~sun moon~

Originally, you'd planned to spend the night on the couch with your tabby cat, Brutus (named in such a way so when he inevitably destroyed your furniture or knocked your favorite mug off the table you could at least find some whimsy in crying "Et tu, Brute?" theatrically), and a movie that you'd heard would make you cry. You'd been meaning to cry for a while now, but hadn't been able to find the time. You supposed you could push it to another night, depending on how long you ended up being in the hospital tonight.

You hummed along to the playlist you'd started on your speaker as you prepared a blood smear from the sample you'd been called in for.

Jack Abbot was the attending on shift in the ED this evening. You had only met him in person once or twice, but you were glad it was him and not Michael. Or, Robby, it seemed he was going by these days. You hadn't yet run into him since being back at PTMC, but you were not eager to reminisce with him, especially since it was becoming more and more clear that he had no recollection of you.

It shouldn't have bothered you so much. It had been two med school rotations and one extremely disappointing hookup when you'd both gotten too drunk after shift. But he had been instrumental in you picking pathology for residency. At the time, the decision had been full of complicated emotions, resentment, a complete misunderstanding of who you were and what you wanted. But now, well, you thought maybe you owed him your gratitude.

Your phone pinged while you were prepping your slides and you eyed it and found it was a notification from Hinge.

From Robby.

You inhaled slowly and looked away as your screen went dark. You had no idea what the fuck you were doing, chatting with Robby on a dating site. You told yourself you just were curious when your thumb tapped the heart on his profile. Middle aged looked really really good on him, you wouldn't deny that, but you still saw the baby faced, skinny rod of a med student when you looked at him. And when he'd first initiated the chat, you realized very quickly he didn't remember you.

You found yourself preening under his attention, how he complimented your photos and your mind through conversations. The both of you established early on that you didn't want to discuss work beyond confirming that you were both doctors working in PTMC. But you repeatedly dodged his attempts to meet up and grab a drink. You weren't sure how long you could keep it all up without admitting that you knew him already. Intimately, even.

You suspected soon enough, he'd get tired of trying to get you to meet up with him and move on to the next thing. But thus far, he'd been persistent, going on weeks now.

But you didn't have time for him right now so you turned your attention back to your slides. Slipping one beneath the microscope, you focused the knobs slowly, letting your world narrow to the blood sample, the blood cells.

This was why you loved your job. How easy it was to slip outside yourself and into whatever sample you were looking at. There was always a clear answer hiding in the shape of the cells, just beneath the surface. There was always a clear path to diagnosis, to treatment, to healing. Everything made perfect sense under the light of a microscope.

And this sample, as always, made perfect sense after just a few minutes. You sighed, "Shit."

You couldn't risk just sending this back via the online portal for whenever the doctor deigned to check the chart next so you picked up the phone. It rang and rang and rang.

You shook your head and put the phone back on the receiver. As quickly as possible, you documented the chart, still trying to get ahold of someone, but no one was picking up the phone. What the fuck was going on down there?

Impatient, you decided to head down yourself after saving your changes in the chart. You walked briskly towards the elevators, rocked on your heels as you waited.

The second the elevator doors opened you were knocked practically on your ass by the noise and the chaos of the ED. It was rare you came down here at all and every time you did it felt like being thrown back to med school rotations. Suddenly you were again the floundering med student constantly being expected to be on the lookout for the daggers of the other students as well as practice medicine efficiently.

But you were an adult now, not the twenty year old naive kid genius walking around on wobbly legs. Pushing your shoulders back, you shook it off and headed for the hub. Luckily, Dr. Abbot was right there.

"Your phones not working down here or something?" You asked without preamble, hands on your hips.

Abbot looked up at you slowly and then over to the phone. You followed his gaze and saw that the phone was lying off the receiver, "Ah, shit, sorry." He put the receiver back on the hook, "What could be so urgent it coaxes path from the comforts of the cave upstairs?"

You smirked, "Your patient has TTP."

He sighed and picked up an iPad, "Fuck," he muttered when he pulled up the chart you'd just updated, "Okay, um," He shook his head, "I don't think we have the resources down here to start TPE."

You frowned, "Okay… Admit to ICU, then."

He laughed, "Yeah, right. Good luck getting the charge to agree to admit a patient on a Saturday night."

