#this feels very ed coded too

[cha-lii]

take a shot every time a shounen protagonist apologises for their trauma

[butyoudidthis4what]

No Man's Land

Jack Abbot x f!Reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He raises his eyebrows. “It’s not?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Care to elaborate?” Robby finally asks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You bite your lip and smile at him. 

“What?” He eyes you with suspicion. 

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

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

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

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

Jack spins around.

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

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

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

“Jack-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Jack, if she’s in one you cannot-”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You raise an eyebrow but do as he says. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time. You were supposed to have more time together.

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

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

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

Part Two is up!

[kilojulietsierra]

"Oh Sweet Irony "- Dr Jack Abbot x Reader

Summary: You hate doctors, and will do just about anything to avoid seeing one even if you're sick. A fact that your boyfriend Dr. Jack Abbot sometimes finds very annoying. This time though, you're miserable and you cave to his request, "Let me take care of you."

TW: most of my content is considered 18+ content, sick fic, comfort fic, medical inaccuracies, fluff, inappropriate workplace behavior but the PG kind, I wrote this sick and I think Dr. Abbot would def make me feel better just saying...

(Special thank you to the gif creator for the above because DAMN)

~~~~~~

Jack maneuvered his way through the packed waiting room and had to fight to hear you over the phone, "Well, hon, if you feel as bad as you sound you need more than NyQuil." He sidestepped a stoller, "No, it's not helping. I can tell." He made the corner and hugged the wall on his way to the doors, "Just come in and we can get you something that will actually do some good." He waved to the girls behind the glass and mouthed a thanks as he heard the security doors buzz and the lock disengage, "I know… I know… No, I'm not going to let you sit in the waiting room." He gives Bridget and exapserated look as he approaches the hub, "Hon, please, just come down. I'll tell the girls up front you're coming and they'll let you right in." He dropped his bag in his chair and swiped his badge to clock in, "Ok, well… it's either that or stay home tomorrow and I'll come over when I get off work." He nods, "That's what I thought. I'll see you when you get here. Love you."

~~~~

You felt like shit. All week you had been fighting off some sort of bug, the worst of it Monday after you got home from work. You thought that would be the end of it. The stuffy nose, cough, sore throat was really no big deal. NyQuil and DayQuil became your best friends. A week later and that cough just wouldn't quit, your stomach hurt from the constant coughing and chest spasms, you could hardly breathe, barely sleep more than a couple hours now without waking up to a coughing fit so violent you thought you might throw up.

Jack had been busy all week, his schedule and yours just couldn't line up and he'd been stuck late most mornings. You had told him, vaguely, that you didn't feel great but didn't want him to worry. Then he had called you on his way home, and you had not been able to hold back the coughing fit.

So, he had told you to call him after work and let him know how you were feeling, because he knew you wouldn't skip work. Now, here you were sneaking your away around the edge or the PTMC Emergency waiting room fighting back your anxiety and another coughing fit.

You hesitated a little the closer you got to the doors but one of the women at the admissions desk behind the glass saw you and waved. You chewed your lip and stepped a little closer with a careful smile. She waved you on through and you heard the buzz and clunk of the security doors. You can feel the burn of the glares and the muttering behind you as you pulled the heavy door open and stepped through.

Bridget saw you almost immediately and meets you halfway for a hug, "Hey sweetie."

You gave her a smile and a half step back, "Oh, don't hug me, I'm gross."

"Oh please, come here." She gave you a hug and then looked you over, "We just got a call for a code coming in, so he might be a minute okay."

"You guys are busy, I should just go."

"Not a chance." She tugged you towards the hub, "You just sit right here and I'll get you some water."

You sit in one of the office chairs and slouch back into it trying to take up as little space as possible. Bridget came backi a moment later with a bottle of water and a North Face jacket you recognized as one of Jacks. The ED was always chilly and you were grateful for the warmth and familiar scent as you shrugged into the slightly too big jacket.

Outside you hear the sirens as the ambulance arrives and Jack appears out of nowhere in full work mode.

You hated doctors, but this one you think, this one you certainly didn't mind.

From your chair behind the counter you watched as he quick stepped down the hall and as terrible as felt and as much as you didn't want to be here, it was kind of fun to see that side of him. The confident, collected and in charge Dr. Jack Abbot was the exception.

Jack sees you on his way by and even in the midst of chaos while calling our orders he takes half a second to catch your eye and give you just a hint of a smile without missing a beat.

~~~~~~

"Hey sweetheart," Jack says softly as he approaches and squats down in front of you, "C'mere." He pulls the chair closer so he can take a good look at you. He hasn't seen you all week and he feels like shit because you look miserable. He gives your leg a squeeze as he stands, ignoring the way his knees catch and pop, "Bridget, can you get a,"

"Six is all set up for you."

Jack gives her smile and a nod as he takes your elbow to help you stand up. While one hand never leaves your elbow he grabs a tablet with the other and guides you into the room.

"Don't forget to leave that door open Dr. Abbot!" Bridget teases from behin.

You turn to give her a look and then Jack, "Is there an HR complaint or something I should know about?"

Bridget snorts behind you as Jack just gives you both a side eye. He pinches your side and nudges you to keep walking, "Policy. No male doctors alone in rooms with female patients."

"Lame, next you're going to tell me we're not allowed to sneak off to have a quickie int the on call room like on Greys Anatomy."

Bridget laughs louder behind you and Jack just gives you a look.

You give him a wink and a little smile but the urge to laugh triggers another coughing fit and reminds you that you're not just here to say hi.

~~~~~~

In the exam room he helps you out of your jacket and up to sit on the bed. "I didn't check in or anything."

Abbot leaned against the counter, "Had Bridget sign you in." He gave you a soft smile as he watched you try not to fidget. He pulled up your patient file and had to bite the inside of his cheek because there was something about putting his own name in as your emergency contact that still got him. More and more he also found himself thinking about seeing his last name there instead of yours. He also couldn't wait to get you on his TRICARE because your employers health insurance fucking sucks. "You okay if I do everything myself?"

When you nod he can see that you're still anxious.

He puts in your info. He knows your personal information, height and weight, your medical history, he knows your anxiety meds dosage and all. "Your period started last Sunday right?" He smirks at you when you still blush but nod. He checks the box next to sexually active, he entertained the thought of asking you just to see you blush a little more, then types in 'partner vasectomy' in the line by birth control method.

Once everything was filled in he set the tablet down and washes his hands in the sink. He forgoes the gloves because it's you. Part of him wants to be able to feel you, part of him knows his touch will feel better for you than the latex.

He feels a little weird taking your temperature and bp because holy shit it has been a long time since he hasn't had a nurse to do the initial work up. Jack rests the back of his fingers against your forehead while he waits for a temp. "Little high." He says softly, long before the thermometer gave him a read out and showed he was correct. Your temperature is a little high. "Okay so far?" He asks as he puts the machine away and catches your eye. His fingers stroking up and down your forearm.

You nod, "You'd make a good nurse." You tease and then cover your mouth as another chest racking cough takes over.

The quip makes him crack a grin as he rubs your back through the coughing fit. "I'm going to listen to your lungs okay?" He waits for your nod before he pulls his stethoscope down and catches the way your eyes track the routine action and the way his forearms flex with the movement. "Ok, sit up straight for me and take a couple deep breaths." He goes through the motions, front and back, listening to your lungs and frowing. He rubs your back while he's still standing close and whispers, "Good girl." He drapes his stethoscope around his neck again as you cough and fight through a shuddery breath. "You take anything in the last few hours?"

"No," You shake your head, "Had a feeling you were going to make me come in."

"I won't make you do anything hon, you know that."

"You know what I mean." You're so tired that the urge to lean into him.

He sees it and nods, give you another smile, "I'm going to take a look at your throat okay?" When he grabs the scope and a tongue depressor he steps up in front of you and pauses. The two of you lock eyes for a second and he shakes his head, "Don't make me say it."

You bite your lip and try not to laugh because you know it'll just make you cough. "Make you say what Dr. Abbot?" You know Jack is unflappable, often stoic wilth a killer poker face, and your dislike for doctors aside, you enjoy that you can make this one blush just that little bit.

Jack never does say it, but the look he gives you says plenty. So does the way he smooths the pad of his thumb over your bottom lip when he's done. He sets the tools down on the tray, "Head up for me, just going to feel right here." The way he holds your neck, feels for swelling, is so clinical and second nature that he wouldn't think anything of it if he hadn't seen the way your eyes flickered. So, sue him if his touch lingered a little, or if he traced the line of your throat with his thumb just to see those pretty eyes flutter one more time.

He know he shouldn't be standing between your legs like he is, and he sure as hell shouldn't set his hand on your thigh when he says, "I'm going to call for a chest x-ray."

"What? Why?" Your panic rises, the anxiety back in full force.

The hand on your leg squeezes and then he slowly begins to stroke his knuckles over the top of your thigh in a soothing, repetitive motion. "You're okay, just want to be safe. Your lungs sound like trash and I just want to rule out pneumonia." He appreciates the ability to be straighforward and say things more bluntly than normal. He also appreciates that you trust him enough to calm down quickly. "I'll set you up with a nebulizer while you wait, going to help you breathe a little easier. I'm going to pull some labs too." He reiterates, "Just to be safe."

You try not to fidget while he preps the needle and the blood tubes.

"You're okay hon, it's just one poke. I'm good at this promise." He gives you and wink. "You want me to hold your hand?"

You scoff which turns into a cough, "Don't you need both hands?"

Jack shrugs, looks you in the eye, "I can do it with one."

"Please don't."

With another wink he sets your arm where he needs it, "Quick and easy I promise." Each touch is long and slow, smooth and lingering. He uses every ounce of practice and skill he possesses to make it as painless as possible for you. "There you go." He strokes the sting of the needle away with his thumb until you finally look his way again.

Brdget knocks and pokes her head in, "Respiratory is here."

Jack nods and looks back to you, "Big, deep breaths on that until radiology comes down with the portable, okay?" He tips your chin up for a kiss, but you hesitated.

"I'm gross."

"Don't give a shit." He gives you a quick kiss and strokes his thumb over your brow. "I'll be back to check on you soon as I can." One more kiss, to your forehead this time and then he's on his way out of the room. As he passes he gives Bridget a look.

"What?" She plays along, tries not to smirk, "I didn't see anything."

Once Jack is out of the room Bridget helped you get comfy on the bed with a blanket fresh out of the warmer.

"You know, I don't understand why the patient satisfaction is so low around here."

"Sweetie, the only satisfaction that man gives two shits about, is yours."

After a beat you both break into a laugh which triggers another coughing fit. Taking that as their cue RT came in to set you up on the nebulizer. Then all you could do was wait.

~~

After that Jack got busy again and you tried to tamp down the anxiety as the minutes dragged on,as you finished the nebulizer treatment, as radiology came and went. There was little worse in your opinion than laying alone in a hospital bed, but Jack had been right the nebulizer had helped your breathing and you were coughing less.

The longer you were in there the more you actually began to wonder about those terrible patient satisfaction scores everyone was always complaining about because every single person you had come into contact with that night had seemed to go above and beyond. The rad tech, the respiratory tech, every single nurse that stopped in to check on you. You were beginning to wonder if there wasn't some sort of big, red alert by your name that said; "ABBOT"S GIRLFRIEND DON'T FUCK IT UP".

A soft knock at the door startled you out of your thoughts and you sit up a little more as Jack comes in.

"How ya feelin'?"

"Ready to go home."

"I know hon." He props a him on the edge of your bed and rubs your leg through the blanket, "Rads and your bloodwork came back. Bronchitis. Just a little infection in your bronchial tubes, right here," He gestures to the general area on his own chest, "Usually takes care of itself if you take it easy."

You nod, "Which… I did not do."

He gives your calf a squeeze and his lips tick up in a smirk, "No, you did not. Which is why I'm sending you home with a goodie bag full of meds which you will take until they're gone. And, when I say home, I mean my house. Ellis is writing you up a doctors order right now to send to your boss."

"Jack…"

Completely unphased he continues, "While you're at my place for the next few days you will do as little as possible. Am I clear?"

You looked up at him, "Is this the part where I'm supposed to say yes sir and salute?"

Jack relaxes as soon as the words are out of your mouth. He shakes his head slightly and smooths his hand over your leg again, "Sorry." He meets your gaze and softens his expression, "Just promise me you'll take it easy. Let me take care of you."

With a slight cough you reached out for his hand, and smiled as he took it, stroked his thumb over the back of your knuckles. "I'm willing to bet you're not the greatest patient either, so you can't give me that much shit."

That gets him to smile, "Ready to go home?"

"Yes please."

Jack helps you sit up and slide out of the hospital bed, then helps you back into his jacket. "Ok, go home, my place," he emphasizes, "Take a good hot shower, take your meds and go to bed." He goes to guide you out of the room, but you tug him to a stop. "What's wrong?"

You bit your lip, "Thank you." Your voice was soft and a little apologetic.

For just a minute there was no hint of Dr. Abbot, he was just your boyfriend Jack. "C'mere." He pulled you in close and wrapped you in a hug, pressed a kiss to the top of your head. He chuckled, pressed another kiss to your temple and whispered, "See, coming to the doctor isn't so bad is it?"

You smile besides yourself and lean into him, "Depends on the doctor."

He walked you out to the hub and one of the nurses caught him right away, "We have a shooting victim eight minutes out."

Just like that Dr Abbot was back. "Ok set up trauma one, someone call OR give them a heads up." He turned back to you and softened, "I'll see you at home." Even in the middle of his ED, trauma en route, Jack gave you a smile and a quick kiss. "Go get some rest."

