aren’t exactly sure who this new client is but your boss said it’s for a big record label. You take a final longing look at Eddie’s instagram before standing up, straightening your pencil skirt and walking out of your office.

As you pull open the door to the conference room you’re hit with a waft of deliciously sweet apple pie. At first you think your client brought an actual apple pie with him but when your eyes roam the room it only takes you seconds to realize the true source. Eddie fucking Munson is sitting at the head of the large table with a mousy looking beta man that you assume is with the record label. Your body immediately fills with rage at the sight of him.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” You laugh dryly. “Is this a fucking joke? You really think you can just walk into my work after ten years like it's just casual?”

“Princess, please just hear me out.” Eddie looks at you pleadingly and you can’t help but roll your eyes.

“Hear you out? Hear you out?” You scoff as you round the table so you can get in Eddie’s face. His scent distracts you but it doesn’t outweigh the anger you feel towards him. “You fucking lied to me Eddie. And you wanna know what that lie did to me? Not only did it break me into a tiny million pieces and make me question my sanity, your rejection suppressed my omega gene for a quarter of my life!! And now that I’ve presented you suddenly want me?! Fuck that!”

Eddie sits there wide eyed, his jaw nearly on the floor as he processes your words. “I didn’t - I didn’t know. I was just trying to protect you. What if I really did find my scent match and she didn't want a beta around? I thought - I thought I was doing the right thing… But I never stopped missing you.”

“I find that really hard to believe, Edward. You’ve been living out all of your wildest rockstar dreams, I really doubt that you’ve spent all these years thinking about some girl you grew up with.” You feel tears start to burn the rims of your eyes but you force yourself to keep them inside. He doesn’t deserve to see you cry.

“Sweetheart, you’re not just some girl to me. You never have been” Eddie looks at you pleadingly as he reaches for your hand but you snatch it away and he deflates. “Please, just give me a chance?”

“You want a chance? Bombarding me at my place of work isn’t the right way to go about it, Eddie. This wasn’t cool.” You shake your head frustratedly. “I can’t take this deal, I’m really sorry. I’ll have my assistant give you the card for our sister company and I’m sure they can help you out.” You look at the man who is awkwardly sitting next to Eddie in silence and shoot him a polite smile. “Have a nice day.”

You turn around to leave but Eddie calls your name and as much as you don’t want to give him the time of day you can’t help but look back at him.

“Please, don’t shut me out. I need you. I miss you. I’ll do anything.” The look in Eddie’s eyes and the way his shoulders sag make the omega in you want to curl up in his lap and shove your nose in his neck, anything to make your alpha feel better. But you fight against it.

“You don’t want me to shut you out, Eddie? Maybe find a better way to go about it than this.” You sigh heavily as you look into his eyes. “Thank you for the necklace, I’ll see you around.”

You turn and walk out of the room but not before Eddie’s eyes flash to your chest where he sees the little silver bear resting against your soft skin. You’re wearing it. Maybe there’s a chance for him yet. He will do anything and everything to prove to you that he wants you, that he’s always wanted you.

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

“Whoa, hey! What’s going on?” Steve’s eyes blow wide as he gets up off the couch to rush toward you. You pushed the front door open so hard that it slammed against the wall before slamming your purse on the kitchen island. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“He has some fucking nerve showing up at my job like that!!” You growl as you rip your coat from your body and throw it on the ground. “Who the fuck does he think he is?! Bombarding me at work after not seeing me for a fucking decade!!”

Your chest heaves as you kick your heels from your feet across the room. It only takes Steve a second to gather who “he” is. Especially considering how worked up you are. He can’t help but think you’re adorable huffing and puffing around like this. He’s also worried though.

“Baby.” Steve walks over to you and lets off a wave of his pheromones to try and calm you. It works a little, enough to get you to stop growling long enough to look at him. He rests his hands on your shoulders before running them up and down your arms soothingly. “Did Eddie show up at your work? Is that what’s happening right now?”

“Yeah! He fucking got his production company to set up a deal with my office just so he had a reason to see me!” You growl. “He just showed up after all these years, looking sexy as ever, smelling like a goddamn apple pie, with his stupid fucking face calling me that stupid fucking nickname he gave me when we were eight. Looking at me with those wet, pathetic, puppy dog eyes, ugh!!”

Steve can’t help but chuckle a little. He has to give Eddie props for creativity.

“I’m sorry he did that to you, sweet girl.” Steve hums as he leans down to kiss his mark on your neck and it lights up every nerve in your body. “But it kind of seems like you were a little happy to see him…”

“What?!” You gasp and pull back so you can look in Steve’s eyes. He’s smirking and you kind of want to slap him. “I was not happy to see him, Steve! I can’t stand him. It’s like you’re on his side or something.” You pout.

“Hey, don’t get it twisted. I am loyal to you first and foremost. At the end of the day I will do whatever makes you happy.” Steve takes your face in his hands. “If you want to give Eddie a chance, I support that. If you want to reject him, I’ll support that too. But I will say that I think you will regret the ladder. You’ll just be hurting yourself all over again if you reject him. I do think you should make him work for it though.”

“What did I do to deserve you, Steve Harrington?” You look at him with teary, wonder filled eyes. “You’re perfect, you know that?”

“I could say the same thing about you, my love.” Steve smiles at you sweetly before leaning down to nuzzle his nose against yours. “But I do think you should think about what I said.”