You bit your lip, and then sighed, "Alright, give me… fifteen minutes and I'll be back down here with an apheresis machine, I'll run it."

He raised his eyebrows, "Really? You'd do that?"

You shrugged, "I could run apheresis in my sleep."

Slowly Abbot nodded and smirked at you, "Alright, great. Thank you."

Later, you sat in the hub of the emergency department after setting up the patient for TPE and finally opened your messages from Michael—Robby, you corrected yourself.

What's my favorite homebody up to this evening? Any way I can convince you to grab a drink?

You stifled a smirk and typed back, I'm on call tonight. Sorry, cowboy.

"Hey," You looked up to see Abbot leaning over the counter to look at you, "Seriously, thank you for staying."

"No problem," You eyed the chaos around you, "Seemed like you guys could use the help."

"Always." He laughed and nodded, "Listen, some of us in the ED are getting together for a poker night next Friday, would you… be interested in coming?"

You blinked up at him, unsure of what to make of the offer. Was he flirting or just being nice? You'd heard that Jack Abbot flirted with everyone, so likely he didn't mean anything by it at all. While you were trying to figure it out, your phone pinged again. Robby. You flipped your phone facedown on the workstation desk.

"Why not?" You said and smiled up at him.

"Great," He unlocked his phone and handed it to you, "Here, put your number in and I'll text you the details."

Having entered your information, you returned his phone to him and then he was off. Sighing, you turned back to your phone to open Robby's latest message.

They're working you too hard. I thought path was supposed to be easy?

You rolled your eyes at this, but were unsurprised. For as much as you remembered him complaining about surgeons during your rotations, that they had a superiority complex, he had the same issues. And so had you, once upon a time, but you had grown out of it.

Having a work-life balance doesn't make the whole specialty "easy."

Almost immediately, a reply was on your phone: Sorry, I didn't mean to diminish your specialty. The ED would cease to function without collaboration from path, I know that. And your diagnoses have saved our asses on multiple occasions when we were busy chasing zebras.

Well. That was new. An apology without hesitation that seemed to drip through with humility and sincerity.

Though, it also was not lost on you that he had incentive to be nicer to you in the context of a dating app considering he'd been trying to fuck you for the last few weeks.

Apology accepted, you texted back, I know your true frustration lies with the inability to have your way with me tonight. You stifled a smile after hitting send. It reminded you of being in college, the casual flirtation. You hadn't had time for this sort of thing in med school or residency, doing your best to just survive. Then, when you were finally an attending, you were so burnt out you remembered practically sleep walking through the first couple of years. By the time that was all over, you felt so out of practice you'd mostly isolated yourself until now.

You'd had a few one night stands since creating a Hinge profile, but since you and Robby had begun chatting he had taken up all of your mental space. This irritated you greatly on top of the fact that he didn't seem to remember you.

And here I thought I was doing an excellent job at concealing my desperation.

You huffed a laugh and shook your head, Could you show me just how desperate you are for me?

You fidgeted with your fingers anxiously as you waited for his response, wondering for just a few moments if you had been too brazen, too forward—The phone pinged.

You slid open your phone and felt lightheaded as you took in the photo he'd sent you. His fist was wrapped around the considerable length of his very erect cock, dark tufts of hair at the base of his fist. You had both been pretty drunk the time you'd hooked up in the darkness of Robby's messy studio apartment and as he'd had trouble maintaining an erection that night, you'd never gotten a good look at it. Not like this.

There was a lump in your throat and you swallowed hard as another message came through: The photos you sent in that pretty lingerie set will have to do for tonight.

You felt your cheeks heat and blinked the steamy feeling from your eyes. Locking your phone, you placed it face down in front of you and stared off into the distance for a while.

And after a minute or so of this, when your galloping heart slowed and lucid thinking began to ease its way behind your eyes again, you had only a single thought:

Oh, no.

***

An unseasonable heat wave had domed around Pittsburgh the last couple of days and so when Robby headed to Jack's place for poker night that Friday, the sun had gone down, but the residual heat warmed him enough that he didn't need a jacket.

He had been waffling back and forth on whether or not to skip the night all together. The week had been crushing him, slowly, a boulder rolling incremently into a brick wall, an unstoppable force.

