#and is just holding out for that one possibility

[spurbleu]

the way to the his heart is...

if you make johnny laugh, he’s in deep trouble. intentionally or not, bringing a chuckle out of that man will have him asking for his grandmothers ring. think he’s used to being the comedian of the group- almost always the one breaking tension, or carrying the conversation. and frankly, part of him can’t help it. but if you allow him, at least for the length of a joke or a retort, to be on the receiving end of laughter? he’s a goner.

traditional in nearly every sense of the word, john’s stomach and heart are essentially the same organ. cook him a meal and he’s renovating his kitchen so you’ll have more room when you move in. especially loves taking brown paper bags you make him to the office, and softening at your sticky note hearts. missed it dearly when deployed, but he’ll follow the smell of baking from across the world if it means getting to tell you “love it, darl’” over dinner one more time.

simon isn’t the first person you’d pin a comforting presence on, so imagine his surprise when you start searching for it anyway. running your nails across his neck as you slowly wake, holding his arm on a crowded train, returning from work and burying yourself in his chest. the microscopic, subconscious efforts to be as close as physically possible to him makes him melt. don’t even know you do it, but the fact your first instinct when searching for calm is to find him forces his hand and puts him on one knee.

the first time he caught you wearing one of his shirts, kyle thought he might just propose then and there (it had been 3 weeks). finds the ‘getting ready’ routine to be extremely endearing- especially if he’s involved. dressed in his sweats, peeling off the morning and swallow another day. there’s a specific vulnerability in it- allowing him to see you both at your start and your end. pulls him into the other room without resistance when you offer to fix his jacket.

special thanks to @goatgoesmbe for the help with gaz <3

[butyoudidthis4what]

Quiet

Widower!Jack Abbott x Widow Single Mom!Reader

19.9k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: sick baby; sick mom; mentions of needles; inaccurate medical knowledge/descriptions/tests etc.; reference to past pregnancy; reference to past miscarriages but no graphic descriptions, just a mention they occurred (reader does not actively experience one in the fic); Jack was in the army; reader's husband was in the army and died while deployed; discussions of IVs and needle sticks; reader gets an IV and is not afraid of needles; mild description of IV insertion; shy reader; discussion of possible peanut allergy; mentions of covid, influenza a and b and RSV; mom guilt; discussions of loss of spouse; lots of grief and self hate for a bit; Jack is vaguely suicidal and ideating at the beginning; healing; reader and jack are human and not perfect and make mistakes; reader can't cook; baby is a boy but is not named; DOMESTIC JACK

Summary: Widower Jack and widowed single mom Reader meet in the Pitt when Reader's baby gets sick. What follows is healing, patience and becoming ready.

A.N.: Inspired by this ask. This was so inspiring and I went totally off the rails. There will for sure be a part two. I really wanted to do something with Jack being a widower but was unsure of how to. This ask came in and the idea came to me and I felt like it was a good way to work with that piece of him. The beginning is quite emotional, I'm not going to say angst, there's just a lot of emotions and sadness and grief as we define Jack and Reader's reality. I PROMISE that the end gets fluffy and happy and (I hope) funny! Part two will be more fluff with a dash of emotion sprinkled in as we watch their relationship develop and the two get their happily ever after together!

You make it to about ten before you decide to go in. It’s not a long drive and by 10:15 p.m. you’re parked and walking into the ED.

You bite your lip and bounce just a little to help keep him asleep in your arms while the woman behind the plexiglass processes your insurance and co-pay. She gives you a warm smile, says to take a seat and it’ll be just a few minutes and they’ll get you back. 

Thanking her you grab your cards and do as she says. You’re surprised by how quiet it is. There’s a few people in the waiting room but it seems more like they’re waiting on people as opposed to be seen. Small mercies, you suppose. You’ll take what you can get. 

You can only imagine what you must look like right now, how bad you must look. You wish your husband was here. Wish he had been here for it all. He’d reassure you. Tell you that you were doing the right thing by coming in. Better to be safe than sorry. You can hear him telling you it. 

A call of your last name dissolves his voice playing in the back of your head. You follow a nurse back and get settled in a room. All the basics are done, everything you expected. And like you expected the second you set your son down so that his vitals can be taken he starts to cry. It makes you want to cry. 

Bridget reassures you that it’s okay, is quick taking his vitals so you can get him back in your arms and calm him. You know you must look like a mess, hair messed up, eyes reflecting how exhausted you are and the lack of sleep, wrinkled clothes that have at least one stain somewhere, probably more. And you’re sure that your face reflects how you feel inside, how frazzled you are, how guilty, how scared, how upset, how sad, how out of control you feel. 

Bridget dims the lights for you and leaves you to hold your son against you in the hospital bed. “I’ll have a doctor in as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” you murmur, “and I’m sorry for being kind of a mess. Well, not kind of at this point.” 

She just laughs. “I understand, but trust me, you’re doing just fine.”

You manage to give her a small smile back and nod. She walks out and then it’s just you and your son. Like it always is. Your husband isn’t here, he’s never going to be here. His absence is pronounced as you lay in a hospital bed in an emergency room with your sick nine-month old. You do your best to not think about it because if you do, you’ll lose it.

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

He’s missing her tonight, more than usual. Maybe it’s not so much that he’s missing her more than usual but he’s more aware of how much he always misses her. It’s more acute. Like some flareup of a chronic illness. Thinking in medical terms helps.

He knows he shouldn’t do that, try to understand it like it’s some illness he can study and understand. It’s just grief. It’s just there more than others some days. Sometimes he can articulate why and others he can’t.

Tonight he can’t. 

He bends his thumb inward and puts it on his wedding band, thumbs at it so it rolls around his finger. Nervous habit. That’s what he calls it now. When she was alive it helped ground him, reminded him she was there and he’d be going home to her, could make it through whatever was in front of him. And then she died. So now he tells himself it’s a nervous habit because he doesn’t know what the fuck else to call it. 

To those who don’t know him he still looks like a husband subtly using his wedding band to ground himself or remind himself of his wife or because he’s thinking about her and so he’s subconsciously playing with his ring. 

If only. 

Jack inches a little further and looks down over the ledge of the roof. The ground looks so inviting from the roof sometimes. It would be so simple. He could be reunited with her, if such a thing was real. 

Sometimes though he wants to be selfish and not care how she’d feel about it because she, unlike him, isn’t around anymore to feel fucking anything. Sometimes his grief comes out in anger because she got it fucking easy, she didn’t have to lose him, she doesn’t have to be here, doing all this feeling while alone. He always hates himself after that even though his therapist says it’s normal. But he’s stuck here and has to do the feeling because when he tried to bury the feelings he nearly self-destructed. 

So Jack stands on the roof. Stands and feels. And Jack is tired. Tired of feeling. At least like this anyway. 

He knows she’d hate it, hate him walking off the ledge of the roof so he doesn’t. Not tonight. 

Instead he slips back under the guard rail and leans against it, lets his head fall back and the chill in the air bring him back down. 

It’s too quiet, he realizes. Maybe that’s why his awareness of how much he misses her is so high right now. He likes noise. Keeps his mind quiet. The Pitt is too quiet. Even the City as he stands on the roof. And so his mind is loud. 

It makes him uneasy. There’s always a reason for silence. For quiet. It always means something. Always brings something. Rarely, if ever, is it good.

Jack lets out a heavy sigh and then leaves the roof, heads back down to the Pitt hoping to find something to do. He’ll take anything at this point. “There you are,” Bridget greets him as he walks back in. “Sick nine-month old waiting for you,” she nods at your room, tells him your son’s name, a general overview. “Baby doesn’t seem too bad. Mom is stressed.” 

Jack nods, says a quick “thanks,” as starts walking towards your room. 

He looks in and sees you through the glass and stops. You are beautiful. Strikingly so. And Jack hasn’t even met you yet but feels like he’s known you forever, is drawn to you. It feels like he just understands you, or maybe more like he knows you’re going to understand him. It’s the strangest feeling. 

You start to glance up from looking at your son and Jack quickly resumes moving, knocking slightly on the door since you’ve already seen him and walking in, shutting the door behind him. “Hi, I’m Dr. Abbot,” he introduces himself. 

And god, now that he’s in your space, in here with your energy it’s even more intense. It’s like he’s supposed to know you, supposed to have met you. Like some kind of palpable fate in his brain. He briefly wonders if he’s hallucinating because this is not shit he really believes in, not normally. 

Quiet, Jack thinks. It always brings something. Or maybe someone. 

“I hear we’re not feeling well.” He looks down at your son who is asleep in your arms, head on your chest. “Mom, right?”

You nod, tell him your name. Nearly trip over it because this man is so handsome it is unfair. Then you feel bad the second you have that thought. But then you start to feel pulled to him. He’s just comforting and you struggle to understand how because you don’t know him. It feels like you do, but you don’t. You’re drawn to him. You feel like you actually need to know him. Like he and you are here for a reason. 

You immediately chastise yourself for having those thoughts. Your husband, you remind yourself, your husband. He’d have wanted you to move on, to grieve and then find someone. You don’t even have to assume that or just think it. You knew it. You knew it because of that fucking video he left you that you were never supposed to have to see. 

You bring yourself back into the present. 

“What’s been going on to bring you in?” Jack asks as he logs into the computer and pulls up your son’s chart. He glances over at you and catches a look in your eye. Jack thinks you feel it too. Whatever is between you and him, the connection. It feels like you know it’s there too. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.

You tell him what’s been going on, symptoms your son is showing. Jack alternates between typing on the computer and looking at you. “I, um, I called the nurse hotline, you know, on the back of the insurance card before I came in, I really didn’t want to waste your time, I know you guys are so busy. She said that it’s probably okay to wait to get in with the pediatrician, but that if I was concerned I could go to the emergency room and I really tried to wait, I did, but I just, I don’t know. I felt like he sounded more wheezy.” You shrug at him, eyes round and showing how distressed you are, a hint of glass at them that suggests you’re close to tears. “It’s RSV season, you know? I mean I know you know. And god, I don’t want to be like, doctor WebMD or whatever, I trust you and your expertise, it’s just why I came in, they tell you about it so much at all the appointments and I, I don’t want anything to happen to him. But if you think this is too much you can just say and-”

“It’s not too much,” Jack cuts you off, nodding gently. “I promise. Better to be safe than sorry especially if you feel like he’s been a little more wheezy.” You nod at Jack who keeps looking at you intently. It makes you clear your throat and look away. But when he doesn’t say anything after a second you look back up at him. “You did the right thing,” he tells you when he catches your eye contact again. “Can I?” He gestures to your son. 

“Oh! Yes, yes of course! Here, let me get out of bed and lay him down.” You give a breathy laugh that reveals how out of sorts you are. You’re clearly thrumming with nervous energy, frenetic and flustered.

“No, it’s okay. You can stay, I’ll take him and get him on the end of the bed if that’s okay?” He holds his hands out to take your son. 

“Of course, yeah, whatever is easiest for you and best for him!” You gently pull your son from you and he starts to wake and fuss. “I’m sorry, he hates not being held right now and he hates being held by anyone but me it seems like sometimes, so he might not…” you trail your sentence off when Jack takes your son and he settles against Jack as they walk to the end of the bed. “Settle.” You sit up and cross your legs to give Jack more room. “I guess he likes you,” you laugh softly. 

“Good taste in people already,” Jack quips absentmindedly as he lays your son down. You give a soft laugh and the corners of his lips pull up. You get his humor. He likes that. Not everyone does especially when he executes it so stoically sometimes. There really is a draw there. 

Your son starts to fuss again and Jack can see you stiffen a little and start to look like you’re about to apologize. “It’s alright, little guy, I’ll have you back to mom soon.” He keeps a hand gently on your son’s tiny stomach and chest while putting his stethoscope on with one hand and rubbing the chest piece on the side of his scrub top for a few seconds to warm it up before putting it to your son’s skin. “I know, I’m sorry,” he murmurs in between listens, gently pulling your son up into a sitting position to listen to the back of his chest. “I’m the worst, I know, you can tell me all about it, won’t be the first or the last.” 

You sit there watching the whole interaction stunned. You don’t know why, you just never expected to get a doctor who would be so good with your son, with you. There’s something about him. Something you could never hope to articulate. You’re just drawn to him, he feels like some sort of kindred spirit which you tell yourself is crazy because you’ve known the man all of four minutes. 

Jack takes his stethoscope out and finishes his exam. “You have his clothes?” He glances up at you as you ask. 

“Hm?” You lean in a little towards him. Before he can repeat himself the words process. “Oh, yes!” You grab them from beside you. You’d taken them off earlier with Bridget so she and eventually the doctor could examine your son. 

“Thanks.” Jack grabs them from you and gets your son dressed again. 

“No, thank you. You… You didn’t have to do that.” The smile you give him almost reads embarrassed. 

“Least I could do for upsetting him so much by laying him down.” Jack picks your son up and brings him the few steps back up to you as you stretch your legs out again. Your son has already started to settle in his arms again. 

“So,” Jack reaches over for the rolling stool in the room and uses the pressure of his fingertips to slide it over to him before sitting down on it and rolling up to be closer to the midpoint of the bed so you can talk. “You’re right, he’s a little wheezy. Nothing terrible, but it’s there. His fever is still pretty low grade and I saw he’s about due for some acetaminophen, so we can recheck after we give him some more in a bit. Is RSV a possibility? Yes. So is a common cold. So is influenza A or B, so is Covid.” Jack can see you getting more panicky. 

“I…” You shake your head and look at Jack. “This is my fault.” Jack furrows his eyebrows at you and cocks his head a little. “I, I’m a single mom. It’s just him and I and I have to send him to daycare so that I can work and I don’t have any family around to help and I can’t afford a nanny, daycare is expensive as it is and I don’t want to have to send him to day care, even though I know that’s a normal thing and lots of parents do it and are good parents, are great parents, it doesn’t define how good of a parent you are, but I just think in this case, it’s me. I let him get sick. I exposed him. And I never wanted that, I really didn’t I just don’t have other options and it’s so hard and I spent months researching and touring locations to try and find the best one I could afford, but at the end of the day it’s still a cesspool of germs and I don’t know. I know that it’s mom guilt and daycare guilt and I shouldn’t feel that way, but I do and you know, nothing can happen to him.” You hold your son a little closer to you. You know if something happened to him you’d be gone within minutes. “Nothing can happen to him,” you repeat, a murmur. 

There’s a small silence and then you look up. “Oh my god,” you look at Jack horrified. “I just dumped that all on you and said all of that out loud. You’re a doctor. A busy doctor in an emergency room, you so do not have time for this, and god, fuck, it’s not even your job to listen anyway. I am so, so sorry.” You fight back tears because you are not doing this, you are not losing it here in an emergency room with your son in your arms. Because if one tear falls all of them will. 

Jack can see how you’re trembling. He noticed you were a little when he came in the room, noticed how chapped your lips were. 

“Hey, it’s all good.” Jack’s voice is soft and he tries to catch your eye to reassure you more but doesn’t force you when you avoid it. “I have time, you picked a good night, okay? And I know that nothing I can say will help with the guilt and I know you know but this stuff happens. They get sick. You did what you’re supposed to do, brought him in, called the hotline, monitored him closely.” You close your eyes for a second and take in a few breaths. He can tell you need to move on and not dwell here or something will open up that you can’t close and there is nobody who understands that better than Jack. “I don’t think anything is going to happen to him. I’m going to give you some choices, okay?” 

You finally look back up at him and nod, give him an apologetic smile. “Thank you,” you whisper. 

Jack nods. “First option is we give him some acetaminophen here and keep you guys here for a couple hours to monitor him and see how he does. That’s the least intensive option. Second option is the most intensive option. We test for RSV, rhinovirus, influenza A and B, Covid. That would be a swab test, one for all. We draw some blood and run a few tests just to check on everything. And then we do a chest x-ray to see if anything’s going on. Third option is a middleground. We start with the swab test. If it comes back positive for one we discuss more options. If it comes back negative then maybe we decide to do bloodwork. Choice is yours. None of them are wrong.”

You swallow hard. Your mind races as you try to decide. What if you make the wrong choice and something happens? 

“What would you do if he was yours?” You ask Jack, voice so, so small, so scared. Jack barely knows you but his heart aches for you. It’s like he understands you somehow even though he’s not a parent, has no reason to feel such a pull or connection to you. 

“Uh, wow, I… I don’t know,” Jack stutters a little because the question throws him so much. 

“I’m sorry if that was inappropriate, you don’t have to answer. I thought maybe you and your wife had kids and maybe that’s inappropriate too, god.” You cringe at yourself. But yeah. You’d noticed the wedding ring when he took your son from you. 

“No, no, it’s not inappropriate and we… I,” Jack looks almost pained. It’s familiar, the expression he wears. You feel like you know it well even if you can’t place it in the moment. “No kids,” he finally settles on, “I don’t have any kids. And I can’t say I’ve thought about… this, what I would do before.” He brings a hand up to his head and runs it through his hair before crossing his arms over his chest for a second before moving them back down to rest on his legs. “It’s hard,” he shrugs, and gives you an apologetic look. “The doctor in me who knows all of the possibilities says option two. But the doctor in me also knows that’s probably a bit overkill and that realistically option one is fine, and that option three is the best, that middleground.” He looks away from you and down at your son, studies your little boy whose small hand clings to your shirt. “I can’t say I’ve ever really tried to access the… paternal side of me,” Jack clears his throat, “not in a long time anyway. But I think I’d have to go option two, even though it’s overkill and involves a needle stick. I’d want the reassurance and to see the numbers and images.” 

You nod. “Yeah,” you say quietly and look down at your son. “Yeah, I think that’s what I want to do. I just needed, I don’t know. Not permission but… something.” You look back up at Jack and your eyes glaze over a bit. Something he recognizes, something he’s been told happens to him when he talks about his wife. His head tilts slightly at the thought. “Input.” You finally whisper. “I needed input.” 

Jack watches your bottom lip tremble and you bite it to stop it from doing so. 

Because you don’t have input. Your input is in the ground. Six feet in the ground. You never really got to have any input. Not from the one person whose input mattered most. 

And you don’t miss how you feel this connection to Jack and now he’s your input. Guilt and sorrow and grief and some vague flicker of anticipation slam into you. Anticipation is a new feeling, you haven’t had it since you gave birth. Even the way you phrased the question. Not what would he do with his child or if it was his kid here what would he do. No, you’d asked what would he do if your son was his.

You have to stop thinking about it.

Jack leans back a little and runs his palms down his thighs. “Okay, then that’s what we’ll do. I’ll go ahead and put in the orders for the tests and acetaminophen. You can go to x-ray with him and wait behind the door, the rest we’ll do in here. I can swab,” he says with a small smile as he grabs one of the testing kits they have out of the cabinet in the room. He quickly types an order into the computer.“But I’m going to have one of our nurses come and grab some blood. I’d do it but nobody wants that. They’re the best sticks in the place, I promise.” He gives you a small but reassuring smile. 

You can’t remember the last time you genuinely felt reassured by anyone’s smile. That’s a lie. You can. It was the last time your husband ever smiled at you. The thought makes the smile you give him in return falter a bit. Jack wonders if he did something. Said the wrong thing. 

Your son fusses a bit for the swab, but you’re able to help hold him still so that Jack can get it done as quickly as possible. He settles back easy enough. Bridget walks in with some supplies while Jack continues typing. 

Jack was right, Bridget is a fantastic stick and the needle is so small your son makes just a little whimper before resting on you again. You feel bad when you have to wake him a bit to give him the tylenol. His small hands rub at his eyes and he tries to move his head away but you coax him to it so easily, so naturally, Jack thinks to himself. “Thanks Bridget,” he says quietly as she walks out. 

“Alright,” Jack says through an exhaled breath as he finishes on the computer. “I’m gonna be honest with you,” he starts as he grabs some hand sanitizer, “I’m more worried about you, mom, than I am about the baby.” He turns to look at you as he sits back down on the stool, tilts his head at you. 

You blink at him, like what he said is still processing. “Me?” Jack nods. “I’m fine, I feel fine. I’m just maybe a bit tired because, you know, sick kid but… I’m fine.” 

Jack pushes his bottom lip out a little and pulls down, nods just a little. He doesn’t believe you. You know he doesn’t. “When’s the last time you ate?” 

You look at him again for a moment and for a minute Jack thinks he’s gone too far, overstepped, has been imagining everything he’s felt since he saw you. “Um,” you finally say. He realizes you’ve been trying to think when it was, not that he upset you or anything. “I, I don’t know, probably I had something for lunch, I’m sure.” 

“You’re shaking.” Jack points out. You furrow your brows, unsure if he’s right and if he is how he could possibly know that. “Hold out a hand.” You do as he asks and sure enough, you can’t keep it still. “When’s the last time you drank some water?” He gives you a look as he says it and tilts his head at you. “Your lips are chapped. It’s been a bit, I’d guess. You’re dehydrated.”

You look away from him, can’t decide if you’re uncomfortable with his scrutiny or if you kind of like it. It feels wrong to like it. 

“Listen, I’m not trying to be a dick, okay?” He goes to continue speaking and stops, what he just said hitting him. “I probably shouldn’t have said dick in front of a patient, so I apologize for that,” you laugh at that and shake your head telling him not to. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be doing this by yourself. But you have to take care of yourself for him, and again, I know you know that,” he holds his hands up, “I just wanted to say because I’m sure it’s easy to lose sight of, especially when he’s sick.”

You nod and let yourself look back at him. “Yeah,” you nod. “It is.” 

“So, game plan for you is to get some food and water in your system. What do you like to eat?” 

“Oh, wow,” you laugh a little. “Dr. Abbot, that is-”

“Jack,” he interrupts you to tell you, “call me Jack.”

“Uh, okay. Well, Jack, that is very kind of you but I’ll be okay, and I can grab something once we get home. I will grab something.” You try to give him a reassuring smile. “Promise.” 

Jack shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “No, you’re going to be here too long for that to be a deal. Between the x-ray and blood test results and monitoring him. Food and water or I’m going to create a chart for you and give you an IV.” He shrugs like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Like it’s something he would do for any patient. 

You both know he wouldn’t. 

In part because having this much time is a rarity, beyond a rarity even. In part because any patient isn’t you.

You open your mouth to speak a couple of times and then close it again. “Okay,” you whisper. 

“Great,” Jack smiles at you. “What do you like to eat?”

You look at Jack and you look so overwhelmed he starts to feel bad. “Jack, I, honestly?” you laugh, “I have no fucking idea. Like none. I don’t remember, I don’t have the ability to even pick.” You’re still laughing because it’s so fucking ridiculous. A simple question. And yet you can’t answer it. 

There’s a sorrow to your laugh that resonates with Jack. It sounds familiar. Sounds like his laugh sometimes. 

“Alright, well,” Jack laughs a little with you, keeps it light, “I’d say I can work with that but I think it’s really more like I’m gonna have to work with that.” 

You shake your head and cringe at yourself. “You must think I’m a disaster. God, I’m sure I look like one.” 

Jack presses his lips together and squints a little, shakes his head. “I don’t think either, nor is either true.” 

Jack leans back and it stretches his shirt against his chest, pulls it tauter. The outline of two familiar pieces of metal and rubber silencers becomes visible, just for a second. You’d been feeling a little better. Now you’re about to be sick. About to lose it. 

Your smile falls, and Jack furrows his brows, goes to ask if you’re okay. 

“Do you have dog tags in your pocket?” You glance down at his chest pocket. 

“Uh, yeah, yeah I do.” If Jack had stopped right there you would have been fine. You would have been able to breathe through it, shut yourself down emotionally, and kept it all in. But he doesn’t. And you’re exhausted and your baby is sick and your husband is dead. 

Jack pulls them out of his pocket and flashes them at you. Quickly, but long enough.

Jack knows something is wrong based on the look on your face and the way you stare at his dog tags and then his chest pocket when they’re back away. You start shaking your head, squeeze your eyes closed. “Hey,” Jack starts softly. 

You shake your head faster, try to say something but all that comes out is a soundless sob as you devolve into tears. Quiet ones because your son is asleep in your arms but big wracking ones nonetheless.

It clicks into place. The draw to you. Feeling like he understood you and you him. Recognizing the way your eyes glazed over just slightly. The familiar sorrow to your laugh. 

You’re a widow too. 

And if Jack was a betting man he’d put a whole lot of money on your husband being deployed when you lost him. 