You nodded and watched as he turned to get back to work. Then with a smile of your own you turned to Bridget, "So, when do I get to fill out that patient satisfaction survey?"

~~~~

[undyingdecay]

pairings: robert reynolds x reader, very slight void x reader cw: mentions of menstruation (periods), mentions pwp, smut, afab reader, vaginal fingering, bloodplay, period sex, oral (female receiving) talks and mentions of mental health issues. 

he wasn’t stupid.

bob might’ve been a lot of things — anxious, awkward, prone to spacing out in tense situations and staring at you for a beat too long when he thought no one was watching — but he wasn’t dumb. he knew enough to be careful. to listen. and after a little over three months of being tangled up with you — not just in bed, but on bad days and restless nights, movie marathons in the compound rec room, sitting on rooftops pretending neither of you wanted more — he picked up on your offhand comment like it was some classified briefing.

“starting my period.”

simple words, said with that same careless tone you used to tell him to shut the fridge door with his foot or that alexei was hogging the hot water again. but it stuck. lodged itself in his chest somewhere.

and because bob reynolds hadn’t exactly had many long-term, intimate relationships with women — the extent of his knowledge of menstruation limited to a half-assed, awkwardly delivered high school sex ed class taught by a red-faced gym coach and a string of blurred, impersonal hook-ups that rarely lasted beyond a week — he did what he did best when something scared him: he researched.

‘how long does a period last?’ ‘do periods hurt?’ ‘how to ease period pain?’ ‘can you have sex on your period?’

anxious google searches at two a.m. his leg bouncing as he read articles, scrolled reddit threads, watched a youtube explainer hosted by a painfully chipper woman named emma.

he even cornered yelena in the kitchen, pretending to root through the fridge while asking casual as he could manage.

“hey… uh… what do you do when someone, uh, y’know… it’s their… cycle? anything you’re supposed to do?”

yelena, amused and not missing a beat, rattled off a list of practical things between mouthfuls of leftover chinese takeout. heating pads. herbal tea. gentle back rubs. don’t be squeamish. clean towels. listen. don’t make it weird.

bob, as always, took it far too literally.

not an hour later, he’d returned to the compound with four bulging cvs bags in either arm — pads, tampons, menstrual cups (he’d bought one of each brand), midol, heat patches, three kinds of herbal tea, three heating pads, a lavender-scented candle, and for reasons only known to him: two pints of ice cream and a stuffed bear he swore “looked like you, kinda.”

when you looked up from the couch, bleary-eyed and cramping, at the absurd pile of supplies in his arms, he gave you that sheepish, boyish smile. the one that dimpled his cheek, hair falling into his eyes. your faint shake of your head was all the reassurance he needed. you weren’t upset. just quietly endeared, and he could live off that feeling.

since then, bob had gotten weirdly good at tracking your cycle.

he downloaded a period app, color-coded days on his own calendar, learned terms like ‘luteal phase’ and ‘follicular.’ he experimented with herbal teas in old mason jars, a little heavy-handed with the dried chamomile and raspberry leaf, but the warmth was good.

so was the way his palm would settle over your lower stomach when you curled up in bed, heat radiating from him in a way that always felt other. not like normal body heat — but something deeper, something from whatever endless void lingered behind his kind blue eyes.

his presence clung to the walls now.

or maybe it was just in your head. the cool, electric pressure of a storm about to break. the scent of rain on concrete, that heavy, metallic sweetness of ozone before lightning strikes. not sadness — not quite. something heavier. thicker. impossible to name.

you didn’t question bob about the void.

never pushed. you let him come to you, when he wanted to, which was rare enough that it gnawed at the back of your throat sometimes.

and when he didn’t — when whatever it was hung around longer than it should, curling in corners like cigarette smoke, clinging to the ceiling, coating your skin in its cloying, electric hum — it rattled you more than you’d ever admit. why did the void feel like it — no, he — was everywhere?

a dull throb spread through your gut like a tight fist, and you groaned.

“fuck…”

not the kind of sound bob was used to hearing from you — not the breathy, pleased kind that made his stomach flip and his cock twitch.

he lifted his head quickly from where he’d been lazily mouthing at your nipple, his lips sticky with spit, a faint pink flush creeping up his neck. he still swore up and down that it wasn’t for him — no, of course not, it was practical, he’d read somewhere that breasts got sore and maybe a little gentle stimulation helped, okay? it wasn’t weird. it was helpful.

“are you okay?” he mumbled into the cold, close air of the room.

he must’ve dozed off again without realizing it — body heavy and sprawled half over you. the scent of rain was stronger now, though the windows were still shut tight. the room felt thick, close. the kind of pressure that made your ears pop.

he fumbled for the lamp, light spilling out in a soft, murky halo, and his gaze flicked to where your arms were curled tight around your stomach, your body instinctively folding into itself.

“do you — wanna tea? i can go—”

“it’s too late, bob. can’t wake everyone up over this.”

he hesitated, then nodded. chewed the inside of his cheek.

“do you want your heating blanket, or my hand?”

you managed a pained little nod and a sharp suck of breath, and he was already moving — that too-warm palm pressing flat against the curve of your lower stomach. his touch wasn’t normal. not like anyone else’s. it wasn’t heat like a person’s. it was deeper, more like something that seeped under your skin, heavy as wet wool, a warmth that hummed and thrummed in your bones. you wondered, sometimes, if it came from there — from that endless place inside him where the void lived.

he murmured soft things — stuff you couldn’t even really parse, his voice a low, steady rumble against the ringing pulse in your ears.

and it did help.

at least until another sharp pain twisted through your core.

“i—uh—” he started, then coughed, rubbed the back of his neck, staring somewhere over your shoulder like he was too embarrassed to make eye contact.

“i read somewhere,” he began, voice too fast, words running together, “i promise it’s like a well-accredited article, well—that—thatorgasmsreallyhelpperiods.”

he said the last part in one rushed breath, barely audible.

you barked a half-laugh, breathless around the ache.

“jesus, bob.”

“i mean—if you want. i just—if it hurts that bad—i just—”

“yeah,” you said, exhaling sharply. “yeah, okay.”

his pupils dilated, something shifting behind his gaze. that thing you didn’t name.

the air went heavier, thicker.

he was already moving down between your legs before you could change your mind.

and bob wasn’t smooth. wasn’t practiced. not with this.

his big hands gripped your thighs, palms sticky with sweat, faint tremors betraying him. when he spread you open, the scent hit him sharp—metallic, hot, dizzying.

he flinched—just barely. you caught it.

his throat worked, adam’s apple bobbing.

but he didn’t stop.

he dragged your panties down slow, eyes flicking from your cunt to your pad, gaze lingering, fascinated. like he’d thought about this too many times, and now couldn’t believe you were letting him.

he tossed the fabric aside, messy, fingers sinking into the softness of your thighs again—pressing them wider, holding you open like he couldn’t help himself.

he looked up, that boyish smile on his face—so painfully sweet, so wanting. eyes glassy, breath already shaking. like he needed your approval or he’d die.

you glanced down. the wet patch on his boxers was already blooming, precum soaking through, a pathetic stain against his cock straining hard beneath the fabric.

you gave him a nod.

he whimpered. quiet, desperate. and dove in.

the first kiss landed on your inner thigh—mouth hot, open, leaving a smear of spit against tacky skin.

another kiss, closer.

closer still, tongue flicking out, tasting the salt, the faint tang of copper just beyond.

he swallowed thickly.

messy. gross. it should’ve stopped him.

it didn’t.

when his mouth finally pressed to your folds, tongue dragging a thick, trembling stripe through them, the sound he let out wasn’t human—half-moan, half-choked gasp.

his fingers dug harder into your thighs, grounding himself. and he kept licking. clumsy, hungry, not even trying to be careful—letting blood and slick smear across his lips, chin dripping, tongue sliding through the mess.

“fuck—” he breathed, voice thin, eyes fluttering shut. “taste so—so fuckin’ good—”

he didn’t stop. couldn’t. nose bumping your mound, breath catching.

and below you, he was moving—hips grinding helplessly against the bed, rutting like an animal. obscene. desperate. soaking through his boxers like he’d cum already and didn’t even notice.

“mmm—please—” he gasped into you, voice muffled. “wan’ more—wan’ all of it—please—”

he sounded sick with it. sick with how badly he wanted this.

every now and then he’d pause—just to mouth over your slit, tongue dipping inside, sucking down everything you gave him, swallowing audibly.

you felt the scrape of stubble against raw skin. the sting of his fingers still bruising your thighs. the way the room seemed to press in.

heavy now. dense.

the void.

you felt it in the air—cold, slick, like smoke crawling across the ceiling. static buzzing against your skin. bob didn’t seem to notice—too far gone, too drunk on you.

“fuck—need—need to put my fingers in too—” he babbled, voice raw.

you barely had time to brace before he shved two fingers inside, knuckles deep, slick with blood and spit. the sound was obscene—wet, filthy, echoing in the quiet.

you gasped, hips jolting.

bob whined. high and thin, hips bucking helplessly against the bed, precum staining the sheets beneath him.

“you—taste—so fuckin’—perfect—” he sobbed, voice cracking as he leaned in again, licking around his own fingers, swallowing everything he could.

the air felt tighter now. heavy. thick with something not yours. not his.

the Void still watching. feeding.

but bob—poor, ruined bob—kept going. kept crying soft against you, tears mixing with the mess on his cheeks, fingers shaking inside you now, tongue dragging another slow, broken stripe through blood and slick and salt.

and you felt him—still grinding, still humping the bed beneath you like a dog in heat.

“love you—please—don’t wanna stop—please don’t make me—”

his voice was wrecked.

and when you looked down—his face a red-smeared mess, mouth open, tongue shaking against your clit—you knew he was too far gone to save.

too sick on you. too deep.

and somewhere in the shadows—something else smiled.

[bixels]

You know what, enough time has passed and I've given media reviews/reccs in the past, so I'm gonna recommend Pixar's Win or Lose as seriously worth a watch.

I came into the show with zero expectations a few months ago and was pleasantly blown away by the writing, art direction, and character dramas.

Win or Lose is an original drama mini-series created by Pixar that follows a co-ed middle school softball team and the week leading up to a big championship game. Each episode picks one character, either a kid or an adult, and focuses on their perspective/storyline during that week. So in the first episode, we notice a lot of weird mysteries or threads in the background (Why is this character crying uncontrollably? Why are these two fighting?). As the show progresses, we get to see each character's sides of the story and how they interconnect with and affect each other. It's very, very well written and well crafted.

Each episode also tackles a pretty mature and at times distressing theme about growing up and parenting, similar to Inside Out. Here's a one sentence synopsis of each episode's general conflict and theme to give you an idea. Spoilers ahead:

Laurie, who's terrible at softball, desperately wants to impress her father, the team coach, but is dragged down by anxiety, visualized by a growing blob that whispers intrusive thoughts.

A geeky, middle-aged middle school teacher tries to get over a break-up with online dating.

Rochelle, who's the eldest "forced-to-grow-up-too-fast" daughter of a struggling, social media-obsessed single mother, must raise money on her own to pay for her team fee, falling into dangerous situations with older teens.

Following the perspective of the single mother during the events of episode three, we see her side of the story and the complicated ways she works to fend off judgmental parents and support her daughter.

An imaginative but lonely little brother of a softball player becomes friends with a group of teenage outcasts, for better and for worse.

A boy and a girl on the softball team begin dating, but undergo relationship troubles when the boy's insecurities about coolness, honesty, and masculinity cause him to lash out.

Kai, a Black, trans-coded girl on the team, must balance her self-confidence and love for softball while appeasing her sports-loving father, who pressures her to always be her best.

The culmination and climaxes of each episode's arcs and conflicts collide in the big championship game, with a main focus on the team coach/father from the first episode, who's ready to burst from the stress and tension of an impending divorce, his anxious daughter, the game, and mid-life feelings of worthlessness.

Each episode also features a creative way of externalizing and visualizing emotions, concepts, or mindsets like anxiety, e-dating, and pride. Rochelle transforms into a tall business woman with shoulder pads when she goes into money-making-mode. Gravity flips and disappears when she feels like she's losing control of her life. Some episodes even feature completely different animation styles. As a result, each storyline is presented through an unreliable and exaggerated perspective that prioritizes the protagonist and skews reality, often shown through the eyes of a child.

These screenshots really don't do the animation justice, you need to see it in motion to get the appeal. The dialogue is snappy and fun too, and the characters are immediately charismatic and likable. Here's a clip from the first episode.

The two biggest controversies this show had were 1. its art style and 2. the censorship.

The art style was ridiculed and criticized online for looking "grub-hub commercial-ish," which has been said about previous Pixar movies as well (Luca and Turning Red). The characters are extremely cartoony, with sometimes weirdly exaggerated proportions. And admittedly, some of the designs are not it (the noseless barista...). But I think a lot of people and artists will agree that even if the art direction looks strange to you, it grows on you quickly. Pixar knows how to animate and they know how to work with their own models. Plus, given the limitations and labor of a 7-episode show, it makes sense that things had to be simplified. With the gorgeous lighting, textures, and colors, the show's style really reminded me of stop-motion or Nintendo games. It's just fun.

Secondly is the report that Disney made Pixar censor and re-write Kai's episode, which was originally supposed to be an explicit exploration of her trans identity as a young girl and an athlete. The animatic of the original version of the episode was leaked online. The news and decision is extremely disappointing, worsens the final show, and really reveals how careless and conservative Disney is about representation. But if you watch the actual episode, you'll notice all the ways the crew tried to circumvent Disney and maintain Kai's trans identity through coding and nods to gender dysphoria/guilt/expression/affirmation/euphoria. (Her storyline made me cry too.)

I don't want to come across like I'm defending the censorship. An episode dedicated to a POC father-daughter relationship as they navigate Kai coming out as trans while playing sports on Disney+ would have been so powerful and important for family audiences. And they try to supplant the trans storyline with a clumsy softball vs. baseball edit. But I've seen talk about how this storyline was completely erased or how this show is straight up transphobic, and that's just not true. The crew did their best with a truly shitty situation.

If you like shows like Craig of the Creek or Bluey or Steven Universe, you'll probably like this one too.

[kisses4themissus]

helloooooiooooooooo. Loveeeeeee the Robby fic so good. Your writing is amazing.

Now I have an idea (feel free to ignore) ya know Little Mix song Love Me Like You. Specifically the lyrics:

“I’m dealing with these bo-o-oys

When I really need a man”

Is soooooo Abbott or Robby Coded instantly. Though of them lol like no way anyone gonna love you better than them

Love Me Like You | M.R X Reader

a/n: tysm for requesting this!!

navigation | send me a love letter ୨ৎ

You sighed as you rested your forehead against the breakroom’s table; The cool surface cooling you off from the light sheen of sweat you earned from running around the ED.

Lifting your head up from the table, you could see from the small glass window all of the new med students running around, the older interns just snickered and attempted to guide them before giving them up to a resident.

A moment of silence was all you had asked for during your shift, not expecting to be the center of the new students attention.

As you placed your head back down you tensed up as the door opened and the sound of footsteps followed. Your eyes quickly recognized the new balances as the owner spoke up.

“Burnt out from those kids?” Robby asked, facing you as he poured himself another cup of coffee. 

You just laughed flatly, lifting your head up. “Ha…very much so, javadi swears she saw two of the boys push each other to follow me into a trauma..” You sighed, rubbing your forehead.

“You’re their leader now, what did walsh say during the mass casualty?” Robby sighed, thinking, his fingers tapping on his mug as he thought.

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown?” You questioned, a tiny grin growing on your face as robby lit up and snap his fingers, a matching smile on his face.

“That’s it, nice memory..” He chuckled before taking a sip of coffee.

You silently admired him for a moment, taking in each detail, from the hair that curled around his ears to the small but bright freckles on his cheeks, you had been zoned out but was brought out of it, jumping as one of the med students popped in, his eyes lighting up brightly as he found your own.

“Um, excuse us dr. robby, but our–uh ladder injury guy’s CT came back..” The student spoke up, you just nodded and stretched your neck, trying to pop it.

“I’ll be right there...” You brushed the kid off before standing up, following the student out the breakroom and towards a free desktop to look at the results.

Robby smiled as he watched from the door as the kid hovered over your shoulder while you tiredly scrolled through the results. 

- - - - - - - -

Exiting the curtained room a wave of exhaustion hit you, covering your mouth as you began to yawn. You quickly pulled out your phone to check the time, your lock screen lit up, a photo of your dog displayed on your screen.

“Is that your dog doctor?” One of the med students asked you, a smile on her face.

You smiled at her and nodded, turning the screen to her. 

“You have a dog?” One of the students, mason asked.

You sighed and attempted to hide your annoyance at the former frat boy. “Yep, he’s like my child.” You gave him a tight smile.

“I have a golden lab, we should set up a possible play date for them sometime no?” He asked, a cocky grin on his face.

You couldn’t stop a scoff from coming out, your laughter quickly followed, “Cooper isn’t too social, he got surgery recently and can’t do playdates, sorry.” You sighed, the other student just grinned into her hand as you brushed pass mason, walking towards central.

“Damn, you and your dog just got rejected..” Kaitlyn, the other student laughed at mason.

“Oh be quiet, i known girls like her, dated tons of them. They act not interested then as i “supposedly” lose attraction she’ll come to me!” He scoffed, looking at kaitlyn as if she was dumb.

Santos snorted at his logic, peering over at him, making it known she had heard the whole thing.

“Or you’re maybe just a jackass who doesn’t take no?” Trinity shrugged before grabbed her stethoscope from the desk, rushing as a trauma entered.

“I’m not an jackass..” Mason muttered under his breath.

“No but you got a good ass on you, turn to the side for me handsome..” Myrna whistled at him, making mason jump and quickly excuse himself before he got left with myrna alone.

Entering a trauma room, mason noticed you off the side, watching as robby cleaned up the intubated trauma’s mouth of secretions, as robby reached over to get more wiggle room, mason caught sight of a chain, a plain metal band sat beside another, a star of david on the other.

Mason kept quiet, making note to ask whitaker about it later.

- - - - - - - -

“Tell me i’m amazing!” You told robby as you approached him, your hands in your scrub pockets.

“Now what did you do?” Robby questioned, his eyes narrowing playfully.

“Got ICU to take three patients upstairs!” You smiled, bouncing around, making robby watch with a smile.

“Alright, you’re amazing..” Robby chuckled, running his hand over your lower back. From a distance, mason made a look which earned whitaker’s attention.

“I wonder how his wife feels about that..” Mason scoffed, dennis looked to the student, moving his eyes away from the chart in front of them.

“Who’s wife?” Whitaker asked, looking around for anything unusual.

“Dr. Robby’s wife, he seems oddly close with her..” Mason nodded in your and robby’s direction. Dennis looked over to see you and robby at central, robby watching you with a smile as dana handed over your energy drink, his hand still on your back.

“I think she’s fine with it..” Whitaker shrugged, not seeing anything wrong.

“Just seems odd to me..” Mason shrugged, walking away from whitaker who now sat at a desk confused.

Thankfully for the rest of your shift you had managed to hide away from the med students, as you collected your things from your locker you let out a yawn.

You shuffled your way out of the ED with the other day shift.

Making your way to the park, you all found empty benches, you looked around and sighed, not seeing robby nearby, you assumed he must’ve gotten caught up with jack on each patient.

Perlah handed you a cool water from donnie’s bag, you smiled and thanked her as you sat down on the wooden bench, opening the water.

“I need a warm bath and a whole bottle of wine right now..” You announced, slouching into the bench, exhaustion hitting you.

“That sounds nice..” Samira hummed in agreement with you as she sipped a beer donnie had handed her. “How’s cooper doing?” She asked, making you smile.

“He’s recovering, he loves how we’ve been spoiling him..” You chuckled, mindlessly you scratched your neck and pulled out your necklace from under your scrubs, on a dainty chain sat your wedding ring.

“He deserves it, he’s just a poor baby!” Samira cooed as you showed her photos of your dog.

Mason and the other interns walked over to the group and took a seat on the benches as the others began asking about their day.

As mason tuned out everyone, he noticed as you lit up at the sight of robby.

“I hate to leave you all so soon but i need to go see my cooper!” You announced, standing up from the bench, grabbing your bag.

Robby smiled and waved to the others, before leaving robby turned to mason, an off look in his eyes as he stared the frat boy down. “Get some sleep dr. mason, something tells me tomorrow’s gonna be tough.” Robby’s words make you snort, gently elbowing his side.

Robby just smiled at you and let his hand drift down to your back as you both walked to the car.

“Is no one concerned for dr robby’s wife?” Mason asked, making the others looked at him confused.

“What do you mean?” Samira asked, looking back at where robby’s truck pulled out of the parking lot. “Dr robby seems a little too close to his fellow attending, if i was married i would not be holding my attendings back or driving her home if she gave me those love filled eyes..” Mason scoffed, his words making everyone start to laugh.

“Oh my god, you still haven’t gotten it have you!?” Santos asked, her laugher booming as whitaker just chuckled and looked around.

“Get what?” 

“She’s dr. robby’s wife, they’ve been married for four years now dude..” Princess explained, laughing a bit.

Mason’s face dropped; now understanding he had spent most of his week and day flirting with his attending’s wife.

- - - - - - - -

You yawned as robby drove on the freeway.

“So that mason kid..” Robby spoke up, making you laugh.

“Jealous I got a young lover waiting at the door?” You teased, robby just shook his head, a small smile on his face. “Besides after tomorrow i’m sure he won’t even step a foot near me.” You both laughed.

You both sat in comfortable silence for the drive, growing sleep you had popped up from your seat and turned the radio on.

A laugh escaped robby’s mouth as the radio lyrics filled the tiny space.

You smiled at him and began to sing, occasionally brushing your hand over robby’s beard.

“When i really need a man, that can do it like I can!” You sang, leaning over the console to place kisses robby’s bearded cheek. “But you got that nasty, and that’s what i want!” You finished, making robby just chuckle, his cheeks turning a bright red as he shyly glanced over at you.

“You really don’t want a young guy?” Robby asked, his eyes softening at you.

You shook your head and held his unoccupied hand. “I prefer the active suicide risk type over former frat boys..” 

Robby just chuckled and kissed the back of your hand as little mix played in the background.

[lovebugism]

istg that “just because you’re beautiful and a good kisser does not mean i forgive you.” “you think i’m beautiful?” is sooooo eddie coded.

i'm picturing a sorta enemies to lovers with eddie pulling yet another prank on reader (we all know this boy has the emotional maturity of a five year old when it comes to making a move on the girl he likes) but he really does hurt her feelings this time so he tries to make it up to her and they end up kissing.

from what you've written before i think you could put a great spin on this sorta scenario, if you feel like it <3

hope you like it! :D — you're eddie munson's biggest enemy. and, yes, you're also his soulmate. (enemies to lovers, secret relationship, 0.9k)

bug's one year celebration ♡

You storm into the bustling lunch room, having traded your pretty corseted blouse for a piece of oversized Corroded Coffin merch — definitely not by choice. “Do you have a death wish?” you ask when you reach the Hellfire table at the very back of the cafeteria, zeroed in on its leader at the head of it.

Eddie turns slowly, blinking up at you with innocent button eyes. His chews through the hamburger wadded in his cheek. “Potentially,” he answers, muffled before he swallows it down.

You huff, too easily frustrated. It isn’t any wonder why he likes to mess with you so much. “Where are my clothes?” 

“The ones you left on my bedroom floor last night or…?”

“No, you idiot— The clothes you stole from the girl’s locker room. Which makes you a total perv, by the way.”

“Oh, that sexy little number?” he croons, turning in his seat to face you more. “It’s in my locker, actually.”

“Well, get it out,” you say with gritted teeth.

He thinks for a moment, pursing his lips to the side. “Hm… I don’t think I will.”

Your jaw tightens. “Why?”

“‘Cause it’s a little revealing, don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah, that’s kinda the point, Munson.”

He smacks his lips against his teeth, then scrunches the bridge of his nose. He wags a sarcastic, ringed finger at you. “See— Those aren’t the values a nice girl like you should have—”

“God, you’re infuriating,” you groan and stomp off again.

Eddie smiles to himself while he watches you go, cheek tilted lazily to his shoulder. The only thing he likes better than seeing you come (in more ways than one) is watching you leave.

He sighs a deep, contented sigh and turns back to the rest of the table. They’re all wide-eyed and silent, still musing on the sudden interaction with the disbelief that it had happened at all.

Eddie only grins, wider this time. “Ah… She’s obsessed with me.”

—————

By the end of the school day, your blouse hasn’t yet been returned to you. You’re still stuck in the stupid shirt Eddie had left for you — all black, too big, and obviously his. You know it belongs to him because you’ve worn it thousands of times while sleeping over at his place. It smells just like him, like weed and cologne and boy.

You’re heading towards the exits when a hand pulls you into an abandoned classroom around the corner — pale, ringed, and lanky. As if you needed any further confirmation it was Eddie Munson. 

You stumble in, and he locks it behind you.

“Don’t you think you’ve bothered me enough today?” you squint.

“Oh, so you don’t want your shirt back?” he teases, waving the thing in his free hand. You reach for it, and he snatches it back, smirking softly down at you. “Uh-uh. What’s the magic word, sweetheart.”

“Give me my shirt back,” you answer in a monotone.

“Not even close, but I’ll give you a kiss for it.”

You sigh like it’s a chore for you and lean in to kiss his cheek. Your lips just barely graze his stubbly jaw. Eddie shrugs. “You missed, but I’m feeling nice today, so—”

You snatch it from him when he hands it to you. “You can’t keep doing this, Eds. We’re supposed to hate each other.”

“Well, one, we do hate each other. Obviously,” he scoffs and leans back on one of the desks. It shifts under his weight, and he stumbles. He decides to sit on it completely while you laugh. “And two, this was, like, a genius prank on my end. I made my arch nemesis walk around in my shirt all day— you’re not giving me enough credit for this, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, except I got called the freak’s girlfriend all day.”

“By who?”

“Who do you think?”

He ponders for a moment. “…Jason?”

You nod, all slow because it’s obvious. The only one who hates Eddie more than you do is Jason Carver. You wonder if he’s secretly in love with the town freak, too.

“Well, it’s about time he knows who you belong to,” the boy says with a laugh. “He’s only been trying to get with you for two years.”

You cross your arms over your chest. “I don’t belong to anyone— I’m not a toy.”

“Well, yeah— only when you wanna be,” Eddie teases, reaching out for you. His ringed fingers curl around your wrist to pull you closer. You sigh in annoyance but walk between his thighs anyway.

“You’re so annoying.”

Eddie grins, pink and boyish. “But you like me anyway. So who’s the real loser?”

“I thought we hated each other,” you quip with narrowed eyes.

“I was kidding— Just kiss me.”

You giggle quietly and lean in to peck his lips. He tastes like nicotine and spearmint, mouth soft like flower petals. You get lost in him too easily. One peck becomes two — then three — then a longer, languid, and more drawn-out thing.

You feel Eddie smile against you, knowing he’s won now that you’re melting for him. You pull away with a smack when you regain your senses.

“Just because you’re pretty and a good kisser, doesn’t mean I forgive you, by the way. You know that, right?”

“Mhmm,” he hums mindlessly, already leaning forward to kiss you again.

You pull softly back. “And that I’m totally getting you back for this?”

“Yep.” He pecks your lips once, with a lot more self-restraint than you’d had. “So… When are you coming over to get the clothes you left at my place last night?”

[bbyg4rl]

I wanted to say thank you for answering my question so quickly and kindly but I was also curious if you'd be willing to write anything about JJ with a reader that has an eating disorder. I know ed's are a very sensitive topic to a lot of people so if you aren't comfortable with it I 100% understand. I used to have an ed that I still often struggle with, something like anorexia but never fully anorexic if that makes sense but that's why I was asking. So if you are comfortable with it I'd love a concept/thought thing about it that's completely fine too. ALSO. JJ is very kiss me thru the phone by soulja boy and Sammie codded

-🦇

You sat on the counter, knees pulled to your chest, hoodie sleeves covering your hands. The granola bar sat unopened beside you.

JJ didn’t say anything at first. Just walked over, peeled it open, and broke off a piece like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Open,” he said quietly, like he was asking, not telling.

You hesitated, but he waited—patient, soft-eyed. So you did.

He slipped the piece past your lips like he’d done it a thousand times, like he wanted to. And when you chewed, he gave you the faintest smile, eyes never leaving yours.

“See?” he murmured. “Still human. Still loved. Still here.”

Another bite. And another.

He didn’t rush you. Didn’t count the pieces or comment on how little you’d eaten that day. He just fed you, slowly, gently, like it wasn’t about food at all—but about care.

“You don’t have to do it alone,” he whispered, brushing a crumb from your lip.