There had been a few patients they'd lost that really stuck with him this week. They'd been short on residents which meant he'd had to do a bit more hands on care than usual.

And more and more when he found things growing particularly dark, he'd reach for you. You, with your gorgeous smile and silly cat and constant, almost oppressive optimism.

He'd tease you about it, but really he admired it. How no matter how bleak of a day you had, he had, you'd find a way to turn it on its head.

Sure, you'd had to stage the breast cancer of a woman in her thirties and the news wasn't good, but you'd gotten to hold her hand and tell her about all the ground breaking treatment that was available to her. Sure, you'd cried about her for days later, but she'd sent you a card the next week thanking you for the simple act of holding her hand. Of showing her kindness. And maybe you'd get to see her through to remission as you'd done for countless others.

That was your favorite part, you'd tell him. Diagnosing sucked, but treatment plans and seeing people through to the other side, sliding biopsies under your microscope to see healthy tissue. Remission.

"That's why you're so miserable down there," You'd told him, "You mostly see people on their worst days, you don't get to celebrate with them when they make it to recovery. You don't get to see the returns."

He craved your perspective, wanted desperately to have it himself. But he wasn't sure it was possible for him the way it was for you. With your nine to five and weekends off and time to date—though apparently, not time for him.

He had thought at first that you were simply waiting him out, waiting to see if he'd lose interest. You'd been open about the fact that your time on dating apps had largely led you to become disillusioned with the possibility of a real, fulfilling relationship. He felt the same, mostly. The only thing the apps had ever been good for was a night or two to fill the oppressive silence of his house.

But he continued trying with you, which had led to the two of you sexting and him being as open as he could remember being in recent years about how badly he wanted someone. Still, you avoided him.

He'd texted you earlier to see if you were around tonight and you had left him on read, so begrudgingly, he'd be going to poker night instead. Anything other than being alone with his thoughts tonight after they'd lost a woman with eclampsia and her baby.

But when he walked into Jack's living room, a beer in hand, he was stunned to see you sitting on the couch, immersed in conversation with Mckay and Al Hashimi.

Your eyes darted to his and then quickly away, but he saw the way your eyes widened and your chest swelled. You didn't know he was going to be there.

"Hey man, you made it," Jack clapped Robby on the shoulder, "Glad you came."

But Robby couldn't tear his eyes off you, "You invited path?"

Jack followed his gaze, "Oh, yeah, she helped us out last weekend with a TTP patient. Figured it was only polite. Honestly, I didn't think she'd come. Why, do you know her?"

With effort, Robby tore his eyes away from you, "Wha—? Oh, no. No more than you do, you know, the rare occasion path comes down."

Jack narrowed his eyes at Robby, "Right," he said slowly, "Okay. Well, can I interest you in a round of Blackjack?"

Robby chuckled and shook his head, "No thank you, learned my lesson years ago not to play cards with you."

Jack smirked and watched as Robby's gaze flitted back to you, "I think she's too well adjusted for you."

Robby's head whipped back around, a hot flush crawling up his neck, "Excuse me?" He said through nervous laughter.

Jack shrugged, "I'm just saying, she seems like she wouldn't tolerate your bullshit and you'd probably get bored at how… normal she is."

Robby blinked at him, "Who said I'm interested?"

Jack rolled his eyes, "Please, don't insult me, brother. The last time I saw you look at a woman like that was the first time you met Heather. And you'll recall she also was unwilling to put up with your bullshit."

He knew Jack was mostly being playful, but it stung nonetheless, the thought that someone else besides himself thought he was incapable of being in a healthy and loving relationship. That no one in their right mind could want to stay with him.

For just a second he was eight years old again wondering if he was such a terrible, rotten son that it'd pushed his mother to end her own life—The thought rushed up against the dam in his brain and just as quickly receded. He wouldn't think about that. Not now. Not here.

He forced a smile for Jack, "You don't need to remind me. I remember."

After a moment Jack squeezed his shoulders, "But what do I know, hm? Go shoot your shot."

Robby rolled his eyes, "You have far too many Gen Z staff on your shift."

But still, Robby wandered over to you eventually, surprised to find that he was a bit nervous, "Is this why you didn't answer my text earlier?" He asked quietly as he sat down.