Jack’s up quickly, grabbing the box of tissues and setting them on the bed near you while reaching for your son wordlessly, only a nod and gentle motion of his hands to offer. You’re torn between whether having your son out of your arms will help or hurt, but you know it’s not fair to him and that eventually he’ll wake up because of your sobs, no matter how quiet you are. 

Jack takes him from you and sits back down in one of the chairs this time, pulling it over to be closer to the bed and kicking the stool out of the way. Your son stays asleep as Jack settles him on his chest. He feels a bit cooler too, Jack notes.

“I’m so, sorry,” you choke out quietly between sobs, “you can give him back and go, this is, this is not your problem to deal with.” Jack doesn’t reply, just nudges the tissues closer to you. 

And so you keep crying. And Jack keeps holding your son. 

Eventually you cry yourself out and are so numb you’re left with just shame and embarrassment for doing this here, in front of Jack and your son. 

As the sniffles stop, you try to look at Jack but are too embarrassed. “I’m so sorry,” you repeat. “I’ll take him back and you can go.”

Jack stands up and hands you your son back. A wave of relief and calm washes over you at having his familiar weight back in your arms and on your chest. But there’s a pang of sadness too, you really thought Jack might stay. You don’t know why you care.

But Jack surprises you, sits back down and pulls his phone out for a second, sends off a couple of messages. He turns his attention back to you. “I’m gonna stay for a bit. The uh,” he struggles to find a word that won’t jinx everything, “patient census,” he makes a face when he says it like he can’t believe he just said those words, “is low tonight. I have time.” He lets out a long breath through his nose. “And you have nothing to apologize for,” he shakes his head slowly as he speaks.

You give him a slight smile at patient census and the look he pulls, a little nod and he doesn’t push for more. He gives you time. 

But after a while he puts it out there so you know that you can. “You wanna talk about it?”

You look at him and see understanding, feel like you’re really being seen for the first time since your husband died and you don’t know why Jack is the one. 

“I don’t know,” you whisper. Shrug at him with a watery smile. “I don’t know how to.” 

Jack nods slowly. Pauses for a moment and takes in a big breath he lets out, a little shaky. A shaky you feel like you recognize. “My wife died five years ago, so when I say I know what you mean, I promise I really do.” 

You shut your eyes and grimace as it all falls into place. The connection you felt with him. The pull. Why he makes you feel seen. 

“God I am so sorry, when I asked earlier, about kids and if you and your wife had any, I just thought with the ring, god I of all people should know better than that.” You shake your head at yourself. 

“You had no way of knowing,” Jack shakes his head. He looks down at his ring. Then to your ring finger which is empty. That deep set confliction and need to explain starts to rise. “I still wear it because… I think… It’s-”

“Hey,” you say softly. “You don’t have to explain. Not to anyone, and certainly not to me.”

Jack nods. You sit in the quiet for a few minutes. 

“I would probably still have mine on, but,” you sigh, “I guess it requires more backstory.” You pause to collect yourself. “Long story short is he was in the army. Scheduled to be deployed. Really short one. He was done after it too. Would have been out.” You take in another shaky breath. “We’d been trying for a baby for a while. I kept miscarrying. Little under two weeks before he was leaving I found out I was five weeks pregnant. And this one felt different. I had morning sickness. There was so much cautious optimism and he hated that he had to leave but he was supposed to be back in time for birth as long as everything went as planned.” You shrug. “He died when I was ten weeks pregnant.” 

Jack closes his eyes at that. His heart aches for you in the way only someone whose heart has been through that same loss can. 

“Yeah, pretty fucking sick of the universe. The one time I keep the pregnancy I lose the husband.” You wipe at your eyes with the tissue in your hand. “Anyway, late pregnancy my hands swelled up. Rings didn’t fit. I had to take them off. And once I had him and knew they would fit again I couldn’t bring myself to slide them back on. He was supposed to be the one to do that, you know?” Jack nods. He gets it. “So I think that’s probably the only reason I’m not still wearing mine.” 

“It’s not been five years though,” Jack points out. 

“There’s no timeline on when to be ready and take them off. I’m the newbie to the widow game here, but even I know that.” You give him a lopsided smile and Jack lets out a little laugh. 

“No timeline to any of it.” Jack offers. You raise your brows and lower them, nod as to wordlessly say true. 

You’re interrupted by Bridget bringing in some water and food for you. It’s obvious something has happened between the two of you and that you’ve been crying. “There’s an incoming,” she says quietly to Jack. “ETA four. We need you.” He nods. 

Bridget steps out and Jack stands up, puts the chair back and looks back at you, rolls his eyes. “Patient census comment coming back to bite me in the ass. Shoulda known better.” 

You let out a small laugh. “I thought it was very Scottish Play of you.” Jack smiles at you. “I’m sorry it didn’t work.” He walks over to the door and puts his hand on the door handle, pauses, thinking.

Jack turns back to look at you. “What’s done cannot be undone,” he says with a little smirk. 

You laugh almost properly at that. It makes you feel, maybe not totally happy, but okay. It’s been a while since you’ve felt either. 

“Oh wow, okay, well go get ‘em Lady Macbeth.” Jack laughs softly, more of just a smile with some air breathed out of his nose as he shakes his head a little at you. 

He doesn’t say to eat and drink the water and that he’ll be back to check on you. He doesn’t need to. You know.

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

A few weeks pass. Your son recovers without incident. You can’t stop thinking about Jack. Jack can’t stop thinking about you. He has to talk himself out of looking up your info in your son’s chart and going to stop by and make sure your son recovered okay. 

You get sick. Really sick. You finally get your son down for a nap and stare at the piece of paper Jack had given you as you left. 

“Here,” Jack hands you a slip of paper with his name and number written on it. “If you ever need anything, call me, okay? If you need help fixing something at home or someone to watch the baby for an hour so you can grab a shower, or for however long it takes you to get your hair done, or whatever. Don’t hesitate to call.” Jack swallows. He doesn’t know how this part is going to go. “Or, you know… just call me.” 

You look up at him wide-eyed. “Oh, wow,” you laugh nervously, “wow Jack, I am so flattered, truly. But I just,” you look away from him, suddenly somehow even more shy, like the man hasn’t seen you sobbing and snotty and is still interested in you. “I’m not ready. I don’t know when-”

“That’s okay,” Jack nods, “I just wanted to put it out there. But still. I want you to call if you need something, okay? I respect your answer and so if you call I’m not going to expect anything or badger you about it or try and force it on you. I just want to help.” He looks to the side for a moment and then back at you. “One vet helping an active.” 

You feel so bad about it, are so conflicted. But you could really, really use some help. So you text him, tell him it’s you. 

You - Are you at work? 

J - No. 

J - Everything okay? 

You - Did you just get off work? 

J - No, string of off days. 

You chew your lip as you pull up his contact and stare at the number. You just tap randomly at your phone and let the universe decide. If it calls him then it calls him, if it doesn’t then it wasn’t meant to be. 

It calls him. 

“Hey,” he picks up on the first ring, sounds concerned, “you okay? Baby okay?”

You clear your throat and he can already hear it, is already standing up to throw on some real clothes and grab supplies. “Baby’s great.” He cringes at how bad you sound. If you feel as bad as you sound he’s genuinely astounded by how you’re taking care of a now ten-month old while being so sick. “Me, not so much. You said to call and I… I didn’t want to and I know this is so unfair, but I don’t have anyone else and I could just really really use an hour to get a shower and tidy a few things up.”

You need more than an hour to shower and tidy up, you need to sleep for as long as you can, Jack thinks to himself. “Text me your address.” 

There’s a beat of silence. “You sure?” You ask him, give him an out. 

“Positive. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? Within the hour.” 

“Okay.” It’s so quiet he almost misses it. “Thank you.” 

“Of course. Text me, okay?”

“Yeah.” You hang up and do so. 

Jack stops by the hospital before he comes over, grabs a couple bags of saline, a couple of banana bags, and a few IV kits, tosses them in his backpack. Tells a raised eyebrows and confused Robby to tell Gloria to bill him for it and he’ll bill the hospital for the use of his supplies and tech during Pitt Fest before walking out. 

Then he stops by a grocery store, picks up some food and over the counter meds and then he’s on his way to you. 

The knock on your door startles you even though you know it’s just Jack. You open it and his eyebrows raise as he takes you in. You look like death warmed up. Maybe not quite that bad but Jack’s judgment of that is skewed because it’s you and he doesn’t like seeing you sick he has decided. 

“Hi,” you whisper as he walks in. “He’s down in his room, if you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on the monitor while I shower and then I’d really love to just tidy up a bit.” You move your hand to reference your living room and kitchen, both visible with the open floor plan. “It’s a mess. I’m sorry about that too, it’s normally not this bad.” 

Jack takes the space in. It’s not even that bad. It’s very sick single mom with a baby. Not dirty, just cluttered. He notes the sparse decoration, wonders if you moved after your husband died. “It’s really not that bad,” he tells you softly and takes the baby monitor from you. “Come here.” 

He steps towards you and you freeze, not sure of what to do. He just raises his hand and puts the back of it to your forehead. Jack flashes you a concerned look. “You’re burning up. Easily 102.”

You try to laugh it off but it just triggers a coughing fit. “I’m fine, it’s okay-”

“No,” Jack says firmly. “It’s really not.” He walks over to your couch and sets his bag down, slides the baby monitor into the pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a forehead thermometer and nods at the couch, asking you to sit down. 

You hesitate for a second, feel like this is too much and he’s doing too much and you should say he can leave, that he should go. But instead you go and sit on the couch. 

Jack scans your forehead and frowns when he looks at it. “102.8.” His eyes flick to yours and he can see you going to say something, and he knows it’ll be something like you’re fine or it’ll come down. “Look,” he turns the thermometer around so you can see the reading. “The light is red. There’s a frowning face. So please don’t say it’s okay and you’re okay.” His words are firm but compassionate and he isn’t condescending at all. 

“Well, once you leave if he’s still asleep, I’ll try to grab some rest.” You give him a weak smile. “Promise.” 

“Oh no,” Jack shakes his head. “No way. If I wasn’t a doctor and didn’t have supplies with me, you’d be going to the ED.” He starts looking through his bag. 

“Jack, this is really nice of you but unnecessary.” His eyes snap back to yours when he hears his name come off your tongue. He likes it. Too much. You said no, that you weren’t ready. But Jack can’t help how he feels, only on how he acts on those feelings. 

He ignores your protests. “Plan of care is to have you shower if you’d like. Cool, please. And then I’m going to give you some meds, get an IV in you and a banana bag going and you’re going to go sleep.”

“I, I really think just a shower and some tidying will help me feel much better.” Another half hearted protest. It feels good to have someone want to take care of you. To have a man want to take care of you. To have Jack want to take care of you. Those are all feelings you haven’t felt in a while, and they’re from Jack Abbot. And a piece of you hates yourself for that, especially when your eyes wander to the folded American flag displayed on a shelf. 

Jack tracks your eyes to it. “I’m not trying to overstep,” he starts to explain, “just, you’re a lot sicker than you think.”

“No, no, I know that, and you’re not, I’m just not used to it.” You try to find the word but it’s hard. “The attention, I guess. Or maybe the help. Pregnancy and labor and birth and coming home with a newborn while recovering were all alone, so it’s just… strange.” 

Jack shuts his eyes and lets out a breath. His heart hurts because he knows what that kind of alone feels like. He knows how hard it can be to survive and live with. And he’s never had to experience alone everything that you have. He hates that you were alone. He’s even more in awe of you, honestly, that you were able to. There’s a sense of pride too, one he knows he has no business having. 

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I really don’t-”

“I know that, Jack, I promise and you’re not, I’m just.” You shake your head and look away for a second. “A mess,” you laugh softly, manage to not trigger a coughing fit. 

Jack shakes his head a little. “You’re sick.” 

You shrug, take in as deep a breath as you can. “Okay,” you nod. He knows you’re acquiescing in his treatment plan. 

“Good.” Jack pulls his stethoscope out of his bag. “You mind if I listen to your lungs before you shower? Just to have a before and try to get a read on what it might be.” 

You nod at him. Jack places his stethoscope on your chest, is careful to hold it so that his hand doesn’t come into contact with you because he knows he already expressed interest and that you’re not ready and the last thing he wants is for you to think he’s using this as some weird chance to touch you or make you uncomfortable. “Deep breath.” 

Jack walks you through all the deep breaths he needs, frowning to himself a bit and not pressuring you when the deep breaths trigger your cough and he has to wait a minute to continue. The first time it happens his other hand automatically raises to go and rub your back but he catches it in time.

You don’t acknowledge it, don’t want to draw attention to it and in part don’t know how to react to it but you appreciate it more than he’ll ever know. He’s a gentleman. It’s nice and you really try to let yourself have that and let it feel nice without berating yourself over it feeling nice. But something feeling nice is so foreign and somehow feels so wrong. Like nothing should ever feel nice again because your husband isn’t here. 

“Yeah, those are junky,” he mutters as he puts his stethoscope back in his bag. “Wish I had brought a breathing treatment for you.” He looks like he’s thinking about how he could get one here. He pulls his focus back. “Shower?” 

You nod, stand up and start walking towards your room. “Hey Jack?” Jack looks up at you with raised eyebrows, body tensing just slightly like he’s ready to run towards you. “Thank you. And um, make yourself at home and help yourself to anything. I don’t know how much there is, but what’s there is yours.” You give a little nod and turn and walk off before he can say anything. 

Once he hears the shower running Jack takes a better look at the place. He finds it strange how certain parts feel like you but the overall place doesn’t in a way. It feels like someone scared to settle in, scared to make this space their own. It feels like his first apartment after his wife died did for a long time. 

He starts to tidy up, it’s really nothing major. He puts toys in the little toy bin you have, places the baby books on the floor on the bottom storage space of the table. He picks up the baby blankets and onesies laying around that he’s guessing need washed, sets them in a pile on a counter. He does the same kind of stuff in the kitchen, just picks up, wipes down. Again, nothing is dirty. It’s lived in. It’s a sick single mom with a baby who sets down an empty water bottle or paper plate and forgets to throw it away. He loads the dishwasher with the bottles and few plates and utensils in the sink. He’s not sure if what’s in there is clean or dirty but it’s fine, if it’s clean it can just get washed again. He waits to start it though, makes a note to do so later once you’re out of the shower and the hot water has had time to build back up just in case your water heater isn’t great.  

You let yourself stand under the water for longer than you probably should. You try to keep it cool like Jack said, but at some point right before you get out you let it get really, hot, just need to feel it, feel a little sterilized almost. You think about how Jack is here and doing all of this for you and what would your husband think and does this make you a bad wife. You try to get yourself to believe that your husband would be happy you’re getting help, would be happy Jack is a veteran and that you’re not a bad wife because your husband told you he wanted you to move on and find someone and it’s not like it happened yesterday. It’s been over a year. 

Once you’re out you slip on some modest pajamas, deal with your hair and put some lotion on your face, brush your teeth. You feel a little better, only because you feel clean, but still. 

Jack gives you some time once he hears the shower turn off. After a bit he knocks on your door and clears his throat. “Hey, um, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to start the IV out here in the living room or in your room.” 

Your chest clenches for a moment. You hadn’t even really thought about what it would mean for him to start it in here, just kind of assumed he’d come in and do it. But it means there would be another man in your bedroom. A man who is not your husband. 

He gives you a moment to decide because he knows the magnitude of the question he asked. 

You’re at war with yourself, but you know it’ll be better to have him do it here and have him figure out a way to get the bag to hang. “Um, you can do it in here, I guess. Unless you’d prefer to do it out there.” 

“Wherever is best for you.” There’s a pause as Jack waits for you to come over and open the door. You’re so zoned out sitting on the edge of your bed you don’t even realize. “Should I come in?” He finally asks gently. 

“Oh! Oh yes!” The way you breathe in at surprise and almost startle at having your zoned out thoughts interrupted makes you start coughing, so Jack slowly opens the door, trying to give you time to change your mind, walks in and over to you with his supplies just as slowly. 

He sets some stuff out next to you. “Shower help?” He cringes internally the moment he says it, hopes it doesn’t make it seem like he was thinking about you in the shower. 

“Yeah. Feeling clean has helped I think.” You watch as he gets everything ready. He has big hands, long and thick fingers that should make working with small pieces of medical equipment a bit difficult but they’re so dexterous and he has so much control over them that it’s not. Once you catch yourself daydreaming about his hands you look away, shame and guilt washing over you. 

“Take these, please,” Jack says softly, handing you a few pills and holding an open bottle of water. You nod and do as he asks. “Good gi-” He stops before he can finish, some pink flooding his cheeks. It’s adorable, you think. He’s adorable and he’s trying so hard to respect you and just be here as a friend helping you out. You also think about the reaction you know you’d have had if he finished the sentence. More shame and guilt. 

“How do you sleep?” Jack asks as he finishes setting the supplies for an IV up and kneels in front of you. You furrow your brows at him. “So I can put the IV in a good spot!” He rushes to explain. “Like if you sleep on your side I’ll put it on the top arm.” 

“Oh.” You think about it and tell him. 

“Hand please.” He points to the correct one and you offer him it. “Hands hurt more but it’ll be the best for sleeping. I’m sorry you’re stuck with me doing it.” He pulls a pair of gloves on. They fit nice and tight. Once he gets a tourniquet in a slip knot nice and tight around your arm he has you make a fist. 

You shake your head at him as you watch those long and dexterous fingers run over and feel the back of your hand a veins beneath your skin. Satisfied he found a good one he opens the alcohol swab and wipes the back of your hand, lets it dry for ten or so seconds while he grabs the needle introducer. He feels for the vein again and looks up at you. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” You nod at him. 

He’s quick with it. You like the expression of intense focus he gets as he does it. “Okay,” he draws the word out a little, slips off the tourniquet. “Needle is out,” he places a tegaderm dressing over it, “and we’re good.” He looks up at you. “You okay?”

“Barley felt it,” you murmur. 

Jack gives a little laugh. “It’s okay, you can be honest. My pride can take it.” You just give him a look. “I’m gonna flush it. Some burning and maybe a weird taste.” He doesn’t explain much, knows you almost certainly had one when you gave birth. 

He does and then stands up, looks around near the head of your bed. “I think I still have a really old coat rack in the spare room,” you volunteer, knowing he’s looking for a way to hang the bag. 

“That would be perfect,” he nods at you. 

“Second door on the left when you walk out.”

Jack steps out. He already knew that through process of elimination but he doesn’t tell you that. He went to the bathroom while you were in the shower, placing his ear by each door to figure out which room was the nursery. Left one room to be the spare room. 

He brings it in and gets it set up. You offer him a hanger to place the bag on and he smiles at you. You give him a little one back. 

Jack puts on a different pair of gloves and sanitizes everything before spiking the bag and priming the line. He hooks it up to your IV and sets the drip rate, keeps it fast enough to get what you need into you but slow enough so that you hopefully won’t have to wake up to go to the bathroom for a while because he knows you’ll likely fight going back to sleep. 

“You need something to help you sleep?” He asks, a touch of concern in his tone. 

“I think I’ll manage.” You give him another weak smile. 

“Figured,” he nods. He grabs everything off the bed making sure to keep track of where the used needle is and then walks to your door. “Rest well.” He nods at you again and then steps out, closes the door behind him quietly. 

You let yourself settle into bed, feel your heart slam against your chest with every beat as emotions whirl through you. Guilt, for having some kind of feelings towards Jack, for asking Jack to do this, for not being there with your son, shame, grief, embarrassment, anger at yourself for quite literally everything, and the faintest glimmers of hope, happiness, contentedness and a kind of longing which are all new and in turn fill you with fear. 

You’re right though, you do manage to fall asleep. And fast. There are a few times you think you hear your son crying but it stops quickly so you don’t fully wake up. Another few times where you swear you hear someone in the room with you and them whisper “it’s just me, go back to sleep,” when they notice you stirring. If they’re real you let yourself listen to them and drift back asleep. 

Jack is surprised at how long you sleep. He thought for sure with all the fluids he has been giving you that you’d wake up to go to the bathroom, but that must be how tired you are. He lets you sleep. You need it. And for whatever reason he really, really cares about you and doesn’t like seeing you sick. It worries him, if he’s honest with himself. Seeing you sick. He worries about you. 

When you do wake up it is because you have to pee. You turn the lamp on to get there and close your eyes and flinch away from it until they adjust more. It starts to come back. The IV. Jack. Jack watching your son. You grab the bag of saline and go to the bathroom before walking out of your room. You have to stop at the doorway because it’s so fucking bright, let your eyes adjust. 

It makes you realize how fucked up your sense of time is. You have no idea how long you were out and you hope you hadn’t been keeping Jack a prisoner in your place for too long. 

When you walk into the living room Jack is on the floor with your son, some soft blocks knocked over the floor, your son on his back and cooing up at Jack, giggling like babies do at Jack every time Jack leans down over him and tickles his belly with one of Jack’s large hands and makes a funny noise at him. There’s a dirty diaper on the floor next to Jack, empty bottle on the table. 

“You slept well, didn’t you little man?” Jack sits him up and keeps a hand on him, your son pretty good at sitting up by himself but still getting the full hang of it. Small hands reach out for Jack, trying to pull him close. “Oh yeah, and now you’ve had a bottle and have even more energy to burn, huh?” Your son giggles again as Jack takes him into his lap as he straightens his legs and rests your son’s feet on one of his thighs so that he can bounce as Jack supports him to keep him standing. 

It’s the cutest scene. It’s so adorable your heart aches. It’s all you ever wanted for your son. And that’s why your heart shatters at the same time. Because your son doesn’t have it. Not normally. Your son doesn’t have a father. You don’t have a husband, the person you should be doing this with. This scene is a total one-off, a byproduct of you being sick and needing help. You appreciate Jack and all he’s done and how he’s being with your son but that’s supposed to be your husband. 

That’s supposed to be your fucking husband on the floor with your son and it’s not. 

It’s Jack. 

It’s Jack and you don’t hate it. 

Quite the opposite. You like the sight. Would like to see it again. Would like to see Jack again. And that makes you feel a little sick and a lot guilty. But you don’t stop liking it or wanting to see it and Jack again. You tell yourself you don’t though, that you don’t want to see it again and don’t want to see Jack again. You lie to yourself. The turmoil threatens to tear you in two. 

You wipe a few tears away silently and then sniffle to announce your presence. You can get away with it because you’re sick. “Hey,” you say softly, make a face and try to clear your throat. “I’m sorry I feel like I probably slept longer than I meant to.” Clearing your throat didn’t help. You still sound awful, your voice totally going. 

Your son squeals when he sees you, arms reaching for you already. You smile down at him. “Hi baby,” you greet him in the best voice you can manage, grab him from Jack. “How’s my boy?” You tickle his tummy because you don’t want to kiss him and get him sick and it makes him squeal again and babble at you. 

Jack stands up and you notice there’s something off about the way he does, just slightly. You wonder if he suffered a back or hip injury while serving. He clamps the saline bag all the way and removes it from your IV so that you’re free. “What time is it? I hope I haven’t kept you here too long.” 

Jack looks at his watch. “9:17.”

You blink at him for a moment. The sun filtering in through the curtains assures you he means in the morning. You make a face like you’re trying to pour through past memories. “What time did I make you come over? It must have been so early, I, I didn’t even realize I’m so sorry.” 

Jack smiles as he steps around you and goes to set the bag on the counter, throw the diaper away and the bottle in the sink. He turns back around and leans against the counter, holds onto the edge of it with his hands. He already knows you’re going to freak out. 

“First, you didn’t make me come over yesterday. Pretty hard for anyone to make me do something anymore. Second, I got here sometime around 4.” Your confusion deepens. “P.m. Yesterday.” 

“Yesterday?” You look at him, stricken. “Oh my god, Jack, I am so so sorry! You should have woken me! I genuinely never meant to steal this much time from you and keep you hostage here, I am so sorry, I-”

“Hey, hey,” he steps closer to you but doesn’t touch you. “It’s okay. You have nothing to be apologizing for. I know I could have woken you and I never felt hostage here. I was okay with it.” He gives you a reassuring smile. 

You shake your head at him a little. “God, where did you even sleep? That awful couch? I know how bad it is, I’m so- I feel terrible.” 

“Don’t,” Jack laughs softly. “I promise you I have slept on much, much worse. How are you feeling?”

“I don’t…” You trail off because you haven’t really stopped to evaluate that. “Better I guess. Still sick but not as bad, at all.” 