“I will.” You nod and press a sweet kiss to his lips. “I might have seen that he’s going live tonight when I was stalking his instagram earlier… Would it be weird if I tuned in?” You bite your lip anxiously.

“Not at all, I think he’d probably cream his pants if he saw your username pop up.” Steve smirks down at you. “Especially after that display today, it seems like he’s desperate for your attention. Throw the dog a bone. But like I said, make him work for it. You deserve the world, make him prove to you that he’s worth forgiving.”

Eight o’clock rolls around and you’re cozied up on the couch with Steve and the cats. He bent you over in the shower and ate you like a starved man before fucking you until you screamed. Eddie is supposed to go live any minute now and anxiously scroll through instagram while Steve reads his current book of the week beside you. You finally get the notification that he’s live and your hand shakes when you click on that little circle with his photo in it.

“Hey guys.” Eddie smiles but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes the way you remember. He looks so fucking good though. He’s wearing a tight black tank top, displaying his toned, tattooed arms. And his fluffy hair is up in a messy bun, like he just took a nap. You can’t see the lower half of him but he has his knee propped up in view of the camera and he’s wearing fucking grey sweatpants. What is it with these men in your life and grey sweatpants? It’s like they’re trying to make you a puddle of slick or something.

“It’s been a while since I went live. But I have a song I wanna share with you guys, I hope you like it.” You watch as Eddie pulls his acoustic guitar in his lap and begins to play.

He plucks the first few notes of the song with his skillful fingers before his voice joins in. It’s been a long time since you heard it like this. Corroded Coffin is first and foremost a metal band. Eddie’s harsh vocals and rough high notes are otherworldly, he commands every room he’s in and his stage presence is mesmerizing. You’ve heard every single one of their songs. You’ve listened to his entire discography back to back a hundred times and there’s maybe three ballads in total. Ones you secretly hoped were about you.

But when you were younger, Eddie would always serenade you with his acoustic. He’d sing to you on warm spring days while you had a picnic, or while you dozed off in his bed in his trailer. They were always songs about princesses and dragons. He wrote a few songs about all the reasons he loved you that could be passed off as platonic but were just barely teetering the line of something more. As he begins to sing you realize you recognize this song, it’s one of those songs that was about you. It’s different now though, it’s not borderline romantic, it’s a full blown love song.

Eddie sings about how beautiful you are, how easy being around you has always been, he sings about your late night milkshake runs to the diner and how his life would’ve never been the same without you. Even if you’re the only person in the world who knows it, he’s singing this just for you. To you. You aren’t sure if he knows you’re watching but the fact that he’s doing it even with the slim chance that you’d never see it means a lot to you.

You don’t even realize you’re crying until Steve’s thumb comes up to wipe away your tears. He’s watching over your shoulder and he doesn’t feel jealous at all. He feels like something is missing. Like he knows Eddie is supposed to be here with the two of you. He would never push you to do anything but he really thinks you should at least hear him out. Plus you’re not wrong, Eddie is hot as hell.

Eddie plays the last few notes of the song before leaning down to get a better look at the comments flooding in. They’re mostly people wondering who the song is about and girls thirsting after him. You can’t help yourself and you drop a little pink heart emoji. And you can’t stop the butterflies that start to flutter in your belly at the way Eddie’s eyes grow comically large when he sees your comment.

“To all of you guys asking who this song is about, it’s something I wrote a long time ago.” Eddie chuckles gently. “When I played it for her originally, I changed the lyrics around so it seemed a little less romantic because back then we were just two best friends pretending we weren’t in love with each other. This is the way it was originally written though. I’ve taken a few liberties since it’s been so long… But I didn’t change much.”

He takes a deep breath before looking directly into the camera and saying your name. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. I know I fucked up. Bad. But please, just give me a chance to explain? You’re not just my omega because of whatever cosmic bullshit that made us scent matches, you’re also my best fucking friend. I would choose you even if you weren’t meant for me. Even if you were a beta. Like I should’ve before. I was young and dumb but I love you and I’ll do anything it takes to prove that to you. I’ll go all the way to Mordor and back if that’s what it takes, princess. Just say the word.”

Eddie smiles at the camera gently before ending the live.

“Wow.” Steve blows out a puff of air as he looks down at you. There’s tears streaming down your pretty face in buckets and he can’t help but pull you into his lap. He runs his hands along your back soothingly. “That was… Are you okay?”

“I - I don’t even know.” You laugh but it turns into a sob. “I miss him so much but I’m scared, Stevie.” You tuck your face into his neck and inhale his fresh scent to help ground you a little.

“I know, honey.” Steve hums as he smoothes out the back of your hair. “But I think you’ll feel better if you just talk to him. And I can’t lie, I have to give him props for that, it was smooth as hell. I feel like even I was swooning a little.”

“Steve!” You chuckle as you swat his chest playfully.

“I’m sorry baby, but I have to admit, the man is pretty and talented.” Steve shrugs as you look at him in shock. You’re about to tease him because it kind of seems like he has a crush on Eddie but your phone dings a bunch of times in a row, distracting you. When you pick it up and look at it, you see instagram message notifications from Eddie.

“Thank you for watching, princess.”

“Please just give me a chance to explain myself?”

“I’ll be at the diner near your work tomorrow at 5PM. Will you meet me? Just to talk.”

“I was such a fucking idiot for letting you go. But I never will again, if you just give me a chance. I miss you so much.”