You turned just a bit towards him, "I didn't think you'd be here, honestly. It doesn't seem like your scene."

He laughed, "Meaning?"

"Meaning it's too… jovial," You teased.

He ran a hand over the back of his head, "Well, I'm glad I came. It's nice to finally meet you in person."

You grimaced, "Yeah, we've met before, Michael."

He frowned and turned fully to you, "What're you—? No we haven't."

You nodded slowly, "We have, yeah. We went to med school together. Did rotations together."

For a moment he paused and tilted his head, turned your name over in his head, "No… No, you're too young to have gone to med school with me—" His eyes caught on your wrist as your fingers tapped lightly against the glass of your beer bottle. A tattoo in looping scroll that read As you wish. With a dagger beneath the words. The feeling of nostalgia almost violently overtook him. There was only one other woman he'd ever met who had that tattoo of a quote from The Princess Bride in that exact spot.

"Bambi?" He asked, sounding almost breathless.

You wrinkled your nose and turned away from him, "I always hated that nickname."

But Robby couldn't tear his eyes off you. There were a million thoughts running through his head as suddenly images flashed behind his eyes, the two of you twenty years younger and constantly at each other's throats, desperate to prove you were better than the other. But the first thought that he blurted out of his mouth was, "You went into pathology?"

You laughed and shook your head, "I knew you didn't mean it when you said you respected my specialty—"

"That's not what I meant—"

"What else could you have meant by the condescension dripping from your tone right now?"

He opened and closed his mouth before hanging his head, "I'm just… Surprised, is all. You were… a force in the ER. You could have had your pick of any emergency medicine residency in the country, surely."

You stared ahead for a few moments, tightlipped and eyes glossy, "Emergency medicine nearly burned me out just at rotations, I imagine I would have been… a shell of myself had I stayed. And at the time, you certainly agreed."

He huffed in indignation, "That is categorically false, I thought you were brilliant."

"Well you sure had a funny way of showing it. Talking over me, talking down to me in front of attendings, basically celebrating every mistake I made—"

"Everyone else practically worshiped you. I was just trying to make sure I wasn't overlooked. You know how cutthroat it was down there—"

"Exactly," You nodded, "Which is why I'm actually grateful for the way you treated me. It wore me down enough that I knew if I couldn't get through even a rotation or two, there was no way I'd make it through a residency. Not in that environment."

He pressed his lips together and looked down at his hands, "Look, I'm… I apologize… For how I spoke to you back then, I was a stupid kid, I was just trying to survive as best I knew how. It's not an excuse, I just. I'm sorry."

You didn't seem upset as you looked at him, eyes gently passing over his face. You lifted the beer bottle to your lips and he watched the lights refract off the glass.

"It's fine," You said eventually, "You were far from the only reason I went into path."

"Why didn't you say anything? When we—When we started talking? Why didn't you tell me?"

You shrugged, "I thought maybe you'd forgotten me altogether. Or worse, that remembering me would mean you'd no longer be interested."

You carefully avoided looking at him when you said this, but screwed your mouth down to the side as you chewed your cheek.

Robby sat back and took a sip from his own beer, "It seems like I should have been the one to worry about that. Since I was the one who treated you so horribly."

You cleared your throat and turned back towards him. He was struck again by a sense of nostalgia at the intensity in your gaze. He had nicknamed you Bambi all those years ago because of your skittishness, the way that everything seemed to terrify you. Despite how smart you were and how clearly gifted a doctor you would become, you were easily startled and easily overwhelmed by the din of the emergency room. It hadn't been all that uncommon to find you in the ambulance bay after a hard case, slouched on the ground against the wall, hands trembling as they cradled your face.

But it had also been the intensity in your eyes, how every emotion was always so clearly reflected in their glossy pools, that had been the real inspiration behind the nickname. He had never intended it to be cruel, though it appeared that's how you'd interpreted it. It was something he had admired about you, the ease with which you'd connected with your patients because the empathy was so clear on your face. Of course, he had never told you that. Afraid to let on to any perceived weakness around you.

He suspected, though, that you hated the nickname because he had also used it as a weapon against your naivete. He remembered the ways he'd called attention to your age and when the Bambi nickname had spread there had been no way for you to escape it.