And when you leaned into his chest afterward, stomach full—not of food, but of safety—you believed him. He didn’t offer you a lecture or a plate of food you couldn’t look at. Just opened his arms and let you fold into him.

Just a little. Just enough.

read more concepts here !

as someone whos always had struggles with anorexia, this one is so personal to me, ive had a draft dealing w this since i started this page in jan and i havent been able to finish it yet, but heres a lil blurb, which isnt fiction rly bc i was lucky enough to have someone in my life who helped me walk thru that hell path, my dms and my asks are always open for you love ❤️‍🩹 this isnt something you have to deal with alone and ill always listen no matter how irrational or stupid or constricting it may feel. you're always loved. remember that ❤️‍🩹

also yes jj is very kiss me thru the phone coded

[amethystarachnid]

Hey!

Could you maybe do Loki dating a surgeon or sorts (Like general surgeon maybe and the reader is from Earth obv) and he visits to find her very busy with patients constantly piling up?

BURNOUT AND STARLIGHT

⤷ LOKY LAUFEYSON

ᯓ★ Pairing: Loki Laufeyson x fem!reader

ᯓ★ Genre: romance, some angst and some fluff

ᯓ★ Word count: 6.7k

ᯓ★ Summary: You’re a trauma surgeon devoted to saving lives...until the cost nearly becomes your own. Loki, your lover from Asgard, watches your struggle from afar, stepping in to comfort you when the weight becomes unbearable. Between Earth and stars, you begin to realize you can’t heal others if you forget to heal yourself.

ᯓ★ TW(s): nedical trauma and death (including loss of a young patient), Burnout, emotional exhaustion, and grief, Mentions of dissociation and crying

ᯓ★ I really hope I understood your request and I hope that you like it <3

ᯓ★ Love is in the air - Valentine's Day special game

ᯓ★ My Masterlist

ᯓ★ MARVEL Holiday Special

ᯓ★ MARVEL Multiverse - choose an AU, pair it with your favorite character and make a request!

ᯓ★ Songs & Superheroes tales - The Game (to make a request, follow the rules on the link!)

ᯓ★ MARVEL Bingo

ᯓ★ English isn’t my first language

The hospital never sleeps.

The fluorescent lights hum overhead as you move quickly through the corridors, clipboard in hand, sneakers squeaking faintly against the polished floor. It's late—maybe three, maybe four in the morning—and the Emergency Department is thrumming with a low, relentless energy that feels more like a battlefront than a place of healing. You’ve been here for what, sixteen hours now? Eighteen? It hardly matters. Time blurs when you’re this deep into the work, when every second feels like it belongs to someone else's life and not your own.

Your pager buzzes at your hip, sharp and insistent. Another incoming trauma. You sigh under your breath, shifting the clipboard to your other arm and pushing through the heavy doors back into the main ED. You barely feel the exhaustion anymore. It's been beaten into you, carved into your bones like the steady ache you carry in your back and shoulders.

You love this work. You do. It's what you were meant to do.

But lately, it feels like something's missing.

You don’t let yourself dwell on it. You’re too good at compartmentalizing. It’s a skill you’ve honed out of necessity—the same skill that keeps you from breaking when you're elbow-deep in a gunshot wound or barking orders over the roar of a code blue. You don't let yourself feel too much. Not while you're here.

Still, there’s a hollow ache in your chest that no amount of caffeine or adrenaline can seem to fill.

You shove open the bay doors and step into the chaos.

Paramedics are wheeling in a man, his shirt soaked with blood, his face pale and drawn. You snap into action immediately, rattling off instructions, feeling the familiar click of your mind slipping into gear. It's automatic, clinical. Hands steady, voice firm.

This is who you are. This is what you do.

But somewhere, buried under the sterile smell of antiseptic and the rhythmic beeping of monitors, you feel the frayed edges of something tender and aching inside you.

You think of him.

You think of Loki.

You don’t even realize you’ve whispered his name under your breath until a nurse glances at you, puzzled. You clear your throat and refocus, pushing the thought aside. He’s not here. He’s never here when you need him most.

Because he lives in another world. Literally.

You knew it when you started dating him—that loving him meant accepting that he didn’t belong to this one. He had a throne, a destiny, a home that wasn’t Earth. And you had yours: a hospital badge clipped to your scrub pocket and a life that demanded every scrap of your energy.

Still, you can't help but wonder sometimes what it would be like if things were different.

If he could stay.

If you could leave.

The patient crashes briefly on the table, and you don’t have time to wonder anymore. You lose yourself in the desperate, beautiful work of keeping him alive.

Hours pass. Maybe a day. It's hard to tell.

Eventually, you're leaning against the nurses' station, scribbling notes on a chart, when a strange shimmer in the air makes you pause. You blink, thinking maybe it's just the exhaustion playing tricks on you.

But then the shimmer coalesces into something solid, something real.

Someone.

Your breath catches.

He stands there, just beyond the edge of the nurses' station, clad in dark leathers and emerald-green, his black hair falling messily across his forehead. His presence feels like a crack in the fabric of reality, like the world has bent around him just to make space.

Loki.

Your heart stutters, a painful, startled thing against your ribs. For a moment, you can't move, can't breathe. You just stare at him, taking in the impossible sight of him here, now, in your world.

He smiles, slow and devastating.

"Hello, darling," he says, his voice a low purr that sends shivers down your spine.

You realize suddenly that you're still holding the chart, your pen frozen in midair. You slam it down on the counter and rush around to him, nearly colliding with a passing orderly.

"Loki," you hiss under your breath, grabbing his arm and tugging him into a nearby empty room. You shut the door behind you and spin to face him, heart hammering.

"You can't just—" you start, but the words die in your throat as he steps closer.

"I had to see you," he murmurs, brushing a stray hair from your forehead. His touch is gentle, reverent, as if he's afraid you'll disappear if he looks away too long.

Your anger fizzles out before it even properly ignites. All you can feel is the aching swell of longing that rises up to drown you.

"You shouldn't be here," you say, voice shaking. "I’m working."

"I know." His thumb grazes your cheekbone. "I can see that. You look... exhausted."

You laugh, a short, brittle sound. "Yeah, well. That’s what happens when you don't sleep for two days."

His brow furrows in concern, and for a moment, you think he might actually whisk you away somewhere—somewhere safe, somewhere quiet, where the world can’t touch you. You can almost feel the magic curling around him, an instinctive, protective thing.

You step back, putting distance between you before you can do something stupid, like ask him to take you with him.

"You can't stay," you say, forcing the words out.

He nods, but there’s something stubborn in the set of his jaw. "Then come with me."

You blink at him. "Loki—"

"Just for a little while," he says, stepping closer again. "An hour. A day. Whatever you can spare."

You hesitate. God, you want to. You want to throw your pager in a drawer and vanish into the void with him, if only for a little while. But reality claws at you, sharp and unrelenting.

"I can't," you whisper. "I have patients. I have responsibilities."

He closes his eyes for a moment, as if pained by the words. When he opens them again, they're filled with something raw and desperate.

"I miss you," he says simply.

You swallow hard, fighting back the sudden rush of tears. "I miss you too."

The silence stretches between you, heavy with everything you can't say.

He reaches into the inner pocket of his coat and pulls out a small, gleaming object. It looks almost like a pocket watch, but the surface shimmers with magic. He presses it into your hand.

"If you ever need me," he says, his voice low and serious, "use this. No matter where I am, no matter what I'm doing—I’ll come."

You stare down at it, your fingers closing around the cool, intricate metal.

"Loki..." you breathe, overwhelmed.

He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead, lingering there for a moment longer than necessary.

Then he steps back, the air around him shimmering again, the edges of his form already starting to blur.

"I'll see you soon, my love," he promises.

And then he's gone.

You stand there for a long time, staring at the empty space where he was, the magical device still clutched tightly in your hand.

Outside the door, the hospital marches on—urgent, noisy, unrelenting.

You take a deep breath, pocket the device, and step back into the chaos.

Because this is your life.

For now.

---

You make it through the next few hours on autopilot.

Consults, stitches, assessments. Paperwork that never ends. Your mind drifts constantly to the weight in your pocket, the small device pressing against the fabric of your scrubs like a secret. You could call him. You could have him here, just for a moment, just long enough to breathe.

But you don't. You wait. You endure.

You tell yourself it’s what you’re supposed to do. You tell yourself you're stronger than this gnawing ache inside you.

And then the trauma pager goes off again.

Code crimson. Incoming pediatric trauma.

Your stomach twists even before you hear the rest.

You’re already waiting at the trauma bay when they wheel her in—tiny, fragile, broken. A car accident, they say. She wasn’t even wearing a seatbelt. A mess of blood and broken bones and too many injuries for one small body to bear.

You move on instinct. Gloves snapped on, orders flying from your mouth before you’ve even thought them through. You hear yourself speaking, hear the team moving around you, but it all feels distant. Like you’re underwater.

They rush her to the OR. You’re right there, scrubbed in, heart pounding.

You fight.

God, you fight.

For hours, you battle for her life, hands slick with blood, eyes burning with the intensity of it. You’re careful, methodical, brilliant. You give everything you have.

And it’s not enough.

The monitors flatline.

You bark orders to start compressions, your voice hoarse with desperation. You shock her. You pump her heart manually with your hands. You do everything you know how to do, and when the attending finally calls it—time of death, 4:12 AM—you stand frozen over her tiny, broken body.

The room is silent except for the whir of machines still running out of habit.

You strip off your gloves and gown mechanically, tossing them into the bin. You wash your hands because you have to, but they don’t feel clean. You stare at your reflection in the mirror above the sink—pale, hollow-eyed, blood smeared along your jawline where you must have wiped your face without thinking.

You don't feel like yourself anymore.

You barely make it out of the hospital. You clock out, numbly. You fumble with your car keys. You drive home with your hands clenching the steering wheel so tightly your knuckles turn white.

The second the front door clicks shut behind you, the weight of it all crashes down.

You lean against the door, sliding down to the floor, burying your face in your hands. The sobs tear out of you without warning, violent and raw. You can't stop them. You can't breathe around them.

You tried. You tried so fucking hard.

And it wasn't enough.

You fumble in your scrub pocket and pull out the device Loki gave you, your fingers trembling. You don’t even think—you just press it, hard, as if willing him to appear.

For a second, nothing happens.

And then the air shimmers.

Loki materializes in the middle of your living room, his cloak swirling around him, his eyes immediately locking onto yours. One look at you, crumpled and broken on the floor, and all the mischief, all the arrogance drains from his face.

"Darling," he breathes, rushing to you.

You don't have the strength to move. You just look up at him, tears streaming down your face, and he drops to his knees beside you without hesitation. His arms wrap around you, pulling you against his chest with a tenderness that shatters whatever's left of your composure.

You clutch at him desperately, fingers twisting in the fabric of his tunic, as if you can anchor yourself to him and stop the world from spinning.

"I lost her," you whisper brokenly into his shoulder. "I tried—I did everything—I couldn’t save her—"

Loki rocks you gently, his hand stroking up and down your back, his voice a soothing murmur in your ear. "I'm here. I'm here, my love. You are not alone."

You don't know how long you stay like that, wrapped in his arms, crying until there’s nothing left but a hollow ache where your heart used to be.

Eventually, he lifts you effortlessly into his arms, cradling you as if you weigh nothing at all. His magic flares softly, flicking the bathroom lights on ahead of him as he carries you through the apartment.

"You need to rest," he says quietly. "You need care."

You don’t argue. You can’t.

You let him strip the bloodstained scrubs from your body, his movements gentle and reverent, never crossing any boundary you don't offer him. You stand there, shivering, dazed, as he runs a bath, the water steaming and fragrant with something calming—something Asgardian, probably.

When he leads you into the water, you sink down gratefully, the heat seeping into your aching muscles, the scent filling your lungs with something other than grief.

Loki kneels beside the tub, rolling up his sleeves. He dips a cloth into the water and begins to wash you with slow, careful strokes, as if you’re made of glass and he’s terrified of breaking you further.

He doesn't speak. He just stays with you, grounding you with the steady rhythm of his hands, the silent comfort of his presence.

When your skin is clean and your tears have dried, he wraps you in a thick, warm towel and lifts you again, carrying you to the bedroom.

He dresses you in one of his soft shirts—it falls to your mid-thigh and smells like him—and then tucks you gently into bed. He slides in beside you, gathering you against him, his body a protective wall of warmth and strength.

You press your face into his chest, breathing in the scent of him—leather, magic, something uniquely Loki—and feel some small, broken part of yourself start to stitch back together.

His hand strokes through your hair in slow, hypnotic patterns.

"You are not a god," he murmurs against your temple. "You are mortal, and you are magnificent. You gave her a fighting chance, and that is more than most could ever hope to do."

You close your eyes, letting the words sink into the hollow spaces inside you.

You don't feel better.

Not yet.

But wrapped in Loki's arms, you feel something else.

Safe.

Loved.

Slowly, finally, exhaustion pulls you under. Your breathing evens out, your body growing heavy and warm.

Loki stays awake long after you've fallen asleep, watching over you with a fierce, unyielding devotion.

Because if he could, he would tear the stars down from the sky to ease your pain.

Because he is yours.

And you are his.

Always.

---

The morning comes slow and golden.

You drift up from sleep wrapped in warmth, cocooned by soft sheets and the steady rise and fall of Loki’s chest against your cheek. His arms are still around you, holding you close like he’s afraid you might slip away if he lets go. You breathe him in—the faintest scent of him lingering on your skin—and for a long, precious moment, you don't move.

You let yourself pretend.

Pretend this is normal. That he’s here, that you belong like this.

Eventually, you stir, your body aching but lighter somehow. Loki’s arms tighten instinctively around you, his nose nuzzling into your hair, a low, contented sound humming in his chest.

"Good morning, darling," he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep.

You tilt your head back to look at him. His hair is tousled, his features soft in the morning light, without any of the usual sharp edges he wears like armor. He's beautiful like this—unguarded, yours.

You reach up and touch his cheek, your thumb brushing lightly over the curve of his jaw. He turns his head and presses a kiss into your palm, slow and deliberate, and something inside you melts.

"Good morning," you whisper back, your throat raw but a little less broken.

He smiles—a real one, rare and radiant—and leans down to kiss you properly. His lips are warm and soft against yours, gentle at first, then deepening as his hand slides into your hair. He kisses you like he’s savoring you, like he has all the time in the world to learn every shape and sigh of your mouth.

When he finally pulls back, you're breathless and dizzy and a little drunk on him.

"Stay here," he says, a mischievous glint sparking to life in his eyes. "Rest. I’ll make you breakfast."

You blink at him. "You know how to cook?"

He sits up, looking insulted. "I am a prince of Asgard. I can perform complex illusions, wield ancient magics, and command armies. I think I can manage scrambled eggs."

You laugh, a soft, cracked sound that still feels foreign after everything, but it’s real. He smiles like he’s won some secret prize and presses one last kiss to your forehead before slipping out of bed.

You watch him go, shamelessly admiring the way his bare back flexes under the soft light, before you burrow deeper into the covers.

You hear cabinets opening, something clattering, a muffled curse in what you assume is Old Norse. You can't help but smile.

You drift in and out of sleep for a little while longer, lulled by the comforting noises of him moving around your kitchen.

Eventually, the scent of something vaguely resembling food wafts into the bedroom. Loki appears in the doorway, looking absurdly proud of himself, holding a plate piled with slightly uneven, slightly burnt eggs and toast.

He sets the plate down on the nightstand and climbs back into bed, positioning himself so he can feed you a bite with a flourish, clearly very pleased with his efforts.

You chew dutifully, trying not to laugh.

"It's... edible," you tease.

He scowls dramatically. "Such ingratitude. I risked life and limb for this culinary masterpiece."

You lean forward and kiss the corner of his mouth, lingering there. "Thank you," you murmur against his skin.

He softens immediately, his hand coming up to cradle the back of your head, pulling you in for another kiss—deeper, sweeter, lingering. His tongue brushes teasingly against yours, coaxing another small laugh from your throat.

You could stay like this forever.

But reality is a cruel thing.

You pull back slowly, resting your forehead against his. "I have to go back to work this afternoon."

You feel him stiffen slightly, his arms tightening around you.

"No," he says, almost petulantly. "You need rest."

"I know," you whisper, your chest aching. "But they’re short-staffed, and I... I can’t just not show up."

He pulls back enough to look at you, his expression torn between anger and helplessness. "You give them everything you have," he says bitterly. "And they would take more if they could."

You don't deny it.

Because he's right.

But it’s the life you chose, the oath you took.

"Loki," you say softly, cupping his face in your hands. "This is who I am."

He closes his eyes, breathing out slowly through his nose, trying to master the storm inside him.

When he opens them again, they’re luminous with something fragile and aching.

"You are stronger than any warrior I have ever known," he says, his voice low and reverent. "But even the strongest need tending, my love."

You kiss him again, slow and lingering, pouring everything you can’t say into the touch of your lips against his. He kisses you back like he’s trying to memorize you, hands framing your face with a tenderness that breaks you all over again.

When you finally pull away, you brush your thumb over his lower lip, feeling the faint tremor in his breath.

"I'll be okay," you promise.

He doesn't believe you.

But he nods anyway.

Because he knows he can't hold you back, no matter how much he wants to.

He will be waiting.

Always.

---

The hospital is a different world during the day—louder, busier, more frantic.

You step through the sliding glass doors with your ID badge clipped to your scrub top, your hair hastily pulled back, your mind already trying to summon the strength you aren't sure you have.

You left Loki curled in your bed, tangled in the sheets that still smell like you, his eyes heavy with something too complicated to name. It had nearly broken you to slip away from him. But you couldn’t stay, no matter how much you wanted to.

Duty calls. It always does.

You push through the hours mechanically, moving from room to room, chart to chart, trying to summon the same clinical focus that usually shields you. But you're tired—bone-deep and soul-deep—and today, it shows.

You don't notice the subtle flicker of magic that trails you like a shadow.

You don't notice the way the air shimmers faintly at the edge of your vision, or the way the lights above your head seem just a little softer, kinder.

You don’t see Loki, concealed from mortal eyes, moving unseen through the crowded corridors.

He stays close—always close—his magic a silent, invisible shield between you and the world. He can't heal your grief, can't take away the ache that gnaws at you, but he can do small things. Things that might lighten your burden, even if just a little.

When your coffee nearly slips from your trembling fingers, an unseen hand steadies it.

When your chart goes missing, it appears again, neatly stacked on your station.

When the overhead lights flicker and threaten to plunge your OR into darkness mid-procedure, the generators kick in faster than they should have—Loki’s magic smoothing the systems before disaster can strike.

He watches you work, the ferocious grace of you, the way you hold yourself together with sheer willpower. Every exhausted smile you offer a patient, every steady, capable order you give a nurse, every little act of stubborn, impossible hope—he sees it all.

And it makes him ache.

He could spirit you away from this place. He could wrap you in magic and silk and shield you from every pain and sorrow.

But he won’t.

Because he knows you would never forgive him.

Because you are stronger than that.

Because this is who you are.

He leans against the far wall of the trauma bay, cloaked in illusion, watching as you tend to a boy with a broken arm, your voice gentle and patient as you explain the cast he'll need. Your hands are sure and steady, even as the exhaustion shadows your face.

He wants to gather you into his arms and never let go.

Instead, he settles for what he can do: weaving tiny spells into your path, softening the air around you, ensuring that everything that might trip you, hurt you, tire you further—fails.

You move through the day unaware of the way you’re being cared for, protected.

You think it’s luck when the supplies you need are always stocked. You think it’s coincidence when your least favorite attending gets called away to another floor right before your evaluation. You think it’s a miracle when the day seems, somehow, a little less heavy than you expected.

You don't know that it's him.

You don’t know that every step you take is watched with a devotion so fierce it could level mountains.

It’s nearly evening when you finally get a moment to breathe.

You sink into the worn leather couch in the on-call room, letting your head fall back against the wall, your eyes fluttering shut.

You don't notice the faint shimmer beside you.

Loki sits at the edge of the room, invisible and silent, watching you with something almost like reverence. You are so strong, so brave, and yet he sees the cracks now, hairline fractures running just beneath the surface.

He wants to heal them all.

He stays until your pager buzzes again, dragging you back to your feet with a weary groan. You don’t see the way his fingers twitch at his sides, fighting the instinct to snatch you away, to steal you back to safety.

He follows you into the next room, and the next.

And when your hands falter just slightly as you stitch a laceration closed, when your vision blurs for half a second too long, he is there. His magic steadies your fingers, clears your head, lends you strength you don't even realize you're drawing from.

He would burn the world for you.

Instead, he gives you this: small, unseen mercies.

By the time your shift ends, you are staggering with exhaustion, your legs barely carrying you back to the locker room.

You slump against the cool metal of your locker, forehead resting against the door, too tired even to cry.

"Just one more day," you whisper to yourself. "Just get through one more."

A ghost of a touch brushes your hair back from your face—no stronger than a whisper of wind—and you straighten up without even knowing why, a tiny bit lighter, a tiny bit less alone.

You pull your jacket on, grab your bag, and head out into the night.

Loki watches you go, his heart twisting.

He knows he cannot stay much longer. He knows he has duties of his own to return to, an entire realm waiting for him.

But tonight, he will follow you home.

Tonight, he will stand unseen by your window while you sleep, guarding you from every nightmare that dares to touch you.

Because he loves you.

And for you, he would be invisible. He would be silent. He would be anything.

As long as you are safe.

As long as you are loved.

---

By the time you make it home, your body feels like it's running on fumes.

You fumble with your keys at the door, your hands clumsy, your mind slow. You expect to find the apartment dark, empty, silent—but the second you step inside, you feel it.

Warmth.

Magic.

Loki.

He’s already there, lounging across your worn sofa, one leg draped casually over the armrest, a book open on his lap. His eyes lift the moment he senses you, and the soft, slow smile that spreads across his face makes your chest ache.

You drop your bag onto the floor with a graceless thud and shut the door behind you. The tension bleeds out of you at the mere sight of him.

"You’re here," you whisper, your voice hoarse from fatigue.

"Of course," he says simply, closing the book and setting it aside. "Where else would I be?"

You don’t ask how he got here before you.

You don’t ask why today, when everything felt just a little less unbearable, you caught glimpses of impossibilities out of the corner of your eye—papers stacked neatly when they shouldn't have been, doors held open by invisible hands, weariness lifting just long enough to get through a critical moment.

You don't ask.

Because some things, you know, are not meant to be spoken aloud.

You cross the room without a second thought and sink into him, into the sanctuary of his arms, the steady beat of his heart beneath your cheek.

He holds you like you’re the most precious thing in the universe.

For a long time, there’s only the hush of your breathing, the soft kiss he presses to your temple, the way his fingers card lazily through your hair.

"You’re exhausted," he murmurs.

You hum in agreement, too drained even for words.

"And you have no obligations tomorrow," he continues, a gleam of mischief curling in his voice. "Correct?"

You nod slowly against him.

"Good." He draws back just enough to see your face, a flicker of excitement sparking in his eyes. "Because we’re leaving."

You blink at him, too tired to process. "Leaving?"

"For Asgard," he says, like it's the most natural thing in the world. "You need rest. You need to be... spoiled."

You shake your head, laughing weakly. "Loki, I can't—"

But you don't even finish the protest. Because he’s already gathering you in his arms, standing smoothly as if you weigh nothing at all.

He whispers a word in a language older than Earth itself, and the room spins.

When the world rights itself again, you’re no longer in your apartment.

You’re standing in a grand, golden hallway, the ceilings soaring high above you, the floors polished to a mirror shine. The air smells different—cleaner, richer somehow—and the low hum of magic buzzes pleasantly under your skin.

You blink in stunned silence.

Loki grins down at you, all roguish pride and boyish delight. "Welcome back to Asgard, my love."

Before you can think of anything to say, a pair of attendants appear, bowing low with practiced grace. One of them holds out a bundle of soft, luxurious clothes in shimmering shades of silver and deep green.

"For you, Lady Y/N," the attendant says reverently.

You look at Loki, wide-eyed.

He shrugs, utterly unrepentant. "You deserve to be treated as you should be. As royalty."

He sets you down gently and nods toward a set of ornately carved doors. "Go, change. Refresh yourself. Then dinner."

You are too stunned to argue.

You disappear into the chamber beyond, where a marble bath steams invitingly, petals floating on the water's surface. You sink into it gratefully, letting the heat and the soft scents of strange flowers unknot the last of the tension in your muscles.

When you emerge, the clothes fit perfectly—soft against your skin, tailored to your shape, the fabrics lighter than anything you’ve ever worn.

You catch a glimpse of yourself in the gilded mirror and barely recognize the woman staring back: not the exhausted surgeon, not the broken girl, but someone softer, more luminous.

Someone loved.

You step back into the hallway, and Loki is waiting for you.

His eyes darken the moment he sees you, something fierce and possessive flashing across his face before he tucks it away behind a smirk.

"Exquisite," he says, offering his arm.

You slip your hand into the crook of his elbow, and he leads you through the palace, past towering columns and glowing crystal sconces, until you reach a grand dining hall.

It’s not a feast for a hundred—it’s a feast for you.

A private table set for two, laden with dishes you don’t recognize but that smell impossibly good. The air is filled with soft music, the melodies strange and hauntingly beautiful.

He pulls out your chair with a flourish and waits until you’re seated before taking his place across from you.

The meal passes in a haze of laughter and stolen glances, Loki’s wit light and effortless, his attention never straying from you for a second. He fills your plate with whatever you want, pours you a goblet of some sweet, golden drink, and teases you gently whenever you try to protest that he’s fussing too much.

But you let him.

Because deep down, you know he needs this too.

He needs to give you what he can, in a world where so often you give everything away.

Afterward, he leads you through a winding garden, the stars above shining larger and closer than they ever do on Earth. The air is cool, the paths lined with soft glowing stones.

You stop at the edge of a fountain, the water sparkling under the moons.

He pulls you into his arms, swaying with you to the music only he can hear.

"You saved lives today," he says quietly, brushing his knuckles along your jaw. "Even when no one saved you."

You swallow hard, your throat tightening.

"You are a wonder," he continues, lowering his forehead to yours. "And I will spend every day I am allowed showing you that."

You tilt your head up, capturing his mouth with yours before the tears can fall. He kisses you back fiercely, hands curling into your hair, his body warm and solid against yours.

You lose yourself in him—in the safety, the devotion, the love that wraps around you more surely than any magic ever could.

When you finally pull away, he cups your face, his thumb brushing the dampness from your cheeks.

"Come," he says, voice thick. "Sleep in a real bed tonight, my queen."

You let him lead you back through the palace, back to a suite larger than your entire apartment, the bed piled with velvet and silk.

He undresses you carefully, reverently, until you are bare before him, and then he slips into the bed beside you, gathering you against him.

You fall asleep with his heart beating steady under your ear, the stars of another world shining outside your window.

And for the first time in a long, long while, you dream of peace.

---

Morning in Asgard doesn’t creep in.

It floods.

Soft gold spills through the sheer curtains, lighting the room in a warm, otherworldly glow. The silk sheets are tangled around your legs, the air still scented faintly with jasmine and something sharper—something distinctly Loki.

You stir slowly, one arm reaching out instinctively—and finding him already watching you.

Loki lies propped on one elbow beside you, bare-chested, the sheet slung low over his hips. His hair is mussed from sleep, his eyes lit with a quiet, adoring hunger.

"Good morning," he murmurs, voice still rough with sleep.

You stretch, sighing softly as you roll toward him, your fingers tracing idle lines across his chest. "You’re staring."

He arches an eyebrow. "How could I not? You're beautiful in all lights, but in this one..." His gaze drops lower, slow and deliberate. "You're divine."

You blush, laughing under your breath, and lean in to kiss him. He meets you halfway, his mouth soft but deepening quickly, his hand sliding down to your waist. He pulls you closer until your leg is hooked over his hip, your bodies flush, heat rising between you like a slow tide.

"You deserve mornings like this," he says against your lips. "No alarms. No rushing off. Just me. Just you."

"I could get used to this," you whisper, breath hitching as his fingers slide up under the thin sheet draped over your back.