You read the messages and take a deep breath, throwing your head up toward the ceiling. You gather your thoughts for a moment before typing out your reply. As angry as you still are with Eddie, you know that you can’t live without him. If you reject your bond it’ll be like losing a limb and you’ve already lost him once.

“Okay.” Is all you type before hitting send.

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

“Are you sure about this?” Steve stops you by your shoulders to look into your eyes. It’s a little after five and you’re standing outside the diner Eddie said to meet at. You would’ve been earlier but you wanted to go home and change. You also decided last minute that you wanted Steve to come with you. You said no when he originally offered (without pressure of course because he’s perfect in every way) but after thinking about it, you realized it would be best to be upfront with Eddie about Steve. If he isn’t okay with Steve being part of your life, then he’s already ruined his chance. So it’s also a bit of a test.

“Yeah, let’s fucking do this shit.” You give Steve a determined nod before pressing a kiss to his lips and marching into the diner with your head held high. Steve watches after you for a second, you’re so fucking cute when you’re all fired up. Plus the way your ass looks in those shorts is almost criminal.

You look around the dimly lit diner. There’s black and white checkered flooring and retro art on the walls. The tables and chairs are a shiny red that perfectly matches the red and silver counter bar. You look around for Eddie and it isn’t hard to spot him. The diner isn’t very busy, there’s an old man sitting at the bar and a younger couple in a corner booth. And then there’s Eddie. Sitting in one of the large round booths, looking annoyingly irresistible. His hair looks like he just washed and styled it and he’s wearing a white cut off band tank that has his toned, fully tattooed arms on display. There’s a soft look in his pretty brown eyes when they meet yours but when they travel to Steve who has his arm resting on his lower back his lip curls up in a snarl. Shit.

“Who the hell is that?” Eddie’s voice comes out as a growl as you approach the table and stop a few feet away.

“This is Steve, he’s my alpha.” Your eyes shoot daggers at Eddie, challenging him to question you. “Is that going to be a problem? Because if it is, then we can just leave.”

“No, don’t go!” Eddie’s look softens again as he urgently shakes his hands in front of him. “I was just surprised, I’m sorry, please don’t go.”

“It’s fine. Me and Steve are a package deal though. There is no me without him.” You cross your arms, pushing your tits together in your little tank top and it makes Eddie’s cock stir. “He’s my scent match too.”

“God, I missed your sassy little self.” Eddie smiles at you and it takes everything in you to not just cave and forgive him on the spot.

“I really want to punch you in the fucking face, Eddie.” Steve bursts out laughing at that and Eddie can’t help the smirk that spreads across his lips.

“Well, if that’s what it takes for you to forgive me, I’ll gladly let you punch me in the face as many times as you want.” That makes you snort out a laugh, the tension between the three of you easing a bit. You slide into the booth next to him and Steve follows suit. Eddie’s crisp, warm apple cinnamon scent floods your nose and it makes you clench your thighs to try and hide the scent of the slick that drips into your panties.

“I missed you.” Eddie rests his forearm on the table so he can turn toward you and you have to physically rip your eyes away from his ringed hand spread out on the table. It doesn’t help that he’s still wearing the skull ring you got him back in highschool.

“I missed you too, Eddie.” You sigh as you look over at him with sad eyes and Eddie wishes he could kick his own ass for it.

“I’m sorry.” Eddie takes in a shaky deep breath as he closes his eyes, grounding himself before meeting your gaze again. “I was such a fucking idiot, princess. I really thought I was protecting you. I’d never hurt you just to hurt you. I didn’t know you’d just disappear from my life. I didn’t know I’d… I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t know it could happen. I’m so sorry I did this to you.”

His bottom lip quivers as he looks up at the ceiling to try and keep the tears in his water line from falling.

“You knew I loved you Eddie, you knew I had always imagined us together. In what universe would you telling me that you’d never want to be with me, that you found someone else, not be painful?” The wide eyed look of hurt on your face makes Eddie blink hard, a few stray tears spilling down his cheeks.

“If the roles were reversed, if I was an omega and you never presented as an alpha I would’ve stuck by you, Eddie. Yeah, my silly childhood dream was for us to be fated mates but that wasn’t all it was about. It was about you, about us, not just our designations. If you didn’t love me, you could’ve just said so, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble to lie in order to reject me. Or if you really did care that much about if I was an omega or not, if that’s what was make or break for you, maybe I just never really knew you at all.”

“No.” Eddie brushes the tears on his cheeks away with his ringed thumb. He doesn’t deserve to cry right now. “That is not how it is, at all. I’m just a fucking idiot. I loved you, I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my entire life. I got in my head, I convinced myself that shutting down any chance of us being together was the right thing. I thought if I told you I found my omega before I actually did, it would be easier for us both in the long run. I made that decision for both of us and that wasn’t fair, I should’ve talked to you first. But I didn’t, I smashed your heart into a million pieces. I gave up on you. You knew you were an omega, my omega, and I didn’t listen. I’m not any better than your parents and all those doctors. I failed you.”

“Yeah, you did.” You look over at Eddie with your brow furrowed, you want so badly to go off on him, be mean like you always planned. But now that you’re here? Smothered between His cozy autumn and Steve’s fresh spring scent, you feel at home, you feel complete. Steve’s hand finds your bare thigh, his thumb gently caressing your skin, grounding you with his presence in the way he does. You peer over your shoulder at him, he gives you a reassuring nod and it gives you the courage to go on.