Now, though, your eyes were glossy again and he felt bowled over by the way you stared at him, a wistfulness in your expression, "Are you actually sorry or is it just that you think I'm hot now?"

He was so surprised by your question, he gave out a short laugh, "Please, I thought you were hot then, too."

You snorted, "Well, now I know you're lying."

"The nickname Bambi, if nothing else, implies that I found you adorable at the very least."

You rolled your eyes, "Even if I agreed with that assessment—which I don't—it was very clear from that one time we slept together that you were uninterested—"

"Woah—woah—woah— back up. When we slept together?"

You looked at him blankly for a few moments, "Oh my God," You said quickly, seemingly embarrassed as you looked away from him, "You don't remember. It was so bad you don't even remember."

Robby's brain was still working overtime to catch up with you, "Hold on—I would remember sleeping with you."

You stood up from the couch, and he remembered this about you—You had been spooked, you were about to dart back into the woods, never to be seen again. But he stood at the same time, towering above you, "Don't go," he said quietly, "whatever happened was twenty something years ago, it doesn't mean anything—"

"It does to me." You said firmly, "Excuse me," And you forced your way past him.

Robby watched you walk away for a moment, then turned his head to see Jack shaking his head, a slight smirk on his face. A very blatant I told you so if Robby'd ever seen one.

"Shit," Robby muttered under his breath and hung his head.

***

TWENTY SOMETHING YEARS AGO

Michael was being very touchy that evening and overly kind, paying for your drinks and wrapping an arm around you in the booth. It was making you shy. Despite the way he talked to you, at you, over you, there were cases every now and then when you caught him looking at you with what looked like awe or reverence. But just as quickly, it'd dissipate and you'd be left wondering if you'd imagined it.

"Let me walk you home," he said, slurring only a little, his words just slightly stumbling into one another like dominos. He wrapped your jacket around your shoulders as he spoke.

"I'm fine," You smiled at him, "I think you're the one who needs to be walked home."

He held up his hands in mock surrender, a boyish grin on his face, "You got me. I do need to be chaperoned home if you would be so kind."

You rolled your eyes, but secretly you were pleased. You wanted to be his friend, wanted him to respect you so you didn't have to keep having panic attacks alone in the bathroom. You were still very much like a scared little kid in that way, just wanting at least one other person to just see you, truly.

So you allowed Michael to swing his arm around your shoulders as he directed you towards his place. It was just a couple of blocks from the hospital, but when you got to the building, a rundown, brutalist slab of concrete, you frowned, "You live here?"

"Now, don't sound so disgusted, princess," he teased and pulled you along behind him inside the building, "Not all of us have wealthy parents to fund our gorgeous apartments in buildings that have doormen."

You felt your cheeks heat, "That's not—That's not entirely true." He looked at you dubiously, eyebrows raised, and you furrowed yours, "I pay for my utilities," You grumbled.

He chuckled and ran a hand over his jaw before sliding his key into his door.

"If it's not too revolting to you," He said softly as he pushed the door open, "You're welcome to come inside for a drink."

Something changed in the tone of his voice and as you tried to place it, you saw the way his eyes roved down your body.

You had never had sex with anyone before, had never had the time. You were in college by the time you were fifteen and because you were so young no one really wanted to hang out with you. You didn't get invited to parties or study sessions (unless someone was trying to inadvertently get you to do their homework). Once you got to medical school, you were still only seventeen, still too young for any of your peers to show much interest.

When you turned twenty one, the shift had been subtle. But suddenly, you were being included to go out for drinks. Then people raised their eyebrows less when you said you were in med school. The stares lingered longer and traveled farther.

And now Michael was looking at you like that, too.

Maybe you should've thought it over more, said goodnight and gone straight home. But you were so painfully lonely. You should've hated him for the way he'd treated you, but it only spurred you on. You were used to having to compete for scraps of love from people who seemed to not like you much. Had been doing it since you learned to talk.

So you followed him inside.

It was freezing inside his apartment. So cold, in fact, your breath was beginning to cloud in front of you.

"Jesus Christ, Michael, is your heat broken or something?"

"Uh, no," He said from the kitchen. You heard the sound of glasses and bottles clinking before he reappeared, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other, "Just… trying to conserve. But we can turn the heat on for you, princess." He said with a wink.