"Then do," he murmurs, voice a low promise. "Stay here. With me. For one more day."

You don’t answer—can’t answer—not when his mouth finds the curve of your throat, not when his hand slips lower, coaxing a gasp from your lips. His name escapes you in a broken whisper as his touch turns firmer, more deliberate.

The moment stretches, deep and golden, poised on the edge of something more.

And then—

Ding.

You both freeze.

Your brows knit, confused for half a second—until the sound comes again, distinct and familiar and horribly real.

Your phone.

Loki groans quietly, his forehead dropping to your collarbone.

"I warded your device to connect to Midgard's networks," he mutters, clearly regretting it now. "In case you needed it while here. I did not expect it to turn against me so soon."

You reach blindly for your phone on the nightstand, heart already dropping.

It’s a message from the hospital. Urgent call. Emergency case. Available personnel needed ASAP.

You stare at it for a moment, your body still thrumming with warmth, tangled in satin sheets and Loki’s arms.

Then reality slices through you like ice.

You sit up, dragging the sheet with you, thumb already flying across the screen to respond. Your heartbeat pounds against your ribs—habit, duty, instinct.

Loki watches silently, the lines of his jaw tightening, something dark and unreadable flickering behind his eyes.

You look at him.

"I have to go," you say softly, already slipping out of bed.

He doesn’t answer right away.

He just sits there, watching you gather your clothes, his gaze heavy with something between heartbreak and resignation.

"You just got here," he finally says, quiet.

You nod, throat tight. "I know."

His fingers flex slightly against the sheets. He doesn’t stop you. Of course he doesn’t. He never would.

But you can feel the ache in his silence as clearly as if he shouted it.

You dress quickly, moving through the motions on autopilot, and when you reach for your phone again, you pause.

You turn back to him.

"I wanted to stay," you whisper.

His eyes find yours. "I know."

And then he rises, steps toward you, and pulls you into his arms one last time.

He kisses you like he’s memorizing the taste of you, his hands cradling your face with a reverence that makes your chest burn.

When you finally pull away, breathless and aching, he rests his forehead against yours.

"I’ll bring you back," he says softly. "As soon as I can."

And then, with a twist of his fingers and a shimmer of green light, the golden palace disappears, and you’re standing once more at your apartment door.

Back on Earth.

Back in scrubs.

Back in the storm.

---

You make it through the shift.

Barely.

The emergency turns out to be a multi-car pile-up—three ambulances arriving back-to-back, a dozen patients flooding the trauma unit. It’s chaos. Controlled chaos, but chaos all the same.

You don’t have time to think. Not about Asgard. Not about Loki. Not even about the way your legs feel like they might give out beneath you.

You’re soaked in sweat before the first hour is over, your gloves red and sticky, your voice hoarse from barking out orders. One of the patients codes right there in front of you—a teenager with too much blood in his chest, not enough in his brain—and you don’t even flinch. You crack his ribs open and dig your hands into his chest like it’s just another procedure.

Because it is just another procedure.

Until it’s not.

Until he dies.

And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

You scrub out in silence, your hands trembling slightly under the hot stream of water. You stare at the blood circling the drain, the pink foam clinging to your skin, and you feel... nothing.

Not horror. Not sadness.

Just empty.

You barely make it to the locker room before you sit down and don’t get up for twenty minutes. You ignore the concerned glance from one of the residents, the gentle pat on the back. You say you're fine.

You’re always fine.

But inside, something has shifted.

And when your shift finally ends and you walk out into the cold night air, something in you breaks open, quiet and irrevocable.

You love your job. You know you do. The helping, the healing, the second chances. It’s all worth it. It has to be.

But you can’t keep living like this.

You’re going to die from it. Not all at once—but by inches.

Every night without sleep. Every trauma you carry home. Every time you walk into your apartment too exhausted to eat, to breathe, to be alive.

This isn’t sustainable.

And maybe for the first time... you admit it.

By the time you reach your door, you’re blinking back tears, your limbs too heavy, your chest too tight.

You unlock it with shaking hands.

And he’s there.

Of course he’s there.

Loki stands in the middle of your living room, dressed in black, his hair pulled back, eyes already on you. He doesn’t say a word—he doesn’t need to.

Because the moment you look at him, really look, the dam breaks.

You don’t even drop your bag. You just cross the space between you and fall into his arms like a collapsing star.

He catches you instantly.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t ask.

He just holds you.

And gods, it undoes you.

You cry into his chest, silent and shaking, your fists curled into the fabric of his shirt. He rests his chin atop your head and rocks you gently, his arms strong and sure around you.

"I can’t do it anymore," you whisper, barely audible.

He doesn’t stiffen.

He just kisses the top of your head.

"I know."

"I thought I could handle it. I thought I could save everyone. But it’s killing me, Loki. Slowly. Quietly. And no one even sees it."

He pulls back just enough to take your face in his hands, his expression aching with tenderness.

"I see it," he says. "I’ve always seen it."

You close your eyes.

"I don’t want to stop being a doctor," you murmur. "But I don’t want to lose myself doing it."

"You won't," he says, firm. "We’ll find a way. I will find a way."

You look at him, eyes glassy. "You can’t fix this with magic."

"No," he agrees. "But I can carry it with you. As long as you let me."

You exhale shakily, nodding before you even fully process it.

"Okay," you say. "Okay."

He kisses you then, slow and deep, like he’s trying to draw every ounce of pain out of you and replace it with something softer. Something safe.

He helps you out of your coat, your shoes, the bag still slung over your shoulder. He leads you to the couch, wraps you in a blanket, and curls around you like a shield.

You’re asleep before you even realize your eyes are closing.

And in that moment, even with everything still uncertain, you know one thing for sure:

You’re not alone in this anymore.

You never will be.

part 2 where reader leaves the hospital and lives on Asgard? maybe being a doctor there? do asgardians even need one? idk

[jazzyblusnowflake]

(If this was asked before, I swear to god.) FullCompany (NUziVJ) Headcannons?

aaaaaaaaa time to write once more- i missed being able to type away like the lil shit i am-

anyhow- okay lets see- gonna add some things here- tbh my ideas was mostly for Jenvy ideas mainly- but i guess ill fit Uzi in there lol

Some JeNVUzi HCs:

[once again- Drone au only, and maybe minor suggestive content but not nsfw]

The polycule is essentially formed around Uzi pulling them back together-

J's original reason for siding with Cyn which was rooted in fear- was on the basis that she still had her team on her side so she could keep them safe and so theyd have eachother to rely on even after Cyn destroys everything. she did not however, account for Uzi coming along and messing everything up and ruining her team's alignment while she was "dead".

the entire reason J tried to kill N or V at any time was cuz she knew a clone of them would be sent back anyway- she has basically become desensitized towards death in general given she had also died around 12 times herself [canon]- V and N try to help her through this- during which they also deal with Vs behavior and Ns trauma too.

to communicate with J they often had to spar with her- seeing as she hated talking about feelings- but this became their own thing they all did afterwards to unwind and communicate- as J opened up a lot easier after feeling like she was reached out to.

Uzi and J bond over anime and gaming- the latter being somewhere J could actually use her anger on more effectively XD

they all like reading books every now and then where one would read and the others snuggle or cuddle- they take turns. [this is from their manor days]

J is... unable to emote or show emotion easily and it eats her alive. she can't show the appropriate needed emotion to the mood of the room and it makes her have breakdowns- occasionally throw up- as though you are desperately trying to cry but the tears wont come so you try heaving it out- make yourself fit in and look normal by trying to FEEL something- but she cant. J is a dated business model drone- custom made for office work- she was made to be this way- Cyn didn't change her- and she grows to hate herself for it. so when a situation happens that she doesn't know how to react, she leaves or hides- until N,V or Uzi find her- usually disassociating or somewhat catatonic.

Uzi occasionally feels out of place with the group, as though she's just being a literal 4th wheel, since they have history together. the others try to show her that she is important to them each in their own ways-

addressing the elephant in the room- yes, it took a long time for N and J to come to terms with eachother- J eventually accepting that her original reason for hating N [him being better than her or preferred over her esp by Tessa] wasn't important anymore- and tries to appreciate him and V and Uzi more in whatever is left of her life.

make no mistake V and J are still very much bitchy on a surface level- just cuz they are all growing close does not mean they are all now lovey dovey with eachother or sweet and character-redemption-ed with everyone around them. therefore: "playful catfights" >:3 !

V and Uzi tease J alot- this is one of the reasons why J found more comfort with N- not gonna tell him to his face tho lol.

J teaches N to draw better and they bond over that alot-

Uzi and J like attention alot- and they wanna get it by being as wordless as possible- very cat coded.

Uzi, V and N like to drag J into doing more normal things that have less to do with work. so far J has mostly shown some interest in writing and maybe poetry but she WILL shoot your head off if you try to read her stuff-

J's first kiss was with Uzi- N and V having kissed once back at the manor being eachothers first kiss. J thinks V kisses the best tho lol.

N and V like to cuddle a lot- J and Uzi are usually dependent on mood-

V likes to bite- J likes to be bitten, N and Uzi like both- :3

J likes playing with N and Uzi's fluffy hair. V only lets N touch her hair.

during intimate cuddles- J has passed out the most lol. Uzi following a close second lol-

Uzi and J yap alot about tech work-

hmm this is all i can think about for NOW-

:"3

[towasdandelion]

YOUR SUGGESTIONS ARE OPEN!!! (∩^o^)⊃━☆ HAI I HOPE YOURE DOING WELL!!! as always no pressure to write this but i have had an idea rotating in my head since like uhhh two weeks ago?? nd i think it would make for a very fun smau ♪(´▽｀)

LETS JUST SET THE SCENE: mc is hanging out with a ghoul who is a very good friend of theirs!! THEN the ghoul leaves their side for one reason or another, and someone else swoops in and starts flirting w the mc (someone like haku or rui for the sake of ghoul rivalry?? or maybe just some random general student who knows.)

mc texts them something to the effect of IM BEING HIT ON HELP and the ghoul comes RUNNING!!!!!

ofc you can do with this what you will these are simply my brain worms <3 (if i may ask for ritsu to be included pleasepleasepleaseplease okay THANK YOU)

and ofc thank u for you writing as always!!! hope u have the best day ever (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

Hiiii! They are they are hehe (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠) honestly I never even imagined getting any! Maybe that's why they make me feel a bit overwhelmed at times (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ writing for someone is fun but it definitely feels different! I'm doing good now though thank you!! That's a very nice idea by the way so let's get goooo. I decided to kinda do a mix, a few with ghouls rivalry and a few with general students since I couldn't decide!! This was so much fun to write (⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)

Sinostra and Obscuary ghouls when someone flirts with you

Ritsu would be there in the blink of an eye. He would be like "Excuse me? I do hope you're aware you're breaking law right now. You can't touch people without their consent" (Proceeds to recite a whole ass paragraph) to which Kaito just pales before leaving in hurry without another word. He would then make sure you're okay and after that.. he'd drag you to the library, sit you down and open the Penal code, telling you to read the paragraphs he pointed to until you can recite them. He wants you to be able to fend off anyone who dares to get too close in case he's not around. Very thoughtful!

Taiga wouldn't usually care, but there's this important thing - you're his lucky charm. And that really changes things. He's there in literal seconds, glaring at the student as he approaches you, draping his arm loosely over your waist. "Ya lost or somethin?" Is all he needed to say to make the poor guy shiver. He would stand there frozen until Taiga grins at him, showing off his sharp teeth. The student gulps before quickly excusing himself. Problem solved. Without another word Taiga would smoothly escort you to his room, where he then make you pick a gun he'd later train you with... Extreme measures you say? Please, it's Taiga we're talking about.

Romeo would mutter to himself on the way, complaining how useless you are, not even being able to rid of some random guy. He gets furious upon noticing the student reaching for you, immediately slapping his hand away. "Just what do you think you're doing touching her!? Scram if you don't want me to make you beg for mercy!" The student's eyes widen. The guy is not even able to utter a single word. Finally he just let's out an awkward laugh and walks away. And now finally, Romeo can scold you for being so apathetic in this situation. If you dare to tease him about how protective he got just a minute ago I can't guarantee that you'll come out of this alive...

Rui lets out the biggest dramatic gasp upon seeing Haku openly flirt with you when he arrives. "Hey, hey buddy! Sorry but the role of her simp is already taken, thanks though!" He would say before throwing an arm over your shoulder and swiftly leading you away from the potential suitor, not even giving him a chance to say anything. Poor guy just got rejected not by the girl, but a ghoul who appeared to be your boyfriend. Yes, that was Rui's goal. Even if you two weren't together, it was more fun that way! He will pout playfully until you reassure him he's still your favorite flirt.

Ed, just where did he come from? You could have sworn you never heard any footsteps approaching yet there he was standing behind you, resting his head on your shoulder and looking at the guy with a lazy smirk. "My, my, and who is this gentleman? Is he a fresh meal for me? How kind of you" He'd lick his lips and you just know the guy wishes he never spoke to you in the first place. He sweats profusely before muttering a lame excuse and running as fast as he could. A shame, Ed admits but then he teases about you becoming his meal as a reward for scaring away the guy. By any means, feel free to get this idea out of his head.

Lyca's brows furrow the moment he spots you talking to Rui. He approaches you without hesitation, taking a stand between you and the blonde. "She's not interested in you" he states flatly, glaring at his 'opponent'. Surprisingly, he will then lecture him, saying to never ignore girl's body language and to never touch without consent. Rui blinks in confusion but nods along nonetheless, before laughing it off. He quickly excuses himself before walking away. Lyca doesn't understand the look on your face though. Why are you staring at him like that? Did he do something wrong?

[butyoudidthis4what]

She's Here

Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x F!Reader

21.2k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: I know there’s not a supply closet on the floor plan but we’re pretending; took what I needed for the set up of PittFest from the show, storyline diverges once PittFest patients start arriving; angst; active suicide risk Robby; Robby has not been to therapy; miscommunications; Robby cries; Reader cries; suicidal ideation/suicide planning; allusions to PIV sex and oral (m. rec) sex; dry humping kind of; alcohol; joking use of daddy; mentions of blood; mentions of guns and shootings; breaking up; making up after argument; Robby puts his foot in his mouth; reader has some insecurities; grief; mentions of death/dying/coding; seizures; CPR; anxiety about partner's safety; mentions of compartmentalization; age gap kind of implied with Robby but not explicitly referenced (he's an attending when Reader starts as an intern); no use of y/n or related

Summary: The day of PittFest becomes unbearably worse for Robby. A little over four months into the relationship you've both been waiting years for, you find Robby on the floor of pedes. When Langdon throws it in his face, Robby assumes you betrayed and doesn't react well.

AN: Based on this ask sent in by @loveyhoneydovey. First Robby fic!!!!! I don't know how I feel about it!! I'm very nervous about his voice and characterization here and if it feels like him. I'm always very nervous though. We get some development of your relationship through vignettes of the past like I've done before. Dividers made by the amazing @saradika-graphics. I would love to hear your thoughts and comments and as always thank you so much for reading!!

“We’re doing it.” Robby’s voice is just above a whisper as he walks in with Jack.

“That could mean one of several thousand things, Robby.” Jack glances at him. He keeps his voice hushed like Robby’s. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than ‘we’re doing it.’” 

“Her and I,” Robby clarifies. “We’re together. It happened today. I’m taking her out tomorrow night.” 

“About fucking time,” Jack mutters lowly. He claps Robby on the shoulder as they keep walking. “I’m really happy for you brother. For you both.”

“Really? That’s all you have to say?” Jack looks at Robby and raises his eyebrows while squinting a little, asking what Robby wanted instead. “I don’t know,” Robby shrugs, “I thought you’d have some more enthusiasm.” 

“I do,” Jack nods, “but given your near whispering, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to express it right here in, you know, the middle of the entire fucking ED,” Jack’s dropped his voice even lower the further they’ve walked in, “because it seemed like maybe not everyone knew yet and I wasn’t sure if you really wanted me to be the one to tell them or make them starting asking even more questions.” He gives Robby a look for a second before softening it into a small smile and nodding at Robby.

You grin to yourself when you see Jack. You and Robby agreed that Dana and Jack had to know right away but that you wouldn’t tell Dana until Jack was here. You could tell that Dana knew something was up, though. 

You walk by Robby and Jack on your way to Dana, smirk at them. “Boys.” You nod. 

Robby lets out a long breath and shakes his head a little. He has no idea what to do with you sometimes, in the best way. Jack just smirks back at you a little, but softens it out just a bit at the end and nods to silently tell you he’s very happy for you. 

You smile as you walk up to Dana, standing next to her as she looks up at the board. “We’re together,” you whisper, just loud enough for her to hear. “He’s taking me out tomorrow night.”

“About fucking time,” Dana whispers back. She gives you a sly smile and bumps your hip with hers. “I’m very happy for you, both of you.”

“Thank you,” you nod, making eye contact with Robby across the floor, “I am too.” 

You stand up when you hear someone else enter the supply closet. You think it might be Dana coming to lovingly corner you and get info on how your date was. But it’s not her. It’s Robby. “Hey,” you call out to him. 

“Hi.” His response is a little short and confuses you but you just let it go. He walks over so that he’s standing next to you. A respectable distance apart. Robby starts looking through the shelves but as you watch him it’s clear he’s not really actually looking for anything. “Heard you had a date last night.” His voice is strained, he sounds like he’s trying to hide some simmering anger. But you recognize it for what it really is. Jealousy.

You stop pulling the tubing you need from the shelf but don’t turn to look at him. How did he even know about that and why does he fucking care are the only two things you can really think about. He has no right to be mad. You and Robby have been dancing around each other for years now. At his behest. And at a certain point it felt like his reasoning for that changed. 

After a couple of seconds you sigh. “I did yeah.” 

You can see him nod out of the corner of your eye, mouth in a line. You have to roll your eyes at him as you pull out the tubing. “You sleep with him?” 

You scoff and finally look over at him, but he’s still looking at the shelves. “I’m sorry, please tell me how the fuck that is even close to your business.” 

Robby just pulls his lips down. Not sad per se but thinking. “So you did.”

You just want this conversation to be over at this point. Because it hurts. Because Robby has been and it seems always will be right there but unwilling or unable or not wanting to try being with you. “Yeah. Sorry I needed to get laid and actually went out and got it. You should fucking try it, Michael.” It’s not even a conscious decision, deciding to push him away first in this conversation, to try and act unaffected by the thought of him being with someone else. 

He ignores your jabs, but the confirmation that you were with someone else makes his blood boil, jealousy ripping through him and clouding his thoughts. “You let him touch you. Touch what’s mine.” 

“Ha!” you laugh. Then there’s ten or so seconds of silence as you gape at him while his words fully process because you’re so struck by his fucking audacity. “What’s yours? What’s fucking yours? Are you out of your fucking mind Michael? Please, since fucking when have I been yours?” He still doesn’t look at you. “Hey! Look at me, asshole!” You throw the tubing in your hand at him. 

That gets him to turn and look at you with a scowl on his stupid handsome face. He knows that you’re not at all his. He can’t bring himself to admit it though. “Thought we were going to do this. Do us. When you’re an attending. Guess not.”

You have to laugh at his words again, exasperatedly this time. “No Michael. You don’t get to do this. I’ve wanted to do this. Do us. You are the one who hasn’t. And for a while I understood why, and even when I didn’t, I have always respected your feelings. It was you’re under me and ‘I don’t want to mess up your career or give you a reputation and have that impact us’ and ‘when you’re an attending’ that slowly seemed to turn into ‘I’m not sure if I want you anymore’ and ‘maybe when you’re an attending’ and I’ve spent the better part of a year trying to decide if you really didn’t want to do this, didn’t want me anymore, or if you were just trying to protect yourself or something. Because it went from when you’re an attending to maybe when. So why would I be waiting around anymore, Michael? I waited for years. And if it was just about me being under you and my career and people knowing I earned everything I got then why didn’t you come ask me out and say you were ready to do this the second I got offered and accepted an attending position?”

You swallow hard and have to look away from Robby. You’re so confused by him but still down so bad. Deep down you know him calling you his hit you so hard because you are. You have been. Even if he didn’t know and didn’t want you. You’d given yourself to him. But you won’t cry for him. Not here. Not at work. Not where everyone would know regardless of your explanation. 

And Robby hates it. How sad you look. How you could ever possibly think he didn’t want to be with you. That he didn’t want you. He never realized at some point he’d said maybe. It was never maybe for him. But your last question floors him. 

“When you what?” Robby whispers, face furrowed in confusion, lips pulled down even more. 

You scoff at him again. “Don’t even try Robby. Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t fucking know that in fucking August of last year I got offered an attending spot.” You look back over at him. Robby’s still facing you but his head is dropped slightly, eyes looking left and flicking around a little. He looks half confused and half devastated. “Holy shit, you really didn’t know. How the hell did you not know, Michael?”

He shakes his head slowly, still thinking. “Gloria and I were at each other’s throats particularly bad last August. Things were crazy here and she kept harping me about needing to interview and pick an attending and I snapped one day and told her that I didn’t even fucking care, that she could pick one for all I cared.” He looks up at you again. “I never thought she actually would. And she never told me that she actually did.”

You stare at him. It’s a plausible story and you can always tell when he’s lying to you or giving you a half truth or omitting something. And it’s not like you’ve told anyone. You’re one of those people who are afraid to announce it like it’ll jinx it somehow since it’s something that will start in the future. Your one exception to not saying anything was if you got with Robby. You’d tell people and let it be known because you figured it would appease some of his worries about it seeming like you got your job only because you were sleeping with him or in a relationship with him. But he never came to you after you signed. It broke your heart more than you wanted to admit. 

You’re not sure how to respond and Robby’s not sure what else to say. “Well, she did. And it was me. So hopefully that’s not disappointing news to you, I guess.” 

“Disappointing ne-” He decides part way through to not even finish the thought. Because the meaning of it all catches up with him. You have an attending position. And honestly, kind of even better, you have an attending position and Robby can honestly say he had absolutely no input into the decision. So while you’re not quite an attending yet, you’re pretty damn close. And that means Robby doesn’t have to break his own heart and tell you that you guys can’t. Doesn’t have to say when you’re an attending. For all intents and purposes you are one. “You can be mine now, Kid?” It’s almost a statement but not quite. 

You nod a little, look down at your shoes. “If you want me, yeah.” Robby doesn’t think he’s ever heard your voice this small and the fact that you think he could possibly not want you kills him. 

“If I want you? If?” He’s quick to close the distance between you, hands at your waist and pulling you to him as he stops walking. Both of you are breathing heavier and after your eyes flit down to look at each other’s lips the tension between the two of you finally snaps. 

You kiss each other hard, sliding right into tongue and sucking. Your arms wrap around Robby’s neck, hands finding his hair and running through it, tugging at it when he kisses you in a way you particularly like. Robby pulls away so you can see each other and you make a noise of protest. “There was never a maybe. And I’m sorry if I said that. There’s no if. Never has been, Kid. Never will be. So will you go out with me? Be mine?” 

You smile at him, steal another kiss before nodding. “I’ll go out with you. And I’ll be yours as long as you’ll be mine.”

Robby laughs. The two of you are finally together. “Oh, I’m yours. I’m all fucking yours.” 

You and Robby have been together a little over four months now. You’re pretty much living with him, you just haven’t made it quite official yet. It still feels a bit soon, even for you. Your lease will be up around ten months of dating so you think that’s when you’ll make it official and completely move in. If he wants. You’re pretty sure he will. You always hear about it the next day if you don’t sleep in the same bed the previous night.

You’re not surprised when you wake up and the bed is empty, even if you are a little disappointed. You know this is a bad day for him. A hard day. You’ve never actually been with him or around him on this day before because until now he took it off and you always inevitably ended up working it. You’re not sure what changed for him and why he feels like he’s ready to be there and work today and you’re not sure if it’s truly what’s best for him at this point, but you’ll support him, be there for him, let him lean on you, whatever he needs. You won’t give him a hard time about his decision to work. 

Robby’s in the kitchen making coffee when you pad in. You’re dressed only in one of his oversized shirts. He’s not entirely certain about working today. But he’s tired of letting the day have control over him. It feels wrong. And when Jake asked for Robby’s PittFest ticket so he could take his girlfriend Leah instead of Robby it felt like a sign.

“Morning,” you say softly as you walk over to him and wrap your arms around him from behind. You press your cheek against his broad back and rest your hands on his tummy. 

“Morning, Kid.” Robby squeezes one of your hands before continuing to make the coffee. 

He’s been up long enough for the sleep to disappear from his voice and to shower. His hair is wet. “Sleep well?”

“I always sleep well when you’re in bed with me.” You can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Michael.” You press a kiss to his back. “Seriously.”

“I slept well, yes. I meant it.” There’s a hint of exasperation in his tone and you get it. You do. But you ask because you care about him and worry about him. 

“Good.” You close your eyes and just breathe him in for a couple of moments. “You sure about working today?”

He knew it was coming. And he knows you mean well and are asking because you care about him and he loves it. He really does. Because he doesn’t remember the last time he’s had someone care about him the way you do. Because you’re in love with him and he’s in love with you even if you haven’t said it to each other yet. You both can tell the other is. But for some reason he doesn’t really understand, he just falters right before he can say it, can’t bring himself to as though that’ll somehow be what makes it more real, like it isn’t already. And he knows you haven’t told him because you don’t want him to feel pressured to return those three words.

But at the same time, you asking multiple times just in different words is going to be annoying today. That level of checking in on him. It is already. Because he just wants it to be a normal day. He doesn’t want everyone treating him like he’s made of glass just because one bad thing happened on this day. It’s suffocating. He knows it’s out of love and concern but it gets suffocating. 

Just like all the PPE was on this day when Adamson died. Maybe that’s part of why it hits such a nerve. 

Robby takes a second to breathe so that the mild irritation and frustration doesn’t seep into his tone. He doesn’t, however, explain or communicate that he can’t deal with the constant checking in, that it suffocates him. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll be okay. I’ll have you there with me if I need anything.” He’s hoping that last part tells you that he’ll come find you if he needs you and so you don’t have to ask. It understandably doesn’t. 

“I will, yes.” You’re quiet as you listen to the coffee percolate. You can feel how tense he is. You know you’ll never really be able to understand how hard this day is for him or in what ways it is. So you just want to be there for him, make sure he’s okay. You think maybe a distraction will help. Robby pours himself a cup of coffee as you speak. “Wanna shower with me?” you ask with a seductive lilt so he knows exactly what you mean. 

He laughs softly, takes a sip of his coffee and starts to turn in your arms. You relax your arms and let him, greet him with a sweet smile. “Come here,” he whispers, sticking his lips out. 

You shake your head. “I have morning breath.” 

He clicks his tongue at you. “When have I ever cared about that before?” 

You shrug. “It’s different when we both do.” 

“Come here,” he says again, more stern this time as he makes eye contact with you. You consider it for a moment but eventually give in. You want to kiss him. You always want to kiss him. But you keep it chaste and short. There will be time for more after you brush your teeth, you’re sure.

“Shower?” You raise your eyebrows at him, a little smirk on your face, nails scratching gently at his back. 

He smirks at you. “My coffee will get cold.” He holds the cup up and tilts it just slightly before taking another sip.

You breathe out a slightly incredulous and hurt laugh, take your arms from around him as you speak. First he dodges the question and then that. You tell yourself it’s just because of the day and that he’s not in the mood or mentally there and that’s okay. That it makes sense. But coffee? He couldn’t just say no? “Wow, coffee’s better than my mouth or pussy, ouch.”