“Good.” He takes another step closer and holds his hand up, gestures to your forehead. “Can I?”

You nod, still lost in thought and shocked about how you could have slept that long. “Good, fever’s still down. It broke during the night.” Your son reaches for Jack’s hand, one of his small hands wrapping around one of Jack’s large fingers. Jack lets him keep it and play with it, but steps back a little. “Shit, I promise I only went in there to change your bag and take your temperature with the thermometer.”

“No, no,” you shake your head. You hadn’t even thought to care about him coming into your room when you were asleep, hadn’t even realized that could be a line he might have crossed. “I just feel so bad.”   

“Please try not to.”

“I have to, you have to let me at least make you breakfast or something! You just watched my baby overnight for me.” You nod. “Yeah, let me make you breakfast, please.” 

“I’d like that,” Jack nods slowly, face pulling into a knowing look with a little smile because you’re adorable and going to be upset. “But I don’t think that’s going to work,” he shakes his head and then gently nods at the refrigerator. You know there must be nothing in it.

“Fuck,” you sigh. You turn your head and rest your cheek on the top of your son’s head as you try and think. He continues to coo and babble away, at Jack now, whose finger he still holds on tight to. Jack makes a little face of surprise and noise at him and your son laughs.

“Let me order something then, yeah?” You offer. You watch as Jack argues with himself in his head. Part of him wants to say no, he should get it for you, for no real reason other than he wants to take care of you, and part of him wants to say yes because he knows it’ll make you feel better. “Please.”

“Alright,” he finally nods.

“Okay, great!” You start looking around for your phone and find it plugged in and charging. It hits you then. How clean and tidy the place is. “Oh my god,” you mumble. 

“What?” The alarm in his voice is clear. 

“You cleaned.” You look around more. A laundry basket of folded onesies and blankets and other baby clothes on the loveseat. “You did laundry.” 

The realization sends you over some ledge you didn’t realize you were standing on. Your heart races. Your feelings are too conflicted. There’s too much turmoil. You know this is normal, have read about it, spoken to other widows who described what it was like to start dating again, start falling for someone. And you’re really starting to personally get it now. 

You don’t know what to do with it. And you know you’re not ready for it. But you can’t lie about it to yourself anymore and pretend that Jack doesn’t give you new feelings that you haven’t had in a long time and that you don’t want to let yourself feel them or at least try. Can’t lie to yourself that you don’t want to try and be ready for it. 

“I’m sorry if that was too much,” Jack says quietly, unsure of what exactly your reaction means. While he’s also a widow it’s a bit harder for him to put himself in your shoes. He didn’t have a baby to need help with while trying to grieve and find a new normal. 

“No, it’s not that.” Tears hit your eyes and you close them, hate that they’re happening. It’s the emotional overwhelm you tell yourself. The having someone do something nice for you. The having to accept help. The new feelings. So many new feelings from one man. 

But you know yourself well enough to know that it’s also the wanting, despite how much you try to bury it and lie to yourself. The wanting to let yourself give in to those new feelings. Wanting to let yourself enjoy the new feelings. Enjoy Jack. 

“Let me,” you hear Jack whisper, feel his hands get closer to you to grab your son who laughs in excitement at the prospect of being in Jack’s arms. 

You keep your eyes closed and then turn before you open them, walk over to get a tissue and dab at them. “It wasn’t too much.” You’re speaking to Jack but keep your back to him because you’re not sure how you’ll react if you turn around and look at him. “It’s just really hard. Everything is so fucking hard. Every second of every day is an emotion, every second requires feeling.” Jack understands that one too well. “And you get used to that. The emotions, the feelings become familiar. Because they’re constant. You know what they are, what to expect. You know the feelings. They hurt so, so bad, but eventually you realize that not having them would hurt more. Would be scarier. Because they’re your normal, they fill that void in your heart. What would you be without them almost controlling your life? And then one day a new emotion, a new feeling creeps in. And it’s paralyzing. You think it hurts worse in some way than not having the familiar feelings would, but you don’t know because you never get a second to not fucking feel. And it’s because it’s new and you don’t know what to do with this new feeling and it throws everything off and is another change and because it almost always feels so wrong, to let yourself feel something new, especially if it’s a good emotion. And I know you know this Jack, I know you know exactly how I feel, exactly what it’s like. I know you get me. I know you understand. And I like that. I think part of me needs that. To move on or whatever you want to call it.”

Jack’s heart rate ticks up. This is not at all where he thought this conversation was headed. 

You take in a deep breath and squeeze the tissue in your hand before turning to look at the unfairly attractive and smart and funny and caring and playful and stoic and dry humored and witty and kind doctor holding your son. 

“You make me feel so many new things Jack. So many things I never thought I’d feel again. So many things I swore to myself I would never feel again.” You swallow hard. “And I don’t know what to do with them. They paralyze me. Not for long because they send me straight back to guilt and shame and grief, right back to those familiar feelings. I don’t know how to have these new feelings you give me anymore. At some point I lost that. So I don’t know how to handle it. How to handle you.”

Jack’s numb. Frozen. He’s not sure what this means. He understands you because the first time he started dating and was attracted to someone he’d gone through the same thing. It was hard at first. To not feel guilty. To not revert back to the emotions you know well. He’s not sure what to say. He goes to say that he’s sorry and didn’t mean to cause you distress and will go but you start talking again. 

“But fuck Jack, I want to. I didn’t want to admit it to myself because it feels so wrong and because it’s scary and hard and makes me feel like a terrible wife sometimes. But I do. I want to know how to handle you and all the new feelings you give me, Jack.” His eyebrows raise slowly, his focus staying on you as your son starts to mouth on his finger getting saliva all over it, not phased in the slightest. “It’s just going to take time. I don’t know how much time. And I don’t think it’s fair of me to ask to wait for some unknown period of time.” 

“You’re not asking,” Jack says quickly before you can get out another sentence. “You’re not asking me to. I want to. But only if you want me to. You said that you weren’t ready, and I respect that. And you have to know that I didn’t come over here to help, or do laundry or tidy up because I was trying to pressure you or make you feel something or make you be ready or for anything other than just to help as a kind-of friend. You have to promise me that you know that.” 

“I do,” you tell him softly. “I promise.” You give a small laugh and little smile. “I think that’s actually the part that made me realize I couldn’t keep lying to myself that you didn’t give me new feelings and that I didn’t want to feel them. That I know you came here just because you wanted to help, help me, my son and my husband. And I know you did the laundry and tidied and stayed overnight to watch my baby so I could sleep just because you’re kind, and you saw it needed done so you did it, which is so army of you by the way, and not because you wanted it to mean something or make me feel bad for not being ready or pressure me or any other possible reason. You just… wanted to help.”

Jack smiles at that. Really, fully smiles and fuck if it isn’t one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen. You smile back at him. It’s clear that nothing more needs to be said. You both know that you’ll work on being ready and learn how to feel and how to handle it all and Jack will wait. 

“I never said I was army.” He smirks at you. 

“Didn’t have to.” You give him a small smile. Even after this you’re still so shy. 

You go and grab your phone. “What does that mean?” He asks, tracking you with his eyes. 

“What would you like to eat?” You ignore him. You know already that it’ll wind him up. 

“No, what does that mean? I have a tell?” You shrug at him. He narrows his eyes at you playfully.

“No,” you say as you hand him your phone so he can pick something and order and take your son from him. “It means you have a recognizable backpack.” 

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

Time goes on. You get better. You and Jack grow closer. You keep going to therapy, keep working on processing and figuring out how to handle the new feelings, how to stop feeling so guilty. Jack waits. Patiently. Never an ounce of pressure on you. He’s always so respectful, goes to great lengths to be so, immediately apologizes if he oversteps. And he does a couple of times because he’s human and nobody is perfect. But it’s okay.  

Jack’s injury comes out over breakfast that morning when he apologizes for having his shoes on in the house. You hadn’t even really noticed, too sick for it to register. He doesn’t tell you much about it which you respect and he’s grateful when you don’t push for more. That’s something he guesses he’s not ready for with you. Isn’t sure why though. He brings it up with his therapist. 

Jack is over more and more often. At first it’s to check on you and make sure you’re getting better because your cough lingers. And then somewhere along the lines it just became a thing. Normal. Normal for you to see him more days than not during the week. Normal for him to put your son down for the night. Normal for him to sleep in the spare room. Normal for him to cook for you and help feed your son. Normal for him to keep spare bottles of toiletries in a bin under the guest bathroom sink. Normal for black scrubs that didn’t get god knows what on them to be washed with onesies and blankets. 

Normal for him to bring five epi pens, multiple vials of epi, syringes with needles, an infant intubation kit and a cric kit to your house when you decide to introduce peanuts to your son. 

That one had gotten him an attempted, and skillfully dodged, third degree interrogation from Dana and Robby. 

You don’t touch. Not at all, save when your fingers brush if you hand each other something or when you take your son from him or vice versa. You’ll sit on the couch and Jack on the loveseat. There’s no flirting. It’s not that the attraction and draw to each other has faded, because it hasn’t. Not at all. It’s that you both know you need time and you both respect that. Jack perhaps more so than yourself, because you get mad at yourself about it sometimes. 

You do talk. A lot. About anything and everything because talking to each other is easy. It’s not work. Neither of you have to think of things to talk about or try and come up with something to keep the conversation going. It just does. And when it dies down the lull is comfortable. Then someone thinks of something or sees something on TV and it’s back. 

Eventually Jack is able to tell you a bit more about his injury, how it happened. The aftermath. He’s able to take his prosthetic off in front of you and leave a pair of crutches at your place for when he doesn’t want to put it back on. 

You talk about your spouses. Your therapist suggested it, thought it may help, to acknowledge both of your spouses and know about them. You approach Jack about it and tell him you don’t want an answer right away, you want him to really think about it and if he’s ready for that and willing to do that, and that he doesn’t have to say yes and that if he says no nothing will change. Both of you are aware it’s in a sense one of the most intimate things you’ll ever do with each other. 

Jack says yes though. And means it. He’s okay with it, comfortable with it. So one night after you get your son down you take the baby monitor, a bottle of wine and sit out on your apartment balcony and talk about them. You tell each other about them, what they were like, things they liked and disliked, funny stories. Jack tells you how he proposed and you tell him how your husband proposed. You talk about your weddings. 

You share photos you have on your phone, of your spouses alone and of the two of you together. You tell Jack his wife was beautiful, seems like an amazing woman who kept him on his toes and mean it. Jack tells you that your husband was handsome and knew how lucky he was to have you, that it’s obvious by the way he looks at you in the photos. You smile wistfully and get misty eyed together. But it’s nice, getting to know the other’s spouse, more about your past lives. It tells you a lot about each other too, as much as it does about your spouses.

You talk about how you each learned your spouse had died. There’s proper tears during that part, from both of you. It’s one time you do touch, and it’s brief, and you’re the one to initiate it, tentatively taking Jack’s hand and giving it a little squeeze when he gets a bit choked up. He squeezes back to let you know he’s okay with it. When you get choked up talking about your husband he holds his hand out over the armrest of his chair, just a little, just enough for you to know it’s there. You move yours over and let him squeeze your hand. 

You talk about moving after your spouses died. Jack tells you he just couldn’t do it. He needed space that was his own, where he couldn’t picture her in it and so he couldn’t expect to walk around a corner and see her. You tell Jack that you had to keep the curtain of the living room window closed all the time because the last time you looked out the window you saw that car pull up and two uniformed officers step out of the car, and just knew. And it made the place so dark it was bad for you so you sold the house and found this place. You admit that you haven’t been able to bring yourself to really unpack completely or decorate but aren’t sure why. The nursery being the only exception. Jack tells you that it actually reminds him a lot of how his apartment he moved into right after his wife died looked for a long time because he was scared to settle in and make a space without her because that wasn’t supposed to happen, he wasn’t supposed to have to do that. 

As more weeks pass you start asking Jack to help you hang things. At first it sends you flying backwards in your healing because you just asked another man to help you decorate your apartment. Jack doesn’t say anything for the couple of days you’re off with him because he knows and he knows you’ll work through it. He gives you the space you need without you asking for it. You work through it with your therapist and apologize to Jack who tells you not to, that healing isn’t linear, trust him, he knows. 

Jack watches your son for you sometimes during a string of off days so that he can spend a bit less time at daycare, especially if another kid is sick. Your son loves Jack, is enamored with him. And Jack is just as enamored with him. Is so incredibly good with him. It’s a place where you struggle a lot and that you and you and your therapist discuss frequently, how to cope with seeing Jack in that kind of fatherly role and acknowledge all the feelings it stirs up for you. 

One Monday, a holiday that you were supposed to have off, something comes up and you need to go into the office, but daycare is closed. You hesitate calling Jack because you feel bad asking him to do this, especially knowing he’ll be getting off shift and you’re asking him to stay awake even longer. You don’t even know if he’ll be able to, he might not get off on time, or he might have plans. But you call him much quicker and more decisively than you did when you were sick. 

Jack’s talking to Robby when he feels his phone vibrate. He thinks it’s weird to be getting called at 6:45 a.m. so he pulls it out to check. His heart drops when he sees it’s you and he walks away from Robby mid sentence. 

“Hey,” he answers on the second ring, “what’s up? Everyone okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah we’re fine. It’s just, work needs me to come in, not for too long, just a couple of hours, but I can’t bring him and daycare is closed with the holiday and I know this is such a huge ask because you’re getting off shift and will be so tired and I don’t even know if you’re getting off on time-” 

“Woah, woah,” Jack stops you. “Take a breath.” He can hear you do as he says. “I can watch him, okay? I’ll make sure I get off on time. And I often stay late so being up a few hours after my shift before he goes down is not going to be anything new.” 

“Okay. Yeah, okay.” You let out a breath. “You still have to let me cook or something for you.” 

“You don’t have to repay me.” 

“No I know, but still.” 

“Can I be honest with you?” Jack asks. 

“Of course.” Your heart races because you have no idea what he’s about to say. 

“You can buy me takeout. But you can’t cook.” You can hear the smile in his voice. 

You make a noise of offence. “I can’t believe you just said that! I’m offended. Genuinely offended.” But Jack can hear the smile you’re trying to hide in your voice and it just makes him smile harder to himself. 

“That I said it or that it’s true?” He’s smirking now. 

You huff and then there’s a pause. “That it’s true,” you admit begrudgingly, making Jack laugh. 

Robby has blindly swatted at Dana’s arm to get her to pay attention so that he doesn’t have to stop watching and so now both of them are staring and watching Jack go from extreme concern to laughing and smiling. It’s almost disconcerting. 

“I’m going to have to drop him off at the hospital to make it on time. Is that okay?” You’ve gotten quiet again. 

“Yeah.” Jack sounds a little unsure but not because of you, because of the two he can feel staring at him. “I’ll need a key. And I’ll give it back, I promise.” 

“Oh! Yes. You will need that, okay I’ll have to find the spare. And yeah, that’s fine, whatever is fine, I know you’re not going to use it randomly.” You breathe a laugh. “You’ll be okay with holding him on the subway? I wasn’t going to lug around the stroller, if that’s okay.” 

“We will be more than okay,” Jack assures you. 

“Okay.” You let out another breath in that way you do when you’re stressed but coming down Jack has learned. “Thank you Jack.” 

“Not a problem, you know that.” 

“Yeah, but still.”

“Text me when you’re here and come wait by the doors, I’ll open them for you, okay?” You’re thankful he doesn’t dwell. 

“Okay. I’ll see you soon. Bye.”

“Bye.” Jack hangs up and puts his phone in his pocket then turns and walks back over to Robby and Dana. 

“Everything okay?” Dana asks. 

Jack looks between the both of them. “Yeah. I’m leaving on time though.” 

“Ohhh,” Robby laughs. “Are you now? You just decided?” 

“Yeah. Did you notice how it wasn’t a question Michael?” Jack deadpans. “Just a statement of fact. I know these are big distinctions for you to make before you’ve had enough coffee.” 

“Deflection,” Robby hums, leaning forward a bit and still smiling like he can’t believe any of this even when he doesn’t know what this really is. 

Jack rolls his eyes at him and walks to a different computer to finish charting. Dana and Robby share a look but don’t push him. For now. 

Jack’s phone vibrates fifteen minutes later. You, saying you’re here. He walks over to the doors and pushes the button to open them, walks in with you a few steps, your son already happily squealing and babbling at Jack, reaching for him. Jack makes a surprised happy face at your son like he’s shocked to see him and takes him from you. 

Back at the desk Robby slowly removes his glasses as he watches the scene unfold, Dana peering over the top of hers like she does, everyone else slowly freezing once they follow Dana and Robby’s eyes to you and Jack.

“God, thank you so much Jack, I’m so so sorry.” You look stressed, frenetic and full of nervous energy that makes you even more unsure of yourself, not unlike the last time he saw you in here. He finds it adorable, so endearing.

“It’s okay. Truly. You’re going to have to believe me one day.” Jack gives you a small but reassuring smile. 

“No I know,” you breathe out. “I just… This is your work, I know. And I know you’re going to get a million questions based on the entire desk of people staring at us.” You shake your head a little as you try to find words. “And I know it’s hard to explain.” 

“Good job I don’t feel the need to explain it to any of them, then.” 

You laugh a little at that. “Yeah. Um, here.” You slide the backpack baby bag you have off and help put it on one of Jack’s shoulders. “There’s a key in the front pocket. He went down late last night and then I had to get him up early to get him ready to come here. Seeing you is the first time he’s smiled all morning. So he should probably nap earlier for you if I’m not home before then, and probably be pretty chill until he does.” 

“He’s always chill,” Jack smirks at you. “You know that.” 

“Let me make myself feel better, please,” you huff at him, clearly still flooded with nervous energy. 

“Alright,” he nods for you to continue but doesn’t lose his smirk. 

“He’s had a bottle, but that’s it, so he might be hungry when you get home, if he’s a little fussy.” You reach out and run your fingers through his soft baby fine hair to push it out of his eyes. “God he needs a haircut doesn’t he?” 

“Probably,” Jack nods. “But I’m sure-”

“That the thought of my baby needing his first haircut makes me want to sob because he’s growing up way too fast?” 

“Something like that,” he nods. 

“Yeah.” You run your hands through it and sweep it out of his eyes one last time, trying to calm some of the nervous energy that’s making you feel like you’re shaking. “Alright, I should go.” 

You lean up and kiss Jack on the cheek. By the time your feet return to the floor you’ve realized what you just did. 

Jack freezes, stunned, but not upset, not by any means.

“Oh my god,” you gasp quietly, holding your hands up in front of you to the side. “I just did that. Right here.” You close your hands into fists decisively, incredulous at yourself. “Okay, well,” you titter, “I’ve gotta go now, so thank you again so much, and let me know you guys make it home okay, and I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back.” You nod at a still stunned Jack, who then finally starts to relax a bit and lets a smile start to pull up. “Great. Okay.” You lean in and kiss your son’s face. “Bye baby, be good for Jack okay?” You give your son another kiss and pull back, immediately back to your nervous and incredulous demeanor. You pat Jack on the side of the arm holding your son and then cringe at the action. “Right,” you let out a breathy nervous laugh. “Bye.” You spin and walk to the doors and hit the button to be let out.

“Bye,” Jack calls back, still sounding a bit dazed. He takes a second and then looks down at your son who’s looking around the busy room and then looks up at him and smiles, grabs at his face. Jack laughs. “Yeah, bud,” Jack sighs, leans down and kisses the top of his head quickly, doesn’t even really realize he’s doing it, “you’re about to be the talk of the Pitt. We both are. And your mom.” He takes a deep breath in and looks down at your son and makes eye contact. “God help us all.” 

Jack turns and starts walking to the breakroom. He’d go to the lockers but he already knows what’s about to happen. “Not a word,” he says to Dana and Robby as he walks by. 

“Oh be for fuckin’ real Jack,” Dana laughs under her breath, already starting to follow him. 

“No, he’s right Dana, not a word,” Robby says as he starts to follow, “so, so many words.” 

Bridget walks up to the desk and looks at everyone quizzically. 

“A woman just came and dropped off a baby to Jack,” Princess tells her. 

After the words process a large smirk grows on Bridget’s face. “Oh did she now?” 

Jack sighs to himself as Robby and Dana follow him into the breakroom. He doesn’t want to do this but it’s borderline inescapable now and he’d rather it be here than out by the lockers. He slides the baby bag onto a chair. 

“First,” Dana says as she walks in, “let me see him!” She walks over holding her arms out to take your son from Jack. He leans into Jack for a couple of seconds, unsure, but then lets Dana take him. “Hello cutie! What’s your name?” Robby walks over to her and says a soft hi, gives your son his finger to hold onto while Robby looks him over, smiling at him as your son babbles some.

Jack tells her his name. “God, Jack, he is gorgeous. Look at that hair and those eyes!” 

She turns back to the baby in her arms. “Yeah, you’re handsome and you know it, don’t you? I bet you use it to get out of trouble sometimes, huh?” She winks at him. It makes him smile and giggle a little, as he drops Robby’s finger and brings a hand up to chew on. “Gettin’ more teeth in, are we?” Dana smiles at Jack as she rocks your son a little. 

“Yeah, I think so, he’s been real chewy and drooly the last two days,” Jack nods. 

“He yours?” Robby asks.

Jack’s head snaps to him. “What the fuck man?”

“Oh come on Jack, a random woman just showed up, gave you a baby, kissed your cheek and left. It’s not a far stretch. Nor is it a bad thing.” Dana looks at your son. “No it isn’t at all,” she says in a bit of a baby voice.

“And you’ve been different the last couple of months. I think you’ve only been up on the roof twice and even then you didn’t look like you were seriously considering jumping.” Robby points out.

“Oh my god,” Jack mutters under his breath. “No, he’s not mine.”

They both accept that. But it doesn’t quell their curiosity in the slightest. There’s a longer pause though, your son really the only one making noise as all three adults watch him. 

“Who is she?” Robby finally asks, looking up at Jack.

“Does it matter?” Jack shoots back quickly.

“I mean…” Robby laughs a little incredulously, “yeah, a little.” 

“Why?”

“Oh come on, Jack,” Robby draws out as he takes your son from Dana. “You’re telling me if a woman showed up and handed me a baby and kissed my cheek before walking out you wouldn’t have questions and want to know who she is? Or feel like who she is doesn’t matter?”

“Of course I would want to know, but who she was wouldn’t matter and if you didn’t want to say anything yet to keep things private I would respect that.” Jack raises his eyebrows at Robby and gives him a pointed look. 

“Jack, it doesn’t matter who she is really, if she’s in your life we’d just like to know. We want to support you and see you happy. And you clearly know and spend time with the kid, enough for mom to feel comfortable leaving him with you and to know he’s been teething for the last couple of days. You spending time at her house?”

Jack doesn’t answer for a moment but then finally gives in. “Yeah.” Dana’s eyebrows raise in an invitation for more. “Yes, I spend time at her house. I help her out. I sleep in her guest room sometimes, watch him some days. So what?”

“So she matters,” Dana smirks at him a little. “She matters and she kissed your cheek so clearly there’s something.” Jack grows a little more serious and Dana and Robby both know she just hit some sort of nerve there. “Who is she? Please. Let us be happy for you.” 

Jack takes in a big breath and looks at them for a second before resting his hands on his hips, slightly cocking one and looking down at the ground like he’s about to admit something. “My therapist.” He says it deadly serious and just loudly enough for them to hear. 

He doesn’t need to look up to know the expressions they’re wearing, but he does anyway because Robby’s face of incredulity and concern is too funny to miss. “Really?” Dana asks. 

“No!” Jack emphasizes the word with his head and a little brow furrow as he moves from his position to pace a little. “Of fucking course not! But thank you for this little exposé into what you think of me.”

“Hey, that’s why I asked,” Dana puts her hands up in defense. “I couldn’t believe it.”

“Yeah, you couldn’t,” Jack looks over at Robby, “but he sure the fuck could. And he knows my therapist is a man, we go to the same god damn one!”

“Well I didn’t know if you found a new one!” Robby says in his own defense. Jack rolls his eyes. “Are you gonna tell us? Anything? Or are we really wasting our time here?”

Jack stops pacing and sighs, looks at the baby boy in Robby’s arms. “It’s complicated,” he offers. 

“We deal with a lotta complicated here.” Dana reminds him. 

“Yeah well you’re not going to believe the truth,” he mutters. 