“You broke me, Eddie. You shattered me into a million pieces. Not only did you break my heart, you broke my mind too. Every single word of doubt and discouragement I’d heard in those years flooded me to the point that I questioned my entire existence. I knew I was an omega, I knew with every fiber of my being. But no one believed me. Not even the one person who was always there for me. So maybe it really was just all in my head, huh?” You shake your head as you chuckle dryly. “Doctors deemed me mentally unwell and delusional. I was forced into rehabilitation therapy and they wouldn’t let me stop until I finally just lied to them and told them I knew I was a beta, that I was ready to let my ‘fantasy’ about being an omega go. Even if I never truly believed it. Do you have any idea how hard that was for me?”

“God fucking damn it.” Eddie groans and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. “That’s fucking disgusting, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. I wish I had words for how fucking sorry I am. I never should have left you. It was the worst thing I’ve ever done and I completely understand if you want nothing to do with me for the rest of our lives, I’ll respect that. But, god, it would kill me. I’ll do anything, anything to prove to you that I was wrong. I haven’t been happy since I lost you. I achieved my biggest dreams but it felt dull and grey without you. Nothing has ever felt right without you. I’d give it all up in an instant if it meant I could go back in time and spend it with you instead. I’m such a fucking dumb ass.”

“Yeah, you are.” You giggle as you look over at Eddie with tears in your eyes and he can’t help the goofy smile that spreads across his lips. “I never could stay mad at you, could I?”

“Nah, you can’t resist my dorky ass.” Eddie chuckles and he takes your hands in his before the look on his face turns serious. “I understand if you stay pissed at me though, you have every right to be.”

“Oh, I’m gonna be pissed for a while.” Eddie’s face falls slightly but you squeeze his hands to keep his eyes on you. “But, I quite like the look of the pathetic beggar on you, Munson, so I think I’ll keep you around.”

“Yeah? You’d bestow such a high honor on a lowly peasant like me, fair maiden?” Eddie’s eyes twinkle with hope and you couldn’t dream of crushing it.

“Yeah, dumby. But you better not fuck it up.” You roll your eyes and shove his shoulder playfully.

“Wouldn’t fuckin’ dream of it, princess.” Eddie smiles at you and it heats your entire body, a million good memories flashing through your mind.

“Kiss, kiss, kiss.” Steve whisper chants on the opposite side of you and Eddie doesn’t need to be told twice, he takes your face in his hands so he can pull your lips against his own. You’ve kissed Eddie before, a playful peck as children, that one time you learned how to make out by practicing on each other. But nothing like this.

Eddie’s lips feel like heaven as they mold perfectly against yours. Your entire body lights up like wildfire and you don’t think any amount of clenching your thighs could cover up the smell of the slick that drips out of you at his taste. Eddie’s tongue sweeps across your bottom lip and you open your mouth so he can slip it inside, your hands find purchase in his curly mane as you tangle your tongues together. You start going at it like horny teenagers, almost completely forgetting where you are until Steve clears his throat.

“You guys are really hot together and all, but we are in a public space and the pheromones coming off the two of you could send even a beta into a frenzy.” Steve chuckles at the way Eddie’s face turns bright red and you stick your tongue out at him. He thinks he could get used to this dynamic.

“Oooh, Stevie, you think Eddie is hot?” You wiggle your eyebrows at him.

“Honey, look at him.” Steve gestures toward Eddie with an almost lustful look in his eyes and the images of them making out that flood your brain have another wave of slick dripping from you.

“I think your boyfriend is hitting on me.” Eddie leans down to whisper in your ear loud enough for Steve to still hear. His warm breath fans out against your neck as his scent almost swallows you whole and you want him to sink his teeth into your mating gland right fucking here. “But that's okay because he’s pretty cute.”

“He’s so sexy, right?” You giggle.

The three of you bound easily, meshing together like the missing pieces of a puzzle. You order food, crack jokes, tell life stories. Eddie tells Steve what you were like growing up and Steve tells the both of you about how he was in highschool. All while you’re practically glued to the seat by the slick that’s now seeping out of your yoga shorts. You know this isn’t the time to be absolutely feral but the longer you sit here between them the more horny you get. They both smell intoxicating and their body heat pressed to either side of you warms you from the inside out to the point that you’re starting to sweat and overheat. But the thought of not being between them at this moment makes you whine deep in your throat.

“Whoa, honey.” Steve stops talking abruptly, his eyes searching your face. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I just - I was thinking about how we are going to have to leave soon and I got really anxious all of a sudden.” You tangle your hands together as you look down at your lap.

“Hey.” Eddie rests his fingers under your chin, tilting your head up so you’re looking at him. He smiles gently. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? As long as you want me, I’m yours.”

“That makes me really happy to hear, Eddie.” You smile back but it doesn’t reach your eyes. “It’s just right now the thought of walking away from you after this even just for the night, I don’t know, it just sounds really awful if that makes sense? God, is it hot in here?”

Steve’s hand rests on your forehead, checking your temperature. He observes the thin layer of sweat on your skin, how strong your scent is, the hazy look in your eyes. “Baby, I think you’re going into heat.”

“What? It’s probably just one of my heat spikes, I just need some fresh air-” Your words are cut short by a stabbing pain in your abdomen that makes your body bend in half. “Oh my god, ow! Shit, okay, maybe you’re right.”

“Fuck, should I go?” Eddie looks over your shoulder at Steve in a panic. The thought of leaving you right now disgusts him but he isn’t exactly sure where he fits in this puzzle yet. Steve’s eyes widen as he shakes his head slowly while mouthing the word “no”.