Michael rolls his eyes at you. That’s not at all what he meant. “Stop. And I’ve also already showered, which I know you know.” 

This time you just scoff and shake your head at him a little. “Yeah, because neither of us have ever gotten back in the shower with each other after we already showered. But okay,” you laugh quietly as you step back. Robby tilts his head at you as you walk away, he knows you have more to say. You stop and turn around to look at him before turning to go back to the bedroom and en suite to shower. “You know, Michael, you can just say no. You’re allowed to say no. I’m not going to force you to shower or have sex with me. Saying no is okay. Not being in the mood is okay, especially on a day like today. I suggested it to try and help distract you and maybe make you feel good.” The maybe is a little slip of insecurity. “You don’t even need a reason and you never have to explain why, but just, the way you communicate that no. The shitty excuses hurt. And they make me wonder about myself far more than ‘no I’m not in the mood’ does.” You turn and walk away. 

Robby sets his mug down and you hear it, shake your head to yourself. “Kid!” he calls after you, pushing off the kitchen counter. He never meant to hurt you or make you doubt yourself. He never meant to make it feel like this was a you thing. Because it’s not. It’s him. It’s the day. It’s his mood. 

You’re really not in the mood at this point. For sex of any kind or to have a conversation with him right now, honestly. You keep telling yourself that it’s just a really bad day for him. It has nothing to do with you or the two of you. It’s the day. You know Robby doesn’t see it well and you don’t point it out more because he has so much of his own shit going on, but you still have so much insecurity. About yourself. About the two of you. You worry you’re not good enough for him or aren’t what he expected and thought you’d be. 

You walk in the bathroom quickly and uncharacteristically lock the door behind you. Usually both you and Robby leave the door unlocked or even partially open when you shower. You turn the shower on and take his shirt off quickly, wanting to just be in the shower and have it as an excuse for not hearing him. If he even tries to talk to you. 

Robby almost slams into the door when it doesn’t open. He hadn’t expected it not to open. For you to have locked it. “Kid, please,” he calls loudly, hoping you’ll hear him over the water. He knocks on the door, with the middle knuckle of his index finger. “Please!” You can hear him. You just don’t feel like shouting, and again. You don’t really want to talk. 

You stand under the stream of hot water and zone out a bit. Ruminate. You know that you and Robby are fine. That you’re great. You know he’s attracted to you. That he loves having sex with you. You had incredible sex last night for god’s sake. It’s the day. It’s the emotions it brings up for him. The grief. You shouldn’t have even brought sex up. He’s sad and grieving and triggered today. Why would you do that? 

“Kid!” Robby calls again, still knocking. “I didn’t mean to hurt you or insinuate coffee was better than you or anything like that.” When you don’t answer Robby goes and sits on the edge of the bed and lets out a long sigh. He lets his head fall back and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. He really could do without you doing this. Without this added thing and stress. The day is hard enough as it is. 

His voice brings you back and you start to do all of your normal shower things. You’re surprised when Robby’s not immediately knocking and calling for you again once he hears the shower turn off. You figure he’s probably gone back to his coffee and the thought sends a little pang through your heart. 

You wrap your towel around yourself and open the bathroom door. You almost jump a little when you see him sitting on the edge of the bed with his head tilted at you. You look at him for a moment and then walk to his dresser and open your drawer, pull out a set of scrubs, an undershirt and some underwear. You grab your bra off the floor where Robby threw it last night. You can feel his eyes on you, the way he’s tracked you across the room and is watching you. 

When you turn back around and see him he’s smiling to himself, it’s almost anticipatory. His eyes run up and down your towel covered body. He looks like he’s eager to see you naked when you get dressed. And he is. He abso-fucking-lutely is. It melts you a little bit. But you’re hurt still and he hasn’t offered an apology to your face. So you take your clothes and walk towards the bathroom. 

Robby draws out a scoff, but the disappointment rings through more than his irritation. “So what, I don’t even get to admire you as you get dressed anymore?”

You turn at the threshold of the bathroom door to look back at him, capture his gaze. You drag your eyes from him to the open bedroom door and then back to him. You’re stoic as you shrug. “Your coffee’s getting cold out there.”  

You just catch Robby’s shoulders and face fall as you turn back and step in the bathroom before shutting and locking the door. You already regret it. Wish you could take it back. You shouldn’t have hurt him just because he hurt you.

Your words sting, they hurt and sadden him. But he can at least understand why you said it. Robby lets out a long sigh and rubs his face but doesn’t get up. He doesn’t care about the fucking coffee. He doesn’t even want it anymore. He wants you. He wants to hold you close and kiss you. He wants to apologize. He wants your forgiveness. He needs all of that. Needs you.

You get dressed and finish getting ready in the bathroom quickly. You know you need to apologize to Robby and you want to, you really do feel awful. You just kind of hope he’ll also apologize to you. This is not the start to this day that either of you needed. 

Seeing Robby still sitting on the bed when you open the bathroom door is unexpected. You figured he’d go get his coffee and wait for you in the living room. 

You look at each other for a moment and then you break the silence. Robby wants to be the one to but the words just get caught in his throat before he can even open his mouth. “I’m sorry for being passive aggressive and saying that. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve just talked to you and worked it out.”

Robby gives you a small smile. “I accept your apology, and I’m sorry too.” He beckons you with two fingers and you walk over to him, stand between his legs when he opens them for you and rest your hands on his shoulders. He waits for you to look down at him before he continues. “I never meant to make you doubt yourself or feel unwanted. In any way. I didn’t think any of it through before I said it. Didn’t think about how it would make you feel.”

You squeeze his shoulders gently. “I accept your apology.” You’re not sure what else to say.

“You know I want you. I always want you, Kid. I did this morning, I just…” He shakes his head and sighs. “My brain, you know? The thoughts and all that shit.” 

“I know, yeah,” you murmur, running a hand through his hair. “I thought sex might be a good distraction. I should’ve thought a little harder about it before I offered.” 

“It usually is.” He tilts his head at you. “Can I kiss you for real now? Not whatever that was that you gave me in the kitchen.”

You laugh softly and nod. “I’d like that.” Robby wraps his arms around you as he stands up, stopping at the right height to kiss you instead of standing straight. It’s a kiss that at just about any other time would lead to far more. It certainly leads to another kiss and then another, and before you realize it you and Robby have been standing there making out for a solid couple of minutes. 

He groans as he pulls away from you. “I don’t want to stop but I do want to have time to treat you to breakfast burritos and your choice of caffeine from that place down the street. Eat as we walk to work.”

“Treat me or yourself?” You smirk at him. 

“You.” He shakes his head at you a little as he says it. “The fact that it’s also a treat for me is just a fun coincidental bonus.” 

“Yeah, coincidental my ass, Robinavitch.” You try to keep your smirk up but it turns into a smile the more you stare at those big brown eyes you love so much. It almost slips out but you catch yourself, turn to walk to the entryway to get your shoes on. I love you. 

The two of you get breakfast burritos and coffee on the way in. Neither of you say anything but you both think it’s ironic that the coffee was a whole thing and then he just left his mug and the carafe of it sitting there at home. Once you get to work you get your stuff in your lockers, stethoscopes around your neck and head to the hub. 

The day passes relatively quickly. For you at least. From what you’ve gathered from others and what Robby has said when you’ve talked to him, things have not been as smooth for him as they have been for you. You make sure he has some semblance of a lunch, drinks some water. 

Towards the end of the shift he comes and finds you. It’s the first time he’s really purposefully sought you out all day. You wouldn’t say he was avoiding you but a little bit you felt like that. After you asked him if he was okay when you saw him for the second time while at work and got an exasperated answer you realized he was tired of being asked. You knew he was probably getting it from Dana too. So you stopped directly asking, figuring it out subtly through other means. And he’d appreciated it when you backed off. He’d recognized when you’d done so. It had made him feel a little less suffocated and a lot loved even without exchange of the words. Because it was clear how well you knew him and how easily you picked up on what he needed. 

That’s why him seeking you out has you so concerned. It has to be bad. 

“Can I talk to you for a second?” Robby’s voice is strained as he grabs your elbow and starts walking you towards an empty room. 

Your face furrows as you let him lead you into the room. “Everything okay?” You wonder if this is about Dana and what happened to her.

He doesn’t answer, just closes the door as you walk in the room and stands with his back to the window. “I’m gonna tell you something but you have to keep your reaction really controlled, okay? And obviously you can’t tell anyone.” You nod. “Langdon’s addicted to pain meds and has been stealing meds.” 

The furrows smooth out of your face and you have no real facial reaction other than in your eyes which only Robby can see. They widen just slightly with shock. “What the fuck?”

“I know. I fucking know. I sent him home but I fucking,” Robby’s shaking his head hard. His eyes are a little glassy. You know Langdon is kind of Robby’s protégé. Everyone does. Just like everyone knows you kind of are too. “I let a drug addict practice medicine and treat patients. I fucking let him.”

You tilt your head and shake it at him. “Michael, you didn’t let him do anything. This isn’t your fault. I understand you feeling like it is, and that’s valid of course, but I promise you it’s not your fault.”

He shrugs at you, looks so incredibly helpless and at a loss. It breaks your heart. You walk towards him and pull him further in the room a little bit, drawing the curtain to give the two of you a little privacy. You walk back so that you’re standing right in front of him, just enough space between the two of you that you can see each other. 

You don’t say anything as you reach up and start rubbing at his shoulders and the back of his neck before he can. You feel him relax and he drops his head, eyes fluttering close while his hands come to settle on your hips. 

He doesn’t understand how you always seem to know what he needs. When he needs you to talk to him. When he just needs quiet acceptance and to just be in your presence like this. How you’ve picked up on him rubbing his neck. It’s more comforting and soothing when you do it, the circles he rubs on your hips over your scrubs keeping his hands busy. 

You’re a little surprised by it honestly. You thought he might reject this little bit of comfort you’re offering him. Not because of you but because he rarely accepts it at work even in private like this. You’re pretty sure his brain constantly tells him he doesn’t deserve the comfort here. 

“We need to get back out there,” he finally mumbles, bringing his head back up and opening his eyes. 

“Probably, yeah,” you agree. You stop rubbing his neck and loosen your arms but keep them where they are for a moment to see if he’ll hug you. You’re not going to push it on him, not going to make him feel bad when it’s too much for him right now. 

Robby’s hands squeeze your hips one last time. “Thanks, Kid.” He pulls away and you drop your arms, stepping out of the room with him once he pushes the curtain back. 

You both get sucked back into work and you don’t see much of Robby until him racing in from the ambulance bay catches your attention. Dana comes walking in quickly behind him and you catch her gaze, tilt your head as you walk over. 

A frown and worried brows are etched deep into her face. “There’s a shooter at PittFest. MCI protocol.” 

Everything freezes for a second as you hit fight or flight, limbs going cold and nausea creeping up on you. You say nothing to Dana, immediately turning and following after Robby because you know he put his phone in his locker earlier and is going to get it. 

“Don’t!” you yell at him as he opens his locker. “Michael, do not call or text him!”

He doesn’t stop, grabbing his phone and starting to unlock it. “Are you out of your fucking mind-”

“If he’s hiding and doesn’t have his phone on silent it could give him away,” you rush out before Robby can hit send or call. 

He freezes and looks up at you finally. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck!” That one is yelled. “Why the fuck didn’t I think of that?”

You walk over to him and cover one of his hands with yours. “Because you’re effectively his dad in a lot of ways, Michael, and so you’re too close to it, of course your first instinct was to call him to see if he was okay. I love him too and it’s not that I don’t want to know if he’s okay, and I know it’s very unlikely there’s really anywhere to hide and that it’s probably so loud his phone ringing would barely be audible, but I just think it’s better to be safe right now. He’ll know to call or text you or his mom. He’ll know. And if Janey hears from him she will call you. I know she will.”

He’s breathing hard as he looks at you before finally look away as he shuts his locker. “What if it’s David, Kid?” he whispers. Robby looks back at you and his lip trembles just slightly. The implication is clear. Robby had told you about David and everything that was going on there. You know his worry is valid. “What if I just got Jake killed? Killed another person on this fucking day.”

You let out a long breath as you shake your head. There’s a lot to unpack there. “Okay. Everything you just said, and all of your feelings make sense and are real and valid and I’m acknowledging them. I’m not trying to brush anything off. And I will be there for you whatever happens. But we don’t have a lot of time here so we’re going to have to come back and explore this all more if you want. For right now though, you didn’t kill Adamson, Michael. Covid did. You had to make a terrible decision nobody should ever have to make, but that wasn’t you killing him. And you can’t do this to yourself Robby. If and I mean if it was David, it would still be a random act of violence. You can’t control that. And right now the patients about to come in and Jake and Leah need you to focus on getting everyone ready for this and then handling this MCI and you cannot do that and be focusing on the what ifs, okay?” 

Robby wants to believe you. He wants to believe what you just said but he can’t. He just fucking can’t. He did kill Adamson. He will have killed Jake. He knows you’re right about the end bit though. He has to shove all of this in a box so that he can focus on what’s about to happen and patients. 

You can tell Robby wants to fight you about it but decides not to in favor of very uncharacteristically hugging and kissing you publicly at work before walking away to start implementing protocol with Dana. It leaves you standing there blinking at the wall for a second before you’re able to turn and walk back towards the hub to help. 

Robby’s hugging Jack as you walk up. You and Jack exchange a look. You know that Jack knows that Jake’s at PittFest. You know Jack knows how bad the day is for Robby. 

When Jack starts unpacking supplies you go in to help him. 

“How is he?” Jack asks. 

You can’t help the way you huff. “How do you fucking think Jack?”

When he doesn’t reply you look up at him. Jack’s looking at you with his eyebrows raised and mouth set, edges up just a tiny bit to show he’s not mad, asking excuse me? and how did you just speak to me? without a word. 

You sigh. “I’m sorry.” You set down what you’re holding and rub at the back of your neck. You see Jack’s smile pull up a little more as he recognizes what you’re doing, what you’ve learned from Robby. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten snippy. It’s just Jake, you know?” The breath you let out is shuddery. “I don’t know if even I could save Robby if something happened to him and Robby couldn’t save him, Jack.”

Jack’s face softens and he squeezes your shoulder. “I know. I wish there was more I could say, but I know. I’m worried about him and that possibility too.”

The two of you start to unpack again. “I just need him to call or text Michael or his mom and say he’s okay and on his way home. I need this to not happen to him today. I mean or ever, but you know. He doesn’t need to feel more grief and loss that he thinks he’s responsible for today.” 

“All we can do is be there for him,” Jack murmurs. 

“Yeah. I guess,” you murmur back. 

Once you finish unpacking and arranging supplies Jack faces you before the two of you walk out to where Robby is starting to gather everyone. 

“I need you to promise me that if something happens with Jake, if, god forbid, he ends up here and is critical, you will let me run it with Robby. We won’t get him to not work on him, we won’t have time to argue about it with him. We both know that.” Jack nods at you. “So you need to let me be the one to work with him. You need to let me be the one to convince him we’re not getting Jake back and he has to let Jake go. Because you’re the best thing in his life. You keep him going. So I don’t want him associating being unable to save Jake with you. He might work through the emotions it brings up, he might not. But if he doesn’t… Robby’s only going to survive something like that with you by his side. He could survive it without me, he could cut me out and lose me and survive. He couldn’t survive it without you. So I need you to promise me if Jake ends up here, you’re going to let me be with Robby until TOD is called. Same with Jake’s girlfriend.”

You swallow hard as you look at Jack. It will be hard for you to stay away. You worry Robby will wonder why you’re not there, why you didn’t drop everything to come help him. But you also know that he’s not really going to be worried about that in the moment. He’ll be too focused on Jake. And Jack’s words make your heart ache. Yes, because it’s sweet that Jack knows what you mean to Robby, that he can see it and that Robby has talked to him about it. But it’s more because you recognize the sacrifice Jack’s volunteering to make for Robby and Robby’s happiness and ability to get through this. The sacrifice in running the risk of losing his best friend, because Jack doesn’t have anyone else. He doesn’t have a significant other. He has Dana but that friendship isn’t like his and Robby’s. 

“I think you’re selling yourself quite short there, Jack,” you whisper. 

He shakes his head to say he doesn’t care. “Promise me.” 

You hold his gaze for another few seconds before you look away. “Okay,” you nod, “I promise.” 

“Good. Let’s go.” 

“Jack?” He turns at the threshold and looks back at you. “Thank you.” 

He simply nods and the two of you walk out. You stand by Shen while Jack stands by Robby, the two of them talking things through with the group, explaining how a lot of this is going to work, who’s going to be where, what to do when different things happen. 

“Communicate,” Robby tells the group. “Ask for help if you need it.” 

You look at Dana when he says that. Which was the wrong move because you both end up having to stifle laughs. You know it’s inappropriate. You know it’s not funny. And you know that Robby’s really good at the whole ‘do as I say not as I do’ thing, and if what he just said isn’t a textbook example you don’t know what is. So in the moment his words just strike you as funny, in part because all of this is a situation where if you don’t laugh you’re going to cry. Dark humor becomes a coping mechanism. You at least do a good job of stifling it and covering your mouth, can tell you hid it enough and everyone was so focused on Robby and Jack they didn’t see anything. 

Everyone disperses and patients start rolling in. Time loses any real meaning. It could have been forty minutes or four hours. You have no idea. You just know that patients keep rolling in. Never Jake or Leah. 

Neither of you can decide in your heads whether that’s a good or bad thing. Whether it means they’re dead on the scene or that they escaped and are okay and lost their phones in the chaos and are trying to get further away from the scene before they ask to borrow someone’s phone to call people or are just trying to get home.

Robby and you both glance at Dana every chance you get. She has Robby’s phone so she’ll know if Jake or Janey get in touch with him. The patients in front of him at least help distract Robby somewhat. That anxiety about Jake never goes away. The feeling of responsibility never goes away. But it goes to the back enough that he can focus and be a good doctor. 

Patients continue to arrive. In ambulances and cop cars and civilian cars and business vans. 

But never Jake and Leah. 

You’ve been at the Pitt a year and a month now. You’ve been an R2 for a month. You’ve already learned a lot. You’ve already had devastating losses and incredible saves. You’ve already thought about staying here past your residency. You’ve already grown close with a number of people. You’ve already grown very close with one person. 

Michael Robinavitch. Robby. 

You know how bad it could seem. How bad it might already seem. But you and Robby both know it’s there. Something far beyond platonic. You both feel it. And it only grew over your intern year and is continuing to. 

You haven’t discussed it outright but the energy and attraction between the two of you is so clearly there and you’ve seen it in his eyes. When he’s leaning in close to you to help teach you something and his pupils are a bit more dilated than they should be in the lighting. When he sees another man flirt with you and they blaze with what seems like anger but is really jealousy. When you’ve just pulled a double together and have hit silly and are laughing so hard you’re both crying at something so incredibly stupid and his eyes crinkle with affection that never appears for anyone else. 

And Robby’s seen it in your eyes. When something horrible happens and your eyes find his before anybody else’s and a little spirit comes back into them just from making eye contact with him. When he’s hiding how badly something with a patient or family has shaken him and turns to find you and you’re already looking at him with soft eyes full of recognition and understanding that make him feel so seen in a way he hasn’t felt before. When you bring him some sort of treat, sweet or savory, and pass him a post-it note that you pretend is a note about a patient but really says it’s in the fridge with his name on it and your eyes sparkle with an adoration he’s yet to see you look at anyone else with. 

Robby knows he cannot do anything, there cannot be anything between the two of you, not even some semblance of anything until you’re an attending or maybe an R4 if you’ve already accepted an attending position. Being with you before you’re an attending wouldn’t look professionally great for him, but that’s not what he worries about. He worries how it would look for you, like a young woman sleeping with her boss, how people would at the very least have in the back of their minds that you were sleeping your way to the top or you got given things because you were sleeping with your boss or were eventually offered an attending position because you were sleeping with your boss. 

Robby knows not everyone would think that. And he knows it absolutely would not be that. But he doesn’t even want you to risk it. Not for him. He knows your career and reputation have to be your first priority. 

Dana and Jack have both asked him about you after observing the two of you together. He assures them that while, yeah, he has some feelings for you, it is strictly platonic between the two of you, him mentoring just like he does everyone else. 

And so neither of you have ever made any really overt move. Because you both know you can’t.

So there’s been no real discussion about ‘one day’ or if there ever could be a future for the two of you. 

But now that you're a month and a bit into being an R2 and don’t have the label of ‘intern’ and feel like you have a better handle on being a doctor you’ve grown more confident. Not over-confident or cocky. Not even close. Just a bit more sure of yourself. Professionally and personally. And so your joking around with and screwing with and flirting with Robby has intensified a little. It’ll continue to do so your entire residency. 

And while Robby is a bit more reserved, particularly when it comes to flirting and anything vaguely sexual, he still gives it back in his own way. It is overwhelmingly not one sided. 

It’s not just sexual. You and Robby are close. You go to each other with problems and to vent. You seek each other out for comfort. And it’s comfort that forces you both to acknowledge it and discuss it, this thing between you. 

You find yourself sitting on the roof, back pressed up against the wall and legs out in front of you. You’re technically off. You want to be anywhere other than this fucking hospital. And yet you can’t bring yourself to move. 

You stay quiet and still when you hear the door to the roof open, hope whoever is up here won’t notice you before they leave. 

Unfortunately for you the person who walks onto the roof has spent the last thirty minutes looking for you. And Robby’s slightly panicked about it. You’ve seemed off all day. Sad. Overwhelmingly sad. In particular the last time he saw you he felt like you looked… done. With everything. With the world. 

The sigh he lets out when he sees you sitting there on the roof is of relief. You can tell that it’s not irritation or annoyance. 

“Go away,” you call half-heartedly when he starts to walk over. 

“Go away? I don’t think you’ve ever told me to go away before.” Robby tries to keep it light. 

“First time for everything,” you mutter. 

That pulls a small laugh from him. He comes and sits next to you against the wall. He’s close, your sides pressing against each other. Closer than the average mentor-mentee would be sitting for sure. 

You don’t say anything and so for a few minutes the two of you sit in silence, each of you focused on the way the other feels pressed up against you. But Robby wants, maybe needs if he’s honest with himself, to know what’s wrong so he can help you. 

“Talk to me Kid.” And there it is. That name he only calls you. 

You shake your head a little and sigh. Robby hates how sad it sounds. He doesn’t even really think about his next move. He just reaches out and slips his hand into yours where it rests on your thigh, laces your fingers together.

With the setting and context of why you’re both up here together it’s an incredibly intimate gesture. 

You’re not quite sure what to make of it but he initiated it and it feels good. Makes you feel safe and cared for. You look down at your intertwined hands for a moment. His hand engulfs yours with how much bigger it is and it’s so warm. He always runs so warm. 

“I don’t know,” you finally force yourself to say. “I really don’t know.” 

Robby nods slowly. “Just one of those days?” he offers. 

“I guess.” You shrug. It might seem like the silence is purposeful but in reality it’s Robby trying to think of what to say. “I’m just tired, I think.” You sniffle and it’s then you realize that you’re kind of teary. “Fuck,” you mutter. 

“It’s okay, Kid. I’ve had these days too. Some days you’re just tired and so it all hits harder, even shit that normally wouldn’t make you blink.” Robby rubs what he hopes are soothing circles on the back of your hand with his thumb. 

“Yeah,” you take in a choked breath, “I’m just really fucking tired.” The tears start to fall freely then and you squeeze Robby’s hand hard like it’ll make them stop. They’re at least mercifully silent, it’s not like you’re totally sobbing in front of him. 

But then Robby really notices how much you’re crying and lets go of your hand to raise his arm so you can lean into him as he pulls you to him, your legs shifting automatically to get in a more comfortable position as you lean into his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispers, tilts his head so that his cheek rests on the top of your head.

You shake your head but hold onto him as you cry, relish in the circles his big hand rubs on your back. You don’t cry for long. A few minutes. And it’s not loud or even sobbing, it’s just crying. Just blinking out tears that end up wetting his scrub top, the occasional shuddery or hiccupped breath. 

You don’t move once you stop though and Robby doesn’t ask you to. Doesn’t shift his body to suggest you move. His cheek remains on your head and his hand continues to rub circles on your back. “I’m sorry,” you eventually whisper. 

“Never be sorry for needing to let something out. It accumulates in this job.” Robby goes to turn his head so that he can kiss the top of yours but he catches himself and stops before he can. “And if you don’t let it out somehow it can become debilitating.” 

You can feel the vibrations of him speaking and it soothes you further. “Everything just felt so shit today. All of the backstories of what brought my patients in today. All crime and abuse. Every single patient.”

“That’s one of the worst kind of days here,” Robby sympathizes. 

“I hate that it’s one kind.”

That makes him laugh which makes you smile. “Yeah there’s a lot of kinds of worst days in this job unfortunately.” 

You sigh and finally pull away from him. But his hand on your back doesn’t let you go particularly far. And when you both lean in a little your faces are close enough to feel each other’s breaths. “Does it ever get better?” you whisper. 

Robby shakes his head slightly. “No.”

You both watch each other’s eyes glance down at the other’s lips. You both lean into each other even more. You both tilt your heads in the opposite direction of the other. You both let your eyes flutter closed. 

But the second you truly feel the heat of Robby’s breath against your lips he pulls away. “Fuck,” he mutters. 

You look down, embarrassed and disappointed and guilty. But despite the almost kiss and Robby pulling away neither of you have otherwise moved. You’re still close together. 

“I’m sorry.” You murmur. 

“No!” Robby laughs, a heavy dose of self-exasperation in it. “Don’t be. God, fucking don’t be. And don’t think I don’t want to. That I don’t want… that. With you. But your name and reputation and career… we can’t. We can’t.” Robby moves his head back so he’s looking at you, uses his free hand to guide your chin up so you’re looking at him. “When you’re an attending, okay?” You nod at him and he repeats it. “When you’re an attending.” 

The sinking feeling in your and Robby’s stomachs intensifies as more patients come in who aren’t Jake or Leah and at the lack of phone call or text. You get your patient in Walsh’s hands to be taken up to surgery and change into a fresh trauma gown and step outside, checking on triage but also getting some air. 

“You good?” Robby asks, walking up behind you. He doesn’t really wait for your answer, continuing to walk towards Shen and Ellis. But the quick press of his ungloved hand against your lower back as he walks by makes up for it a little. 

You don’t bother voicing an answer, nor do you follow him to ask him the same question. You already know the answer. 

As Robby’s talking about getting gurneys to the right angle and helping fix them a truck comes squealing in. Shen and Ellis jump up and start yelling out colors. You put on a pair of gloves pulled from your pocket and wait nearby to see if there’s a red coming. But then you hear it and are hopping up on the tire of the truck to look in the bed. “Michael!”

You yell his name. And Robby immediately knows it has to be Jake. He has never heard you yell his name before and there’s only a handful of reasons why you would today. He tells himself there’s a tint of hope to your tone. “Jake?” Robby yells as he runs over. But he hears Jake’s voice and a wave of relief passes through him now that he at least knows where he is and that he’s okay enough for right now to speak. 

“Red zone. GSW left chest,” Ellis assesses Leah. 

“Jake, are you shot?” you ask him as Robby arrives. 

“I don’t know my, my leg maybe, it’s Leah. It’s Leah’s blood, she was shot, was shot in the chest and I’ve been putting pressure on it the whole time, and I don’t know-”

“That’s good,” Robby cuts him off, “you did good, okay?” 