“Try us.” Robby looks at Jack with a little knowing smile and tilts his head before looking back down at your son and making faces at him to keep him entertained. 

Jack shakes his head a little and looks away as he tries to think about how to explain without giving away too much because he doesn’t want to totally destroy your privacy. “She’s a friend. Seriously. Just a friend who I help out because she’s a single mom with nobody in the area and she needs help sometimes. Her…” Jack debates on whether this reveals too much but it would explain to them why he’s so reticent to talk about you. “Her husband died while deployed. So, we have the widower widow thing in common and there was a kind of connection there, and yeah maybe it leads to more one day and maybe it doesn’t.” He shrugs at them. That’s all he’s going to say. 

There’s another moment of silence as everybody takes in what Jack just said, himself included.

“So this is what the five epi pens and vials of epi and infant intubation and cric kit were about. He’s who they were about.” Robby looks down at your son. “Yes. They were about you, weren’t they?”

“Oh, peanuts,” Dana nods, looking from your son to Jack, “you introduced peanuts after you brought it all home.” 

Jack just looks at the two of them and shakes his head. Some part of him wants to laugh at the way they went from pushing for information, to getting a little bit, to leaving it and not pushing for more and instead bringing up the supplies he took and fucking peanuts. He’s grateful for it. 

“Yeah, we did.” Robby and Dana’s eyes flash up at him and they both have little smirks. It hits him. “She did. She did, she introduced peanuts. To her son.” 

“With you there.” Robby’s smirk grows a little bit. “Ready to intubate.” 

“I think it’s very sweet,” Dana says, smiling at him. 

“I think we need to get home before his mom calls in a panic. I said I’d leave on time and text her when we’re home, so.” He walks over to Robby and opens his arms, your son all but launching himself at Jack, making all three laugh. 

“He’s certainly a big fan,” Robby smirks. 

“Of course he is, he has excellent taste already. Though he liked you, so we might have to have a chat when we get home about why our standards are falling.” He says it in his typical deadpan demeanor. 

“I was being nice and then you ruined it.” Robby throws a hand up at him. 

Jack picks up the baby bag and slings it over his shoulder. “I didn’t ruin it, I spoke the truth.”

“You’re so mean to me.” Robby looks over at Dana as they all move towards the door. “He’s so mean to me.” 

“I am not mean to you.” Jack replies, stepping out of the door. 

“A little bit,” Dana agrees with Robby. 

“Thank you!”

“But he’s a little bit mean to you too, so it all evens out.” 

Robby scoffs. “I’m not mean to him!” 

“Just like I’m not mean to you.” Jack walks towards the lockers with your son. Robby and Dana stop at the desk, giving looks to everyone to tell them to go back to work. 

Jack swings by his locker and grabs his backpack. He pins it against the lockers with one hip so he can open it enough to shove the baby bag in it and zip it back up. “Alright bud, you ready?” He glances down to check on your son. Your son gives a little smile and then lets his head fall against the front of Jack’s shoulder, almost like he’s shy. Jack has to laugh a little as he walks back by the desk. 

“We’re out,” he announces to everyone, finding the way they all glance up and try not to look shocked or stare funny. “Say bye!” He says to your son, picks his little hand up and waves it. Your son smiles for a second before turning his head away, shying away from the attention. 

Jack looks at Robby and Dana. “Thank you.” He doesn’t have to elaborate. They know what he’s thanking them for. 

The two make it home easily and without incident. Jack texts you to let you know. 

J - Made it home and are having breakfast. 

He includes a picture of your son in his highchair eating some pancakes Jack made for him. When you get it the photo makes your heart squeeze, your boys. 

The world stops for a second and you get a little dizzy when you realize what you just thought. Your boys. 

Jack is not your boy. He’s not yours in any capacity. And that thought is one you know you would have had about your husband and son. That panic comes back, the intense shame and guilt. You try to think back on all you and your therapist have talked about, try to convince yourself that it’s okay. That it’s okay to have that thought. 

That it’s okay to like the thought and even to want the thought. 

You’re able to handle it much better than you were before and you know that means something. That you’re closer to being ready.

Once you’re not so lightheaded from all the emotions you reply. 

You - Thank you.

It’s odd, Jack thinks as he reads it. Almost clipped. Three dots appear. 

You - I’m sorry about this morning and the cheek thing. I know we haven’t discussed anything like that and I don’t really know what happened for me there in the moment, so I’m sorry. And I hope you can forgive me. 

He’s quick to respond. 

J - You have nothing to apologize for, so there’s nothing to forgive. I didn’t mind it at all 

He smiles to himself a little, especially once three dots appear. But then they go away only to reappear a couple of seconds later to disappear again. Shit, he thinks to himself, was that wrong? Did it cross a line? Fuck, was it suggestive? 

He tries to think of what he can say to apologize and let you know that he really didn’t mean for it to be suggestive or pressuring or weird. But then a message from you. 

You - Well good. I didn’t either

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

A couple of nights later you sit on the couch next to Jack. It’s the first time you’ve sat next to each other like this. Jack was not the one to instigate it of course. 

You decided to watch a movie together. It’s not the first time you’ve done that. Not the first time you’ve made popcorn without asking if he wanted any. It’s the first time you don’t split it into two bowls, though. Instead you pour it all in one and come sit next to him on the couch. Not touching. But close enough to share the popcorn between you. 

He almost expects you to move once the bowl is empty and you set it on the table but you don’t. You just stay there, curled up in your blanket next to him as you watch, commenting to each other at times. He notices you comment less and less, are less responsive to his and are leaning closer and closer to him. 

He can see you falling asleep and when you blink back awake he points it out. “You wanna go to bed? We can finish later.” 

“No, no, I’m good.” You look at him and give him a smile so he knows you know how close you are to him. 

He nods and you keep watching. But twenty or so minutes later you slide a bit and your head rests against his tricep. 

Jack freezes. He doesn’t know what to do. Does he let you sleep? Does he wake you? Is it wrong if he doesn’t wake you? When he knows you might not be ready? But then the sleepiest, “s’okay,” comes from you like you knew what he was thinking. You’re out again so fast he wonders if he made it up. 

He knows you have trouble sleeping sometimes. Trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. So he’s hesitant to wake you from it when you’re getting it. You’d been so in and out of it with the movie he decides to just wait a bit, see if you wake up. 

But then Jack falls asleep on the couch with you resting on his arm. He wakes when he feels you stirring. “Shit,” you whisper, sit up and off him. “We fell asleep.” 

“Yeah,” he yawns. “I meant to wake you but must have fallen asleep before I could,” Jack says slowly as he wakes back up. “I wasn’t sure if you were okay with…”

“Oh.” You blink at him like the thought hadn’t occurred to you. “Yeah. No, yeah, it was okay, I’m okay. I, I hope you were. You definitely could have woken me if you weren’t!” 

Jack nods. “I know.”

You nod back, the magnitude of falling asleep on him hitting you even though you’re not sure it should really hold any particular magnitude. “Okay. Good.” You look around and check the monitor, chuckle a little and show it to Jack. He chuckles with you at the silly position your son is sleeping in. “Probably best to get to bed.” You give him a small smile. 

“Yeah, probably.” You stand up off the couch and toss the blanket onto it, grab the bowl and put it in the sink to deal with tomorrow. Jack stands too and stretches a little. “Are you going?” You ask, almost sound a little sad at the thought. You are a little sad at the thought. 

“I wasn’t going to,” he shakes his head. “I was just going to head to the spare, but I can if you’d prefer.”

“No! No.” You shake your head. “No, I was going to say it’s late and so you should stay and not try and get home at this hour. It’s not safe.” 

Jack gives you a little smirk and you have to look away. “After you,” Jack calls your attention back, sweeps his hand at the entry to the hallway leading to the rooms. “You want me to take him in the morning?” Jack asks as he follows you. You know he’s talking about the monitor. 

“Oh, no. You have to work tomorrow so you should sleep as much as you can.” You’ve learned his schedule. The reality of that hits you both at the same time. You clear your throat. “Good night, Jack.”

“Good night,” Jack replies, smiling to himself as he walks into your spare room. You know his schedule. Jack realizes he knows yours too.

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

A week or so later you ask Jack if he has a certain day off, as if you don’t already know that he does. And he knows you know. 

“Yeah,” he answers, looking up from the floor where he’s playing with your son. 

You nod. “Well, so.” You try to start but stumble. You’re nervous. Flustered in that way you get. Like both times you were at the hospital. “That’s his birthday,” you look at your son with a smile, “and I was wondering if you’d um, if you’d like to, you know, spend the day with us?”

Jack doesn’t realize he’s doing it but he stares at you for a few seconds. You just asked him to spend the day with you and your son on your son’s first birthday. 

He nods. “Yeah.” He nods a little faster. “I would love that. If you’re sure. I know it’s a special day and-”

“No, I’m sure. And I know he’ll love it.” You look at your son fondly and then back at Jack. The fondness in your eyes doesn’t go away. “He loves you.” 

Jack flushes a little at that and it makes you get butterflies. Jack Abbot is blushing in front of you. Doesn’t matter why or what you said. He’s blushing and you’re swooning like you’re a teenager. And, you realize, you don’t hate yourself or feel guilty about it. You just feel it.

“Well,” Jack laughs a little, looks down at your son and brushes some hair out of his face. You still haven’t brought yourself to get it cut but you really are going to have to here soon. “I lo-” Jack stops himself. You can see him trying to think of what to say instead. 

“It’s okay,” you say quietly, understandingly. “You can say it, Jack.” 

Jack nods and swallows. “I love him too,” he says just as softly as he looks back down at your son. 

When Jack finally builds up the courage to look at you he’s greeted by your smile. The one that really meets your eyes and makes them sparkle a bit. The one that he’s seen more and more recently. The one that gives him butterflies. 

Jack Abbot blushes again. 

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

The three of you spend all day together. Your son is one, so the day is more for you than anything. 

You decide on the zoo. Your son loves animals, it’s a weekday so it’s not super busy, the weather is perfect. And you can take it at your own pace. 

Lots of pictures get taken. Of your son. Of you and your son. Of your son and Jack. Of you, your son and Jack. That one threw him a little when you first brought it up and asked a stranger to take a photo of the three of you. 

Jack is patient and would never pressure you and very deliberately does not ask where you’re at in healing or if you’re feeling like you’re closer to ready or anything of the sort. He lets you lead, lets you set the tone and the pace. He knows if and when you’re ready you’ll communicate that. 

You and Jack sit in the aquarium when your son needs a nap and falls asleep in his stroller. You talk about your upcoming weeks and Jack tells you stories of patients he’s had recently that he hasn’t had the chance to tell you about. 

“Have you… had to explain anything about him and I? At work.” 

Jack’s eyebrows lift slightly and he shakes his head. “No. I’m sure they’re all dying to know but like I said, I don’t feel the need to explain anything to them.” He shrugs. “Well, actually,” he lets out a little breath. “The day you came in I told Robby and Dana. Not a lot. Just that you’re a friend I’m helping out because you’re a single mom and don’t have anyone here.” He bites his lip and looks at you. “I told them that you lost your husband while he was deployed, so we had the widower widow connection. I’m sorry if that was too much.” 

You laugh a little and shake your head. Jack has talked to you enough about Dana and Robby to know that Robby is his best friend and effective brother and Dana is his second best friend and like the Pitt mom. “It’s not.” 

“Dana said he’s gorgeous.” Jack doesn’t know why all of this didn’t come out once you got home that day but he was asleep when you did and then life was just busy and moved on. And now you’re talking about it. “He actually liked Robby, so he and I had a little conversation when we got home about bringing his standards back up.” 

That makes you laugh, properly. Jack thinks he could get lost in the sound forever. Spend the rest of his life chasing it. He tells himself to get a grip. You’re just friends. Nothing more. 

“Well,” you smile at him before looking away and shrugging. “Maybe one day I can meet them. Judge for myself.” 

Jack pauses for a second only because he wasn’t expecting it. “Uh, I mean yeah. Of course. Dana will lose it if she gets to see him again.”

“He is the cutest and best if I do say so myself.” You smile down at your sleeping one year old. “God, I can’t believe it’s been a year.” It’s been over a year and a half now since your husband. “He’s so big,” you whisper. “He was so tiny, fit on my chest so nicely. And I love watching him grow up and see him do new things and learn and thrive, but damn it’s hard.” 

Jack gives you a little hum of empathy, not entirely sure what to say. He notices how big your son has gotten and he’s only been in your lives for three months. 

“Will you come with us when I get his hair cut finally?” 

Jack looks over at you, a little confused. “Yeah, course.” He presses his lips together and shakes his head once. “Any particular reason why?” 

“To be my shoulder to cry on.” You say it so simply, like it means nothing when you both know it means something. You both know you’re inviting him to another thing your husband and your son’s dad would probably go to with you. 

And Jack gets stuck on it a little. To be my, you had said, you want him to be your something, even if it’s just a shoulder to cry on right now. “I suppose I can manage that.”

You share a little laugh about it. “Thanks, Jack,” you murmur. 

“Any time.” 

Once your son wakes back up you finish walking around the zoo. Jack buys him too many toys at the gift shop, all the stuffed animals he so much as glances at, much to his delight. You make your way back home together in Jack’s truck. Jack’s truck that now has a carseat in it. 

But you don’t go inside, instead you decide to leave the stroller and walk around the City. You find a place to eat and it’s weird to think about. To all the people walking by and seeing the three of you, you probably look like a family. And even though you feel some guilt, especially on your son’s birthday, you don’t completely hate yourself or let that guilt consume you. You like the idea. A lot. So you let yourself feel it.

After dinner at dusk you decide to take your son to the park for some swinging before heading back and getting him to bed. He loves to swing. You take photos of him and Jack and Jack takes them of the two of you. 

You’re so involved with your son and swinging and making him laugh that you don’t notice Jack slip away for just a second. Your son yawns. “Aw,” you give him a little sad laugh. “Tired baby? You’ve had a big day.” He reaches up for you and you pull him out of the swing, hug him close to you and kiss his head. 

When you turn around Jack is back and standing where you assumed he would be but he’s holding a single rose. You stay where you’re at, almost frozen but not in a tense way. And Jack is just as nervous that this is crossing a line when he doesn’t mean for it to be.  

“Day’s about you as much as it’s about him,” he calls to you. He starts walking towards you and you meet him halfway. “You did all the work a year ago today, mom.” He offers you the rose. “We should acknowledge that.” 

You look at the rose and then back up at him again, a bit stunned still. It’s so incredibly sweet and kind. It’s so incredibly Jack. And you know for sure then. 

You take the rose from him and give him a sappy smile. “Thank you, Jack. For everything. The rose and today and the last three months.”

“Don’t mention it.” He gives you a small smile. 

“Accept the thanks.” You give him a pointed one in return. 

“Alright, alright.” Your son has started to fall asleep in your arms. “Want me to take him?” 

You nod. “Sure, yeah. You only need one arm to carry him still. I need two now.”  You bring the rose up to your nose and smell it, smile to yourself about it. Let you and the butterflies in your stomach swoon. 

The three of you start walking home, your son fully out on Jack’s shoulder within a couple minutes. You walk back in silence. It’s a comfortable silence, a comfortable quiet. And while quiet hasn’t been as foreboding to Jack since he’s met you sometimes it still is. Like now. 

This quiet, while comfortable, is thick. There’s something about it that feels anticipatory. Last time the quiet felt like this, made him feel like this, this uneasy, it brought Jack you. 

Something about that makes him even more uneasy. Because Jack knows there’s always a reason for quiet. It always means something. Always brings something. Rarely, if ever, is it good. And he got good last time and Jack doesn’t trust the world or lightning to strike twice. 

He worries this time the quiet will bring something else. Something worse, like it always does. 

But before he can completely spiral and become even more hypervigilant than he always is, Jack feels your fingers brush against his for a second before they disappear and then come back, your fingers playing with his like it’s nothing, and then, in the quiet as you walk back to your place, you lace your fingers together and you’re holding hands and you give him a little squeeze that tells him you mean it. That you’re ready.   

Quiet. It always means something. Always brings something. 

This time it meant you were working up the courage. Is bringing the start of something more than just friends. 

Lightning strikes twice. 

Jack stops walking when you squeeze his hand and you stop with him, looking up concerned and a bit panicked, ready to draw your hand back. 

“You ready for this?” Jack asks, genuine concern in his voice as his eyes dart around your face, looking for the slightest sign of hesitation. But you can see it there too, the excitement, the happiness. The hope. “And by this I mean this,” he squeezes your hand. “Nothing more. Not until you’re ready for more. Not until you tell me you’re ready for more.”  

You bite your lip as he talks because he’s so cute when he’s concerned and he’s such a good man, wanting to make sure you’re ready and know he doesn’t expect more. And the smile that’s slowly pulling up on his face as you look at him and nod is so adorable you could scream. “Yeah. I’m ready for this.” You squeeze his hand back. “And maybe a little more.” You pull on his hand and start walking again, lean into him a little. “But only with you.” 

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

If you made it this far thank you so much for reading and I hope it was okay and got fluffy and funny!!

You can find my Masterlist here for more Jack! Requests are open!

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[cherry-zip]

─ • CSC .ᐟ Heaven

› content ┆ Choi Seungcheol x fem reader ⊹ genre .ᐟ smut and cute ending ✎ word-count ┆ 3,2k. ⌁ summary ┆perhaps rambling about how hot Taemin was during his concert isn't such a bad idea when you're dating Seungcheol. ⨯ content warning .ᐟ smut with a little plot, jealous cheo (good way), penetrative sex, unprotected sex, oral (fem receiving), coming inside, light bondage, light choking, coming inside.

✧ feedback & reblog are highly appreciated! › minor do not interact, you will be blocked

The concert was everything you’d dreamed of and more. Taemin’s voice echoed through the arena, powerful and mesmerizing, and his dancing—god, his dancing, was nothing short of breathtaking. Every move was sharp, precise, and dripping with charisma. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from the stage, your lightstick waving wildly in sync with the crowd. By the time the final encore ended, your throat was raw from screaming, your eyes were red from crying at how unbelievable he was, and your cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Getting to witness his talent in front of your eyes felt almost unreal.

As you made your way home, adrenaline still coursed through your veins; you couldn’t wait to tell Seungcheol all about it. You had been excited about the concert all week, talking nonstop about how much you loved Taemin’s music and how you couldn’t wait to see him perform live. Seungcheol had smiled and nodded along, but you knew that deep down, he couldn’t help but feel a little… insecure. Not that he would ever admit it out loud. But he had been so sweet earlier, listening to you gush while helping you get ready, even though you knew he wasn’t exactly Taemin’s biggest fan—for boyfriend reasons. But that was one of the things you loved about him—he always supported you, even when it came to your slightly obsessive fangirling.

When you finally unlocked the door to your apartment, still clutching the lightstick to your chest, you were greeted by the soft glow of the living room lights. Seungcheol was lounging on the couch, phone in hand, looking effortlessly handsome in his oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. He glanced up as you walked in, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“Hey,” he said, his voice warm and familiar. “How was the concert?”

You dropped your bag by the door and practically floated over to him, your excitement bubbling over. “Oh my god, Seungcheol, it was incredible. Taemin is just… ugh, he’s so perfect. His dancing? His stage presence? His voice? I feel like I died and came back to life. I might actually be in love!”

You expected him to laugh or tease you like he usually did, but instead, his smile faltered for a split second before recovering, forcing a chuckle. “That good, huh?”

“The best!” you gushed, pulling out your phone. “You have to see the videos I took. He did this move during ‘Heaven’ where he—okay, just watch.” You leaned closer, holding your phone up so he could see the screen.

Seungcheol watched the video with a neutral expression, though you noticed his jaw tighten slightly as you narrated every move. “Wow,” he said when it ended, his tone dry. “He’s… really flexible.”

You laughed, completely missing the edge in his voice. “Right? His arms, his hips, and his abs—oh my god, don’t even get me started. I mean, I know you work out and everything, but Taemin is just on another level.”

Seungcheol raised an eyebrow, his smile now firmly in place, though his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Is that so?”

You nodded enthusiastically, still scrolling through your photos. “Yeah, like, I didn’t think it was possible for someone to be that cute, hot, and talented at the same time. It’s not fair!”

He leaned back against the sofa, staring at your face as he crossed his arms over his chest, looking serious. “Sounds like I need to step up my game.”

You finally looked up, catching the hint of jealousy in his tone. “Aw, are you jealous?” you teased, poking the dimpled cheek you adored. “Don’t worry, babe. You’re still my number one.”

“Am I now?” he asked, his voice low and playful, though there was a darker edge beneath the surface. “Because it sounds like Taemin might be stealing my spot.”

You laughed, leaning into him. “Never. You’re my Seungcheol. No one could ever replace you.”

He hummed, seemingly satisfied, but the glint in his eyes told you he wasn’t quite done. Grabbing your chin so you had to look at him closely, he murmured, “Good. Because I think you need a reminder of who you belong to.”

Before you could respond, he grabbed your waist and pulled you onto his lap, his hands firm against your hips. You squealed in surprise, dropping your phone on your lap as he leaned in, his lips brushing against your ear. “You’re mine,” he murmured, his voice sending shivers down your spine. “And I think it’s time you forget all about Taemin and only remember my name.”

You giggled, trying to squirm away, but his grip was unyielding. “Seungcheol, I was just kidding! You know you’re the only one for me.”

“Do I now?” he asked, his tone teasing but edged with something that made your breath hitch. “Because you were talking an awful lot about someone else’s abs.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but he cut you off with a searing kiss, his hands sliding up your back to tangle in your hair. When he finally pulled away, you were breathless, your cheeks flushed for an entirely different reason.

“Seungcheol…” you started, but he silenced you with another kiss, this one deeper and more demanding.

His tongue explored every corner of your mouth, playfully pulling out your own tongue and soothing every bite he gave to your bottom lip. He broke the kiss again, tugging your hair back so he could look at you—straddling him, flushed and beautiful. He loved seeing you like this, all completely wrecked for him. 

“Fuck, baby, you look so hot in this outfit. I can’t believe I let anyone else see you like this,” he muttered, pressing a sweet kiss to your forehead. 

“Gonna remind you why you’re mine tonight. I don’t want to hear his name again,” he said, his voice rough as he trailed kisses down your neck, making you shiver. “From now on, the only name you’ll be screaming is mine.”

You can’t help but whine. He knew how much his words affected you. He knew everything about you. He was confident when it came to understanding every inch of your body: how it looked, how it felt, how it tasted, how it reacted to his teasing. Tonight was just another example of you falling deeper under his spell, trapped in a hold you never really wanted to escape. And… you couldn’t help but love it.

He groaned deeply at your whine, sucking at your neck, leaving marks for everyone to see. He lifted his head to grab your thighs,picking you up as if you weighed nothing. Instinctively, you wrapped your legs around his hips, clinging to him as his lips found yours again—knowing damn well you were about to protest with a breathless “I’m too heavy.”

“I’m strong enough”, he growled against your lips. 

He was right, you knew he was strong. Staring at his arms or his shoulders became a hobby of yours over time— especially when he was walking around shirtless at home, coming out of the shower, or even wearing one of those tight compression shirts you adored. He was working out to please himself and because he loves seeing you try to hide, secretly looking at his body without him looking. His ego felt good.

With ease, he starts walking up the stairs leading to your room. Unable to help himself, he gets carried away in you, having to stop and press your body against the wall, his kisses deeper than ever, travelling from your mouth down your neck. One harsh bite near your collarbone had you letting out a louder scream. He’s fueled by the desire to remind you that you belong to him. His kisses are getting faster, harsher than ever, his tongue wetting your skin with open-mouth kisses, the grip on your thighs tightening.

You honestly could not remember the last time you felt this wet, this good, this needy for more than kisses. All your thoughts and memories of the night flew out of your head—the only thing that mattered in that moment was Seungcheol and how you needed him more than ever.

You moan for more while he continues to attack your collarbones. He wasn’t gonna deprive you of your needs… even when being punished.

He continues to walk down the hallway, only stopping in front of your bedroom to open it - slamming it shut after entering. He drops you on the bed and starts undressing you, holding your wrists above your head with one hand, leaving kisses and bites all over your body. You're left at his mercy once your clothes are scattered around the room. He snatches a random tie of his from the closet and ties your wrists up to the bed frame. You couldn’t do anything, touch him, pull his hair, scratch his back, hold his biceps. You were only going to be able to scream his name tonight. 