“No!” Your hands fly to Eddie’s arm in a panic, your nails digging into his bare skin from the strength in which you latch on. “Please, no. Don’t leave me again, Eddie, I need you.”

“Sweetheart, you’ve barely even forgiven me.” Eddie pulls your hands from his arm and takes them in his own, caressing your heated skin gently. His touch calms you a bit and slight embarrassment sets in at your desperation. “Are you sure? I don’t want to do anything you’ll regret when your heat is over.”

“I’m still upset with you, Eddie. But I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you if you don’t stay with me through this. I need you with me.” You meet his eyes, forcing the haziness from taking over just long enough so he can see how much you mean it. “I am still sound of mind enough to know that I want this, I want you. Please?”

“I don’t ever want to hear you beg me for a single goddamn thing, alright?” Eddie drops your hands so he can cup your cheeks instead. “I am the only one who should ever be begging for anything in this relationship. I will always give you what you need.”

The way his words mirror the ones Steve said to you before he fucked you the first time heats your body and your heart. A few months ago you were still a lonely beta and now you’re an omega, with two alphas that are devoted to you and your happiness.

“What if I’m a real bad girl and you have to punish me until I beg you to stop or let me finally cum?” The haze in your eyes returns as you look at Eddie lustfully, your bottom lip secured between your teeth. Steve and Eddie both groan in unison as a puff of each of their pheromones fills your nose, making you dizzy.

“Oh, jesus fucking christ.” Eddie’s cock feels like it’s going to burst out of his jeans and he really isn’t sure what’s stopping him from knotting and claiming you right here in this booth.

“Alright, we better get the fuck out of here before it starts getting pornographic.” Steve chuckles as he starts to slide out of the booth but you latch onto his arm with both of yours, stopping him. “Honey, I’m going to go pay and Eddie is going to take you out to the car, then we will get you home and give you all the knots you want, alright?” You let out a cute little growl as you clutch onto him tighter.

“Princess, it’s okay.” Eddie grabs your hands and gently pulls them off Steve. “Steve will be just a second, right Steve? And then we will all go in the same car together. We can leave Steve’s car here.”

“What? Why my car? I know the way there, I should be the one driving.” Steve raises a brow at Eddie.

“No offense dude, but, I saw your mom wagon and I'd waaay rather leave that here than my Lambo. You can drive, though.” Eddie pulls his keys from his pocket, points the fob toward his car to unlock it, and throws Steve the keys before picking you up bridal style and carrying you out of the diner.

𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑. 𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑.

It takes everything in Eddie to not sink his cock into your dripping heat in the passenger of his two seater. The drive to your house is only about ten minutes but you’re sitting on his lap and the material of his jeans is soaked through from you grinding your needy, slick dripping pussy against him. It doesn’t help that you’re pawing at his clothes while you look at him with big desperate eyes and your scent was so thick in the small space he felt high off of it. “Princess, the first time I fuck you is not going to be in my car, okay?”

“We’re almost there honey, only like one more minute.” Steve peaks over at you and he feels like his cock is going to explode out of his jeans.

When Steve pulls into the driveway he’s barely parked before he’s out of the car and speed walking around the front. He pulls the passenger door open and practically rips you from Eddie’s lap and speed walks toward the front door with Eddie close on his heels. Once you’re inside he heads directly for your room while you writhe around in his arms.

Steve throws you down on the bed amongst the various pillows and articles of clothing you’ve been arranging there for the last week. Your skin is flushed and covered with a sheen of sweat and your little pink yoga shorts are completely soaked at the crutch, making them a shade darker. You’re breathing heavily, making your tits bounce in your little top and the look in your eyes is feral. Eddie comes to stand at the end of the bed with Steve and your knees subconsciously fall to your sides, causing a strong wave of your arousal to waft through the room.

“Please?” You whine as you look up at them with glassy eyes, they’re both so fucking hot. Steve in his tight white t-shirt that you can just barely see his chest hair through and his thick cock straining against his jeans that always seem to mold perfectly with his body. His chestnut hair is tousled and his hazel eyes are almost black as he stares down at you hungrily. That goddamn cut off shirt Eddie is wearing shows off his tattoo covered arms and it hits just above his belt, giving you a delicious view of his happy trail and slutty lower stomach tattoo. His ripped black jeans fit looser on the bottom but they’re tight in all the right places. Like his ass and his big fucking cock that you’re dying to see, his zipper looks like it’s going to burst and you kind of hope it does. Also they both smell so fucking good it’s making you more dizzy than you already.

A stabbing pain shoots through your abdomen causing you to cry out. “Please fuck me? Bite me, knot me, fill me with cum until I’m so full it just keeps spilling out and then fill me some more.”

Steve’s nostrils flare and he breathes out through his nose almost like a bull. He rips his shirt over his head so fast you hear a tearing sound and tosses it on the bed among the various clothing items already there. His large hand wraps around your ankle and he pulls you to the edge of the bed until your calves are hanging off. He grips onto the top of your shorts, ripping them in two with such ease you’d think they were a piece of paper. When he sees you’re not wearing panties, your glistening, puffy cunt on full display for him with your honey-sweet scent flooding his senses, he loses it.