You get Leah onto a gurney and Jake out of the truck. He walks in holding onto the side of Leah’s gurney opposite Robby. “Get him a wheelchair!” Robby calls. He notices you walking away while he argues with Jake about getting in the wheelchair and staying there and out of the way. He finds it odd, is a little miffed that you’re abandoning him with Leah and Jake. 

But you’re speedwalking to Jack. “Leah. GSW left chest. I don’t think there’s any way. It had to have shredded her heart,” you say just loudly enough for Jack to hear as you take the bag of blood he’s squeezing into his patient from him. He nods at you, gives you a rundown on the patient in front of you as he walks backwards towards Robby, turning when he’s finished. 

“Samira!” you call out to her when you see her look around. “Jake.” You flick your head at him. “Probable GSW to the leg. But head to toe. I’m concerned he’s in shock and it’s masking another injury.” 

“Got it.” She nods and is off to Jake, finding a gurney for him to get on. 

Robby glances at Samira with Jake. “What the fuck?” It’s loud enough for you to hear. 

“Me, Michael!” you call over to him. “I sent her to do a head to toe. I’m concerned he’s in shock and not feeling another injury.”

“Fuck,” he mutters, giving you a vague nod as he turns back to Leah. He can’t believe he didn’t think about that either. That’s twice now you might’ve saved Jake. First telling him not to call just in case. Now this. He’s lucky. He’s beyond lucky to have you. “Jake you do whatever the fuck Samira tells you without a fucking word of argument!” 

You get the patient you took from Jack stable and up to surgery, start working on the next red to roll in. They stabilize relatively fast and you find yourself squeezing in blood again. But this time your eyes are flicking between the patient and Robby and Jack and the way Jack is having to talk Robby into accepting that Leah is gone. You can’t hear any of it but you know that’s what’s happening based on the expression on Jack’s face and how he keeps chasing Robby’s eye contact.

After a minute everyone stills and you watch Robby write on Leah’s card and circle around it. You know he called it. Jack’s back over to you quickly, taking the blood from you this time as you give him the rundown on this patient. “Michael!” you call as you walk over to him quickly. 

“I have to go tell Jake,” he mutters, shaking his head and turning to look in your direction but not at you. He’d been watching them wheel Leah into pedes. 

“Do you want me to go with-”

“No. No it’s fine, thanks, I got it. Santos was looking for an attending, go find her.” He walks away without looking at you. He can’t bring himself to. The shame he’s feeling at not being able to save her, at failing Jake a little too heavy to let him lift his head to look at you. 

You watch him for a second as he walks away. Your heart aches for him, for the man you love and the news he has to go deliver to a teenager he considers his son in a way. You can’t ruminate though. Too many other people need you. 

So you do what Robby said and go to find Santos. You get involved with her and by the time you’re done you look around but you can’t spot Robby. “Dana, have you seen Robby?” you ask her as she walks by. 

“I think I saw him taking Jake to pedes.” She grimaces at you. 

You nod and make your way there, opening the door and stopping short. “Michael?”

Robby’s on the floor, knees up to his chest and holding onto his necklace while reciting a prayer through tears. He doesn’t acknowledge you. It hurts to see him like this. It’s physically painful. But he needs you so you set it aside. 

“Michael,” you say softly as you sit down next to him so that your sides are pressing against each other’s. “I’m here.” You grab one of his hands, hold onto it harder when he tries to pull it away. 

“You need to go back out there,” he sniffles. “They need you.” He flicks his eyes up at you. 

There’s truth in his words. But there’s also truth in yours. “Not as much as you do right now.” 

“I can’t,” he whimpers. “I, I…” He shrugs at you before breaking down in tears again, but this time letting himself fall into your gownless lap. 

“Okay,” you whisper, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve got you.”

“I couldn’t save her,” he chokes out, “another person I couldn’t fucking save. Another I killed. Another I let down. It’s two because Jake. I let him down too and he knows it.” You curl around him as much as you can, move his gown and kiss at his shoulder. You let him have a moment and get it out. Because you both know you don’t have much longer than that. “And the worst,” he sobs, “the worst part is it should’ve been me, Kid. It should be me on that gurney. It was my pass that I gave him for her.”

That last sentence is hard to hear. Because you can’t imagine a world without Robby in it. A world where you have to bury him. You want to tell him not to say shit like that, but you swallow down your upset because he doesn’t need that right now. You know there’s very little he needs right now in a sense. He doesn’t need a lot of words or you trying to make this better and discuss his feelings and emotions. He just needs to let some of this out.

Robby knows that’s all he needs right now, too. To let some of what’s eating away at him out in the one place he feels safe. 

You. 

You’re his safe place. He didn’t realize just how much he needed you here with him until you walked in and sat next to him and took his hand. You make it better. You make it hurt less. Just by being here for him. 

“You didn’t kill Adamson or Leah,” you murmur after a minute. “And you haven’t let them or Jake down. Your feelings are valid Michael, and I know I can’t begin to understand on multiple levels but the way you are feeling makes sense. We can work through your feelings. You can work through them. You can get through this. No matter how hopeless and impossible it feels right now.” You pause, have to swallow hard and blink away some tears. “And I wish that nobody was on that gurney. I don’t want anyone on that gurney. I wish none of this had ever happened. For you and Jake and Leah and everyone involved. And maybe saying this is wrong of me. It’s probably selfish. Maybe I’m a terrible person for it. You can hate me for it if you need to and like I said I truly wish none of this happened and nobody was on that gurney. But I am really fucking glad it’s not you on that gurney Michael because I have no fucking idea what I would do.” You let out a shuddery breath. “And I wish we had more time and that I could say more and hold you more and that all of this was over but it’s not.” You scratch at his scalp a little. “They need us.” He nods and sits up, looks over at you. “They need you.”

“Yeah,” he whispers. He’s let himself grow numb. Because right now that’s what he needs to be to get through this right now. 

“I need you,” you whisper back. He knows what you mean. He knows what you’re worried about. Him taking a walk off the roof or something.

“I’m not going anywhere, Kid.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.” He nods.

“Good.” You nod and stand up, hold out your hand to him. He lets out a soft laugh as he takes your hand and lets you help him up. 

You both take a second to wipe your faces a bit. “Find me if you need me, okay?”

“I will,” Robby promises again. 

You nod and open the door, both of you walking out. Within seconds both of your names are called.  

“Hey.” He grabs your wrist gently before you can go. You look at him with raised brows. He wants to say it. He wants to say it so badly. But he can’t. “Thank you.” I love you.

Robby slips off his stool at the high top a group of you are sitting at and follows you up to the side of the bar, takes his drink with him. You were sitting across from him at the end of the table and the rest of the group was so focused on their conversation he doesn’t think anyone even realized he followed you. A little bit he doesn’t care if they did. 

You’re down near the last two stools at the bar, waiting for the bartender to get you your drink. It’s busy so you’re sitting while you wait, wanting to be off your feet after a long shift. Robby setting his beer down startles you for just a second. But you can quickly tell it’s him. 

By the sweatshirt sleeve rolled up. By the smell of his cologne lingering just enough under all the hibiclens you can appreciate it since you know what it smells like very well by now. By the hand that sets down the beer. By his fingers. 

You look over at him with raised brows. His glass is still over half full. He came to talk to you. 

“You’ve been calling me Michael lately.” He keeps his face pretty stoic, for him at least. But you can see the slight crinkles at the corners of his eyes and his beard shift just slightly as the corners of his lips twitch up. 

“What an astute observation, Dr. Robinavitch.” You keep your smirk to a minimum. “I don’t have a gold star sticker on me to give you but I can buy you another drink.” Very little in life gives you as much pleasure as screwing with Robby. If you were together like you wanted you could think of at least three body parts that would be added to that list. 

Your words earn you the slightest raise of his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Why what?” Your eyes sparkle with mirth as your drink gets dropped off and you take a sip. They’re beautiful sparkling like this. They always are but Robby finds them particularly beautiful like this, when you’re happy and light-hearted and teasing. 

And it’s just like you to make him say it. Be specific. “Why do you call me Michael? Why’d you start?”

“Makes me feel special.” You smirk fully this time. “It makes me feel special because there’s a handful of people you let call you it, especially at the hospital, and you actively try and make people not call you it. I wasn’t actually sure you were gonna let me call you it at first. Guess being an R3 has privileges. But then again, I’m the only R3 you let call you it.”

“You’re the only R3 who has ever called me it. None of the others have tried. And you didn’t answer the second question,” he points out. 

“I mean  yeah, I kind of did. I started because it makes me feel special.” He gives you a look and you sigh. “In part because I wanted to see if you’d let me. In part because, I don’t know,” you smile softly to yourself and look down, “I like it. Calling you Michael. It makes me feel close to you.” Robby’s never seen you look so shy and it rocks him a little. But the shyness fades quickly for you as you look back up at him. “And in part because some of the new interns got comfortable a couple of months in and were getting a little too flirty with you for my taste. So you can imagine how smug and pleased with myself I was every time I called you Michael in front of them and you said nothing and every time one of them called you Michael and you had to correct them and tell them it was Robby or Dr. Robinavitch until they finally got the picture.”

“So jealousy?” He smirks. It makes him feel good in a way, knowing that you were jealous of attention he was getting. That you care about him and want him enough to be jealous. To feel a little possessive. “And that’s why you needed to feel special? A little petty of a response, no?”

“Oh Michael,” you chuckle, take a sip of your drink. “You and I both know you are so not the one to talk about being petty as a response to jealousy. Should I start listing things you’ve done in response to me being flirted with?”

“You really shouldn’t call me it.” He’s grown a bit more serious again. 

“Are you telling me to stop?” 

“No.” He shakes his head. “And I don’t want you to. Just… You shouldn’t.”

“Why?” Your brows furrow a little in confusion. You don’t get why it matters unless he doesn’t want you calling him it for a personal reason.

“People will wonder why you’re allowed to. It makes,” he gestures between the two of you as you take a sip of your drink but doesn’t name anything, “obvious. People will start thinking and seeing it.”

You choke on your drink, coming close to spitting it out all over him. The coughs you get out once you’ve managed to swallow turn into laughter. “Michael.” You cock your head at him and give him an incredulous smile. “You cannot actually believe that me calling you Michael is what’s going to give this thing between us away. Because it’s been given away. It was given away for sure by the end of my intern year. Nobody asked me anything during my intern year I’m guessing because I was an intern, but a couple weeks into being an R2 I was getting questions. Dana and Jack never asked you or talked to you about it? Because they’ve certainly asked and talked to me.”

Robby blushes at the realization. Deep down he probably always knew that everyone could see it and he’d just managed to convince himself otherwise. “Of course they did,” he answers your question, not sure how to respond to everything before it. “I just thought it was because they were more… perceptive. That they knew me better and could see it in me.”

You have to laugh a little and bite your lip. “You know, you’re sitting here pointing out that halfway through my third year of residency I’ve just started calling you Michael, your first name, and it’s almost like you’ve forgotten you always call me Kid. Only me. Since my first fucking day here. I don’t remember the last time I heard you say my first or last name for something other than introducing me to someone, in front of a patient or in some very formal situation. And I’d like to point out that not a single god damned person has ever heard you call me Kid and then tried to call me Kid unlike with me calling you Michael. I wonder why that is? It’s almost like it comes across as a little more than a nickname to people.”

He looks at you for a second. “I…”

You hold your hand up and half wave him off. “It’s okay. I’ll stop calling you it, Robby.” It’s half teasing and half serious. 

You slide off your stool and grab your drink intending to walk back to the table. Robby’s quick to slide off his stool and stand in front of you though, blocking your path. He looks at the stool you were sitting on pointedly and then back at you. You follow his silent order and sit and set your drink back down.

He leans in a little closer to you than he was. “I never asked you to stop calling me it, nor did I say you needed to.” He raises his eyebrows at you and bobs his head. “Nor do I want you to. I like it when you do. A lot.” 

You smirk at his admission and shrug at him. “You were making an awfully big deal about it.” 

“Yeah because it, it…”

You’re genuinely not sure how he wanted to end that sentence. “It what Michael?”

Robby shakes his head at you. “Just… you’re not an attending yet. Maybe when you’re an attending, okay?”

You know Robby isn’t talking about you calling him Michael. Isn’t saying that you can’t call him Michael until you’re an attending. He’s saying what he’s said since that time on the roof that when you’re an attending the two of you can act on the feelings you clearly have for each other. 

But the maybe in front of that phrase is new and hits you like a slap across the face, heart twisting as it sinks into your stomach. He’s never said that before. It’s never been a maybe and not a certainty. Robby watches your face fall and hurt cloud your eyes. He replays what he said trying to figure out what part it was that hurt you, that made your entire demeanor change. If you’re just that disappointed you didn't change his mind and aren’t suddenly a couple or if it’s something else. He can’t figure it out.  

You swallow thickly, tears sting your eyes but you’re quick to blink them away. “Yeah.” You nod at him finally. “Maybe. But you know, that assumes I become an attending here, Robby. In Pittsburgh at the very least. And I don’t know if I will.”

You slip off your stool, leaving your half empty drink and heading over to the table. You tell everyone the exhaustion has hit and so you’re going to head home. They’re sad to see you go but nobody questions much. You cover well enough that if anyone had noticed you and Robby talking they wouldn’t think you were hurt by him and running away. Which you know is kind of what you’re doing instead of just asking him about it. Asking him if he doesn’t want to try the two of you anymore. If he doesn’t want you anymore. If that’s why it’s a maybe all of the sudden.

Your words throw Robby for a second because he realizes that you’re right, neither of you know for sure if you’ll get an attending job at PTMC or anywhere else in Pittsburgh. He realizes the two of you have never had a real conversation about if you want to stay in Pittsburgh, if you’re going to apply for attending spots in Pittsburgh or if you want to go somewhere else. And then he realizes you called him Robby. 

He’s not sure what to do with that. What it means. He slides off his stool and goes to look for you at the table, doesn’t see you but thinks you’re in the bathroom until he’s told no, you left. He has to play it cool and nod like he isn’t internally panicking about whatever the fuck just happened. And he can’t just leave because it’ll look suspicious. He has to wait a respectable amount of time, ends up leaving when Samira and Langdon do. 

Robby calls you as he walks home. No answer. He has no idea what to even say to you right now so he doesn’t leave a message. He decides to text you instead. He’s worried about you and whether you’re okay and got home safe. He’s always worried about you when he doesn’t have eyes on you. 

R - Let me know you got home safe  R - Please

You don’t reply immediately. Or within five minutes. Or within ten minutes. It’s almost long enough to make him start panicking and change his direction to walk to your place and see if you’re there. Because of course he knows where you live and has been to your place before. But then you finally reply.

You - I did, yeah, thanks. Was showering. I hope you have a good rest of your night

It’s the truth. You were in the shower. In the shower standing under almost scalding water ruminating on ‘maybe when you’re an attending.’ Maybe. When did it become maybe for him? And why? You hate how bad it hurts, the thought of never getting to even try with him. The thought of him not wanting you anymore, of his feelings for you just disappearing. It makes you anxious. 

And more than anything right now, you’re confused. So fucking confused because he’s still flirting with you just as much and as hard as he always has when you guys are alone together or when you’re close enough to whisper. His hands and fingers still linger just a couple of seconds too long when he passes you something or wrap over yours to show you how to do something. You still feel his eyes on you when you talk to other men, especially if the men flirt with you. You still notice him checking you out sometimes. But now it’s maybe. Maybe. 

Robby lets out a breath when your message comes through. He debates calling you again to try and talk on the phone but he’s still not sure what to say. He walks into his apartment and drops his stuff, heads to his room and takes his scrub top and pants off before letting himself sit on the edge of the bed and reply.

R - Good.  R - Are we okay? You left quickly and without saying bye

After you finish getting ready, you slide into your bed and turn the tv on while you think about what to say to his message. Tone is so hard to get out of texts but you can tell he clearly still cares about you and whatever is between you. Enough to ask if the two of you are okay. It helps your anxiety a little bit. 

You - Yeah, we’re fine

He believes you but the word ‘fine’ also scares him. It’s not good or great or perfect or even normal or like we always are. So he can’t let the conversation die. Not when he’s still so unsure about whether you guys are okay or if he did something or if you still want him or if you’re mad at him. 

R - Are you working tomorrow? 

You - Yeah but at night. I’m starting a string of six nights to help cover. 

Robby knows you’ll be with Jack every night. He remembers Jack mentioning a string of six on. He’s not jealous in a romantic sense. He’s jealous of the time Jack will get to spend with you and is already thinking of excuses to stay late to be with you. He’s sad that he won’t see you for more than maybe an hour or so for the next six days.

R - Abbot’s going to try to steal you from days permanently

You type out your reply. It’s genuine but you know it’s going to seriously fuck with him and that the idea will freak him out and make him scared of losing you. Or will it? You don’t seem to know anymore. And that hurts. And hurt people hurt people. But you pause. You erase your last sentence. ‘Maybe when I’m an attending.’

You - He just might. Going to bed at 7 in the morning rather than getting up early enough to be at work for 7 in the morning kind of appeals to me

Robby stares at your response, a wave of deeper anxiety passing over him. You can’t go to nights. He’d barely see you. You can’t be serious about this. 

R - Really?

You - Yeah. Why?

Fuck. You are serious about this. And what the fuck is he supposed to say in response to your question? He knows you know why. He knows you know how he feels about you. How he wants you too. How he can’t wait for you to be an attending or even accept a position because then he can finally have you.

R - Would be a big loss for day shift. You’re one of the best

That hurts a little. That you switching to nights would just be a loss to day shift to him. Not a loss to him personally. That he wouldn’t miss you apparently.

You - You guys would be fine 

R - I’d miss you. I’ll miss you this week

You smile at him saying he’d miss you and that he’s going to this week. But part of you struggles to believe him after the bar.

You - Would you? Will you? 

He can’t believe you’re even asking that. And because it’s a text he can’t hear in your voice whether those two questions are serious or teasing. It hurts him to think that they might be serious. 

R - Of course 

You - Well I really doubt I’ll end up switching. So you’ll only have to miss me for a week 

R - Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

You are so confused by this man. It’s ‘maybe’ and ‘a loss to day shift’ but then it’s also he’ll miss you and his heart will grow fonder. But it was a good line. And between him telling you he’ll miss you unprompted and that being away from you for almost a week will deepen his feelings for you, you’re starting to feel back to your usual self and, while the change has been subconscious mostly, you go back to texting him like your usual self. 

But before you can reply Robby sends another message. It terrifies him. He’s not sure how he even worked himself up to asking you. He just needs to know. Needs to know if the two of you are really okay. 

R - Will you miss me at all?

It’s an incredibly vulnerable ask. You know it. He knows it. He knows you know it. He needs a very ‘you’ answer to it. So you give him one.

You - 🙂‍↕️

R - Good

You - Did you have to google what that emoji meant? (P.S. You should have added girl after good)

Robby laughs to himself and shakes his head at you. This feels better. Normal. Like you. 

R - Did you just call me old? (P.S. Stop it)

You smile to yourself. You know he means the stop it playfully. He’d have said way more if he actually wanted you to stop.

You - 😶🤐 You - Did you change the font size on your phone?

R - I’ve changed my mind about missing you 

You - Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, Michael

R - Go to bed, Kid R - Don’t  R - Don’t even think it

You giggle to yourself. He’s lucky he was so quick to realize and send the ‘don’t.’

You - Does it make it better if I told you it was going to be daddy and not dad?

Robby groans to himself a little. No. That’s what he wants to tell you. No, it makes it worse in a way. It has him half hard pretty quickly. 

You - I’ve been in bed this entire conversation too, so 

You know you’re getting close to Robby’s limit of this shameless of flirting and overt sexualness. You’re toeing the line. It hits just right though. It makes him harder. Fully hard. And Robby has to groan to himself a little louder this time because if you guys were together he’d work himself up to sending you a picture of his very obvious erection under his boxers, or facetime you and make you talk him through it. But you’re not together. And you’re an R3. And he can’t.

You - Wanna know what I’ve been doing? 

You wait a few seconds just to let him start to think before you hit send on the picture you took of your tv that shows you’re watching some trashy reality tv show he hates. Or pretends to hate. Because he always knows enough about the last episode to talk to you about it. Maybe he hated it before you, maybe he still does kind of hate it, but now he watches it for you. 

You - I’m sure that’s what you were thinking I was doing. Anyway. Did you make it home safely?

Robby lets out a quiet laugh. You’re so ridiculous. So perfect for him. He’s so spectacularly fucked when it comes to you. 

R - Yes and I’m going to shower. You go to sleep

You - 😏😏 You - Alright I’m stopping  You - Sleep tight and try not to miss me too much this week 

R - Sleep well, Kid

Robby throws open the door to the stairwell and walks in. He’s shaking, closer to tears than he wants to admit to himself and he is pretty sure he has never felt this much rage in his life. All of his emotions, all the grief and loss and sadness and guilt have turned into anger. 

And all because Langdon had to come back and then run his fucking mouth. He’s trying to calm down, to let go of the anger before he goes back out there and does or says something he’s going to regret because his mind is too clouded with anger. His hand rubs the back of his neck as he paces to try and burn off some of the adrenaline. 

He replays the confrontation in his head over and over. Eventually he’s struck by one thing in particular. How the fuck did Langdon even know about what happened in pedes? You were the only one who saw him-

Robby stills. It feels like another part of his world is coming crashing down around him. The only way Langdon could have known is if you’d told him. Or you’d told someone else who’d told him. If you were gossiping about him. About something so incredibly private and intimate. 

The door to the stairwell gets thrown back open and Robby walks further into the Pitt, head on a swivel looking for you. His jaw clenches when he sees you standing alone and charting. He stalks over to you.

“We need to talk.” The anger in his voice is palpable. And unlike the last time he sought you out, this time he’s not asking to speak with you. You saw him follow Langdon out so you assume it must be related and Langdon really must have done or said something.  “In here. Now.” 

He’s seething. He leads over to the supply closet and opens the door, walks in behind you, locks the door behind him. “What happened?” you ask, brows furrowed.

Robby just stares at you. It’s like he’s waiting for you to admit something. And you slowly realize his anger isn’t at Langdon or that situation or at anything else. 

It’s at you. 

He finally speaks. “I cannot fucking believe you.”

You shrink back at his words and tone. “What?”

“There are a lot of fucking people here who I would expect this shit from or not be surprised when they did it. But not you. Not fucking you,” he spits out. “How could you? How could you fucking gossip about that?” Robby tells himself the tears forming in his eyes are ones of anger and nothing else. “How could you betray me like that? I trusted you. I fucking trusted you.” His voice cracks on the second trusted.

To say you’re confused would be a massive understatement. Your stomach twists with anxiety. You don’t like any of this. You don’t like how he thinks you betrayed him or broke his trust. Because you’re not sure if your relationship could survive him truly believing that. “Michael, please believe me when I say that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The confusion written all over your face just pisses him off more. It’s like you’re trying to be the victim. “No. Don’t do this shit. Don’t act like you don’t know exactly what I’m fucking talking about. Don’t try to be the fucking victim. The very fucking least you could do at this point is own the fuck up to it.”

You are desperately trying to play your day through your head to see if you can figure out what he’s talking about, figure out what you did that apparently betrayed him and obliterated his trust. You and Dana talked during the day but you never told her anything, just expressed your concern about him and him saying and acting like he was fine. You and Jack spoke while organizing supplies, but again, you just expressed concern about him and how he’d react if something happened to Jake. You said nothing to either of them that they didn’t already know because Robby had told them. You have no idea how he could consider any of that gossiping. 

“You’re really going to make me fucking spell it out for you, hm?” He bobs his head condescendingly. 

Tears spill over your lash line and slide down your cheeks because of the way he’s talking to you, the way he’s treating you. Because you know exactly where this conversation is headed if he won’t explain to you and then listen to your response. Because he’s slowly breaking your heart. 

“You told someone, Langdon or whoever the fuck else, about what happened in pedes. About me breaking down in there and being on the floor. You just fucking blabbed that to whoever,” he scoffs, a few tears running down his cheeks. Out of anger, yes. 

But out of heartbreak too. You gossiping about this, you breaching his trust like this, shatters Robby. Because he loves you. Even if he hasn’t said it. He’s stupidly in love with you. He has been. He thought you were the one. That you were it. His end game. He pictured a proposal and a wedding and a house and maybe kids.

And then you broke his heart. 

“Okay,” you sniffle through some tears. “I know you don’t believe me but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t tell anyone absolutely anything about pedes. I never would-”

“Well nobody else came in and saw me so how the fuck else would Langdon know? Hm?” he snarls. “You fucking gossiped about it. Like it was this casual thing.” He shrugs at you as more tears fall down his face and he glares at you. “We’re done. Because I will never be able to trust you again. Not with anything like that, with how I feel, to see me when I’m vulnerable. And I deserve a partner I can trust with that.” His anger slips for a moment, the trembling of his chin and the way his eyes soften into hurt and grief give it away. “We waited all this fucking time, I waited all this fucking time for you and you do this before we even hit six fucking months?” You can see when the anger returns as his primary emotion in addition to hearing it. “You threw it all away! And for what. For fucking what? Please tell me. Because I don’t fucking understand.” 

You’re at a total loss. You know that it ultimately doesn’t matter what you say. Robby isn’t in a state of mind to truly hear or listen to anything you tell him and even if he was, he doesn’t want to. Not right now at least. He just broke up with you. For, as far as you can tell, nothing. Your heart is shattered just like his. You thought he was the one. You knew he was deep in your heart. He was always there when you pictured your future. 

It takes you a moment to gather a few thoughts and calm your crying down enough to coherently talk. You clear your throat and sniffle before starting.

“You very clearly aren’t interested in listening to anything I have to say, but I’m going to say a few things anyway and hope you do listen, or think about them later. I did not tell anybody anything about pedes. I would never. Even now.” You take the briefest pause, worried that if you stop for any longer he’ll cut you off and not let you say anything else. “I love you, Michael. I’ve been in love with you for a while now. I never said it because it felt like you weren’t ready to hear it or say it quite yet, or I don’t know, maybe I mistook things and you didn’t, don’t love me.” You shrug. “I was so proud of you when I watched you pull yourself together in the face of multiple things, any one of which let alone all of them combined would have kept most people on the floor of that room, and go out and save lives and rally a team and support others and hold others up while you were dying inside. And I really hope one day, that for yourself, you’ll be able to learn and speak with Langdon or whoever else you need to and know that I was telling the truth and didn’t say anything to anyone and never would’ve. I loved you, Michael. You were amazing today. You are so much stronger than you think or give yourself credit for. I’m proud of you. You should be proud of yourself even through all the hurt, Michael.”

“No.” Robby shakes his head. He’s too angry and hurt and grief stricken to see anything clearly or even truly process your words. He stoops so that he’s face to face with you and you’ve never seen Robby look this angry and hurt. He makes sure you’re looking at him dead in the eyes as he speaks. “No, you don’t get to call me Michael. Or Robby. It’s Dr. Robinavitch to you.” 

He stands back up, unlocks and throws the door open and walks back out. Like it’s nothing. Like he didn’t just issue you your very own scarlet letter by telling you that you can only call him by his full name and title, a stark contrast to the intimacy of Michael and even the casualness of Robby that everyone, except for you now, gets to call him. Like he didn’t just break up with you. Like he didn’t just shatter your heart. Like you’re not even worth hearing out or having an actual conversation with or listening to. Like you’re nothing. 