Seungcheol looks down at you, smirking at what he is planning for you inside his head. The way he looked at you made you feel good inside your stomach; just his eyes on you could boost your confidence. Right now, it was a little bit different, you were so needy for him, you wanted him.

“Cheol, please, touch me.” You breathed out. However, he quickly shushed you and went down on your body, leaving kisses on his way between your legs. Grabbing your legs, he spread them apart, kissed the inside of your thighs while looking up to see your reactions. He loved seeing you close your eyes to savour this feeling, breathing heavier in anticipation. He couldn’t help but smile as he kissed and licked your pussy.

“Cheol- ah fuck.” Your back arched from the bed, your hips bucking into his mouth as his tongue entered your pussy. Rapidly increasing the speed of his movement inside you, his thumb found your clit. He was pressing and circling it just the way he knew would push you closer to the edge. 

“I’m so close, please don’t stop - please.” He sucks and licks harder at your inside, then everything stops. Seungcheol gets up from between your legs, licking his lips from your juice, smirking, watching you groan and squirming in need of release. 

“You really think I’m gonna let you come that easily?” Seungcheol sucks roughly on the hickey he placed above one of your nipples, biting into it making you moan in pleasure. “Want to cum so badly baby? You know how it is when you’re being punished.. Unless, do you still want Taemin ?”

“No,.. not Taemin. Just you, you, I want you.” You breathed out quickly, his face in your neck, his soft hair tickling your sensitive skin..

“You sure, baby? You seemed pretty excited about him just now.. Was I mistaken, or did something change your mind?” His fingers back to playing with your pussy, circling your clit with his thumb as two fingers slipped back into your hole. Moaning and dropping your head back as he moves his fingers inside you. Seungcheol groans against your neck as he feels your walls squeeze around his fingers. His dick was growing inside his grey sweatpants just from hearing you, the sounds you’re making was music to his ears. His fingers set a fast pace to drag you close to the edge again.

“Please ch-cheol. I’m sorry please - please fuck me.” You were desperate to come at this point, tears were forming in your eyes. Of course, Seungcheol couldn’t help but be satisfied, watching you stare at his face, mouth open, and glossy eyes. He wanted to make you forget about Taemin, and he did.

“Do you deserve it, baby ?” His smirk never leaves his face as he caresses your cheek with his other hand.

“YES! Please, yes, yes, yes! Cheol, I’m begging you.”

His gaze locked with yours—loving,  for just a moment–he felt so lucky to have you. He slipped his fingers out of you and untied your wrists, kissing each of them before turning you over onto your stomach. 

“On all fours, baby,” he demanded, tapping your hips and making room for you to undress. He unbuckled his belt and pants, throwing them across the room while you patiently waited on your knees with your ass on full display. You were growing impatient, swaying your ass in front of him, earning a firm slap for you to calm down. You could feel the mattress sink as Seungcheol positioned himself behind you, gripping your waist, dragging you closer to him. 

You knew he was smirking when you felt him tease your cunt with the tip of his cock, and it only grew wider when you whined for more. He continued teasing you, slowly pushing until he settled deep inside of you., resting for a moment, groaning as you squeezed around him - he was so big, you felt so full. He slowly slides out of you before gripping your waist tighter, thrusting into you without any warning. You moaned for more, needed more, you wanted him to move and almost destroy you from the inside. 

“Please, Cheol.. Harder”, he didn't say anything and simply chose to act. His thrusts were aggressive and deep. Your hands are holding on to the bed sheets to keep steady, gripping as he fucked you as hard as he could. You asked for it– from your behaviour and words– and he was delivering it all. Your hips matched his rhythm, meeting him in the middle of his thrusts, causing Seungcheol to groan at each thrust.

Your insides were twitching around him, which was hinting that your high was close. He knew you were close, and you honestly thought he was going to close down again, teasing you until the end, but you were so wrong. He slides out of you to turn you around so he could see your fucked out face. He thrusted deep into you, you threw your head back as your eyes rolled back. He loved seeing your reactions, his hand came to wrap around your throat, slightly squeezing it for you to look at him. Satisfied to see you look at him, mouth open, whining his name - he began to fuck you harder than before. His dick so big inside of you, none stop kissing that special spot of yours, pushing you further to the edge.

“Fuck, I’m so close,” you told him, breath heavy.

“Seungcheol! I’m gonna cum, cheol..” you were panting but you got no answers. He didn’t seem to stop either, he kept his thrust inside of you steady.

“I’m not going to stop fucking your pretty pussy just yet. I’ll keep on going until I get to cum. I told you, I’ll make you remember only my name. You might as well scream it so loud even the neighbours know my name.” his grip on your throat was tighter, he meant every word he said. He didn't stop his movements, as if it was possible, he got rougher, making you come on the spot, and he kept going. 

You were completely fucked out for him, he was using you, making you his. You chanted his name over and over again, not growing tired of saying it. He won this time. 

Seungcheol’s groans got louder and louder. He called your name as his grip on your throat and waist tightened. He was on the edge of coming.

“Do you want me to come inside your pussy or no? Do you deserve it?” He asked, even throwing some more teasing as he was close to coming.

“Inside, I want you inside–please.”

And then, it hits you–you both came undone, hard, his trust deep, and stopped all his movements. You could feel your inside getting filled by his hot cum, coming so much your inside felt full. He pulled out of you smiling at himself to admire his work of art, his cum dripping out of you. He caressed your body, calming you as you came down from your high. This orgasm felt so good, your breath heavy as you watched him admire you, his eyes were full of love.

“Maybe I should make you jealous more often, it looks good on you”, you laughed at him and pulled him by the neck to kiss him on the lips.

“Shut up, I’m not jealous.” He had no reason to be; you were his, but you loved seeing him jealous regardless. You felt love.

The apartment was quiet again, the only sound you could hear was the soft rustling of sheets and mingled breaths. You lay curled against Seungcheol’s chest, your fingers tracing lazy patterns on his skin. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, his arms tightening around you.

“So,” he said after a long moment, his voice casual but with a hint of amusement. “Still thinking about Taemin?”

You laughed, slapping his chest lightly. “Not even a little. You made sure of that.”

“Good,” he said, a satisfied smirk tugging at his lips. “Just remember—you’re mine.”

“Always,” you replied, snuggling closer. “But just so you know, I’m totally going to his next concert.”

Seungcheol groaned, burying his face in your hair. “You’re impossible.”

You giggled, pressing a kiss to his chest. “And you’re jealous. But don’t worry—I’ll always come home to you.”

“You better,” he muttered, though there was no real heat behind his words. “Or I’ll have to remind you again.”

You smiled, your eyes drifting shut. “I’m counting on it.”

You woke up to the smell of coffee and the sound of Seungcheol humming in the kitchen. You stretched lazily, your body was sore, but you wore a contented smile on your face as you remembered the events of the previous night. Seungcheol had definitely made his point, and you couldn’t help but feel a little smug about it.

You padded into the kitchen, wrapping your arms around his waist from behind. “Morning,” you murmured, pressing a kiss to his shirtless back.

“Morning,” he replied, turning around to kiss you properly. “Sleep well?”

“Like a baby,” you said with a grin. “Thanks to you.”

He smirked, handing you a cup of coffee. “Good. Just remember who’s responsible for that.”

You rolled your eyes, taking a sip of the coffee. “You’re so full of yourself.”

“Maybe,” he said, leaning against the counter. “But you love me anyway.”

“I do,” you admitted, smiling up at him. “Even if you are a little jealous.”

He raised an eyebrow, his smirk widening. “Jealous? Me? Never.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “Sure, Seungcheol. Whatever you say.”

He pulled you closer, his expression turning serious for a moment. “Just remember—you’re mine. No matter how many concerts you go to.”

You nodded, your heart swelling with affection. “I know. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

✧ feedback & reblog are highly appreciated! › anonymous review form & join my taglist

@ credits┆big big thank you @kyeomofhearts for beta reading & @kwanisms for the help on the banner vibe ☆彡

☘︎ taglist: @zozojella, @shinysobi, @kyeomofhearts, @codeinebelle, @eclipsaria, @nerdycheol

‧₊ ᵎᵎ “CHERRY.zip" 🍒 ⋅ ˚✮

[tearvls]

HI I LOVE YOUR WRITING!!!!! IF ITS POSSIBLE, CAN YOU PLEASE MAKE A MARK FIC WHERE HE GETS JEALOUS OF THE ATTENTION THE READER GIVES TO THE OTHER MSRK VARIANTS

"Jealousy Jealousy"

Pairing: Mark Grayson x Mark Grayson Variants x GN! Reader

Featuring: Sinister Mark, Mohawk Mark, Full Mask Mark, Shiesty Mark, Prisoner Mark, Viltrumite Mark, No Mask Mark

Synopsis: You find yourself caught between Mark's many very desperate variants.

The sky above the prison cracked and churned, smoke and screams threading through the thick, choking air. Around you, the ground was littered with rubble and fallen inmates, some groaning, some eerily still. You barely registered it anymore, too focused on dragging an injured guard to safety behind a broken wall.

Above, he was fighting.

Mark. Your Mark.

His fists flew in vicious arcs, trading blows with a wilder, meaner version of himself — one with a mohawk and a wicked, wolfish grin that made your stomach turn. Each punch sounded like a thunderclap, shockwaves blasting the debris outward. Mark slammed Mohawk Mark into the ground hard enough to crack the concrete, and for a second, everything seemed like it was under control. You exhaled, steadying yourself against the wall— And then a screaming rush of wind nearly knocked you off your feet. Before you could react, another Mark — this one maskless, his hair a little longer, his face desperate — barreled straight into you. You gasped as his arms wrapped around you in a crushing hug, lifting you clear off the ground

"Oh my god," he breathed against your ear, his voice trembling. "I finally found you. You're even more beautiful than I remembered. I thought I lost you... I thought—" He pulled back just enough to cradle your face in his hands, staring at you like you were some kind of miracle he barely dared to touch. You opened your mouth to speak — "Wait—" — but the words stuck in your throat.

The moment shattered like glass

.

From behind, Sinister Mark appeared like a black storm, his expression twisted into something feral. Without a word, he grabbed you by the waist, ripping you bodily out of Maskless Mark’s arms with a brutal yank. "Back off!" Sinister Mark snapped, holding you so tightly against him you could feel the shudder of restrained violence under his skin.

Maskless Mark stumbled forward, face contorting in fury. "You son of a—!" He lunged — but Sinister Mark backhanded him so hard Maskless Mark went skidding across the rubble. "I said," Sinister Mark growled, voice dripping with venom, "back off!"

You barely had time to process the shock when another figure crash-landed nearby — Full Mask Mark, his dark visor flashing as he immediately stepped between you and Sinister Mark. "Release them," Full Mask Mark ordered coldly. "They're safer with me."

Then — as if the gates of hell had opened — more figures started descending one after another. Shiesty Mark vaulted over a wall with a cocky grin, landing next to Full Mask Mark and immediately trying to tug you free. "Come on, baby — you know you wanna get outta here with me."

Another Mark crashed down — Prisoner Mark, still in his grey jumpsuit, bruised and bloodied but smirking as he wiped blood from his lip. "Tch. You're all pathetic. They want someone real. Someone like me."

And then Viltrumite Mark floated down gracefully, arms crossed, looking eerily composed as he assessed the scene. "Clearly," he said mildly, "they’re overwhelmed. I'll take custody of them."

It was like a bomb went off.

Suddenly every single Mark was grabbing at you, shoving each other, snarling, punching — they swarmed over you like feral animals fighting over a single toy, claws out, snarling and snapping. You were jostled from one to the other — Sinister Mark’s brutal grip, Full Mask Mark’s iron hold, Shiesty Mark’s arms sneaking around your waist — each yanking you back and forth like you were the only thing keeping them alive. You could barely even get a word in — your mouth kept opening, but all that came out were tiny choked sounds as hands grabbed and pulled and voices screamed over each other:

"Let go!"

"They're mine!"

"You’ll just get them hurt!"

"They don’t want you, they want me!"

"Enough — or I’ll kill you all right here."

The prison yard was falling apart — debris raining from the sky, concrete cracked like broken glass under Mark's boots. He drove his fist into Mohawk Mark’s gut, sending the variant crumpling with a grunt of pain. Another hit, another grunt — just like every other fight before it. Mark pulled back, ready to finish it —but something caught his eye. Across the battlefield — past the smoke, past the rubble —

you.

You were struggling, trapped between a mob of familiar faces — faces that wore his own features twisted in desperation. His blood went cold. You stumbled back as Sinister Mark yanked you toward him, one gloved hand firm around your wrist. Maskless Mark barreled into him a second later, prying you free and holding you like you were something fragile. Then Full Mask Mark ripped you from Maskless, dragging you close with tense, gloved fingers. Shiesty Mark laughed and twirled you around into his arms, only to be tackled by Prisoner Mark a heartbeat later.

They were fighting over you like feral animals.

Like he wasn't even there. Mark froze, breathing hard, a deep roar clawing its way up his throat. Then he launched into the sky, fists clenched, heart pounding so hard it hurt.

"I'm coming—!"

He blasted toward you, faster than a bullet—

—but halfway there, a blur of motion smashed into him. Viltrumite Mark. He grabbed Mark by the collar and yanked him sideways mid-flight, spinning him out of control. "Stay out of this!" Viltrumite barked, shoving him hard. Mark growled and threw a punch, knocking Viltrumite back — only for Mohawk Mark to slam into his back next, driving them both into a spiraling dive. Before he could recover, Full Mask Mark was there, throwing a fist at his face. Shiesty tackled him around the waist, laughing.

"Welcome to the party, loser!"

Mark twisted free with a furious snarl, throwing them off — but by the time he looked up again, you were even further away, trapped between four desperate variants clawing and dragging at you. He could see you — wide-eyed, overwhelmed — getting pulled one way by Maskless, then the other by Sinister, then another as Prisoner Mark ripped you free. Mark roared and blasted forward again, elbowing through the chaos, getting grabbed and yanked every direction. Hands — all his hands — shoved and clawed and punched. Each Mark screaming over the other:

"They're safer with me!"

"You can't protect them like I can!"

"They don't love you the way I do!"

Mark finally got a hand on you — pulling you close — only for Shiesty to tackle him low, sending both of you tumbling. He barely kept you in his grasp, spinning midair, his arms locking tight around you. "I got you—!" he gasped — only for Sinister to crash into him next, ripping you from his arms with brutal force.

It was a mess. A storm.

Everywhere he turned, another version of himself was grappling, shouting, grabbing at you like you were the last star left in the sky. Mark groaned, shoving Full Mask Mark off his back, ducking under Shiesty's swinging punch, grabbing you again and getting yanked right back into the chaos by Maskless and Prisoner Mark clawing at his arms. You flailed, trying to keep your footing, groaning as you got pulled back and forth like a living tug-of-war rope. Mark gritted his teeth, chest heaving, blood pounding in his ears. This wasn’t going to be a clean save. This wasn’t going to be fast. He tightened his grip on you, glaring at the sea of versions clawing for you with wild eyes.

And through gritted teeth, he muttered: "This is gonna be a long fight."

[nanamisgirly]

fould we possibly get more womanizer sugu :3

this looks more like a fic than a head canon...oooops. I hope you will enjoy it !!! MWAHHHH :333 part.1

cw chubby reader, masturbation, jealous geto, reader fingers herself in front of geto while being in couple.

womanizer!geto thinks he's about to catapult that engineering major boy out of the solar system. right. now.

geto is sitting across the room, arms slung over the back of the couch, fists clenched so tight the veins in his forearms pop. his eyes are glued burning to where that poor nerd's hands are gripping your waist, pushing you back against the edge of the kitchen counter during some half-assed apartment party. 

the guy's mouth is low against your ear, whispering something pathetic (he's sure of it) that makes you blush and push at his chest. but apparently not enough for him to back up completely. 

womanizer!geto repeats the same sentences like a mantra “he doesn't know her. he doesn't stand a chance. it's not some pinterest-date plan he probably has in his mind that are going to make her flinch. he doesn't know how she is when her stress hits a fever pitch or when she cries over bad grades. he doesn't even know she chews her pens' cap until they're useless. he. doesn't. stand. a. chance.”

“you let him touch you like that in public?” womanizer!geto leans against the doorframe, smirking lazily, letting his voice drip with mock-casual venom—watching you read some dense academic paper, hoodie two sizes too big. he couldn't restrain himself from asking once you both got home.

you don't even look up as you say, “excuse me?” suguru shrugs, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded, heavy with something darker than amusement. “the way the prop-on-him-self-boy was holding your waist earlier. pretty bold move by the way. thought you were shy.”

you blink, slowly lowering the paper. “i am shy.” he chuckles under his breath—low and unkind. “could've fooled me. guess you get real friendly when someone finally shows you attention, huh?” your lips part in shock, jaw going slack at the nerve—the venom hiding in his fake nonchalance.

“what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he doesn't bother answer, he just keeps looking at you—daring you to do something of it, mouth still curled in a smirk that doesn't reach his eyes. you hold his stare, mouth tight, throat dry. “if you have a problem with who i'm seeing, suguru, be a man and say it.” his jaw ticks at your words, “i don't—”

“good," your voice cuts him off, "then no problem, right?” he nods once, and pushes off the doorframe, leaving you sitting there, heat crawling up your chest and hands trembling in your lap. 

what you miss to see is the way his fists clench the second he turns away. of course womanizer!geto had no problem, why would he? because his mind was spiraling at the girl he had earlier that night, lips wrapped around his cock while his mind conjured the shape of your mouth instead? because his body refused to come unless he imagined your big soft body squirming against his? 

the next week womanizer!geto is sure he's going to catapult the engineering boy out of this fucking solar system. he's halfway through some miserable cafeteria lunch when he hears your friends whispering too loud few tables away. “her boyfriend said she came twice” one of them giggles. another leans in, dramatic “she told me he gave her a massage and it turned into, like…a whole thing. .” and the final bow, “she even said he was the best she ever had.” suguru's hands curl into fists under the table, knuckles popping loud enough to make heads turn.

even gojo stops yapping mid-sentence, blinking at him, but geto doesn't hear a single word. his ears are ringing too loud, blood pounding behind them like a drum. all he can think about is you, your possibly messy moans, your pretty face, your fat thighs locking someone else's waist.

it rots him from the inside out.

womanizer!geto goes home right after that and jerks off twice. back-to back. once angrily, under cold water, cursing your name like a prayer. and again, this time slower… worse…because now the image in his head is you under that stupid stem boy. your soft hips rocked by clumsy fingers, your plush thighs spread wide for a cock that doesn't deserve you. geto shouldn't be hard for that. shouldn't want to watch it like some deranged freak.

but here he is—balls aching, cock leaking in his palm—jerking himself through gritted teeth, groaning low in his chest as he imagines your soft belly rippling under the weight of another man's body. he cums with a guttural snarl, forehead slamming the cold tile, imagining your tits bouncing, your glasses sliding down your nose as you whimper for someone who isn't him.

womanizer!geto tries to fuck someone else the next night—some hot girl, tight waist, full lips, half-dressed and panting all over him. but his cock seems stubborn. dead weight in his jeans. not even a twitch. she moans against his neck, grinding her hips against him on the couch, whispering that she wants to ride him all night—

but all he can do is thinking about you. 

you, in your stretched-out pajama shorts. you, soft and plush everywhere, a little roll of tummy peeking when your tanktop rides up. you, mouth parted around your pencil when you're focused.

and the next time you're all alone with womanizer!geto in your living room, a late night study session for the upcoming test, he doesn't even try to act normal at the sight of your thick dimpled thighs tucked under you. you're rambling about something, showing him your notes—unaware of the way his eyes devour you. you look so sweet. fuck, he bets you taste so sweet.

he's staring at the half-faded bruise blooming across your collarbone when your voice pulls him back, “suguru…?”

“do you moan for him?” it slips out. you freeze at the sudden question. “wha—”

“your little stem boy,” he says, eyes dark. “when he fucks you. do you moan for him?” the silence is brutal. you open your mouth, close it again, cheeks burning, “that's none of your business.” 

he smirks, leans in like a viper. “you sound like you could.” mock sympathy is dripping from every word. and nastier, “if he had a better dick than, what, three inches hard? maybe you would." his eyes glint, "be honest, nerd. he never makes you come, does he?”

the slap cracks across the room, hard enough your hand stings. hard enough to whip his head to the side. his cheek blooms red, but all he does is breathe hard—cock aching, swelling mean against his zipper. your heart is pounding, shame and rage boiling under your skin as you shove your notebook off your lap and storm toward your room.

womanizer!geto probably isn't thinking with his brain anymore as he follows you to your room. he stands in your doorframe just like he did two weeks ago, except this time, his eyes are pure fire—a mix of anger and hunger.

his eyes piercing yours, challenging you. his jaw is clenched so tight it looks painful and you should scream at him to leave your room, should shove him out. . and you're about to—but when your eyes fall down to the heavy, swollen bulge in his jeans, you loose all your rationality.

“get on the bed.” the words split the air, hot and final. you blink at him, confused and furious…soaked. your eyes following his every movements as he goes to sit on your desk chair, drops into with all the lazy arrogance in the world. his hand drapes over his thigh, just inches from the thick imprint stretching his pants.

“i won't repeat myself.” the mockery is thick on his tongue. “you can hate me later. you can even hate me forever if that's what you want. but right now?” his voice drops. “right now, you're gonna listen.” something deep inside you twists—dizzying. and before you realize what you're doing, you clim onto your own bed—like some pathetic, brainless thing. you glare at him, trying to save whatever pride you have left.

geto leans back further into the chair, his fingers thumbing the thick ridge of his cock. he tips his chin. “show me.” your stomach flips. “show you…what?” you whisper, already knowing—already burning. 

“don't play dump, nerdy. you're too smart for that.” his voice is syrup-thick, fingers taping against the desperate strain against his rough denim. “show me how wet you got after slapping me like a brat.” your throat closes. “no,” you breathe out, a pitiful little sound of defiance but your thighs are betraying you, pressing tighter together. geto grins, “you're already soaking through those dumb little shorts, might as well let me see the mess you made."

womanizer!geto watches like a predator trapping his prey. his chest rises, slow and deep, extremely controlled compared to the raging war breaking inside you. his hand squeezes his cock through his jeans. he licks his lips, hungry. “touch yourself for me, pretty thing. show me how desperate you are for me instead of that useless fucking loser you keep calling your boyfriend. go on. be good.”

your traitorous hand slips under your waistband. the second your fingers brush the sticky heat between your thighs, your breath shatters from your lungs. your fingers tremble as you press harder, rubbing desperate little circles into your clit. you're trying to be quiet, to pretend you have a shred of dignity left—but the wet sounds are obscene and unmistakable. 

geto's groan rips through the room—raw an broken, a sound like he's been punched. “tell me, pretty girl," he rasps, “is it dripping already? just from me talking to you?” your whimper is an answer enough, high and shameful, your cheeks burn under his gaze. ”get your shorts off," he commands, voice shredded. "and the panties too. now."

your hands shake so badly it takes two tries to peel your shorts down your thick thighs. your panties stick wetly, peeling away from your messy pussy with a filthy noise. the cold air hits you, your cunt gleaming under the soft light. geto leans forward in the chair, forearms braced on his knees, his stare burning between your legs like he's trying to sear it into his skull.

you try to remain a bit more decent, and close your legs shut together. “nuh-uh." he tsks. "what you doin', pretty? keep them open for me. don't be shy. lemme see all that messy pussy you were hiding.” tears are prickling behind your eyes from how exposed you feel as your legs fall open. geto's pupils blow wide. “fuck,” he mutters, dragging a rough hand over his face. “you're leaking. that's such a mess. and all i did was talk.”

you can't speak—can't think—your whole body is shaking as you rub yourself faster, chasing some kind of release, slick noises filling the room. every tiny touch feels too much and not enough at the same time.

geto is fighting everything in him not to move from the chair, watching like a man starved, squeezing his cock hard enough to hurt. “go on, pretty.” he croons darkly "put a finger in." your fingers fumble, slipping through the wetness before finally pushing inside. your walls flutter around your own digit, too tight, too needy. he lets out a brutal, bitten-off moan, grinding his hips against his palm—matching your pace.