“Mine.” Steve growls and drops to his knees in front of the bed, throwing your legs over his shoulders and shoves his face between your legs. He runs the tip of his nose through your folds, inhaling deeply. He flattens his tongue and licks a long stripe from your hole to your clit, he circles your bud a few times before bringing his tongue back to your hole so he can taste your sweet nectar. Sweet fucks you with his tongue, sucking your clit and shoving his tongue as deep as it will go inside of you until you’re coming apart for him. Your back arches off the bed so far he has to pin you down and your slick drips down his chin and neck as you cry out his name.

“Fuck, that’s a beautiful sight.” Somewhere amongst your orgasm haze you hear Eddie’s voice and it has another orgasm hurtling through you. Steve fucks you through it before standing up and riding himself of the rest of his clothes. Eddie comes to sit beside you on the edge of the bed and your pussy clenches around nothing at the sight of him. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”

“Need you.” You reach for him as another shooting pain stabs through you but he grabs onto your hand, lacing his fingers through yours.

“I know, sweetheart.” Eddie pushes some of your hair out of your face and runs a ringed finger along your temple down your jaw. “But it’s only fair that I let Stevie here have you first.”

“I think I just might like you, Munson.” Steve smirks at Eddie as he grabs onto one of your thighs and throws it around his hip. He cups your pussy, grinding his palm against your pulsing clit so he can collect some of your slick. Steve takes his shaft in his wet hand and pumps it a few times before lining up and burying his cock inside you in one rough thrust. Your pussy greedily sucks him in, the feeling of his cock easing the stabbing pain coursing through you. He pulls almost all the way out before slamming back into you and starting up at a rough pace.

“Oh, fuck yes.” You moan loudly as Steve practically uses your pussy as a cock sleeve, you hear a zipper next to your head and when you look over you see Eddie pulling his cock from his jeans as he watches the way Steve slides in and out of you, the sounds of your slick filling the room. His ringed hand slides between your legs rubbing against your clit. His palm rests against your mound as he spreads his fingers down the middle and runs them down either side of Steve’s cock that’s nestled inside you. He slides his fingers up and down a few times, gathering your slick as his rings rub against the soft skin of Steve’s cock. You watch Steve’s face for his reaction and when you see the way he’s looking at Eddie with fire in his eyes it makes your walls clench around him.

“I think I might like you too, Steve.” You tilt your head to look at Eddie and he has that shit eating grin that you know all too well plastered on his face. He pulls his hand from between your legs and uses it to lube up his cock before gripping onto it so he can stroke himself.

“God, that was so hot.” Your words are slurred and you have this hazy look in your eyes but that doesn’t spot you from returning Eddie’s smirk with one of your own. “I wanna see you guys kiss.”

“Yeah? Maybe one day, honey.” Steve grabs onto your thighs and throws them over his shoulders as he pumps his cock into you, the new angle has the head of him pressing right against your sweet spot and it makes your pussy clench like vice grip around his cock while you come undone for him. “That’s a good girl, cum all over your alpha’s cock.”

“You’re taking him so well, baby girl.” Eddie cups your cheek gently as he looks down at you in awe. He’s stroking his cock leisurely while he watches you, scared he might bust his nut at the sight of you like this if he gets too carried away. “I can’t fucking wait to be inside you, how does she feel, Steve?”

“So fucking good, so fucking tight and wet. Her pussy is fucking perfect.” Steve moans as he leans over you, his hands coming down on either side of your head with your legs still thrown over his shoulders, practically folding you in half like a pretzel.

“Yes! Oh my god alpha, that’s so good.” Your hands grip onto Steve's forearms, your nails digging into his flesh deliciously. “I’m so close, choke me, Eddie.”

“Jesus Christ, are you for real?” Eddie groans and his cock twitches in his hand.

“She’s deadly fucking serious, our omega is a little masochist.” Steve chimes in for you.

“God, I’m so fucking obsessed with you.” Eddie licks his lips as he brings his free hand to your throat. He wraps his thick ringed fingers around your flesh before squeezing just tight enough to obstruct your air flow. You pussy spasms around Steve’s cock as another ogasm has euphoria over taking your entire being.

“I’m gonna fucking cum.” Steve moans as he pushes himself up to stand again, he grabs onto the back of your thighs and pushes them to your chest as he fucks you like a wild animal. It doesn’t take long for his cock to pulse inside you as ropes of his cum fill your walls.

“Knot, alpha, give me your knot. Need it.” Your mind is so foggy it feels like silent hill has taken up residence there and all you can think about now is how badly you need Steve’s knot inside you. You don’t have to want long because as soon as he stops cumming you feel the head of his cock inflate inside you. There’s a stabbing pain that’s quickly replaced with otherworldly pleasure, your eyes roll into the back of your head and your body probably would’ve flown off the bed if Eddie’s hands didn’t come down to pin your hips. It feels like it takes you forever to come down from your high. But when you finally do, Steve grabs onto you so he can pick you up just long enough to lay down on the bed on his back with you straddling him.

“Mmm, you feeling any better, honey?” Steve’s knot is still nestled inside of you and he runs his hands down your hair to your back where he traces little circles on your skin with his fingertips. You feel the mattress shift and when you peel your tired eyes open you see a now shirtless Eddie propped up on his elbow the bed beside you.

“Yes, a little.” You nod, your cheek rubbing against Steve’s sweaty chest hair. “But, I need Eddie’s knot too.” Your bottom lip juts out as you look over at him with puppy dog eyes.

“And I’m going to give it to you, sweet thing.” Eddie hums. “As soon as Steve’s goes down, I’m all yours.”