You sat on his couch with your arms crossed and felt your lip jut out in a pout, "I'm not spoiled, you know. I just—It's just as cold outside as it is in here. Can't be good for you. Or the pipes."

"Many of us," He said as he poured you each a glass, amber liquid sloshing up the sides, "Had to learn to live without. I didn't grow up in a mansion like you."

You scoffed, "I'm not the sort of rich you think I am, I grew up in the suburbs. My parents still have to work for a living. Yes, it was comfortable, but we're not fucking millionaires. We don't have, like, a fucking second house in the Hamptons."

He nodded, "Still seems pretty rich to me."

You rolled your eyes, "Well, what do your parents do then?"

That insufferable smirk finally fell from his face and for a second you felt vindicated.

"If you must know," He started, staring intently at the liquor in his glass, "I don't know who my father is, never met him. And my mother killed herself when I was eight. I found her swinging from the rafters one day when I got home from school."

You stared at him, stunned, while he knocked back the rest of his whiskey and poured himself another, "My grandparents took me in after that and then when I was sixteen, my grandfather died. When I was twenty, my grandmother joined him. So now it's just me."

He raised his glass, forced smile on his face, "May their memories be a blessing." He said, and tossed back the entirety of his drink in one go.

"Michael," you said softly, reaching for him when he began to pour more whiskey, "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

Not unkindly, he pushed your hand away, "You know, I've been thinking that I want people to start calling me Robby."

You frowned, thrown by the change in subject, "What?"

"Yeah, I just, people have trouble with Robinavitch. And Adamson asked me, if he could call me Robby. And I—I really like him and I want him to like me so I think—I think I'm just gonna have everyone call me Robby. It sounds friendlier, don't you think? Once I become a doctor? Doctor Robby."

You felt a sort of tenderness towards him now, after he'd revealed so much of himself to you. You had the distinct urge to hold him, cradle him to you, tell him it was all going to be okay.

"I like Michael," You said quietly, "If it's alright with you."

Finally he met your gaze again and his eyes softened just slightly. Slowly, as if afraid to scare you off, he reached a hand out to cup your cheek. When you leaned into his palm, he stroked his thumb against your cheek bone.

"Sure, Bambi. You can still call me Michael."

You couldn't say which of you closed the distance first, just that the next thing you remembered, his warm, wet mouth was on yours.

At first, the kisses were slow and hesitant. You remembered it was you who deepened it, a whine clamoring out of your throat and into his mouth.

Before you knew it, you had climbed into his lap and pushed him down into the couch. You felt him harden against you and it felt instinctual, the way your hips ground down against him, chasing the friction.

"Fuck," he breathed into your mouth, his hand cradling the back of your neck, "This good?"

You nodded fervently, "Do you have a condom?"

He raised his eyebrows, "Are you sure?"

You nodded again and so he pushed his hand between you, pushing his hand into the pocket of his jeans to pull out a foil packet.

You blinked, "Were you… planning this?"

"No," He said and teared the packet open with his teeth, "But I like to be prepared just in case."

Rolling your eyes, you pulled back to allow him to push his jeans and boxers down. His cock sprung up between you and you felt your breaths grow shallow as you watched him work the condom on.

Carefully, you hiked your dress up to your hips, hoping he didn't notice the way your hands shook. His eyes stayed on yours as you shifted your underwear to the side and slowly lowered yourself onto him.

"Oh, God." He sighed, sounding just a breathless as you felt at the stretch of him. It burned for just a moment, almost pleasantly, "Look at me," He said and your eyes locked back on his.

You leaned your forehead against his as you slowly moved your hips along the length of him, "Is this—Is it good?" You asked, your voice small and uncertain.

"Yeah," He said quickly, pushed his mouth up into yours, "So good," he whispered into your mouth.

But less than a minute later, the sensation changed. It was difficult to move against him, in fact, you weren't even sure he was inside you anymore, "Did you—I mean—Are you—soft?" You could hear your own panic and desperation in your voice as your hips slowed.

A scarlet flush was creeping up his throat and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if to avoid your gaze, "Yeah, I—I think so. S'probably whiskey dick." He finally opened his eyes and maybe sensed your impending humiliation, "Hey—hey—it's not you," He cupped your cheeks with both hands, "It's not you, I swear, you're perfect."