“stop biting your lip,” he growls, “wanna hear you, pretty.” your moans breaks free—small and shameful at first, then louder when you start fucking yourself. “that's it,” his eyes are locked between your legs, “nice and slow, sweet girl. let me see how desperate you can get for me.” it's humiliating, disgusting, how fast you're falling apart, how quickly your hips are starting to chase your own fingers, trying to fuck yourself deeper.

sweat drips down his temple, cock throbbing and leaking so much in his boxer. he shifts again, rutting his hips shamelessly against his palm—chasing friction he desperately wanted you to give him. “bet you never do this for him,” he sneers, “bet that poor stem doesn't know he packed a slutty cunt. a needy one.” you gasp, a pitiful sound.

“does he, at least, get you this wet?” his words whip across the room like a lash. “when he touches you. .” your fingers speed up frantically, thighs quivering “when he fucks you. .” his smirk is vicious as he read through you, “quiet little good girl," he drawls, stepping closer. “saving all that greedy cunt for him, hoping he'll know what to do with it.” he's on you before you can process he even got up—looming over you at the edge of the bed, huge and terrifying and perfect. one big hand cups your jaw, tilting your flushed face up to meet his. his thumb smears sweat and tears across your cheek. ”pretty thing," he hisses, voice shaking with how hard he's holding back. “all soft and sweet. spread out so nice for me.” 

if you dare glanced down, you could've seen the soaked patch growing bigger. “i should be disgusted,” he whispers, “should leave your desperate little fat ass begging. sobbing for it.” he presses in closer, nose brushing yours, breath hot and heavy. “you're close, aren't you? fucking yourself stupid in front of me. can't even help it.” his forehead tips against yours. “come for me, sweetie." he murmurs, almost lovingly this time. "make a mess all over that pretty cunt. prove he's nothing.”  the filthy command punches the air out of your lungs.

you cry out, loud and shameless, thighs shaking violently as your orgasm crashes over you—drenching your hand and the sheets, rinding it out belly trembling and hips bucking helplessly.

geto watches it all—breathing ragged, knuckles white against the bedspread—but he never touches you. instead, he leans down and presses a filthy, tender kiss to your sweaty forehead. his cock still twitching violently in his pants, he's never been this hard his whole life. not even when he got onto threesome with twins.

and then—still hard, still starving for you—he stands.

he leaves you there, panting, twitching, soaking the sheets. your hand sticky, your cunt fluttering around nothing. your mind a ruined mess of him and only him.

he doesn't look back.

the door clicks softly shut behind him.

you lie there, empty—knowing no one else would ever make you feel so filthy, so wanted, so his.

ᖰ⌯'▾'⌯ᖳ

[zlut4rina]

One shot/imagine request: Backshots w/ g!p Karina… anywhere anytime she’s just ready to bed you over🙏😋

And if I said blue collar karina ? Yea.

Pairings: G!p!Karina x Femreader

Warnings: Unprotected sex, smut man idk

___________________________________________

She comes home from her mechanic job, all dirty and sweaty, but it doesn't matter to her. Coming home and seeing her beautiful girl, she just has to get her hands on you. She's had a rough day, too. You wouldn't let her suffer all night, would you?

She's throwing all her stuff down at the door. And when you go to greet her with a hug and kiss, she's picking you up, turning you around and bending you over the back of the couch. Pulling whatever you had on, off. Not caring for a blow job right now so she spits on her hand and cock and starts stroking it a little. Once she feels like she's done enough she's shoving her entire length into your tight pussy. Letting out a long growl like groan as she's fucking into you like a stupid pussy drunk loser. You don't complain, you can't complain. You have no right to when she goes out and does all the work. It's only right for you to give up your body for her. Letting her use you, however, or whenever, nit just when she's off work either.

Even when you decided to wake up extra early to pack her lunch for the long, hard day she was about to experience. She's coming up from behind and rubbing her bulge against your ass, and of course, you bend over for her! You just have to! She's rubbing her length between your thighs, up against your dripping panties. She pulls them to the side and just starts fucking you so hard against the counter. You try your best to complete her lunch, but it's so hard to when she's just so deep. She takes notice and tells you to finish up, saying you don't want her to go hungry, do you? Of course you don't! Trying to make her meal as clean as possible while your body rocks at an obscene pace. Finally finished and packed, she takes you down to the cold hard floor and ruts into you like like a dog, not caring if she'll be late or not, she just need to breed you so bad. You take her so well she just has to show her appreciation to how well you treat her too.

Oh my glob, shower sex with her ?!? She's had such a rough and hard day at work that she comes home dirtier than usual. She even has a slight odor to her from all the oil and gunk she dealt with. Taking the initiative you offer to help her bathe. Starting a warm shower for her. It starts with you washing her back and arms so innocently, then the second you bend over to pick up something you dropped, she's pushing you against the wall. Tweaking at your nipples while she rubs her length between your thighs. She then starts pounding you like she's never had pussy before. The sounds of wet sloppy sex was like a cursed song. Your moans mixing with her low grunts and groans was like a sadistic harmony. The sound of wet skin slapping collided with the sound of water still violently pouring on her back and floor. Filling you up with her cream while whispering thank yous in your ear.

She's so strong to omg, anytime you're done sucking her off, she's bending you over, pulling you hips up as high as she can. She's so strong, too. Her grip is so rough, and she doesn't even mean it 'sometimes'. Leaving marks and bruises on your hips from how strong She's holding you, and marks on your ass from how aggressive and rough she was spanking you. And if I say she likes to record, too? Just for when she's needy at work and you're not responding to her horny, needy, messages. She goes back to the video you recorded last night. It's of you bent over on her bed in the dark with only her flash on your body. Capturing how her long hard dick was going in and out of you, both of your loud moans, and the slapping of wet soaked flesh was all that could be heard. A few quiet praises and curses from karina too.

Ugh she literally loves cumming on your back too. She does it to make you mad cause she didn't cun inside you or just because she likes the way her mess glisten on your back. Watching it drip down from the crevice of your back onto your stomach or whatever is below you.

___________________________________________

Need her sb 🥀💔

[loveinhawkins]

ao3

Robin’s double-triple-quadruple checking that Steve is okay—well, okay as he can be, gritting his teeth as Nancy wraps hastily made bandages around him—when she sees Eddie turn away out the corner of her eye.

She follows the movement unconsciously, but then she really looks, and at first she thinks it’s just this god-awful place draining the colour out of everything, but wow, he looks bad.

“Hey,” she says as brightly as she can, “you just checking out the scenery over here or…?”

Eddie shakes his head, and that immediately seems like a bad idea because his face gets even paler, which Robin didn’t even think was, like, possible.

“Just needed to—” he says faintly.

And that’s all he gets out before he weaves where he’s standing, and Robin reaches for him instinctively, grabs a hold of his hand; his palm is cold with sweat, and she suddenly finds herself thinking that the rumour going around a couple years ago, that Eddie passed out in the middle of a dissection in Biology, must have some truth in it.

“Okay, we’re okay!” she says quickly, and holds on as tight as she can. “We’re just gonna stand here and breathe.”

She says it a few more times, “We’re just gonna breathe,” and she’s got no idea if it’s the right thing to do or not, whether it’s just deeply annoying or making everything worse.

Eddie closes his eyes, and she worries about that initially, but the grip of his hand gets stronger, and he doesn’t sway again, and when he opens his eyes and looks at her, they’re clear and focused.

He squeezes her hand twice. “Thanks.”

He doesn’t let go, and he looks embarrassed about it, so Robin says that her sense of balance is so incredibly shit, and this is very helpful of him, thank you.

It works at least a little bit; he almost laughs. Then he swallows, and she can feel his urge to look back over despite himself. He stops the motion just in time.

“Is he—” His fingers twitch uneasily. “Is he okay?”

“Yes,” she says immediately.

She really hopes it doesn’t sound like she’s pacifying him. It’s just, she knows by now what to watch out for, she doesn’t even really need to be looking; an awareness of Steve in her periphery is enough.

She rushes to try and clarify, “Like, I know it seems like I was panicking with the rabies thing, I mean, I kinda was super panicking, but I got it all out my system, like I’m a worrier first and foremost, that’s my secret default emotion, you’re welcome, so when I say there’s nothing to worry about, obviously there are plenty of things to worry about, look where we are, but I promise nothing major currently in the Steve department, and I can tell you, like, instantly when that changes, it’s a sixth sense.”

Eddie blinks, looking slightly stunned. Shit, she forgets sometimes that it’s only really Steve who’s used to these monologues.

A big breath. “And I know it seems like I’m panicking because I’m rambling which—okay, that’s sometimes true, but in most cases—this one included, I swear!—me talking way too much just means I’m comfortable with whoever’s listening.” Eddie’s eyes widen. “So, um. Congratulations? Sorry? Take your pick. Does that, um, make sense?”

There’s a pause before Eddie replies—he’s probably still processing just how many words were thrown at him.

“I don’t think you talk too much,” he says in a taken aback kind of way. Then, “And yeah, sure, that makes sense. Just, uh, questioning your judgement.” A slight self-effacing smile. “I’m not typically the kinda guy folks are comfortable around.”

“Is it really so shocking?” Robin says, meaning it as a tease but—

“Yes,” Eddie says, and while he matches her tone, the word teeters between a joke and something vulnerable.

They both turn at a sudden grunt of exertion—Steve’s standing up, supporting himself with one hand leaning on the rock he’d fallen against. Nancy watches his movements with an anxious intensity; Robin follows her eyeline and notes with relief that the bleeding’s stopped.

“We can go to my house,” Nancy says like she’s trying to convince herself it’s a good idea. “There’ll—there must be some bandages or something just. Just in case.”

Steve lets go of the rock and stands up to his full height. It’s a deliberate show of reassurance, Robin thinks, as much for himself as it is for Nancy.

“Sure,” Steve says. “And guns too, right?”

Nancy’s startled into a laugh. For a second, the weight of concern leaves her face. “And guns,” she repeats.

Eddie catches Robin’s eye with an air of bewilderment. “Guns?” he mouths.

Robin nods.

Eddie looks, if possible, even more lost. Then his eyes slide away from Robin’s, and his expression changes; he starts to frown. At first Robin can’t tell what he’s noticed except that there can’t be any more blood, thank God, because he doesn’t look away. Then she sees it too as Steve takes a step forward with a nonchalant, “What are we waiting for? Let’s go,” like the determined normality of his voice can somehow hide the fact that he’s shivering.

Nancy bites her lip, looking like she’s come to the same unwelcome conclusion as Robin: that no matter what they say, it’ll just result in Steve arguing against it.

There’s a rustle off to the side. Robin glances over only in time to see a blur of denim; Steve catches it against his chest. Eddie’s vest.

“For your modesty, dude,” Eddie quips like it’s no big deal, but Robin can instantly sense the care he’s taken in how he’s said it, that he’s guessed intuitively about the kind of person Steve is: the kind who, when Robin once forgot her umbrella, shared his and made sure she was fully covered, despite him getting soaked in the process.

It’s like she can physically see the path that Eddie’s flippancy has opened up. This way Steve accepting the vest is just continuing the joke; he doesn’t need to admit that he actually needs it.

And it works. Steve expertly sidesteps around the vulnerability and shrugs on the vest, echoing Eddie’s levity right back at him.

“Oh, my modesty, sure. Well, in that case, don’t wanna offend you, dude.”

“You know me, propriety is my middle name.”

Steve laughs. He fiddles a little with one of the buttons on the vest then says lightly, as if an afterthought, “Didn’t know you cared.”

It still walks the line of a joke, but Robin can hear his sincerity, and from the look of surprise on Eddie’s face, so can he. And it’s not like Steve being genuine is a surprise to her, but—

The ground gives way beneath her feet; her stomach lurches as she loses her balance, and it’s only when she accidentally catches Eddie’s shoulder that she realises she’s not going to fall through an endless chasm, that the world is just shaking violently—still not a comforting prospect, but she’ll gladly take it over the alternative.

She barely has time to feel the relative relief before another shudder sends her straight to the ground; she’s too caught off guard to even protect her face with her hands. But her landing isn’t nearly as painful as it should be—as everything finally grows still, she finds the reason why: Eddie, who from the awkward twisted position of his legs looks like he was caught equally off guard, and yet he’s still managed to fling an arm around Robin, bracing to keep her from the worst of the impact.

“Did anyone touch the vines?” Nancy asks breathlessly.

Robin and Eddie shake their heads.

“Any, uh, particular reason why?” Eddie says in the tone of someone who’d really rather not find out.

“It’s a hive mind,” Steve and Nancy say simultaneously, in a very hive mind like way.

Robin hums the theme to The Twilight Zone; everyone laughs, some pressure finally released.

“So killer demon bats weren’t enough, we’ve gotta deal with booby traps too,” Eddie says.

Steve snorts. He glances childishly to Robin as if looking for approval; she rolls her eyes with an irrepressible smile. Seriously?

There’s a split second of disbelief before Eddie just grins in delight. “Real mature, Harrington.”

Steve shrugs. “Sorry, man,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “Just providing what Dustin would’ve done.”

They sober slightly at the reminder that their group’s been split.

“You think they’ve figured out that we’re…?” Eddie wiggles his fingers vaguely. He’s slower at getting to his feet than everyone else had been—he’s still hunched over slightly, rubbing at his knee.

“They will,” Nancy says with conviction.

“Don’t underestimate them,” Steve says mildly.

“Oh, I’m not, believe me. They’re kinda terrifying.”

“Terrifying?” Nancy echoes, laughing again, right as Steve says, “Exactly.”

As if in response to their laughter, there’s a distant growl punctuated with ominous clicking. Steve and Nancy both go rigid, and Robin thinks of the night after Starcourt, when Steve stayed over at her place because neither of them wanted to be alone; and he told her how everything started for him, his voice tripping over the words like he was reliving it all over again: running back to Jonathan Byers’ house, hearing the snarl of a monster.

“Yeah, I’m all for going to the Wheeler sanctum,” Eddie says weakly.

But he doesn’t move initially, so Steve and Nancy end up leading the way. Steve repeatedly sweeps the beam of his flashlight back and forth, making sure that the path is lit up for everyone, and Robin wonders whether he’s so focused on that that he hasn’t yet noticed—

“You’re hurt,” she tells Eddie softly. She’s up and looped her arm through his without thinking—which is kind of a big deal considering she nearly threw up with nerves when dancing with a boy at her middle school Snow Ball—and she realises that, for once, she forgot to be nervous about it.

“It’s not that bad,” Eddie says dismissively, but she can feel him leaning on her so it must be at least a little bit bad. “Hey, we kinda even each other out like this, huh? Your balance is pretty good, actually.” He pauses, then, “I’m okay, promise, just didn’t wanna…” He shrugs, nods towards Steve. “Gotta prioritise, y’know?”

Robin doesn’t push back on it for now, just slows her pace so Eddie isn’t jostled. “Thank you,” she says instead, lowering her voice. She nods toward Steve too. “For the…”

“Style improvement? Yeah, you’re welcome.”

This time Robin only lets him get away with belittling it for so long; it’s important, she thinks, that he knows.

“I mean it. He wouldn’t have taken it if you hadn’t—he’s…” She sighs. The greatest Tammy Thompson impersonator. Stupidly funny. Serious, when he has to be. Caring. Selfless. My best friend. “Stubborn.”

Eddie laughs under his breath. “Oh, and you’re not? What the hell was that back there?” He drops into a gently mocking impression of her voice, “I made that shit up.”

“I was just being honest!”

“Way to give me a heart attack.” She feels him squeeze the crook of her elbow. “Don’t do it again.”

And there’s that balancing act again, joking but not. Robin hears it for what it is. Don’t leave me alone. She squeezes back.

“I won’t.”

She expects Eddie to change the subject quickly. Instead he laughs—smaller, sadder. “Shit, sorry. You must think I’m—”

“No,” she says firmly. “I don’t.”

Eddie looks down like he’s just watching his step, nothing more. But his hold around Robin’s arm tightens again. He clears his throat.

“Thanks, Buckley.”

“Hey, Robin, Eddie,” Steve calls; Robin feels Eddie jump. “There’s vines up ahead, like…” He turns around and indicates where with the flashlight. Then he catches Robin’s eye, knits his eyebrows slightly. You okay?

She smiles in reassurance before subtly tilting her head towards Eddie, wrinkles her nose. 

Steve’s forehead relaxes. The tiniest nod. Yeah, I know. Got my eye on it.

Because of course he’d noticed the hurt knee despite Eddie’s attempt to hide it; Robin recalls now one of Steve’s rants about his time at school, how he’d often clock injuries during basketball games before the borderline neglectful coach.

And then she realises that Steve’s been walking backwards throughout their silent conversation, alternating between lighting the way for Nancy, and for her and Eddie.

She rolls her eyes, briefly draws a circle in the air with her finger. Now you’re just showing off.

Steve grins, waggles his eyebrows ridiculously. Oh, yeah? What’re you gonna do about it?

But he obligingly turns around, as Nancy gives him a sidelong, questioning look. He answers, too far away to hear, points behind him with his free hand like he’s explaining something. Then his hand goes to the vest, rubbing his thumb absentmindedly over the denim near the collar; Robin smiles.

“So, uh, how likely is it that I’m gonna get that back?” Eddie asks. He sounds amused, like he’s just noticed the same thing as Robin.

“Like, out of ten?” She pretends to think about it. “Two point five.”

Eddie snorts. “Wow, thanks.”

It’s a compliment, Eddie, she thinks, recalling the select few sweaters that Steve fiddles with in winter. He only does that with clothes he really loves.

“You’re not the first. He steals my sunglasses all the time.”

Eddie bursts out laughing. “Figures. He’d look good in anything, it’s so unfair.”

And it doesn’t sound serious; it’s said off the cuff, like it doesn’t have to mean anything. But Robin’s growing more certain that she can hear what’s hiding underneath—that, however hesitantly, she’s being tested.

“Yeah, but we’re not supposed to actually tell him that, he’ll never shut up about it.” As Eddie laughs, she elbows him gently, reaches across to tug at one of the zippers on his sleeve. “So are you providing a permanent service with your clothes? Cause I call dibs on your jacket.”

Eddie laughs again; the mix of disbelief and joy in the sound is familiar—Robin’s heard it come from herself not all that long ago. It takes a while to sink in, that friendship can be found so easily—an uncomplicated, earnest type of love once thought lost to kindergarten; it doesn’t have to hurt.

(“I didn’t need the truth serum to say it,” Robin had confessed during a terminally slow day at Family Video. “I think, deep down, I trusted you.”

“Oh,” Steve said softly and watched the rest of the movie they’d thrown on dewy-eyed.)

There’s a spring in Eddie’s step now despite the limp. He calls out like he’s on a summer hiking trail, “Are we there yet?”

Nancy chuckles. “No. Are you five?”

“Wheeler, I’m shocked that you’d repeat the baseless lies of the school faculty.”

Steve turns, his grin caught by the flashlight—and he looks younger suddenly, Robin thinks, like he’s in class, sneaking a look at someone in the seat behind.

“Wow, dude, I’m so sorry. Are you bored? I forgot to book the entertainment.”

“Did you, Steve?” Eddie asks, all innocence. “I thought you were the entertainment.”

And as they go back and forth, it’s as if the darkness of the woods can’t reach them anymore—as Steve starts a game of I spy, and Eddie encourages Nancy to come up with equally outlandish guesses, the two of them barely keeping their giggles under control, violets, vixen, velociraptor?

“Vines, you losers!” Steve says, still grinning, walking tall like he’s totally forgotten about his injury; and Eddie turns to Robin like that had been his aim all along, “Your turn, Buckley.”

Oh, you’ll fit right in, Robin says to herself before jumping into the game—as they all, at least for a little while, leave fear behind.

[seaturtlesayshuh]

First worst drink that comes to my mind would be the time young me (think 8 yearw old?) left an open can of grape soda on a garage floor for a couple hours and ended up eating a bunch of ants with it. I don't remember why I was drinking grape soda in the garage, or why I was called away such that the floor seemed a good spot to leave it for so long.

I used to love grape soda, and in those hours of ground sitting, a stream of ants also loved grape soda. I came back to the soda can, surprised that I left an open can without slamming it back and leaving it empty of sweet elixir hours prior.

I arrived just in time to spot a fresh squad of ants approaching the lip, swiftly brushing them off, and giving myself a good pat on the back, crisis averted. That would've been bad, ants in my drink.

I lift the can, feeling the shifting weight of sweet drink yet undrunk. In victory, I take a sip.

My lips felt something weird. I stop the sipping. "Did the soda go flat? Is this flat soda? Probably, it's been sitting out here for hours." I swallow. And my throat felt weird.

I take another sip. This one goes much easier, and the question leaves my mind. Until I bring my teeth together (as you do mid-drink) and feel a very definitive *crunch*, and a new flavor unlocks.

Worried that I'm about to lose another tooth, young me rushes to a nearby empty drinking glass and spits into it, in an effort to hold onto whatever tooth bits I could.

And rather than anything resembling white enamel appearing in the purple beverage in the cup, little black things were present.

Little black things that appear to be trying to swim.

The memory of possible ants resurfaces from forty seconds ago, and I realize what I have done, as the horror scratches along my throat.

As a final test, I walked over to the kitchen sink, splashed some more out of the can, and more little bodies surfaced. A lot of little bodies.

I pour the remaining grape flavored drink down the drain. What I once held has a holy elixir, as one last pour to elsewhere.

And I never had anything resembling grape soda ever since.

what is THE worst thing you've ever drank. all liquids acceptable. please tell me what it was, bonus points for why

[thegreatyin]

What, precisely, is fallen London, and how can I play it? Ive been told it's a browser game, will it work on my phones browser or only my computer's?

SWEEPS EVERYTHING OFF MY DESK. SLAMS MY HANDS ON THE COUNTER. you're in luck because advertising this game is apparently my specialty.

fallen london is a free browser game that works on anything with an internet connection!! laptops, phones, tablets, the decade old 3ds you have stashed in the back of your closet- if you can open a web browser, you can run fallen london. the UI obviously differs between desktop and mobile, and desktop has the benefit of extensions that can make your life marginally easier, but that's all a strictly optional affair.

as for the game's actual contents; fallen london is a text-based horror game closely reminiscent of classic "choose your own adventure" books. you play as a new arrival to an alternate history version of victorian london that now flourishes in a deep, dark, marvelous (and more than slightly eldritch!) cavern known as "the neath", with the goal of making your name and ultimately pursuing one of the four possible ambitions that brought you here to begin with. along the way you encounter a wide variety of strange and inexplicable things, including but not limited to;

men with the faces of squid (who are not truly men)

actual real soul-stealing devils (who originate from Actual Real Hell, which is also london's next door neighbor)

snakes that are eternally bound to the realm beyond mirrors (who have an infamous feud with sapient talking cats)

treacheries of time, law, and all that which the gods hold dear (including the ability to bypass death itself)

sirens who are convinced they're dead (in a place where, as stated, death is easily bypassed)

sentient landmasses that get REALLY annoyed if you don't pay your taxes on time (and are also single and ready to mingle)

fabric that is not fabric (which is held in quite high value by certain giant bat monsters)

spiders that eat eyeballs (but are, fortunately, easily distracted by shakespeare)

genres of colors you didn't think possible (in seven fantastical flavors!)

batkissing (not canonically, but in our hearts)

batfucking (this is, somehow, marginally more canon than the above thing)

batmarriage (no.)

batdivorce (in comically large spades)

The Hat Man (who's in love with and yearns to become like a sentient island)

gay people (a lot of them)

trans people (also a lot of them)

doomed love, in all possible forms (as well as those who try and collect it)

this thing (this thing)

and last- but certainly not least-

a pitiful hope that perhaps, just perhaps, all shall one day be well. (even when you know it won't be.)

it's a game with lore as deep as the ocean, and a staggering wordcount (4.5 million!) to boot. it's not perfect, but it's something i've grown to love deeply, and in my experience? if it doesn't click for you, that's understandable. but if it clicks for you, it really does click for you. i recommend it to anyone and everyone who so much as looks its way. who knows! it may just surprise you 🦇☀️🦀🌃

as a further incentive, here are some out-of-context items and excerpts:

as stated, you can play it right now for free at fallen london dot com. there is a subscription and a small bounty of microtransactions on offer if you want to support the development team, but at no point is this ever required, and you will be playing for years before you reach the end of stuff to accomplish. all major content updates are free and available to all players, and FOMO to this day remains virtually non-existent. as once again stated, the browser specs are non-existent. if you can run google, you can run fallen london.

so head on down!! give the neath a try!! follow admiralty orders and dump a bunch of bombs directly into the zee (underground sea) whilst accidentally waking up a giant grieving sea urchin that screams fire and violently pursues your demise!! (that's what we're all doing right now, anyway.)

if the browser game isn't for you, there's also other outlets with which to explore the universe. you can find the spinoff games Sunless Seas, Sunless Skies, and Mask of The Rose available to purchase right now on steam, and there's recently been a very successful kickstarter to adapt the game into a TTRPG. it looks very cool so far. im very very very excited for it :)

in lieu of having to come up with a conclusion for this ask, im instead going to direct you to the MoTR stupendium song (which you'll find linked below). it says far more and advertises far better than i could ever dream of. also, it's a straight bop, and "all ends/swords pens" has lived rent-free in my brain for months.

welcome to the neath, delicious friend. we hope you enjoy your stay ❤️

[yandere-sins]

Solitude

a/n: Just a little something I wrote after playing the update and seeing Mydei be all alone. Hope you guys enjoy it ♥ Warnings: Yandere, Kidnapping, Depression & Desperation, Depiction of loneliness, Possessiveness, Sexual Innuendos, Implied Forced Marriage by Parents, Soft Yandere (at some parts), Long Post

Cruelty came in many forms.