After about ten minutes you feel Steve’s cock start to soften inside you, his knot unlocking from your walls. You’re so wet he slips out of you once he’s fully soft and Eddie wastes absolutely no time ripping your body from Steve’s and throwing you onto your back. He hovers over you on his knees and the sight of him all tattooed and now fully naked makes you whimper. He runs two of his fingers through your slit, gathering your slick and Steve’s cum onto them. He brings them to your lips, smearing the wetness across them like lipgloss.

“Taste it.” You oblige him, taking his thick fingers into your mouth until his rings hit your lips. You swirl your tongue around, your eyes rolling back with a moan at the taste of you and Steve together. Eddie pulls his fingers from your mouth and leans down to lick your lips before kissing you hard. He runs his tongue along your bottom lip and you open your mouth so he can slide it against yours. He tangles your tongues together before sucking yours into his mouth and pulling off, a string of spit still connecting you.

“Damn, you guys taste delicious together.” Eddie smirks over at Steve with his wet mouth and it has his cock hardening again already.

“Are you flirting with me, Munson?” Steve raises a thick brow at him, returning his smirk with one of his own.

“I thought it would be obvious by now.” Eddie chuckles.

“You guys are super cute and all but I feel like I’m getting stabbed and if you don’t fuck me soon I’m gonna lose my shit.” You look between them, a devious little smirk of your own finding your lips. “Unless you guys are gonna kiss, then I can wait for that.”

“Well, what the princess wants…” Eddie leans over you to grab the back of Steve’s neck so he pull his mouth against his in a hard kiss. Steve’s hands find purchase in Eddie’s hair and their lips move together roughly. Their mouths open and you see their tongues dancing with each other messily. It’s messy and rough and it looks like they’re fighting for dominance.

“That’s the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” Your voice has your alphas breaking their kiss and their attention directed back to you. “Maybe I can watch you guys fuck someday.”

“I’m sure you’d love that.” Eddie chuckles before wrapping his hand around your throat and squeezing. He leans down so his face less than an inch from yours, his hot breath hitting your face. “But right now, you’re fucking mine. I have waited so long for this and I’m about to fuck you until you can’t walk for days.”

“Do it. Fucking ruin me, Eddie.” It’s like you said the magic words because Eddie grips onto your hips so he can flip you onto your stomach. You push yourself up onto your hands and arch your back so your ass is in the air for him. His hand comes down on your asscheek hard, his rings biting your skin. He gives the other cheek the same treatment before thrusting two thick fingers inside of you.

“You’re so fucking wet.” Eddie groans as he pumps his fingers in and out of you at a fast pace. You clench around his fingers, your orgasm just in reach, but he pulls his fingers out of you, taking your orgasm with him.

“Hey! I was about to cum!” You whine.

“I know, baby, but I need you to cum on my cock.” You feel the tip of Eddie’s cock slide through your folds before his slams into you in one thrust and starts to fuck you with no remorse. “Oh fuck, you’re so tight, oh my god.”

“You feel so fucking good, alpha.” You bounce back against him, meeting his thrusts the best you can. Eddie’s hand smacks your ass again before he roughly grips onto your hips as you fucks you like his life depends on it.

“Damn, you’re right, that is a beautiful sight.” The sound of Steve’s voice has your head whipping toward him and you moan at the sight of him. His hair is a complete mess, his skin is shiny with sweat, including his glistening chest hair, and he’s jerking himself off. “You look so fucking gorgeous, baby.”

“So gorgeous.” Eddie agrees as he wraps your hair around his hand, he pulls it so hard it makes your hands raise off the bed. He snaps his hips into you over and over again, the sound of skin slapping on skin and your slick practically echoing off the walls.

“Bite me, Eddie.” You lean your head to the side, bearing your neck to him.

“Fuck, princess, are you sure?” Eddie’s thrusts slow for a moment as he looks down at you, hesitantly. He shoots Steve a questioning look and the other alpha gives him a reassuring nod.

“I’m so fucking sure, I’ve wanted it for as long as I can remember, I’m done waiting.” Eddie growls, pulling out of you and pushing you onto your back and slamming his cock back into you before you hardly have time to miss it.

“You’re mine, baby, you always have been, and now you always will be.” Eddie presses his hand under your head so he can cup the back of your neck before leaning down and running his tongue along the column of your throat as he pulls his cock almost all the way out of you and then he bares his teeth, sinking them into your flesh while he slams his cock into you rough and deep. Every nerve in your body feels like it’s on fire and you have the most mind blowing orgasm of the night. Eddie pulls away and looks at you like you just gave him the world, because you did, you’re his everything.

“My turn. Where can I…?” You look over Eddie’s inked form, there isn’t much left that isn’t tattooed but as you’re looking for a spot to bite him, you spot an empty patch of skin right on the side of his neck, underneath one of his neck tattoos. You run your finger along it as you look into his chocolatey eyes. “Is this spot okay?”

“Of course, that’s your spot, remember?” Eddie cups your jaw and runs his thumb along the apple of your cheek. You try to search your foggy mind for what he’s talking about but you’re coming up short. You give him a puzzled look as you shake your head gently. “It was right after I presented when we were sixteen, we were sitting in the back of the van at the lake. It was a hot ass hell summer day so we went swimming and you brought lunch for us because you’re just always prepared like that.” Eddie chuckles fondly. “I was shirtless and had just gotten my first chest tattoo for my birthday and you look at me dead in the eyes, pointed at that spot on my neck and said ‘I know you want to be covered in tattoos one day, but you better always leave this spot open for me to mark’ and so I did.”