He pulled your face down to his again and you allowed yourself to get lost in the taste of him again, "It's me," he murmured between kisses, "I'm fuckin' defective, it's my fault."

"Michael—"

"Come up here, sit on my face," He said abruptly.

You raised your eyebrows, "Wh—what?"

"Please," He said, sounding desperate, "Please, I wanna taste you. Lemme take care of you."

You sighed and hid your face in your hands, "You don't have to, like, make it up to me—"

"I want to," he said again, "If you do, too. Please."

You couldn't deny that the idea of it had embers of arousal stirring in your belly. You hadn't prepared for the possibility of someone's mouth on you like that, but you didn't want to admit that to him. You didn't want to have to explain the depth of your inexperience lest it kill whatever remained of his desire.

So, you swallowed and moved your way up his body, let him position you, his arms wrapped around your thighs and pulling you to his mouth.

You were immediately overwhelmed by the sensation, gasping and whimpering when he moaned against you, your whole body twitching as it reverberated through your core.

But again, it wasn't long before things slowed, and then—stopped completely. Blinking, you looked down and saw that Michael had fallen asleep.

No, he couldn't have—could he? You leaned in a bit closer, leaning back to fully pull yourself off his face. Oh my God, was that drool on the corner of his mouth?

Mortified, and at a loss for what else to do, you carefully and quietly climbed off him, grabbed your things, and slipped out of his apartment. Heels in hand, you paused outside of his door and exhaled in relief.

You left his apartment feeling even more conflicted about him than before and also feeling a bit dejected. This was the guy who had once tripped you up in a trauma and then said "Don't worry Bambi, it's normal to be a bit wobbly on your legs when you're still just a fawn."

It shouldn't have surprised you at all that he found you unattractive, that obviously he had only allowed you to initiate because you were sat in front of him, willing and able. Like an idiot. Like the naive little kid he had told everyone you were.

You felt stupid and humiliated. And God knew you didn't believe in the fucking patriarchal construct of virginity, but you couldn't deny it made you feel a bit bitter that you had wasted it on Michael Robinavitch. You wouldn't make such an idiotic decision ever again.

He could say a lot about you, but you'd never made the same mistake twice. You didn't intend to start now.

***

Robby watched you through the glass, leaned over Jack's balcony with your arms wrapped around yourself.

This had to be a new record of how quickly he could fuck things up with a potential romantic partner. Once he'd recognized you, he'd felt stupid that he hadn't recognized you immediately when he saw your profile. And maybe there had been some familiarity there, something he'd mistaken for instant attraction and chemistry.

That said, he had wracked his brain and the two of you sleeping together he was near positive had never happened. Or at least, for the life of him, he couldn't remember it. And yes it was true he'd always given you a hard time, but he had also always been enamored by you. Honestly, he'd thought it'd been obvious, especially towards the end of M4.

So he found it hard to believe that he wouldn't remember that. But he also didn't think that you were a liar.

Carefully, he slid the glass door open and stepped outside. The night had cooled significantly since his arrival and as he got closer to you, he saw goosebumps along your arms. You didn't startle when he came up next to you and positioned himself at such an angle as to shield you from the breeze.

"I'm sorry that I don't remember," He said softly after a few moments, "But I'd like you to tell me about it, if you're up for it."

You shook your head, "It's not your fault. It was really horrible, I don't blame you for not remembering."

He groaned, "You know, you could say a lot of shit about me and I wouldn't blink, but hearing I'm bad in bed is a new one for me and I'm not a fan."

You laughed and turned to him, "Oh yeah? You've become something of a casanova in your old age?"

He winced, "Not that old."

You hummed and turned back towards the treeline, "What was it? That made you finally remember me tonight?"

"The Princess Bride tattoo."

You looked at your wrist, "Huh. I would've thought this was one of the things you picked on me for behind my back. Called it childish."

He shook his head, "Nah, The Princess Bride's a classic. I actually always really liked it, thought it was romantic."

You rolled your eyes at that, as if you didn't quite believe him, but didn't comment further. After a moment you sighed, "It was during MS4. We were almost done with our last rotation in the ER and some of the residents invited us out for drinks."