Pretty fucking cruel of the world for it to end where it started. In this supply closet. 

You lock the door behind him and slide down it, give yourself a few minutes to quietly sob, thoughts racing. But you don’t want to do this here. You can’t and you won’t. You open a pack of gauze and use it to clean off your face, unlock the door and peek through it until you see a good moment and sprint to the bathroom. 

You press a cold paper towel beneath your eyes. You know it’s probably pointless but maybe it’ll help a little. You’re focusing on thinking about how to get out of here and have the least number of people see you as possible. After a few minutes you toss the towel, splash some cold water on your face and dry off. You stare at yourself in the mirror. Marginally better, you guess. 

You slip out of the bathroom and look around. You should tell someone you’re leaving. The only two you decide you’ll be able to bring yourself to talk to are Jack and Dana. You spot Jack first.

“Hey,” you greet Jack as you walk up to him. Janey has arrived and Robby’s over talking with her so the hub is free of him for now. “I’m heading out.”

Jack looks up at you. To anyone else it would seem like he didn’t react. But you know him well enough to see the slightest raise of his eyebrows and the corners of his lips turn down. You have a fake smile plastered on your face and even with the damage control you did in the bathroom, someone would have to be an idiot to look at you and not know you’d been crying. And you know Jack is far from an idiot. 

You know he knows when his eyes leave you and go to Robby and then back to you. “Okay… We’ll probably do some sort of debrief and then I’m sure some people will go to the park. Robby’s probably going to be here for a little bit yet.”

“I figured, yeah.” You nod. “Thanks Jack.” You spin and start walking away before Jack can say anything further or Robby can walk back over or even look in your direction. You don’t want to feel it. You have enough already. His glare at you, livid and disappointed and betrayed and disdained and hurt. And even though you know why he’s with her, seeing him with his ex is hard. Especially when you realize you’re now just another ex for him to be seen with too. 

You wonder if they’ll bond over their fear for Jake before they knew he was okay and get back together as you walk to your locker. You grab your backpack and take the back way out to limit the chances of anyone seeing you and manage to hit the street without encountering anyone else.

You have a few things of Robby’s in your locker that you’ll have to figure out how to return to him. More things at your place. You’re going to have to go home and still see him. Have his presence there. Thinking about it makes tears sting at your eyes. But you refuse to break down until you get home, you won’t do it even out here. You need to be home before you break down. About any of it. Robby or the mass casualty incident you just went through. And it’ll mostly be about Robby. Probably 99%. You’re numb to whatever it is you saw and went through, focused on losing Robby.

And as brokenhearted and sad and hurt you are, part of you is mad. That Robby could even think you would do such a thing, much less believe it enough to accuse you of it and end your entire relationship over it without a real conversation. You know it was a bad day for him. Beyond a bad day. Probably one of the worst days of his life. But that’s not an excuse or justification for how he treated you. He didn’t even listen to you, wouldn’t even contemplate it being possible that someone else saw him and he just didn’t see. 

Part of you knows that with the day being what it was and what it became, Robby’s mind was trying to protect himself. That his mind could only see loss and grief and convinced him that you were going to leave him at the end of the day after seeing him like that in pedes. So when he saw an opportunity to control it, to set the terms of losing and grieving you, he took it and didn’t ask any questions. 

Robby does not want to gather everyone and give some kind of debriefing speech, but he knows he has to say something to everyone. Once everyone is gathered he starts talking and as he looks around the group he realizes you’re not there. He tells himself he doesn’t care but he absolutely does. Even with how much you hurt him he misses you. He wishes you were here to ground him a little. He thinks he could forgive you, especially if you had an explanation. Maybe you didn’t mean to say as much as you did to whoever. 

But as everyone walks away and goes back to whatever they were doing he slips back into anger because it’s an easier emotion to process and feel at the moment. You’re an attending now. It’s your job to be here for things like this. To stay for debriefings. No matter what might’ve happened in your personal life. 

So when he feels his phone vibrate and pulls it out and sees it’s you calling him he rolls his eyes  and sends it straight to voicemail on the second ring. And he gets annoyed when you don’t leave a message and immediately call him again. This time he just lets it ring until it hits voicemail. Maybe you’ll get the hint this time, he thinks. He figures you must because you don’t leave a message again and don’t try calling him a third time or send a text. Robby gets involved in another case with Jack and one with Mel and doesn’t think much of it. An hour and a half passes in the blink of an eye.

When he walks out of one of the trauma rooms and stops at the hub the exhaustion finally slams into him full force. He’s hungry too, can feel his blood sugar dropping. His ability to regulate and deal with his emotions is going further out the window with both of those developments. Which, he presumes, is why when he sees Langdon walking towards the ambulance bay doors to leave he walks over to him quickly. 

“Why the fuck are you still here?” Robby glances down at his watch. “I told you to leave over two fucking hours ago!”

“Why the fuck do you care? I’m leaving now.” Langdon doesn’t stop walking. 

Robby stands there for a second watching Langdon walk away. He needs to know he was right. That it was in fact you who told Langdon. 

“Hey!” Robby yells at Langdon and walks to catch up with him. “Who fucking told you?” He knows Langdon will know what he’s talking about.

“I’m not fucking telling you,” Langdon laughs dryly. “Unlike some people here I’m not going to rat out-”

Robby interrupts him by saying your name. “Was it her?”

Langdon laughs, shaking his head at Robby before he apparently realizes the question is serious. “You can’t be fucking serious.” Robby’s lack of response makes it clear he is serious. “Of course it wasn’t her! She would absolutely never spread shit about you, especially something like that. Someone else saw you in there on the floor firsthand. They’re glass fucking doors, Robby!” Langdon lets out an incredulous laugh. 

Fuck. Fuck. Robby’s heart drops into his sinking stomach and everything starts to spin, his extremities turning to ice. He knows Langdon is telling him the truth. He knows he monumentally fucked up. He just broke up with you for nothing. He just destroyed your heart for nothing. He just shattered the most precious and important and meaningful person in his life. He just imploded everything for no fucking reason. 

He just lost the best things in his life, your relationship and you, the person who kept him going. And he has nobody to blame but himself. 

He vaguely hears Langdon start to say something else to him but he’s taking a deep breath to try to get his dizziness to pass and walking back inside. Robby thinks about how he spoke to you. The words he said. How he barely let you say anything and didn’t listen to what he did let you say. He’s not sure if the two of you can recover from this. He’s not sure he deserves you giving him a second chance. If anything, he’s more sure he doesn’t. But he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try, if he doesn’t apologize and ask for a second chance. 

His eyes skim across everyone on the floor he can see once he’s back inside. He walks by most of the rooms and doesn’t see you in with any patients. You’re not in the breakroom. Maybe the bathroom. He doesn’t want to stand around waiting though. 

The roof. You saw him go up to the roof this morning because that’s where Jack was getting some air. He’d told you he was going up there to talk with Jack. Maybe you’re up there trying to clear your head. As he gets to the elevator and presses the up button it hits Robby. You could be standing on that ledge. You could be thinking about jumping. About disappearing from his life permanently. About really and truly leaving him forever. Nothing left but a grave to visit.

The only thing that stops Robby from turning to give into the feeling and be sick in the trash can is the elevator doors opening. He slips inside and hits the button for the roof, holding the close door button down the entire way up as though it really does anything. He tries to tell himself he’s just projecting his feelings onto you and that he has no reason to think you’re on the ledge.

Robby can’t decide whether he’s relieved that you’re not on the roof. Certainly he’s relieved you’re not on the ledge but it means he still doesn’t know where you are. He stands in the middle of the roof sucking in huge breaths of air trying to come down from the panic that’s starting to consume him. It’s not really working though. It’s just turning into hyperventilating. 

“Well you’re almost in my spot,” Jack calls to Robby as he walks out onto the roof. “What is going on? She-”

“I fucked up Jack,” Robby blurts out. “I fucked up so so badly and I don’t, I don’t know if I can fix it.” He slips completely into hyperventilating at this point as it plays in his head again. Him destroying everything in that supply closet. 

“Okay you’re having a panic attack, Michael-”

“No, no I’m not, I’m not, I’m just,” he’s shaking at this point, his body and his voice, “I just lost her and I, I, I…” Robby can barely put that three word phrase together. 

“I promise you that you are having a panic attack, Michael, believe me I know.” Jack steps in front of Robby and catches his gaze. “You have to follow my breathing, okay?” Robby shakes his head for a second and squeezes his eyes closed trying to fight back tears before starting to nod. “Look at me.” Robby opens his eyes and watches Jack. He watches Jack’s exaggerated breathing and tries to follow it. By focusing so hard on following Jack’s breathing Robby’s mind stills for a few moments. “Alright, better?” Robby nods at him. “What the fuck happened?”

Robby’s quiet for a moment and turns and takes a step so that he’s not facing Jack anymore. It’s a little too much. “I broke today. During the middle of it all, after Leah.” Robby’s voice cracks on her name. “She found me crying on the fucking floor in pedes and helped me get through it and back.” Robby pauses and lets out a huffed laugh. “For this to make sense I have to tell you that Langdon’s addicted to pain meds and stealing meds. Fucking, I don’t even know what to say about that right now.” He can see Jack’s slightly surprised expression out of the corner of his eye. “Anyway, after everything calmed down Langdon and I had it out in the ambulance bay and he threw it in my face. What happened in pedes.”

“Mmmm,” Jack cringes in acknowledgment. Robby knows he knows where this is about to go. 

“She was the only one I saw see me in there. So I assumed she told fucking Langdon or someone else who then told him. That she was gossiping about it.” Robby shrugs and sniffles. “I dragged her into that fucking supply closet with me and lost it. Asked her how could she, told her I couldn’t believe her, all while she was looking at me confused which just pissed me off more in the moment. She said it wasn’t her but I wasn’t listening. I barely let her speak. And then,” Robby pauses, lips trembling hard. “And then she said she loves me and is proud of me and she ended her last sentence with Michael and all I said was that she didn’t get to call me Michael or Robby. That it was Dr. Robinavitch to her. Then I walked out. I saw Langdon just now and he told me it wasn’t her and I know he was telling the truth.” Robby takes in and lets out a big breath quickly, sniffling again and wiping some tears away. “So I broke up with her and broke her heart for nothing. And I’ve been trying to find her to apologize as if she’ll ever take me back. She shouldn’t. I know she shouldn’t but I have to try Jack.” Robby looks over at him. “I have to try.” 

Jack takes in a deep breath and lets it out. He looks like he’s trying to decide what to respond to first. He runs a hand through his hair and then drops his hands to his hips. “Yeah,” he draws the word out. “That’s…” he sighs. “You guys might be able to work this out. It’s very obvious she knows you and how you think, better than you probably, and she is so fucking in love with you,” he tries to give Robby a somewhat reassuring smile, “so, I don’t know. You have to try, I agree. But she left, Robby.” Jack glances at his watch. “Two hours ago.” 

“What?” Robby whispers, turns back to face Jack. He glosses over everything Jack said to try and give him hope because he can’t take any possibility of false hope right now, as much as he knows Jack wouldn’t lie to him. 

“When you were talking to Janey. She came up to me at the hub, looking like she’d just had the conversation you described with you and said she was leaving.” Jack shrugs. “I said we’d do a debrief and some people would probably go to the park after and that you’d be here for a bit yet and she said she figured that and thanks and walked away.”

“Did you actually see her leave?” Robby doesn’t know why the thought of you leaving and being at home in your bed sobbing, or having already sobbed yourself to sleep makes it all feel worse. 

“No-” 

“So she could still be here.” Robby nods as he says it. “She could have gotten involved in a case or something and not left yet.” He starts walking back to the elevator. 

“Theoretically,” Jack agrees. “I think she probably left, Robby. You know her locker code? See if her stuff is there.” 

“Yeah, yeah I do.” Robby nods as they step in the elevator. “That’s good, that’s a good idea.” He’s praying that your stuff will still be there. That you’re not at home alone crying over him and how he treated you and the end of your relationship. Because he doesn’t want that. He’s not sure anymore if that’s really what he wanted when he was so sure you gossiped about it. 

As soon as he’s off the elevator Robby’s speed walking to the lockers, Jack following behind at a more normal pace. Robby hears Jack stop a few feet behind him as he opens your locker. Your stuff is gone. You’re gone. At home alone. Just like he didn’t want. 

“Michael,” you pant as his lips move down your neck and to your collarbone where he sucks a bruise into your skin making you moan softly again. “We should stop, you, you should go home and get some sleep before work.” The hand in his hair tugs at it to get him to look at you. 

It’s the night of your first date. After dinner you guys came back to your place. It started with just sitting and chatting on the couch, having another drink. Then you started kissing as you talked. Then you were kissing more than you were talking. Then you straddled him. And now he’s laying on top of you on your couch, bracing himself with his arms to not put too much of his weight on you. You have to have been making out like this for the better part of an hour. You’ve both been shamelessly grinding into each other, pulling little sounds you’ve always wanted to hear from the other. Robby’s painfully hard. Your underwear has to be soaked through or close to it. 

“What?” Robby’s already halfway gone, mind hazy with thoughts of you. It takes a second for what you said to process. “What? No first date sex for me?” he pants softly. You know he’s teasing you, that he truly didn’t come here with any expectations and he would absolutely never pressure you. 

“Nope.” You smile at him as you pop the ‘p.’

Robby groans a little at you as he moves off of you to sit normally on the couch, helping you sit up next to him. “Why not?” He pushes his bottom lip out at you a little as you climb into his lap. “That hardly seems fair.”

You give his bottom lip a quick nip before kissing it. “Because I care about you and this. Us.” 

“But if there’s already an us…” he trails off with a raise of his brows at you. “And we’ve been basically dating for four years.” You snort a laugh and give him a look. “Okay, we’ve been close friends with feelings for each other for four years. That should count for something right?” He lets one hand rest at your hip and the other in your lap. 

“In a way, yes, of course it does.” You run your hand through his hair, scratching at his scalp a little just to see the way his eyes flutter closed. “I still need to keep you interested though. Make sure you have a reason to ask me out again and keep me around.”

Robby scoffs as he opens his eyes. He gives you a look. “Kid, you really think that after pining for you and dreaming about you for four fucking years that I’m going to finally get inside of you and then just decide I’m romantically done with you?”

You shiver at his words and the thought of him inside of you. “Maybe I won’t be good in bed or you won’t feel a spark or it’ll be flat.”

Robby lets out a breath as he takes your face in his hands. “I can pretty much guarantee you none of that will be the case.  Having sex with you is just going to make me more obsessed with you, Kid.”

You nod, give him a small smile and lean into one of his hands. “Maybe I just like torturing you.” A slow smirk pulls onto your face. “You made me wait four years. And yes I understand and respect and appreciate why. But I still think it means you can take me on a date for every year you made me wait, and then maybe I’ll let you put your cock inside of me, Michael.”

He groans, dropping his hands back to your hip and lap where they were. “So breakfast, lunch and dinner dates tomorrow?” 

You giggle at him, lean in and give him a kiss. You love knowing how desperate he is. It makes you feel good. But while you and Robby have known each other and been dancing around this for four years, that’s almost what makes you feel like the sex is going to be more meaningful and like for some reason you should wait just a couple of dates. Because you could fall in love with Robby. Because you know you already are starting to fall in love with him. That you have been since you met him. 

“No.” You shake your head at him. “But that was a great try.”

“Can I at least do four days in a row?” he whines. 

You hum in fake thought for a few seconds. “I’ll allow that.”

“Good.” Robby leans in and kisses you again, deepens it when you open your mouth a little for him when his tongue presses at your lips. He’ll never get enough of this. Enough of you. He pulls away just a little before you’re both desperate for air and rests his forehead against yours. “I’m going to make you break before the fourth date.” 

You chuckle. “Oh, Michael, Michael, Michael.” You pull your forehead from his and give him an almost sympathetic look. “You should know better than to challenge me by now. Because now that you’ve said it, I absolutely won’t let you break me.” 

“Yeah,” he sighs the word, “I was trying so hard to be hot and sexy for you I forgot how incredibly stubborn you are.” 

You roll your eyes at him playfully. “You know you don’t have to try, Michael. You just are hot and sexy.” 

He just hums at you and squeezes your hip and thigh. “Come on, I’ll go. We both do need to sleep before work.” You sigh a little about it as you get off his lap and stand up. You don’t really want him to leave but you know it’s better to do it this way. “I’m gonna use your bathroom before I leave.” Robby kisses the top of your head as he passes you. 

You get a thought and slip to your kitchen while Robby’s in your bathroom, quickly getting your bottoms off. You make sure your underwear adequately reflects how turned on and wet you got just from making out with him and then them off and get your bottoms back on. You tuck the underwear in the back of your waistband and pull your shirt down over them. 

You wait for Robby on the armrest of your couch, smiling at him when he reappears. The two of you walk to your door together. “I had a really great time tonight, Michael.” You’re smiling so widely your cheeks hurt. 

“So did I, Kid. The best time.” Robby’s hands find your waist again, just holding you gently. “Will you go on a second date with me?” he asks like you don’t both already know the answer. 

“You know it.” Your smile somehow widens a little more and you have to fight to get it off your face so that Robby can kiss you when he starts leaning down and in. Neither of you are surprised or mad when the kiss turns into making out for a couple of minutes in front of your door. 

You break apart naturally when you need air and you let your forehead fall to rest on Robby’s chest. After a second you pull back. 

“Here.” You grab your underwear from your waistband. You let them dangle off your finger for a second to make sure Robby knows exactly what they are. “To get you through the night and proof you don’t need to try to be hot and sexy.” You smirk at him as you shove them in his pocket. “Took them off while you were in the bathroom. You can feel they’re still warm. And maybe if you’re good you’ll get a pair at the end of each date.”

Robby swallows hard, breathing picking up a little just at the beginnings of thoughts of what he could do with them at home and how you’ll know he’s doing something with them and how you want him to. He presses his palm against his pocket. They’re still warm like you said. A blush creeps up his neck to his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He has to close his eyes for a second as he tries to regulate a bit. “You’re gonna kill me, Kid,” Robby breathes out. 

“I’m a doctor, remember? I would never let that happen.” You and Robby exchange soft laughs as he opens the door. “Text me when you get home safely please. Or on your way home.” You grin at him. 

“I will.” Robby nods at you. You lean up and give him a soft and lingering kiss. It’s simple, but the perfect way to end the night. 

“Have a good night, Michael.”

“Have a good night, Kid.”

There’s very little thought to it. Robby just follows the instinct that tells him to run after you. Doesn’t grab his backpack. Doesn’t say another word to Jack. He just turns and runs. 

Robby knows that you’ll be at your place. That you won’t have gone to a bar or something. You’ll just want to be alone. He hates himself for it, hates the thought, can picture you curled up alone and crying or sniffling heavily in your sleep because you finally cried yourself out. 

He books it to your place, comes close to being hit once or twice when making a few unwise crossing decisions. He’s panting hard by the time he gets to your building and fumbles with his key to get in the main door, taking the stairs two at a time as he hauls ass up to the third floor. He’s running on sheer adrenaline. 

He doesn’t take a moment to collect himself when he gets to your door, just starts knocking. When you don’t answer he uses his key to let himself in. He knows he shouldn’t, he knows he should respect you not wanting to see him and wanting to be alone right now, but he needs to see you and apologize and make everything okay again. 

But your apartment is dark when he steps in. Hot. Like the AC has been off because you’ve been at his the past week. You’d have turned the AC on if you were here. He checks anyway though. But you’re not there. Not in your bed or the shower or on your couch. And so Robby’s left a sweaty and panting mess as he closes your bedroom door and leans back against it. 

He tries to take a moment to calm down, get his breath back, some focus back so he can think about where else you might be. But he can’t. 

Instead, Robby slides down your bedroom door, bringing his knees to his chest and starting to cry again. Just like he did in pedes. It’s more sobbing this time, especially because of how hard it is to breathe, how out of breath he was before he started crying. Some of his tears are for the loss, Adamson and Leah, for his guilt at giving Jake his other ticket and thoughts that it should have been him to get shot and not Leah, for the damage to his relationship with Jake, for Langdon, for breaking down in the middle of an MCI and letting his team down. 

But most of them are for you. The loss of you. The way he’s already grieving you while praying and hoping and wishing that he’ll be able to stop, that you’ll take him back and so he won’t have to keep grieving the loss of you in his life. For accusing you of something horrible like that. For yelling at you. For the way he snapped at you all day. The way that, although you were quick to shut it down most times, he took out a lot of his emotions on you over the entire day. Took out his emotions on you who was only ever there for him whenever he needed it. Who kept him together and in check. Who saw only the best in him and stayed. Who saw the worst in him and stayed. Who was proud of him. Who he needs to survive this. And for the way, he realized on his run over as he replayed the scene in the supply closet over in his mind, your tense changed. You love him to you loved him. Love to loved. An audible breaking of your heart.  

Robby looks over at your kitchen. Maybe it would just be better for you and Jake and everybody if he just disappeared. If he just ceased to exist. He told you he wouldn’t. He promised you he wouldn’t. But maybe you want him to now. He’s tired of feeling. Of hurting. Without you he doesn’t really have anyone. Jake hates him. Jack and Dana will be fine without him. You have sharp enough knives. He knows exactly where to cut.

His phone ringing pulls him out of it for a second. He sniffles and clears his throat as he moves to pull his phone out of his pocket. He knows it’s not you because you’d given yourself a special ringtone and it’s not the one playing.

It’s Jack. If you’re there at the hospital still with Jack then he won’t. He’ll keep his promise and run back. Apologize. Beg. Grovel. Anything. Everything. 

“Did you hear from her?” There’s no greeting. Robby’s straight to the question. 

“Robby, she’s here.” Jack’s voice is strained. He sounds exhausted, but more emotionally than anything. He sounds pained. Like speaking these words is physically and emotionally hurting him. He didn’t sound like that when Robby left. But Robby brushes it all aside.

“Oh fuck, okay thank you.” Robby lets out a sigh of relief and wipes at his face. He sniffles again and lets out a little laugh. Because at least he knows where you are. “Keep her there Jack, please. I don’t care how you do it, lock her in a room or use restraints, just keep her there. I need to talk to her. I need-”

“No, not like that,” Jack tells him, voice clipped, still strained. “Like-” Jack gets interrupted. Robby can hear what sounds like a door opening, muffled movement and beeping of monitors. He can just make out a female voice tell Jack ‘she’s seizing again.’ Jack’s voice is muffled like he’s holding the phone away from him but Robby can hear him say ‘yes’ to what sounded like the shout of a medication order, followed by Jack yelling ‘and where the fuck is neuro?’ 

“Fuck. You need to get here, Michael.” Jack rushes it out but Robby recognizes Jack’s tone clear as day because he’s used it so many times himself. 

It’s the tone they use when stressing to family members that they need to get to the hospital as quickly as humanly possible because a loved one is about to die. 

Tears start to stream down Robby’s face again because he knows. Robby knows exactly what Jack means when he repeats it. “She’s here.”

I know. 😶🥲😶‍🌫️😭

I've affectionately called this Robby's No Man's Land. It was named the same way too. Obviously there will be a Part 2 unless nobody wants one. 😂 I PROMISE that what happened in NML Part 2 will not be repeated in the Part 2 to this.

I hope it was okay and that you were able to enjoy! Again, I really love hearing your thoughts and comments, they give me serotonin and motivation and inspiration!! Liking, replies and reblogging are always so so appreciated! My inbox and DMs are always open for thoughts, comments, and general screaming (or (lovingly) screaming at me I suppose)! 🙂

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[gnomewithalaptop]

I'm still too distracted to write so here have a list of YJ-cast centric fics that make me froth at the mouth

Kon-centric recs:

I Want It That Way (1990s Tim/Kon) by WynterSky / @wynterstars -- A revamped, 90s-style Superboy origin story with added Lex Luthor AND a lil bit of 90s Robin for spice and flavor. Honestly, this whole series is so elite -- goes hard with the Superboy mythos + angst PLUS the third fic leans hard into the secret identity shenanigans in a way that'd make Miraculous Ladybug jealous. The first fic splits its attention between Tim and Kon, but the latter two are solidly Kon-centric

one plus one (easy math) by connerdrakewayne / @comphetkoncass -- Cassandra Cain and Kon go to a gala together. I'm always a sucker for a good Cass + Kon friendship. This one's very short and sweet, and it gets the job done -- 10/10 would read again

a timeline can be a haunted house by connerdrakewayne -- post-universal reset Kon angst + terrible coping mechanisms! This one goes so hard I read it three times. Tbh this author has an excellent handle on Kon as a character in general, so I honestly recommend just checking out their whole fic stash

Tim-centric recs:

Top 10 Secret Identity Fails by @havendance -- Tim's new English teacher is his on-again-off-again superhero teamup Helena Bertinelli (aka the Huntress). This one's just fun, okay -- the whole thing reads like it could be straight out of Tim's 1993 solo run, plus I love the dynamic between him and Helena. Overall just a very cool vibe

only the dead stay 17 forever by Sky_Dust (couldn't find their tumblr sorry) -- Listen, I've really been restraining myself here, because I realize my love for time-travel bullshit is not universal, but I genuinely couldn't not include this one. This bad boy is a Tim-centric time-loop featuring a seriously unhinged Tim -- definitely a darker tone, but I can't stop rereading it

Bart-centric recs:

reflections on respawning: a gamer's uncertainty by merils / @mamawasatesttube -- Bart has a hard conversation about his death and subsequent resurrection (feat. Kon) man, I just vibe with this one so hard. It's such a thoughtful take on Bart's more contemplative side, while still managing to keep his personality intact

the backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun by @kermit-coded -- trans/gnc impulse my beloved <3 also we get some funky Max & Bart bonding, made much rawer and more real by the fact that it's the 90s and nobody knows what they're doing. Again, feels like it's straight out of Bart's solo series

Cassie-centric recs:

you and I, we are more than just this armor by @suzukiblu -- KonCassie bonding + gender feels. They're both so trans in this, and the author does a great job of really digging deep into their complicated feelings (both about gender and about each other)

(also PLEASE somebody give me more Cassie-centric fic recs I'm literally begging you)

Team recs

I'm all yours but you're all mine by suzukiblu -- Poly Core 4 Soulmates AU! Essentially, everybody gets their 'soulmark'/soulmate-identifier (not really, but the best word) right when Kon wakes up in his pod, and because Superboy hasn't really made his big splash yet, they misidentify their soulmate as Superman; this is an issue mainly because 1) they're all 14-15 and Superman is roughly 30-ish, and 2) by the time this fic takes place, Superman is pretty verifiably dead. Currently in-progress, but this is such an interesting and fun take on the usual soulmates trope. I pinky promise you won't regret reading it

Love, Not Loved series by @popsunner -- hoooomygod this series makes me cry literally every time I read it, it's genuinely one of the most realistic representations of grief I've seen on AO3. Basically explores the general fucked-up-edness of pretty much the whole YJ Core 4 Squad dying one by one, with each fic focusing on a different funeral (complete with survivor's guilt, regular guilt, and just plain old complicated feelings). We get Cassie feels, we get Tim feels, we get Bart + Kon feels -- it's the whole shebang. Don't worry -- there's a happy ending eventually, but you def gotta work for it. This series beat me up and stole my lunch money and I'd happily do it all over again

Lost the Last Piece of Me by InsaneTrollLogic / @last01standing -- YJ Core 4 Animorphs AU! I'm sad to say I've never read the original Animorphs series, but every single Animorphs AU I've ever read has been such high quality. Unsurprisingly (I love this author, okay), this fic is no exception to that rule. Solid alien-invasion plot, character driven, and the world-building is explained well enough that even a newbie like me can understand (feat. some TimKon, but it's not the main focus)

Ikonoclast by anantipodean (couldn't find a tumblr) -- Tim and Kon get sent to an alternate reality that's almost (but not quite) like their own. This one's just fun for me -- I love the TimBart buildup and the worldbuilding on the other Earth is a funky time. Also, the other universe's Tim is goth and absolutely cannot stand mainstream-reality Tim, and I find that extremely funny for some reason

[wannaeatramyeon]

The Crew Heads with Reader: Shopping