“Eddie’s that’s-” You eyes well up with tears as you look up at the man you’ve loved all your life. He’s so beautiful, his button nose, those plush pink lips, those sweet chocolate eyes that assured you on your worst days. You lost him, and you were so angry at him for it. But now he’s here, inside you, with a beautiful patch of porcelain skin that he kept bare for the last seventeen years, for you. “I fucking love you, Eddie munson.”

“And I fucking love you, sweetheart.” He sends you that goofy smile that you love so much and you wrap your arms around his neck pulling him down so you can sink your teeth into him. A second shockwave buzzes through your body as you feel your bond with Eddie snap into place, an unexpected orgasm taking you by surprise. “I’m glad we covered that because I’m going to fuck the shit out of you and knot you now.”

“God, you guys are so cute.” You hear Steve gush beside you and you smile over at him sweetly.

“I love you too, Stevie.” Your eyes don’t stay on him for long because Eddie rolls onto his back, pulling you with him so you’re straddling him. He plants his feet on the mattress and grabs onto your ass as he fucks up into you hard and deep.

“I love you honey, get that knot.” Steve chuckles and you suddenly feel like he’s too far from you. Your sweet, handsome, dorky doctor.

“I wanna suck your cock.” You pout through the moans that are falling from your lips like a song from the way Eddie is fucking you.

“Anything for you.” Steve crawls over to you and presses himself up on his knees, planting one foot on the mattress. He grips onto the back of your head and pulls you down to his cock. You open your mouth and Steve doesn’t waste any time thrusting into it, hitting the back of your throat and making you gag.

“Goddamn, princess, look at you.” Eddie groans as he continues to thrust up into you, using his grip on your ass to bounce you even faster up and down on his cock. “You’re such a good little omega, taking us both so well.”

“Mhm, you’re such a good girl.” Steve moans at the feeling of your lips wrapping around his cock, your tongue running along the vein on the underside of his shaft. His hand palms the back of your head as he starts to fuck your throat. Eddie’s thumb finds your clit and it has your eyes rolling in the back of your head. Steve’s fingers lace through your hair, yanking your head back and his free hand wraps around your throat. “Look at me while Eddie makes you fall apart on his cock, I wanna see the look in your eyes while he takes what belongs to us.”

“Give your alpha’s your cum, cum on my cock, baby.” Eddie’s words are what teeters you over the edge. Your walls practically swallow his cock and it has him cumming right along with you. Eddie growls as his thick cock pulses cum into your wet cunt.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum too.” Steve’s grabs both sides of your head in his hands as he fucks your mouth until his balls twitch and he’s cuming in ropes down your throat as he stares deeply into your eyes. “That’s it, omega, swallow every drop.”

“Shit, yes.” Eddie’s knot pops inside of you causing you to pull off Steve’s cock with a cry. The pain turns into another orgasm, your body going rigid as you fall forward on Eddie’s chest. You lay there, sweaty and panting as you come down from your high. Once your heart rate starts to even out you feel how right everything feels. You can feel your bond with Eddie and Steve both and you finally feel complete. Steve lays down on the bed next to you, looking over at you sweetly while he gently caresses your back. And you’ve never felt more at home than you do right now, wrapped in their fresh lemon and warm apple scents.

“You did so good for us, omega.” Eddie sighs contently as he presses a kiss against your sweaty forehead. Your mind feels a little less foggy than before but you know it won’t be long until you’re a knot hungry monster again.

“You’re amazing, honey.” Steve leans over to kiss your lips sweetly. “I’m gonna go to the store and get supplies for the week. Two knots won’t be enough for long.”

“You’re leaving?” Your brow pinches and you feel a sudden rush of panic hit you.

“Just for like thirty minutes, baby, I’ll be back as soon as you can. Eddie will be here with you. It’ll be good for you guys to have a moment to yourselves.” Steve kisses you again before getting up to get dressed. Eddie smiles up at him, mouthing thank you and Steve shoots him a wink. That makes Eddie blush even though they just made out less than thirty minutes ago. All three of you are definitely looking forward to exploring that more. Steve leans over to kiss your head again before leaving you and Eddie alone.

“I’m truly sorry, sweetheart.” Eddie sighs. “I’m so sorry I deprived us of this for so long.”

“Yeah you really fucked up on that one.” You chuckle, pushing yourself up so you’re sitting, his knot still nestled inside of you. You smile down at him fondly as you take his face in your hands. “We have it now though, for the rest of our lives, and that’s all that matters. Holding onto that pain won’t do us any good.”

“I’m not worthy of you, I love you so fucking much.” Eddie pulls you down so he can kiss you deeply, pouring all his apologies and love into this one kiss that makes your head spin and your pussy clench.

“I love you too, Teddie.” You giggle, resting your forehead against his. “I’m glad we covered that, because I’m really fucking horny again and your knot just went down.”

Eddie chuckles at you throwing his earlier words back at him before throwing you on your back. He leans over you, sending you that smile that you never want to go another day without seeing. “Alright then, let’s feed the knot monster.”

Taglist: @eddiesxangel @eerielamb @moonlightseranade @lesservillain @take-everything-you-can @phantommoondoll @frombeyondthegravez @ali-r3n @sugasweettea @minniture @micheledawn1975 @bellalillyrose @bakusquadobsessed

Dividers by: @anitalenia & @strangergraphics

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