Kicking someone who was already down was cruel, as was forcing another person to commit crimes. But it all paled in comparison to kidnapping you in your sleep, taking you too far from your home—or any civilization, really—to return to it by yourself, and keeping you in constant danger and maddening loneliness just so he could have you all to himself.

On that day, when you first heard of Mydei's departure, you were filled with relief. Relief which you hadn't felt in so long. Usually, it was discomfort, stress, and fear. There were days you didn't leave your home just to avoid him. But you couldn't on that day, so your fate ran its course.

Even though you tried, you couldn't outrun it this time.

Standing at the edge of the once glorious city, you watched the rubble perish into an endless abyss beneath your feet. One step further and you would have lost your footing, plummeting together with the earth. He wouldn't have let you, realistically, but you liked to imagine it occasionally. It soothed your anguished mind to think about possible escapes, even if there was no way out from his clutches.

Castrum Kremnos—or at least what remained of it—was mostly quiet that day. No moaning, groaning, or growling from the beasts that haunted it, and yet, the ground shook ever so often, reminding you of the monster fighting on the other side of the city. The vibrations beneath your feet were a reminder and a promise at the same time.

Don't do anything stupid. I am right here.

As if the colossal walls and buildings didn't constantly remind you of that. Even when they were empty, it felt like watchful eyes leered down at you from above, the wind howling through the broken parts as if they were whispering to Mydei about you, telling him all he wanted to know. It was never truly silent in this prison that was your life.

In a way, they reminded you of your parents, the original perpetrators of your misery. They hadn't been happy when Mydei declared himself the last king, laying down his title that they had always hoped would make their child a consort one day. For some reason, they had followed this poor man for so long on his journey, shoving you into his face until, eventually, he'd take you for a spouse, and they'd get to benefit from this union. That was their hope, their whole purpose in life.

Your purpose.

It failed the day Mydei left Okhema and all Kremnoians behind. But only partly, in a way they wouldn't have expected. Because they didn't know or didn't want to know what and who he really was. Your parents wouldn't listen to you and would put you in your place if you even dared to express disapproval of the union they wished for you and the former prince. Mydei never even knew why you were forced to approach him in the first place.

But by the time you told him, it was already too late.

Because he was in love, he said. With you, he whispered in the corner of the Garden of Life a long time ago, holding your hand loosely clasped in his, with the tips of his golden claws digging into your palm. I want you, said in a voice that didn't befit him, too soft, without the edge of a nagging or scolding undertone. It created a knot in your stomach and almost made you throw up into his lap then and there. Ironic, wasn't it? That the thing you were forced to want, was what unsettled you the most.

And yet, your parents made you go to his farewell ceremony. Even if you were not going to be his consort, they hadn't lost hope of being rewarded for their efforts by being patriotic to their king. You thought they were stupid to still play this game, even if Kremnos had fallen. Even when Mydei had decided to become a god and fulfill the only duty he felt bound to.

You had almost admired him as he parted the crowd with every one of his steps, head held high. His gaze dropped to you, despite the countless heads between the two of you, and you had bowed, smiling as you were filled with a feeling of freedom that you thought went through him, too, at that moment. Mydei looked so at peace. You thought it meant the same for you.

"Careful."

Sharp, golden claws wrapped around your arm as you were pulled back. Still catching his breath, his chest rose and fell against your body, Mydei's other arm reaching for your hip, caging you against him. You were far enough away from the edge, yet you still looked out at it longingly. It was a way out. One of many, you assumed. And one of many he disapproved of.

"You don't want to fall in there."

"I wouldn't know," you whispered before taking a deep breath, brushing off his hands, and turning around to look him in the eyes, hoping that some of the distaste and hatred you felt for him would convey through your gaze. "I wasn't even born when my parents left the city."

"I know what it's like to fall in there, that's enough," Mydei insisted, the swirling red in his eyes both unnerving and challenging to look at, reminding you he wasn't like you. It made you feel... helpless. Trapped. Punished for some reason. So you shook your head and looked away.

Once more, the city fell silent with only the wind whispering as it rustled through hair and clothes, making them sway in the wind. Almost like the day that Mydei took you, the same day he left the city. By the time you laid your head to rest, everyone thought he was long gone, and you enjoyed leaving your window open for the first time in years. It felt so good to feel the wind on your face without worrying over nightly visitors and you slept with a smile.

Only to be harshly awoken by wetness splattering on your face. Cruelty knew no bounds as the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes was the life leaving a Titankin, blood splaying everywhere while you were clutched tightly against Mydei's chest, his skin and clothes just as bloody, and you were, too. Mydei was cruelty incarnate, yet you were surprised that he left with the only thing that meant enough to him to take with as he returned home.

You.

"I saw this. Made me think about you."

The sound you made as Mydei held out the little violet towards you was more sneer than you wanted it to be. Ironic. Everything about this was so ironic. You took it from his claws, the poor thing being squeezed to death between his fingers. Much like you were, you thought, in a strange feeling of camaraderie.

"It was the only flower I could find beneath all the rubble. Thought you might like it since you keep complaining about the dirt."

Opening your mouth, you were about to tell him that he just had to take you back to Okhema so you could be rid of it all. However, the constant arguing with him had worn you down enough to not start it again. Pointing out the similarity between his statement and your situation wouldn't help either; Mydei effortlessly ignored any mention of wrongdoing. But he had made it clear, even before kidnapping you, that you were a flower amongst the ruins of his life. A rare ray of sunshine in a world dipped in blood and cruelty.

You agreed with a man's opinion once, telling him that his ideas weren't absurd, and now he worshipped you in his own twisted way.

Twirling the stem between your fingers, you watched the petals dance. One single flower in all of Castrum Kremnos. And Mydei had to ruin it, another similarity you shared with the flower. One god, one human, one flower. A whole lot of fighting, rubble, and monsters. It was all so ironic and all so... lonely.

Taking a few steps away from him and the enticing abyss, you came to a halt again fairly quickly. There was no one you had to hurry for, nothing to go to. This place was the kingdom of isolation, and you needed to almost fall off a cliff for Mydei to appear, why not use the chance?

"Do you ever regret leaving Okhema?", you asked, still watching the flower in your hand. However, when you had to wait for a reply, your eyes darted up, seeing Mydei stare at the flower, too, deep in thought.

"No," he finally said, looking up to meet your gaze, and your lips twisted into a knowing pitiful smile.

"Liar," you called him out. "It's so lonely here. The solitude is killing me; I don't believe it doesn't affect you."

"It doesn't," he immediately replied, firmly this time. He closed the distance in a meager two steps, grabbing your hand that was still holding the flower and squeezing it tightly. The tips of his claws poked your skin, burning as they tore through the layers until you released the fragile bloom with a gasp. But it never hit the floor.

"I never lie. I don't need to lie," Mydei hissed, resentful of your mischaracterization of him. He had caught the flower between his claws, and your heart ached for it, seeing how it most likely was going to be destroyed in his clutches, the god having very little sentiment for the fragility of life.

But to your surprise, he raised it high, all the way up to your temple. The cold metal brushed your skin, hair strands tangling between the claws, some of them getting cut off as he brushed them back. When Mydei withdrew his hand, there was no flower left in his grasp, instead, he rested his palm alongside your face, cupping your cheek that was wet with tears that you hadn't realized had fallen.

"I'm not lonely, I have you. What more do I need, when all I want is right here? And what more do you want when I am here with you?"

"My freedom," you croaked. "My life, my peace."

Mydei let out a loud, humorless laugh as he listened with furrowed brows. His hand fell from your face, tears making the gold shimmer in the lights as his gaze softened ever so slightly. "That's what I gave you."

"No," you whispered, shaking your head with increasing ferocity. "That's not it, this is--"

"Solitude. The freedom to do what you want, live the life you want and find peace with everything and yourself. It's exactly what you wanted."

"But..."

Unable to find the words to argue against him, your body slowly stilled, shoulders sacking as you realized you couldn't debate it. He was right. Mydei was actually right.

All your life you had done what others wanted, never what you did. You hadn't even played in dirt as child before coming to Castrum Kremnos. You didn't get to live you life or be at peace with your decisions... there never were any decisions, not even whether you'd come here. But now that you were... Mydei was right.

So why weren't you happy?

"But I'm lonely," you whispered, barely loud enough to even hear yourself. Even without living by your own definition before, you had always been surrounded by people. Friends, neighbors, good people. Even Mydei had been by your side long before he loved you. But now that it was only you two, it was no longer enough, even if he had given you everything you always wanted in life. He couldn't return the happy times you hung out with, talked to everyone else, learned new things, and worked hard towards a common goal with those around you.

Despite it all, it still wasn't what you wanted.

Mydei thought for a long time, his back turned towards you, before he suddenly placed his arms akimbo, looking at the sky. "I wanted to wait, you know," he sighed heavily, as if burdened by his words. "Give you the time. Have you come to me."

In a split second, he had turned around and closed the distance between you two. He was so close, you felt his breath on your skin, your eyes having fallen on his lips that hovered just above you. "I gave you freedom," he murmured, goosebumps running down your spine as your pulse quickened. "Returned your life to you, gave you a chance to acquire peace."

Next thing you knew, Mydei's lips crashed on yours, hot and tight, both passionate and awkward, as if it was his first time. And yet, he took the lead, confidently, unwavering, as he pried your lips open, sliding his tongue inside to meet yours, unite them as he sucked in the remainder of your breath. Taking it all from you as if possessed with prying your very soul from you. Cruel, demanding, and so, so devoted to making your head blur, mind race, and heart leap.

Your fingers clawed into his shoulders, which he took as a sign to draw closer, to bare himself even more to you as the lovesick fool he was. You felt his weight leaning on you as he tipped you backward, as if to throw both of you off the cliff he had warned you about. Almost as if his knees were giving out beneath him as he wanted to kneel before you. As if this kiss was a sign of worship, rather than whatever Mydei thought he was doing. You could have torn him open, and you doubted he would have minded at that moment as he sunk you both deeper into the kiss, like an ocean, deep and neverending.

And you could only hold on to him, as the only lifeline keeping you from drowning.

Abruptly, your feet left the ground, legs spread open as he forced your hips against his, securing you with one arm beneath your thighs and one clawed hand clasping the nape of your neck. Suddenly, you were the one looking down at him from above, his neck stretching to look up at you, following the lure of your lips even though it was interrupted not shortly after.

"Ask me," he demanded breathlessly. "Ask me to take it away."

"Take what?" you answered, your brain still too frazzled to understand.

Mydei's face contorted in something akin to pain as if it hurt him to tell you what he wanted, and you couldn't understand it. He always had a snide retort. He never hesitated to throw back a comment and to argue with anyone. Yet it hurt him to ask you something? Or was it not hurt you had seen at all?

What if it was the desperation of need?

A need for what?

"Please," he begged. Mydei begged. The Mydei softened his voice to beg you. "Please ask me."

"Ask you to what?" you replied more firmly, assured by the shivers you felt beneath your nails as you dug them deeper into his body that he understood that he needed to speak clearly. Suddenly, you were in a completely different situation than before, a surge of power going through you as his eyes darted back and forth between the two of yours, his jaw ticking as he fought his inner demons not to sink so low. If he asked you, and you said no, it would surely tear him apart, you realized that, but you didn't even know what he wanted to say in the first place.

"... away."

"Louder," you whispered as you missed the first part, Mydei's teeth so delightfully clenched as you made him repeat himself.

"Let me take the loneliness away."

Abruptly, the strange tension Mydei had created between you two fell off, your shoulders slacking as you breathed out curtly. You felt the risen spirits fall back into a deep depression as you shook your head slowly, Mydei's body tensing even more than it had before.

"You can't," you whispered. "It won't last."

"Then I'll prove it to you."

Tightening his hold on you, Mydei squatted slightly before taking a big leap. The sudden loss of gravity and the disappearing ground tore a scream out of you, and you clung to him unintentionally.

"You can't!"

"I do!" Mydei replied, sounding optimistic as he clutched you tightly against him, freeing his arms to wrap them around you as you were holding on to him mostly on your own now. "I did it all for you, I can take the loneliness away as well! Watch me!"

"You're crazy!"

"Stop talking like Phainon, it pisses me off!"

The heavy thud that followed should have broken some bones if not for the fact that Mydei absorbed the landing completely. And further, he continued walking as if he hadn't just taken a massive leap across the city, completely unbothered, his goal still unknown.

"You can't," you mumbled, feeling unwell after the experience. But you forced your eyes open, recognizing the hallway leading to the room he had claimed and reinforced for you to live in.

"You don't known that."

"No one can take loneliness away, Mydei!"

His shoulder suddenly rammed into the enforced door, opening it up enough to squeeze you two through the gap before he turned his back, forcing it to shut again. "I'll show you I can. All you need is me. You should have asked me for it, why don't you understand that?"

Somehow, his words gave you a bad feeling. When you met his eyes, your stomach churned with the fear of the unknown, his gaze tearing you apart, baring you down to the bone to him. You two were back in the safest place in all of Kremnos, and yet, you felt in grave danger, especially when the heavy door finally closed to perfection. It was as if you were locked in with a predator, and you were the meal he was starving after for years.

You gulped.

"I didn't say yes."

Mydei's lips curled into a grin as you were slowly released from his hold, sliding off onto wobbly feet. Every step you took back, he matched one of his. However, he moved towards you, the space to escape him running out quicker than you wanted. There was no running, yet you still didn't believe him. It was impossible to take away the loneliness. Even for a short moment, it wouldn't change the situation or your relationship for the better. It wouldn't make a change big enough to stop you from longing for more.

"But you didn't say no," was his final reply to this matter, and once again, frustratingly, he was right.

One day, if it wasn't the solitude that killed you, it would be Mydei; you were sure of it as you had to watch him close the distance—pounce like the monster he was.

Gods, you prayed silently. Let it be solitude.

[maskedbyghost]

You ask, I deliver:

The possessive reader AU, I know neither of them can stand the thought of their partner going to the dentist. Laying back, letting someone else know the interior of that mouth, fingers sliding over soft tissue and mapping out the points of those teeth? Possibly drawing blood that should rightfully be theirs? Someone sedate these two like they’re aggressive cats coming in for a cleaning at the vet.

shoutout to this absolute legend who sent me the idea because you unlocked something unholy in me. READ PART 1 HERE cw: smut, possessive/obsessive behavior, semi-public sex (in a car), unprotected sex..

You drive him to the appointment because he hates doing it alone. Still, honestly, the entire time you’re behind the wheel, you’re gripping it hard enough that you’re surprised it doesn’t just snap in half, because the only thing going through your head is the mental image of some stranger putting their hands in Simon’s mouth, tilting his head back, touching him in places that should be yours, places only you should ever be allowed to know, and the tiny noises he makes when he’s uncomfortable.

You swear to god if you think about it one second longer, you might actually commit a felony.

Simon looks over at you once when you stop at a red light, raises an eyebrow under his cap, and says, “You gonna calm down, sweetheart, or am I gonna have to sedate you this time?”

And you smile at him, all bright and sunny like the most normal girlfriend ever, except you know it’s not right, you can feel it pulling at your mouth wrong, too many teeth showing, a smile you have to force out of yourself before you start growling or crying or both.

Simon just shakes his head a little and mutters, “Terrifying,” under his breath like he thinks you can’t hear him.

At the office, you sit together in those shitty chairs, pretending you’re normal people, and you’re almost holding it together until the door opens and of course it’s a young woman, pretty, smiling, fresh little uniform and shiny name tag and all, and your stomach twists itself into a thousand angry knots because now you’re not just imagining some faceless stranger, you’re staring at the exact woman who’s about to put her hands in Simon’s mouth, who’s about to know the little sounds he makes when he flinches, who's gonna touch him, smell him, see him with his mask off, and you grip the chair so hard you think it might crack.

“Simon Riley?” she calls, all sweet and professional, and Simon stands up, but before he can even move, you grab his wrist like you’re going to drag him back down into the chair and refuse to let him go, and he just gives you this look, this calm, amused, patient look that makes you want to bite him right there in the waiting room.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, like he knows you’re two seconds from throwing yourself at the poor woman and clawing her eyes out, and he squeezes your hand once before he goes, and that’s the only thing that keeps you in your seat.

You sit there staring at the closed door, thinking about all the ways you could ruin this woman’s life if she smiles too much or laughs at one of his stupid little jokes or leans too close or touches him too long, because no one should get to touch him but you, no one should get to see how good he is when he’s soft and quiet and letting someone take care of him, and it’s yours, it’s all supposed to be yours, and god, you’re so far gone you don’t even want to be normal about it anymore.

By the time he comes back out, you’re already halfway to throwing a fit, but he just looks tired and a little dazed from the fluoride, and he’s rubbing his jaw like it’s sore, and that’s all it takes for the switch to flip in your brain, from violent to protective in half a second.

You drag him out into the parking lot without a word, shoving him into the passenger seat and climbing over him before he can even say anything, straddling his lap with your knees pressed into the seat on either side of his hips, grabbing his face in both hands like you’re checking him over for damage even though what you really want is to mark him, make him messy, make him smell like you so no one else ever gets any stupid ideas again.

“She touched you,” you whisper, half accusation, half devastation, pressing your forehead to his while breathing him in so hard it feels like you’re trying to pull the air out of his lungs.

“She wore gloves,” he says, voice low and careful like he’s talking to a crazy person, which, fair, because you are, and it’s not even enough, it’s not even close to enough, because he still let her, still let someone else close, still trusted someone else to take care of him when that’s your job.

You kiss him messy and hard, sliding your hands into his hair, tugging at it just to feel him grunt against your mouth, and then you’re rocking your hips against him, grinding down until you feel him start to stiffen underneath you, until you know he can’t even think straight anymore, and you pull back just enough to pant into his mouth, “Mine. All mine. No one else touches you. No one else gets to even look at you like that.”

Simon’s hands dig into your waist, trying to slow you down, trying to catch his breath, but you’re not having it.

You’re already unbuttoning his jeans with shaky hands, already sinking down onto him with a broken little gasp because you need it, need him inside you, need to erase the memory of someone else touching him, need to make him so messy and ruined that no one else would ever dare think he belonged to anyone but you.

You ride him fast and desperate, muttering broken things against his skin, promises and threats and prayers all tangled together — "you're mine, mine, only mine, gonna mark you up so bad no one'll even think about touching you again, gonna make you come so hard you forget everyone else’s name but mine"

And Simon’s already so wrecked, clinging to you, groaning into your neck, hips stuttering helplessly, and when you bite down on his shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise through his hoodie, he spills inside you with a sound so rough and desperate it’s almost a sob.

You don't let up, grinding on him slow and filthy, kissing his throat, his jaw, whispering, "mine, mine, always mine," over and over again until you feel him throb inside you one more time, a second, broken little aftershock you didn’t even know was possible.

And when you finally pull back and look at him, red-faced, breathing hard, pupils blown wide, he just smiles that stupid, wrecked little smile he only ever gives you, and you know you don’t have to say anything else.

Because the way he looks at you — like he belongs to you, like he wants to belong to you — is all the proof you’ll ever need.

-------------------------------------------

fuck me i love them

@daydreamerwoah @kylies-love-letter @ghostslollipop @kittygonap @alfiestreacle @identity2212 @farylfordaryl @rafaelacallinybbay @akkahelenaa @lovelovelovelovelove987654321 @wraith-bravo6 @tessakate

[zletros-creations]

(Meant to finish this the next day, but oh well, here we go.)

I dreamt of incessant laughter and clinking gold, only to realize that it was not a dream and that I was slowly being roused from sleep. My eyes shot open, and I roared as my heavy hand slammed down around the child who had made a hill out of gold in order to slide down. They fell due to the tremor and landed squarely on their rump. Surely, that would mean something to them, but the child only beemed up at me with a smile that could blind. I groaned in frustration and lifted the child again, this time by their arm, and I was not particularly careful not to sever it. But I did make sure to apply enough pressure to cause pain, and yet, they showed no sign of it, I'd heard of such a curse, mortals whose bodies wouldn't warn them of the perils of pain, or death. And this child clearly had no experience with either.

I released them several feet above the ground and let them hit the cold stone. They stumbled and struggled to their feet, and they finally showed an expression that was not infuriating joy. They showed understanding, as if they had realized for the first time ever that their body was fallible, and all it took was a sprained ankle and possibly a dislocated knee, but what they did next shocked even I. They sat, and with one hand holding the leg steady, the other pushed with all its might their knee, and a loud pop followed. After rolling their knee a few times, they stood proud and jumped up with their hands outstretched towards me. "Again, again!"

I could do nothing, then, but let out a bellowing laugh that shook the very mountain. The child laughed hard alongside me. I brought an eye down to finally fully look at them. "You are small, but I hesitate to say that you are without might! Maybe the gods sent you here because they knew only I could foster such peerless mortal spirit! Very well, clearly the toil of mortal living is beneath you, so I shall teach you of draconian dominance and to master the art of plunder!" I picked the child up once again, but this time with great care. "But first, you must be given a name befitting of a dragon kin, hmm... I shall call you... Dalekonir!"

"Dalkiner!" The child attempted to echo.

"Close enough," I brought the child to a corner of my den and unleashed my fire breath into the wall. Eventually, a burrow formed large enough to consider it a room just a few feet from the floor. I used my talons to carve out a ladder from the ground to the cavity and placed the child inside. "This will be your den. Protect it with your life, and of course," I grabbed a small handful of gold and dropped it at the feet of the child, "every dragonkin requires a hoard, this is a good start but we will grow it soon enough."

After that, Dalekonir and I flew off to a nearby village. Houses of wood and straw didn't last a moment against my firey breath, and I had intentionally left one building untouched. It had the hallmark signs of a blacksmith, an art which I, or moreso Dalekonir, required. I landed outside the business and demanded the inhabitants come before me. Soon after, a large man exited the building, tears and hatred in his eyes.

"Are you this hamlet's blacksmith!?" He grimmaced. I slammed my hand down in front of him. "Answer me! Or I burn your home like the rest and go find another!"

"What does a wyrm want with my craft!?" I huffed and lowered my wings to the earth. Without prompting, Dalekonir slid down my wing from off my back and landed squarely on the ground. They marveled at the burning houses and seemed to entirely ignore the dying screams. If my biology had allowed it, I would have smiled at the blacksmith as he saw in the horror the child's joy.

"They require arms and armor. Will you make it?" I asked not as a request, but a warning. He looked at me in disbelief.

"She- she's a child, even if I made her armor, she'd outgrow it by winter!"

"Obviously!" I snapped. "If you made it out of steel or Iron, that is."

"Then what magical material would you have it made from?"

I flicked my razorsharp talons. "I'd have you make it from my own scales. It will fuse to her flesh, grow alongside her, break her, and build her back stronger."

"You monster! She'll suffer! She'll hate you, and one day, she will be your undoing." I laughed, and the blacksmith flinched.

"I am not the only monster in your midst! She feels no pain, she fears no peril, and now I have all but confirmed, she knows no sympathy!" We both looked upon Dalekonir as she poked the charred corpses of a mother and her child. Giggling as they fell apart. The blacksmith's expression soured greatly. "Do me this service, and you shall be spared alongside your family, deny me, and I think you should know." I opened my mouth, and a bright orange glow emanated from the back of my throat. The blacksmith looked down in defeat.