G/N. (Jake Kim, Eli Jang, Johan Seong, Samuel Seo).

Bro Code | Dinner | Shopping | Television | Gacha | Board Games | Suits

The general public is split between taking a wide berth-

(Who can blame them? The four intimidating men in your company cast a menacing aura.)

-and ogling.

(Who can blame them? The four striking men in your company cut a very impressive figure.

Figures.

Tall and muscular, pretty and lean, charming and swoonworthy, sexy and brooding... There's someone for everyone.)

Samuel walks a few steps ahead, as if he's too good to be seen with the likes of you lot. He's not an equal, he's the leader.

In his head, anyway.

Yet when you catch up to talk to him, he slows, pace matching yours. Arches down ever so slightly to make it easier for you.

Jake and Eli flank you. Both smiling; one just a small, sweet quirk of the lips, the other a full toothy grin. Enjoying your company, your quips and running commentary.

Johan trails a little behind. Like a petulant teen out with his family. Still, being with you, even here, is better than not. So he follows, pouting and bored.

Yet can't stop the brightness in his eyes, when you turn around and give him a smile. A soft look to just say hi.

.

.

"No."

"It's just a t-shirt."

"I'm not paying for that."

"Workers pay that poorly?" Jake pulls a faux look of concern. Or it could be sincere. Who knows with Jake and Samuel. "You really should come back to Big Deal, we'll treat you right."

Samuel takes one deep breath before yanking the item from Jake's grip, and proceeds to the register with the rest of the clothing you have been interested in.

Some jeans you have ooh-ed over. A couple of jackets you have aah-ed from afar. And now also a stupid t-shirt.

Which is tacky and tasteless, Samuel thinks, mean and a touch childish.

"This one too?" You add a small dress atop the pile as the shop assistant rings through the purchases.

(Samuel pays for everything.

Took it as a personal offence the first time you said no, many moons ago. Now it's just a habit, almost expected. You're grateful, nevertheless.)

"Doesn't seem like your size," Samuel comments and you look up at him. Puppy eyes on full display and bottom lip jutted out.

A little, not too much. Don't want to overdo it.

Samuel sighs. "Fine."

He's not an idiot. He knows what you're doing, yet he's always powerless to resist.

You beam at him, giving his bicep a squeeze, "Thanks Sammy. Yenna will look adorable in it."

Samuel doesn't say anything. Couldn't give a flying fuck if Yenna will look adorable or hideous. Irritated that he even knows who Yenna is. Gives one quick glance over to Eli, who is still looking at the toddler's section, a pair of shoes in each hand.

"It's fine," he mutters as you lean up to kiss him on the cheek.

.

.

Johan perks up when it is time for lunch. The only time he has been anything other than sullen.

"So hangry all the time," you tease, and receive a scathing look in return.

"You've just proved me right," you snicker, reaching out to ruffle his hair as he slurps on his ramen. The glare remains, but there's no heat to it.

"You know," you give your coffee a stir, watching the crema dissipate, "You don't have to come out with me if you don't enjoy it."

Johan doesn't respond. You look back at him and he can't meet your eyes.

He swallows, feels the noodles and broth burning his throat. The tiniest, "I do," leaves his lips.

A ‘blink and you would have missed it’ admission.

.

.

"Y/N. Let's go." Eli whispers urgently into your ear, interrupting you gawking at a bag that costs three months of rent.

"What-"

"No time." Jake says, hoisting you up into a princess carry (effortlessly, you didn't fail to notice) and sprinting out the store.

"Put me down!" You squirm and wriggle to no avail.

"We'll explain later," Eli laughs, matching Jake step for step. Neither breaking into a sweat, neither even out of breath.

They round the corner, joining up with Samuel and Johan at full speed. All with matching gleeful expressions.

.

.

"We stole his clothes." Eli holds up a pair of trousers, Samuel a shirt, and Johan a jacket.

You're speechless. Almost. "How the fuck-"

"This genius," Jake nods at Eli, "saw Gun trying on a new suit. Admiring himself in the mirror. Probably seeing if the bucket of hair gel he usually uses is enough." A fake gag and roll of the eyes. "Johan and Sammy wanted to fight him."

"Samuel-" Sammy corrects, and is ignored. As per usual.

"I suggested the pacifist route," Jake grins. And you know he means he's not going to cause any trouble for you, even if you’ve noticed his eyes clouding over with anger.

It goes as quickly as it comes. He doesn't want you involved with Gun Park at all.

You snort, "Yeah but he can always just buy and walk away in a new outfit."

"Maybe," Eli shrugs, " Maybe not." And he fishes out the phone and wallet from each pocket.

Oh. Oh! 

You think of Gun Park standing bewildered in his undies. 

Left stranded. Clothes gone. Personal belongings gone. 

A victim of a crime committed by the bosses of the four crews and you laugh so hard you think you might never be the same again.

[rubycruzin4abruzin]

behind the curtain

Summary: Sequel to never been (stage) kissed. After shooting wraps, you and Ruby part ways. Eight months later, you see each other again at the premiere screening, and decide to “sneak away” during the after-party. How will you two navigate the paparazzi after they catch you in a compromising position?

Pairing: ruby cruz x actress!reader

Contains: mature language, adult humor, kissing, angst, fluff, hair playing, secret relationship trope, brief mention of an ED, publicity tweets and comments, invasive tabloids, the price of fame

Word Count: 4.2k

A/N: This is a sequel to my previous RPF, so the RPF Guidelines still stand. This fic contains a very brief mentioning towards an ED, and should not be triggering (at least I don’t think so). I am not insinuating anything by this mention, it is simply meant to shed light on how invasive and presumptuous Hollywood can be. That being said, I had the most fun EVER writing this! Enjoy! :)

———

Ever since the first “kissing lesson,” you and Ruby had spent every on-set lunch break in her trailer. Nothing ever progressed beyond kissing, but with the way Ruby’s hands entangled themselves in your hair, and how she shivered every time your hand grazed her thigh, kissing was really all you needed.

Your mid-day rendezvous were kept a secret from the rest of the world. None of the cast or crew knew exactly what was happening when the door to Ruby’s trailer closed, but it was clear that something was working. Since the trailer lunches began, your on-set chemistry became palpable. It even got to the point where the director would shout words of praise after “cut!”

Eventually, like with all movies, filming began to wrap up. The last day on set, you and Ruby spent all of your down time wrapped in each other's arms, tears falling at the thought of parting. Everyone on set sympathized with the both of you, except for the makeup artist who kept having to touch up your alien makeup after every fallen tear.

You and Ruby promised to keep in touch, and you did for a little while. But daily FaceTimes eventually became weekly phone calls, which turned into sporadic texts, until silence settled between you, save for occasional likes on social media posts. You missed her terribly, and while your pride and fear of rejection kept you from reaching back out, you couldn’t help but wonder if she was missing you too.

About eight months after shooting wrapped for “Aliens of Atlantis,” you were going over sides for an upcoming audition when you got a call from your agent. Upon answering, she announced that “Aliens of Atlantis” post-production had wrapped, and the film had a scheduled premiere where the cast would be making an appearance.

A blissful daze settled across your face at this news. Your agent kept on talking about the when, the where, and the dress code of the upcoming premiere, but you were only half-listening. Her words mushed together, flying in one ear and out the other as the only thing that mattered to you consumed your mind.

You were going to see Ruby again.

On the morning of the premiere, you woke up with a knot in your stomach. You couldn’t tell if the cause was nerves or excitement, but you chalked it up to probably being a little of both. You tried everything to settle your stomach, from aspirin to deep breaths to simply distracting yourself with other tasks. Despite your attempts, when your driver arrived later in the day to take you to the premiere, the knot was still there and prominent as ever.

By the time you had arrived and were about to get out of the car, the knot had seemingly spread throughout your entire body, making you feel like an absolute disaster. You took out your phone and checked your reflection in the front-facing camera, just to remind yourself that you weren’t. In fact, you looked good. You were wearing a metallic blue floor-length gown as a not-so subtle nod to your alien character from the movie. Pale blue eyeshadow decorated your eyelids, and you left your hair down in loose face-framing curls. You knew the press would go crazy as soon as they saw you, and that thought alone gave you enough of a confidence boost to calm down a bit.

When the car pulled up to the red carpet, you took a deep breath and stepped out, immediately being bombarded with cameras flashing in your face. You blinked, overwhelmed at the bright lights, and quickly attempted to paste on a smile and act like this wasn’t your first red carpet event.

You stumbled down the red carpet and looked around for Ruby, but the constant camera flashes and bright lights made it difficult to see much. Every now and then you would stop to strike a pose and flash a pretty smile in some random direction, or answer one of the million questions being thrown at you.

“Who are you wearing?”

A fucking blue dress. “Valdrin Sahiti!”

“How do you feel about your first red carpet event?”

Overwhelmed. “So excited!”

“What are you most looking forward to tonight?”

Seeing Ruby again. “Everyone finally getting to see all the hard work from the cast and crew!”

After what felt like an eternity of paparazzi and bullshit answers to trivial questions, the end of the red carpet was finally approaching. You felt yourself let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. It wasn’t easy, but you managed to make it down your first red carpet without making a complete fool of yourself.

Eventually, the cameras seemed to dissipate, focusing on the next pretty young thing that had just arrived. You blinked, trying to restore your vision infringed upon by the blinding lights. Once you could see in front of you again, you looked up, and a gulp forced itself down your throat at what might have been the prettiest sight you’d ever seen.

There, standing at the end of the red carpet, was Ruby Cruz, radiant amidst the flashing lights.

Her gown was long and form-fitting, sporting bright streaks of color and a slit up one of her legs. Dark brown curls hovered above her shoulders and cascaded down the back of her neck, while glittery red eyeshadow made her blue eyes pop. She looked so natural, posing and smiling for the cameras, that you couldn’t help but feel a bit envious of her.

Upon seeing you, Ruby’s eyes brightened, and a goofy grin spread across her face. She walked towards you, wrapping an arm around your waist and instantly making the cameras go wild. Your cheeks flushed into a bright pink tint. You missed her touch, and having her arm wrapped around you like that almost felt like deja vu.

While the both of you posed for the flashing cameras, Ruby leaned down to your ear and whispered one single sentence, the answer to a question you didn’t need to ask.

“I missed you.”

Unsurprisingly, the movie premiere turned out to be a massive success. The audience was extremely receptive to the storyline, cheering and gasping at all the right moments. Critics even approached you after the screening to rave about your performance and promise a glowing review.

The after-party was held at a nearby banquet hall, decorated to look like the underwater city of Atlantis. Filk music blasted through speakers while an open bar served space-themed cocktails.

You were busy making your rounds, establishing connections with other attendees while sipping a ‘cosmonaut’ from the open bar. While posing for a photo with a fan, you couldn’t help but realize you hadn’t seen Ruby in a bit. You craned your neck to look for her, but she was nowhere to be found. You shrugged it off, thinking it’s just a big venue and you’d probably run into her at some point during the night.

After several photos, impromptu interviews, and business cards you had nowhere to put, you were exhausted. You tried to make yourself as invisible as possible, leaning against a curtain by the back wall and downing the last sip of your cocktail.

While scanning the room, you noticed some of your castmates appeared slightly tipsy. You felt bad for them, knowing their press interviews would come off as less than professional, but there was a small part of you that wished you had more to drink throughout the night. The party was fun, sure, but took a lot out of you, and alcohol was sure to make it more tolerable.

Suddenly, while you were immersed in watching a crew member profusely apologize to an intern she had drunkenly stumbled into, you felt a disembodied hand appear out of nowhere and wrap around your arm. The hand pulled you behind the curtain you were leaning against, causing you to gasp and drop your empty cup.

You whipped around to see who grabbed you, preparing to throw a punch or scream for help if you had to. Instead, your eyes softened and you lowered your fist upon seeing Ruby, standing there staring at you with a devilish smirk.

“Hi pretty girl.” She cooed, taking a step towards you.

“Ruby…” you half-whispered in shock, eyes traveling up and down her body. “What are you doing?”

“I missed you,” she rested her hands on your hips and bit her lip, letting an ounce of vulnerability shine through her otherwise confident exterior. “I missed this. I feel like we barely got to see each other all night.”

“Me too,” you responded, internally melting at the feeling of her warm hands on your torso.

You wrapped your arms around her neck and leaned close to her before a sense of paranoia made you backtrack. “Ruby, it’s a big party, what if someone sees us?”

Ruby simply shrugged, completely unbothered. “Like you said, it’s a big party. Our castmates are drunk, the press is too focused on capturing their embarrassing moments.”

Her words seemed to reassure you, and you pulled her close to you again, feeling the warmth of her body against yours. “I’m glad you pulled me away.”

Ruby crashed her lips against yours, forcing a soft moan to escape your throat. She pulled back, looking deep into your eyes and holding your face in her hands.

“Careful now. We don’t want anyone hearing us.”

You nodded, non-verbally promising to keep quiet before Ruby brought her lips to yours again. Both of you sighed into the kiss, eight months of absence making itself prominent with passion. She tasted like sweet nostalgia with a hint of coconut rum, probably leftover from a drink she had earlier.

Ruby pressed herself against you, and you grabbed at the back of her neck, desperate to be as close to her as possible. She kept her hands planted at your waist, thumbing over the metallic fabric of your gown. Each time her fingertips pressed into your sides sent electrifying shocks through your body, making your knees stutter and causing you to lean more into Ruby for balance.

You brought your hands up to play with one of her curls, prompting a gentle sigh to travel from her mouth into yours. A smirk appeared on your lips, realizing your beloved brunette enjoyed having her hair played with.

Just when you were about to fully take advantage of this newfound information, a sudden crash engulfed your ears, followed by a blinding light and a collective gasp. You and Ruby pulled away from each other, turning your heads to check out the commotion.

One of the interns had drunkenly stumbled into the curtain and pulled it down with him as he fell, leaving you and Ruby entangled in each other and completely exposed to the rest of the party.

All hell broke loose. Interviewers screamed questions from across the room while paparazzi cameras flashed in your face. Those without cameras pulled out their phones and filmed the both of you, desperate for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Anxiety overtook your body as you felt a lump rise to your throat and your heart sink to your feet. You turned to look at Ruby, eyes full of fear, but she wasn’t looking at you. She was looking straight at the flashing cameras, with an expression that made your blood run cold.

You had never seen her bright blue eyes filled with so much anger.

The pit in your stomach grew as you scrolled through the tabloid headlines and Twitter articles featuring your and Ruby’s “stunt” from the other night. This was bad. So bad, that both of your agents had gotten together to hire a public relations manager just for the situation.

Two days after the movie premiere, an emergency meeting was called. Five of you were called to the manager’s office, with both of your agents sitting on either side of him, and you and Ruby placed across from the three of them.

The manager, named Rick, held out his hand and you gave him his phone back, sick of scrolling through the headlines anyway. As far as you could tell, Rick didn’t seem like a bad guy, but it was clear Ruby didn’t feel the same. She hadn’t said a word throughout the entire meeting, instead keeping her arms crossed in front of her chest and pointing a cold glare towards the man in front of her.

She didn’t trust him, and everyone in the room knew it.

Rick gave the both of you a sheepish grin. “As you both can probably see, you’re kind of the flavor of the week right now.”

Ruby’s agent nodded in agreement. “I have a friend in New York, and she heard a rumor about an SNL sketch being written about the whole thing.”

Your agent sighed, clearly having heard the rumor herself. Ruby simply scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“Is it really that big of a deal?” You piped up.

All eyes turned to look at you, making you shrink in your seat. “I mean, can’t we just wait for it to blow over? All we did was kiss at an after party.”

“It’s not like we were fucking, Rick.” Ruby growled through her teeth, causing a blush to appear on your cheeks.

Rick cleared his throat, uncomfortable with Ruby’s candidness. “Well it’s not really that simple…”

“No one knows what you are.” Your agent interrupted. “All the public knows is you were caught going at it like teenagers in a basement, and now the media is going to be on top of everything you do until they figure it out.”

Ruby’s agent nodded. “Before this, we wanted you both to appear single to the public. You’re both very attractive girls. People want you, and we want them to think they can have you.”

“But that’s not really an option now.” Rick pointed out. “Fortunately, both of you have pretty reputable status in Hollywood. People see two of their favorite actresses together, feedback is bound to be mostly positive.”

He opened up a notepad in front of him and started scribbling down something you couldn’t quite make out.

“I’m thinking, we take this relationship and go completely public. Social media posts, dates open to the paparazzi, everything. That way, the media won’t have to do any guess work and this whole thing will blow over sooner.”

Suddenly, Ruby stood up from her seat and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Ruby!” Her agent called after her.

She turned to flash an apologetic smile towards all the shocked faces staring back at her. “I’m sorry. She’s not usually like this. I’ll talk to her.”

She ran out of the room after Ruby, leaving Rick and your agent to go over the details of the plan. Their voices faded into the background as millions of thoughts swam through your mind. You had a bad feeling about this ‘public relationship’ idea.

How were you supposed to go public with your relationship, when you weren’t even sure if there was a relationship to go public with?

You adjusted your oversized hat and sunglasses while staring up at the cafe sign that read “Grind n’ Dine,” shuddering at the slightly suggestive name.

One week after the meeting with Rick, he worked with your agents to schedule a public date for you and Ruby, tipping off the press to make sure there was media coverage. Grind n’ Dine, a local business, had apparently paid Rick a large sum of money to schedule your date here in the hopes that the publicity would be good for business.

Taking a deep breath, you walked in through the restaurant doors and looked around. Several members of the press were already present, wearing cameras around their necks and sipping coffee at various tables. You breathed out a sigh of relief that they didn’t recognize you yet, thankful for your agent who suggested arriving in disguise.

In the very back of the restaurant, tucked into a booth, you spotted Ruby hiding behind a menu. She had her body and hair buried under a large black hoodie, and masked her face with sunglasses similar to yours. You made your way over to her, trying to act natural, and making sure to avoid press members as much as possible in case they recognize you before you’re ready.

You slid into the seat across from her and cleared your throat to alert her of your presence. She put down her menu and laid it flat, before tilting her sunglasses down to meet your eyes.

Her blue eyes, once lively and bright, were now bloodshot and emotionless. Dark circles hung like bags underneath them, as if she hadn’t slept in days. You felt a sharp pang in your chest. Ruby had never looked at you this way before, and you wished more than anything that she would stop.

“Ready for this?” She asked, her voice monotone and lifeless.

You gulped, nodding defeatedly. “As I’ll ever be.”

Ruby removed her sunglasses and pulled down her hood, shaking out her wild brunette locks. You followed suit, taking off your hat and slipping your sunglasses into your purse.

Almost immediately, members of the press recognized the both of you, and practically trampled the poor servers and other diners to get to your booth. Cameras were suddenly shoved in your face, followed by microphones and what felt like hundreds of pointless and rather invading questions.

“Is this a date? How would you define your relationship?”

“If you had to describe your sex life using only three words, what would they be?”

“Ruby! Do you think every liberal democrat should take home a migrant to show their support for the proposed open border policy?”

The two of you mumbled terse responses to some of the questions, and completely ignored others. After several minutes of verbal torture, a perky blonde waitress fought her way through the press and stopped at the end of your table. She sported a wide politician's smile not directed at the two of you, instead flashed to the surrounding cameras in search of fifteen minutes of fame.

“Hi guys,” she started, her voice unnaturally high pitched. “My name is Bethany, what can I get started for you today?”

“I’ll have a quinoa salad and cranberry juice, please.” You answered, handing Bethany your menu.

The press murmured imperceptible comments regarding your order, some even scribbling notes on napkins. “Quinoa… salad…”

“Just a coffee’s fine.” Ruby mumbled, order being followed by press comments as well.

As soon as Bethany walked away, the paparazzi shoved the cameras back in your face and bombarded you and Ruby with questions once more.

“Did you order cranberry juice because you like cranberry juice or because you have a UTI? How did you get this UTI?”

“I noticed you were the only one who ordered food. Could it be because you’re eating for two?”

“Speaking of, why didn’t you order food, Ruby? Are you battling some kind of eating disorder? Would you like to comment on it?”

“Enough!” Ruby exclaimed, perhaps louder than she should have.

Immediately, the press was silent, with only the sound of sporadic camera clicks being heard. Ruby turned to look at you, tears starting to well in her tired eyes.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this…” she whispered, getting up and running out of the restaurant.

“Ruby! Wait, please!” You stood up and ran after her, leaving the paparazzi in the dust behind you.

You found Ruby leaning against a building across the cafe. She had her head resting against the cool brick, and her face pointed to the sky while she blinked back tears threatening to fall.

A lump formed in your throat as you started to approach her. You couldn’t stand to see her like this. She looked so… miserable.

“Ruby…” you muttered softly, reaching out your hand.

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the concrete, refusing to look you in the eye. “I just wasn’t hungry! It’s barely ten in the fucking morning!”

You sighed. “Ruby, we both know that’s not what this is about. What’s going on?”

She sniffed, and focused her gaze on something behind you. “Can we… go somewhere else?”

Turning to see what Ruby was looking at, you noticed a teenage girl filming the two of you on her phone. You rolled your eyes, completely exasperated at this point.

“Let’s go.” You muttered, grabbing her hand to pull her away.

It didn’t take long to find a nearby alleyway, deserted except for an empty dumpster. You dragged Ruby into the back, letting go of her hand once the coast was clear.

“Talk.”

The pale brunette pushed her bangs out of her face, blinking a couple times while gathering her thoughts.

“I just… this is why my Instagram is private. This is why I’ve never explicitly labeled my sexuality. This is why I rarely talk about my personal life! I don’t want the media invading my space! I don’t want random strangers knowing intimate details about my life! It’s fucking freaky!”

You nodded, understanding her perspective, especially as you’d been recently dealing with the wrath of the paparazzi as well. She continued.

“I mean fuck! I can’t even order a damn coffee without some tabloid claiming I have a fucking eating disorder!”

Her breathing seemed to be evening out the more she spoke. She let out a shuddering breath and crossed her arms, staring at the gravel beneath her feet.

“I just… I just wanted to kiss you at an after-party. I missed you. And now everyone’s forcing us to be in this relationship and make it public but…”

“But no one asked us if we were even together,” you finished.

She nodded. “Exactly! We never even had a conversation just between us. Everyone just assumed.”

You pulled the brunette girl into your arms, wrapping them around her torso. She buried her face in the crook of your neck as you stroked her soft locks.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. “If I had known that’s how you felt…”

“No.” She interrupted. “It wasn’t you. You didn’t do anything, I… listen…”

She pulled away, and you felt a pit form in your stomach. You waited for her to tell you that she didn’t want to see you again, that it was too hard, that it meant nothing.

You held your breath as she took your face in her hands, her blue eyes piercing into yours.

“I like you.”

“You… huh?” Shock painted your features as Ruby said the last thing you were expecting to hear.

“I like you.” She repeated, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned. “I meant it when I said I missed you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire eight months we didn’t talk. I should have reached out more, I don’t know why I didn’t. I guess I was scared? I don’t know…”

She was babbling, and you didn’t think she could get any cuter. You took her hands off your face and held them in yours, flashing her an encouraging smile.

“I like you too,” you replied giddily. “More than you know.”

Ruby chuckled, a faint blush tinting her cheeks. She stared down at the gravel again, chewing on her lip before speaking.

“I like you… I really do, but if we’re gonna start this… something, I’d want to take it slow and be completely private. No socials, no media, at least for now. Would… that be something you’re okay with?”

You squeezed her hands, flashing her a goofy grin. “I would… love that, actually.”

As you stared at your former celebrity crush, turned co-star, turned friend, turned… something, a wave of courage suddenly washed over you. Letting go of her hands, you seized her face and brought your lips to hers, tentatively, testing the waters. She gasped, but soon kissed back, sighing as she wrapped her arms around your neck and leaned into your body.

You moved your hand towards the back of her neck, then slowly inched upwards until your fingers were entangled in her hair. An almost inaudible moan escaped her lips and vibrated against yours as you played with her soft tresses. You smirked into the kiss, remembering exactly how much she liked having her hair played with before getting caught at the after-party.

Finally, after what could have been an eternity, you pulled away from each other. The two of you gasped for breath, both smiling like giddy children at the other.

“So… what now?” You asked breathlessly.

Ruby hummed to herself, seemingly in thought. “We could… go on a real date? Just you and me? No paparazzi. There’s this great little hole-in-the-wall place I like to go to when I don’t want to get recognized.”

You tilted your head, shooting her a lopsided smile. “That sounds perfect, actually.”

Before leaving the alleyway, Ruby put her sunglasses back on and pulled her hood over her head again, while you dug your sunglasses out of your purse and readjusted your hat. The two of you were disguised, hidden from the world, but happy to be able to pursue each other away from public opinion.

Ruby reached out her hand, her blue eyes somehow still managing to shine behind her sunglasses. “Ready for this?”

You smiled back at her, taking her hand and intertwining her fingers with yours. “As I’ll ever be.”

[carrymelikeimcute]

I feel we moved on from this too quickly because holy SHIT am I obsessed with this moment.

Backing up a bit, I think Izzy has a very rigid sense of what is acceptable and what isn't. This is not a moral thing (pirate) or inherently tied to masculinity, though that's part of it ie. what is expected of a man. I think if I had to put a label on it, it would be a sort of code, like chivalry but incredibly fucked up. A sort of pirate code.

For example, Izzy wants Stede dead in 'The Art of Fuckery' but he doesn't kill him in his sleep or jump him. He challenges him to a duel. Now, that is not a FAIR contest, because Izzy is a fucking amazing swordsman and Stede is canonically barely able to hold a sword without cutting himself. BUT I think in Izzy's twisted 'code of conduct' if Stede fails this challenge, that is Stede's failure (not being a good swordsman, not being a real man/pirate), and not Izzy's unfair action. Whereas stabbing him in his sleep would reflect poorly on Izzy. Failing at a duel reflects badly on Stede instead.

When he loses the duel, he leaves and we don't see him being forced to leave. He set the rules and even thought he is spitting mad about leaving, he goes.

Involving the English in this conflict between himself and Stede is a break from that, I think when he's apologetic to Ed afterwards - it's not really because of the OUTCOME it's because of HOW he got there. It's less 'sorry I'm getting your boyfriend killed' and more 'I am not proud of how I went about this'. This is a man who calls an ambush 'unprofessional' - involving the navy in a pirate dispute is as unprofessional as it gets.

Later, we see that Izzy cannot bring himself to hurt/kill Ed even after he's been tortured and maimed by him. Because he loves Ed in his own way, but also Ed is his captain and it's a breach of everything he stands for to attack him. The only thing that can get him to *non-fatally* incapacitate him, is Ed harming the crew. Izzy believes he deserves Ed's treatment of him, but the crew do not - he tells Stede that they 'suffered' for mistakes Izzy and Stede made and that he deserved to lose his leg ''dangling it over the side'. The crew are innocent. Had they earned a punishment, I think Izzy wouldn't have blinked in carrying it out. When he marooned half the crew, that was acceptable pirate behaviour. But murdering the rest of them for no reason is unfair and unjustifiable. It is self-indulgent, pointless and serves no practical purpose.

Anyway, back to this scene.

I interpret this as Izzy desperately not wanting to offer Stede anything, but he HAS to, he can't not thank him for saving his life. Even if he hates him, even if he wishes he'd never seen him again...Stede saved his life, and Izzy can't ignore that because it's a breach of his personal code. His own, stiff, weirdly formal way of interacting with others based on rules and hierarchy.

And he has to know that Stede would not react well to this, that at BEST he'd walk away and at worst would insult him. But he still had to say it. That's the rule. It would reflect badly on Izzy if he didn't offer that thanks, even if he knows it isn't wanted.

I think a pre-torture/dismemberment/starvation Izzy would have hissed it through his teeth, he'd have spat it out like it was poison, but he'd have said it anyway. What we get here is a very beaten-down, broken man, who can't even be angry that Stede was the one to save his skin, because he has been close to death for weeks now. Anger takes energy and pride and self-respect and Izzy has lost all that. But he's still holding on to his code.