I removed several scales from my forearm and cauterized the wound with my breath. The blacksmith took the girl for measurements and began working my scales. He worked tirelessly for days while I oversaw his progress, scarce letting him retreat into his home, only when he collapsed did I let him sleep. By the end of the week, he presented to me the final product. A little big, but that hardly mattered. I took the armor and Dalekonir and before I flew off, I delivered to the blacksmith a healthy ox, to help them relocate.

Back at my lair, Dalekonir needed little convincing to don the armor. Once she had put it on, I had her stand perfectly still as I recited words no dragon ever expects to utter. An ancient rite used to turn mortals dragonborn. A downright forbidden ritual to most, but I credit all I have to the gods, and in all my experience, this is what they wanted by sending this child to me. As the ritual was spoken, Dalekonir's heart glowed, and they couldn't help but laugh at what should have burned like hellfire, but to them I'm certain it felt more like a mother's embrace. My own heart began to glow, and it felt as though I was being repeatedly struck by the electric breath of a blue dragon. The armor began to shrink and fit tightly to Dalekonir's skin, and their uproarious laughter grew and deepened. Once the words were finished being spoken, I lowered my head to barrage the newly scale-clad child with intense flame. They made a flowing motion with their hands and curled their fingers slowly, watching the flame flow around them in complete awe. Finally, I closed my mouth. And Dalekonir was newly Dragonborn.

Fierce as any dragon, and twice as daring, the name Dalekonir would ring out through history as a conquerer, a dragon tamer and slayer, and good friend of the most fearsome red dragon across all the earth.

You are a centuries-old dragon, respected by many and feared by all. You've seen many things in your life. Never has a child wandered into your den. Never has a child gazed up at you in awe and deemed you a 'giant scaly puppy.' You are unsure of how to handle this.

[l0s3rd0wnt0wn]

Thank you for answering my beach continuation question! If you don’t mind, I do have one more request!

I’ve finished watching Saiki K recently, and I was just wondering how WB! Reader’s life would go if they had Saiki’s powers. Realistically, it’d be torture hearing their thoughts before and after they go yandere, but I imagine they’d just teleport to get away from them.

SAIKI K!READER: Who is obsessed with everything and anything sweet, from coffee jelly to chocolate to cookies to donuts to cake? You have a real sweet tooth. It's never going down. You'd practically do anything pudding, being a part of the batfam means constant spoiling. So, if you're hungry for something sweet, they're not afraid to drop their whole bank account in front of you.

SAIKI K!READER: Tries to act nonchalant and uncaring, but deep down is a big softy who's actually very sweet and caring when it comes to their friends and partners. They refuse to let their guard down in front of the bats; you'd rather die than let Bruce hug you. You teleport all the way to Nicaragua to escape Dick's constant cuddling. You hiss at Duke if he gets too close, but you'll instantly melt if Conner pulls you into a hug or if Cassie holds your hand. You say you don't care, but the second they pull away, you come running back. The bats are crazy jealous.

SAIKI K!READER: Who on purpose reads the bats' minds just for fun but then realizes they'd rather not? They're literally making plans on how to catch you off guard. Tim has a whole thought-out plan on how to hug you without you teleporting away from him. In his head, he's thinking of every single possible outcome, and it's honestly kind of creepy. Just imagine: you smell something sweet coming from the kitchen, and it's Barbara making you something to eat. You read her mind just to make sure she doesn't have a secret plan behind it. She does: "Maybe if they enjoy these sweets I made for them, then they'll finally let their guard down, and I can rub it into Dick's face how they love me more than everyone else." You're leaving the kitchen immediately.

SAIKI K!READER: Reader doesn't like to talk out loud, so they literally just use their telepathy to communicate. You accidentally scared Bart while using your telepathy to talk to him. In addition to that, the leader and Miss Martian have a cute, weird little relationship where you both have inside jokes using each other's telepathy. During meetings, you guys just randomly start giggling, and you're kind of happy you have somebody to talk to in your head. You can't really hide anything from her, and she can't hide anything from you either. It's kind of fun, but also a bit weird because she occupies your head a lot without you knowing. You can be in the middle of messing up a good coffee jelly just for Megan to be in your head like, "Hahaha, fatty."

[l1tw1ck]

Anaxa's Strange Research Project

Bottom!Omega!FTM Anaxagoras x Top!Alpha!Masc Reader

🧪 Word Count: 1,604 🧪

AFAB Language Used | [Series]

CW: Dubious Consent, Squirting, Womb Fucking, Creampie, Riding, Sexual Overstimulation

When Anaxagoras first met you, he instantly became obsessed. Your scent was far more interesting and pleasant than the scent of any other person he’s ever met. Just holding something that belongs to you makes him tremble and before he knew it, he ended up stealing everything with your scent.

He was extremely interested in figuring out what makes it so addicting. He even went against his better judgment and allowed you access into his laboratory. The moment you asked him about it, he crumbled. How could he say no?

It's somewhat normal for an omega to get like this over an alpha’s scent, but Anaxa’s a beta. Betas can identify the unique scents of others but they don't feel much from it and they definitely don't react like this. To the point where he's acting entirely out of character. So of course he has to investigate.

A rumor started to make its rounds in the grove.

Anaxa has an obsession with making betas smell his strange experiments.

It’s made his reputation worse…to say the least. None of the betas have had the same reaction to your scent, so the lack of progress and the strange premise makes for fun lunch discussions. Then he brought in omegas and alphas. But strangely enough, no one could identify the scent as yours. In fact, they could barely smell it at all. No one knows he’s experimenting with a person’s scent, which makes the rumors all the more bizarre and exaggerated. Sometime after the rumors reached their peak, he gave up on including others in his experiment, solely due to the lack of results.

The isolation gave him the chance to finally achieve real results in his study. Since he’s no longer forced to accommodate others in a public lab, his private laboratory became akin to an omega’s nest. Your scent has dominated his entire being, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it's made him inebriated.

“Anaxa–” You huff, your hands gripping his waist.

Anaxa twitches, your cock pressing against his cervix. He presses his hands against the table. You pull back before gently hitting it again. “‘S not possible-” He moans as your hand strokes his t-dick.

“I can't try?” You manage to grind your tip against it.

Anaxa laughs. “Not even omegas can take it that deep, pervert.”

You growl in frustration. Arousal runs down Anaxa’s spine. He loves the sounds you make. You're like his perverted little puppy. “Humph.” You reach over to his face and stick your fingers in his mouth. Anaxa’s eye widens as you hit his cervix repeatedly. His toes and fingers curl, his lashes flickering erotically. It hurts, but in a good way.

Anaxa moans as his cervix opens up for you. Your cock quickly—

“Huh-” Anaxa jolts awake, drool dribbling down from his chin. He sits up and sighs. The ink on his notebook is bleeding on the paper. His ears turn red as he recalls his dream.

He can't keep dancing around it anymore. He likes you. He craves you.

He stands up and pulls off the shirt he stole from you. He pauses. Then he looks down.

“What is…” He presses his index finger against the mysterious emerald colored tattoo on his pelvis. He moans, his legs giving out. He keeps touching it out of curiosity. He stares at the design. It looks similar to that old myth. “Oh shit.” He swears. The word sounds unnatural coming out of his mouth. It’s not that he's against cursing, he just doesn't see any reason to embellish his words with profanity. He can get his point across just fine without them. But if he's understanding this correctly, this situation is definitely deserving of such language.

There was an old myth about two soulmates, forcibly drawn together by a mystical spirit of love and lust. It was an impatient entity and the couple weren't making any progress at all. They hadn't even realized their feelings for each other yet. So it pushed them together, gave them a reason to finally be together.

It was a strange myth, he didn't care much for it. There are a lot of real but rare occurrences misunderstood as mere myths in Amphoreus, but he never would've guessed this would be one of them.

Anaxa whimpers, his nose stuffed in your boxers and his hands stuffed in his boxers. He's only wearing his collared shirt and underwear. He moans your name and coincidentally, you arrive. His briefs are soaking wet with his slick.

He jumps at the sound of knocking. He can tell it's you by your scent, even though the room is full of it, he can still tell it's you. Besides, no one else is brave enough to step even 5 feet close to his lab. He quickly gets up and rushes to the door. His head feels a little more clear now that he's standing up, although his legs are very wobbly.

“A—” You start to say his name but pause, instantly recognizing your own scent. “Wh-”

Anaxa grabs your shirt and leans into your neck, taking in your fresh scent. You try to push him off you but he doesn't budge. You know it wouldn't be good if anyone walked past and saw this, even if it would be from 10 feet away, so you pick him up and close the door behind you.

“What's going on?” You ask, setting him down on the pile of your clothes, the only place he can sit comfortably. You’ve been wondering where all your things went and while you did feel suspicious hearing the chatter of his old test subjects, you still felt doubt. The only reason you're here now, is to make sure he's okay since nobody's seen him in over a week. He has many moments like this, but your gut was telling you to check up on him.

“You smell so good..” Anaxa stands up and reaches for you, tripping over the messy floor and knocking you to the ground. At least your clothes are here to soften your fall. Your heart races as you watch Anaxa adjust his body, his clothed cunt pressing against your jeans. He leans into your neck. His hand slithers down to undress you. You shudder at the sensation caused by his tongue dragging along your skin.

“Aren't you—” Your breath hitches as he finally reaches the treasure he’s been digging for from underneath the layers of your clothing. Your cock twitches with joy from being touched by another person. His pheromones finally infect your brain, your hesitation washing away with each lick to your skin. “Anaxa–” You groan as he starts to jerk you off.

As your pheromones become stronger, his mental stability weakens. He's still himself, but with far less rationality. He shakily moves himself upright, then removes his shirt. Your eyes widen at the sight of his erotic tattoo.

“You…” Anaxa murmurs, grabbing your wrist and bringing it close to his tattoo. He squirms as your fingers run along the emerald ink. Your hand glides down to the band of his underwear, ripping it apart effortlessly. “You really are an alpha.” He says, as if he ever truly doubted that.

Your head spins just from seeing his pussy. His t-cock pokes out from his untrimmed hairs. He lifts himself up, allowing you to really see it. You don't realize you're drooling as you watch him sink down onto your length. “Fuck~” He moans.

You don't think you've ever heard him swear before.

“My insides–” He forces himself further down your length. “Are stretching for you~”

Seeing the bulge appearing in his stomach triggers your orgasm. He shivers and licks his lips. He doesn't stop though, he keeps going.

“Hah–” He can feel your cock against his cervix but you're not fully inside yet. His tattoo is glowing, like it's telling you to go further. Your hands move faster than your thoughts, reaching for Anaxa’s waist. You lift him up before roughly slamming him down, his cervix opening itself up for you. Anaxa cries out in pleasure as he squirts. “I…I’m really yours..” He mutters.

You shiver. “Mine.”

Anaxa starts riding you. “You're so deep inside me~” He moans your name. “Fuck, I think I’m gonna get addicted to this~”

Your cock twitches from his words. He presses his fingers against his tattoo, his pussy flexing around your length. He lets out a breathy curse. He's overloading his senses and yet he's still moving vigorously. He whines in both pain and pleasure. It's the perfect amount of pain. “You're huge~” He stops for a moment, taking in all the sensory input.

Your heart pounds aggressively as you salivate like a dog. You watch as his chest rises and falls, as your combined fluids trickle down your cock. He slowly grinds on you, his mouth hanging open.

You grab his waist and swiftly change positions. The way he looks right now, the way his hair slightly splays out onto the pile of your clothes…how his nipples are hard and how beautifully his tattoo glows, it's almost like you're doing a photoshoot. You aggressively rut into him.

“You're so desperate for me~” He giggles softly, talking like someone with low alcohol tolerance. You’ve definitely never heard him giggle before. He reaches for you and you lean in, allowing him to wrap his arms around you and take in your scent again.

Your hips stutter before your cock fills him with another load. Anaxa moans softly, his pussy weakly flexing around you.

Things are going to change between the two of you now.

[gay-dorito-dust]

How would Dante, Vergil and if possible, Nero react to their SO getting hurt. Like their SO jumps in front of them to take the blow from an enemy, and they just get hurt.

Dante

This is where the fun stops, not that it was ever fun to begin with, but the moment you put yourself in the line of danger for him and ended up -obviously- no better for it.

He stops making jokes and sarcastic quips and stops holding back. He’s a completely different man within a blink of an eye the second your hurt it’s enough to make people question whether he had been goofing his abilities this entire time, all because his change was that drastic that the demon might’ve had been fighting a different man entirely.

His strikes become more aggressive and fast for the demon to keep up with as their being hit by a man who was still holding back in a way, even if it was by a tiny thread, unable to strike back as they were being pushed over the edge towards their end.

Dante couldn’t think clearly of anything but the fact that you were hurt and loosing lots of blood, so he wanted to finish these demons off fast as he can before anything worse could possibly happen, reminded of the night where he and his brother lost everything; lost their mother, their home and their innocence as they wonder whether the demons were waiting the departure of Sparda before moving in to attack since they hated him so much for showing them his back.

He doesn’t give them room to breathe as they didn’t deserve such a luxury that you were loosing at a fast rate, it didn’t feel fair to Dante as he hacked and slashed everything he could see within his peripherals, feeding the demon within it could have his brother looking at him in a different light.

This many will literally keep fighting until there was absolutely zero threats to you safety, it doesn’t matter if his body aches and is tired, he will continue to fight until he is certain there isn’t a demon that’ll lay a harmful hand upon you.

Vergil

He feels like that little boy again. Helpless, weak, staring at the wound upon your body that only seemed to remind him of why he craved power in the first place. To protect and prevent bad things from ever happening to him again…

Yet his newly obtained power didn’t save you, it didn’t protect you even in the slightest, and Vergil feel ice within his veins as everything within him screamed for revenge against the one who brought you harm. His human half was telling him to stay with you, make sure nothing happens to you if he were to look away for a second, but his demon side was telling him to hunt the bastard down and make them pay in every possible way that he could think of.

So Vergil was extremely torn but chose to hover over you protectively instead, never stepping too far away from you and when he did, he would rush back over to you with increasing anger and frustration at the thought of leaving you alone with a horde of demons lurking somewhere in the shadows; awfully aware that you were injured.

Vergil wouldn’t allow that but he couldn’t help but ask himself why you would do such a thing when you were aware that he could protect himself, heal himself and get back to fighting, where as you couldn’t and yet despite this you were willing to protect himself from what you perceived as a threat regardless.

He wouldn’t walk this life without you in it after all you’ve done for him, he wouldn’t allow for his light to be taken away from him in such a manner, he refused to loose the one thing that brought him to be at peace with his human self and made him realise many things. To harm you was a cowardly thing to do, no matter if you didn’t step in the way of the attack meant for him, his brain had hardwired to believed the attack was meant to lure you into protecting him, and thus accomplished what the demon had set out to do.

To harm you was a mistake and Vergil was about to become the demons biggest problem, and he was going to make sure they never forgot the face of the man who had cut them done to size for hurting his beloved. His ‘Eva’ if you will.

He vowed to never let anything bad happen again, and he was more than willing to make do on that promise to prevent your situation from worsening, for he withheld a fear of the person he’d become without you.

Nero

He’s livid, enraged, frustrated.

Takes after his father in having his human and demon side torn in what he should do; stay with you until help came? Or go after those who did this and make their end a misery.

Instead he makes sure you’re in a safer spot, talking to you constantly as he keeps you conscious, telling you stories that he’s never told anyone before while fighting back this crippling fear of losing someone close to him; someone who meant everything to him and kept him above water upon multiple occasions.

His father and uncle can handle the threat, Nero would stay by your side and make things as comfortable as he could, for he knew that if he returned to the battle he would be worried to death about whether it was okay to leave you on your own.

A distraction he couldn’t afford to have or whatever his father would say during this, but Nero didn’t care about that at all, he cared about you more then some mission becuase if he lost you then he would feel lost within himself for the rest of his life; reminding himself of the most important life he could’ve saved but didn’t becuase the mission came first.

He didn’t care if it was selfish, he honestly could care less as he will always prioritise his and his alone to protect, and now that you were hurt he was becoming even more selfish by having stayed near you to monitor your health as closely as possible. His fingers linger on your pulse point longer than necessary as he chants ‘you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay’ to himself whenever he feared that you might’ve gotten worse after five seconds, calming his racing brain that his best was indeed enough to keep you here with him.

Even after help comes for you, Nero is stuck to your side like gorilla glue, unable to let even a sliver of distance build between you two, fearing that if you were to separate from one another then you’d get worse all of sudden. His gripping your hand tightly as he prays for what felt like the first time in his life to allow him to keep you in his life just that little while longer, he needed you in his life for all the moments you’ll shared together in life, this wasn’t the end of it; he refused it to be.

[yamumsyadadd]

hidden (3)

part 1, part 2.

this one is short, i had to find the best spot to cut it in half. there will be 1 more part :)

Returning home was supposed to be relaxing, but instead it filled you with anxiety. You hadn’t been bothered to turn your phone back on, not wanting to deal with Alexia’s excuses.

But as you sat in your childhood bedroom, the same room that saw you confuse your love to your best friend, the same room that you kissed in, you couldn’t help but feel a dull ache in your chest.

You want Alexia to be here, experience your childhood house, your parents and brothers to embarrass you with silly stories. But that wouldn’t be happening. Instead, you were stuck in your room silently crying.

There was only one place you could think to go. Portland was your home for so many years, it’s where you grew up, fell in love for the first time and soccer your first professional goal.

It didn’t take long for someone to join you. You knew who it was as soon as she sat on the swing next to you.

“Your mom is worried about you.” You didn’t look up, just continued to kick the bark beneath the swing, “do you want to talk about it?”

“I was seeing someone.” You looked up at her, really looking at her. She was older now, as were you, but she was still the girl you fell in love with, even if you weren’t in love with her anymore. “I love her Sam. I really do but I can’t kept being a secret. I didn’t even want to go public, just met her friends and family. Every time I tried to push it, she would snap, and we would fight. Loving her is so exhausting.” Sam let you sit there and cry, and when you were done, she reached over and hugged you.

“you don’t deserve to be a secret, if she cant love you loudly and proudly, then she doesn’t deserve to love you in private.” You knew she was right but that didn’t make it hurt any less. for while, you both just stayed there. It was like you were kids again, talking about everything and nothing, while swinging on the swings or sitting o the slides.

When camp started you felt lighter, you were focused and ready to go. After the last Olympics and the disaster of a world cup, you were prepared to fight as hard as possible to medal.

The USA was grouped with Germany, Australia and Zambia. Out of the three teams, Australia and Germany were the two toughest, you never knew how the games could go.

France in the summer was beautiful; it was the best place for the USA to play some beautiful football and you did. The first game was 3-0 win against Zambia, then another win against Germany and finally the hardest game you’d have to play, against Australia, winning 2-1.

The communication with alexia had been silent and you were glad for that. She tried a few times to call and text, but once her own camp started, she left you alone. The Barca girls didn’t though, the group chat with Cata, Pina and Patri was consistently going off.

Mainly the conversations were about the Olympics and a quick trip away before pre-season, expect there was one comment that made you hold your breath.

“Alexia is upset. Irene seems to be on the war path about it.”

To them it was just gossip, but to you. To you it made your chest tight, your hands clamming and your eyes hurt. Alexia had obviously mentioned something to Irene. Your other captain.

You threw your phone onto the desk and walked out. This was not the time nor the place for this. You needed to focus, to do better and be better. There wasn’t time for feelings or apologies. Later, if the time came, you could deal with it then.

As the Olympics continued on, you secretly watched Spain play. They were going well, by the time the knockout round came, you could see how exhausted they all were. It was their first Olympics, none of them had been here before, felt how exhausting it was, bone crushing, soul burning, exhausting.

You were sure Spain would make it through to the Gold Medal game, but when Monste didn’t start their best player, Alexia, a horrible feeling washed over you. By the time she could subbed on, it was too late. The damage had been done, Brazil had scored four goals and that was a lot for them to make up in less than thirty minutes.

As the camera panned over the Spanish team, their tears and disappointment was clear but it wasn’t until you saw alexia that a few of your own tears fell. Your heart broke for her, she looked so sad, so exhausted and you wished you could reach out but you couldn’t bring yourself to face the hurt again.

After your own game against Japan, your phone was blowing up, as it turns out, the Spanish girls had also watched. They sat through the entire 120 minutes, some cheering as you tackled and won back the ball. You must’ve watched the videos back three or four times, watching everyone’s different emotions.

The bronze medal match between Spain and Germany took place the day before your gold medal game. You were holed up in your hotel room, away from the conference room and your teammates. You wanted to keep a little bit of dignity.

When Spain went down 1-0, you almost cried. They were playing so hard, pushing their bodies as much as they would go but it wasn’t enough. There was hope, a minute before the end of the game, a penalty was given to Spain and you knew that Mario was the first in line to take them, but then she didn’t. Alexia did.

And she missed. Your heart broke all over again, and for different reasons. You knew she was getting older and by the next Olympics she might not even be playing or selected. When the game ended a minute later, your eyes stayed focussed on her. She went through the motions, shaking hands, swapping shirts, but you knew behind it all, she was broken and exhausted.

The only text you sent off was to the group chat, extending your apologies. You wanted to reach out, to say something, anything, but you were pulled away for dinner.

Everyone knew the game was going to be hard, this would be Marta’s last chance at an Olympics, a chance for someone completely different to win. But somehow, the football gods were in your favour. When you scored in the 57th minute, the team crashed onto you. All you could think about is holding the led, even scoring again.

At no point did you think to look at the crowd, it was something you didn’t do until the end of them game. So when the final whistle blew and the celebrations finally slowed down, you finally took the time to look around.

The stadium was packed, different people, friends, families, strangers all littered the stand. They were all there because they wanted to be, they wanted to enjoy the atmosphere and enjoy women’s football.

When you spotted your Barcelona teammates, a smile broke out on your face, you made your way to the barrier but stopped just before you reached them. Admits the team, there she was. A white tee shirt, jeans and her favourite sunnies covering her face.

Alexia.

For a split second, you let your emotions show all over your face, forgetting about the cameras and the people around. If the others noticed, they didn’t say anything.

The girls all said their congratulations, gushing over how well you played and how proud they were. Only two people were silent, alexia you expected, but Irene you didn’t.

The post-Olympic celebrations carried on all night, the drinks were free, and the music was loud. You were so happy, almost the happiest you’d ever been. There was a moment, as the couple filled the dance floor, that hurt. You needed air and left.

You let the tears fall as you watched them all dance together, sharing their love with the ones around them, laughing and enjoying yourself. It made you remember the night on the beach with Alexia.

“After I win the Gold medal with Spain, we will go away. Somewhere quiet, on the beach, just the two of us.”

“oh you think you’re winning the gold over me?” you laughed as she scrunched her eyebrows.

“of course. I will win the Gold, and you will win the Silver. What is that Vicky says? We would be a power couple.”

“a power couple?” you laughed again as she pulled you into her and spun you around.

You didn’t hear the doors to the balcony open or the footsteps towards you. So when two different people wrapped their arms around you, it startled you.

“it’s okay baby girl. Your okay.” Christens voiced filled your ears and you couldn’t help but cry harder. You loved alexia, you loved her so much that for entire year you put your own wants and needs on hold. She was more important, and you would do anything to get back to her.

‘I’m in love with alexia Putellas… I don’t want to be a secret anymore… it hurts so bad.” You sobbed out, barely able to make any sense.

Sam had watched you leave the room in a hurry, she knew she couldn’t follow, she wasn’t what you needed anymore so she got Christen and Tobin. They would know what to do, they always did.

For an hour they sat with you, calming you down and sharing their own stories of their hidden relationship. By the end of it, you were exhausted, from playing a full came, the excitement and the sadness.

They helped you get into your hotel room, leaving you with water and Panadol for the incoming headache. Before you passed out from exhaustion, you finally let yourself message Alexia.

To Alexia: I am very sorry that you lost. You were defs the player of the Olympics, you deserved to win. You deserve everything Ale.

Your stupid drunk brain couldn’t just leave it there though.

I love you. I love you and you broke my heart, but I still love you. I don’t think ill stop.

You didn’t notice her reply in the morning or for the following weeks. Somehow, you had managed to mute the text thread with her in your drunken state. It wouldn’t be until you went back for pre-season that things would come out.