"Oh," Robby said, frowning, "I do remember that. I got really drunk and you walked me back to my apartment."

You nodded, "Right."

"But we didn't… I invited you in for a drink and…" He trailed off. He was drawing a blank, "Did you come inside? I just thought… You never liked me, I thought for sure you declined. I don't remember anything after that."

You narrowed your eyes at him and then sighed, "Well, you did down something like three fingers of whiskey in quick succession once we got in your apartment so I guess it's possible you blacked out."

"You always made me nervous so it's no surprise I drank so much."

You opened and closed your mouth for a moment, but then shook your head quickly, "Yeah, I guess that was it."

"Then what happened?"

You sighed, "We really don't have to rehash this—"

"Please," he pushed his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, "I want to know."

You shook your head and then shrugged, "Fine. About a minute after you put it in, I was riding you and you went soft. So then you… you asked me to sit on your face instead. Which I did. And a minute or two later you… fell asleep."

Robby was silent for a moment as he processed what you'd said. You were deliberately looking away from him, running a hand nervously over the back of your neck.

"Wow," He said finally, "And you still liked my Hinge profile decades later?"

You gave a short laugh, "I was curious if anything had changed, I guess."

He hummed, "A lot has changed, I would say." He ran a finger lightly over the back of your arm and watched as goosebumps spread—But you didn't move away, not even when he bent to your ear and said lowly, "I'd like a chance to make it up to you."

You swallowed and then turned to face him, your faces impossibly close, "Have you ever been married, Michael?"

He frowned and pulled away marginally, "Um… no? Have you?"

You shook your head and looked off into the distance over his shoulder, wistfully, "I got close, once." You sighed, "Listen, I'm too old to be doing this… friends with benefits, situationship, whatever, bullshit. Sex is great, but I have plenty of vibrators that do the job just fine and without the emotional turmoil. So I'm not interested in casual sex. I'm looking for a partner, not a dildo. If you want me you'll have to romance me and mean it."

Robby's eyes roved over your face. Maybe it was your shared memories or the fact that you knew him before he was broken beyond repair, but he felt a tender ache in his chest looking into your eyes. Just as warm and inviting as he remembered.

There were few people these days who could entice him to commit to anything. A real relationship meant having to open himself up to someone else. Allowing them to see the ugliest parts of himself and hope they didn't leave. It usually ended in him lashing out instead so at least he had some semblence of control over the end of the relationship.

Or at least, that was the hypothesis of his last therapist, who he still wasn't entirely sure wasn't full of shit.

But either way, when he thought about pursuing a real, full relationship with you, he didn't feel his usual urge to run. Instead, he felt a curiosity. The need to take you apart, to learn you like he would a medical procedure.

Maybe he wasn't broken after all. Maybe he could have full, healthy relationships like everyone else.

He brought one of his hands up to your neck, watched how you tried to stifle the urge to lean into his touch—Good, you were touch starved, just like him—and his thumb lightly toyed with one of the hoops hanging from your ear.

"'As you wish'." He said softly, a smirk on his face. You rolled your eyes, but the corner of your mouth tugged upward.

"What? You don't believe me?" He tilted his head downward to force eye contact with you, "I've been the one begging you to go on a date with me for weeks."

"A date?" You raised your eyebrows, "They're calling a drink at the bar before taking someone to bed a date now, are they?"

He scoffed, "What, so you want a string quartet and a night out at the ballet?"

You furrowed your brow, "And so what if I did?"

He stared at you for a moment and then chuckled, "Then I'd tell you to wear your favorite dress."

You narrowed your eyes, but then shook your head, "Just dinner would be more than enough."

He nodded, "I can do that. Would you allow me to cook for you?"

You smirked and ran your hands up his forearms, "Sure, but it has to be at my place."

He grinned, ran his thumb back and forth across the skin just below your ear, "Friday night?"

You tilted your head a bit, "You're serious about this?"

"Yeah," He said softly, eyes heavy lidded from both alcohol and desire as he looked into your face, "Are you?"

Your tongue darted out to wet your lips as your eyes darted back and forth between his eyes, assessing. You still didn't quite believe him, he could tell. You had always been distrustful, convinced everyone was out to hurt you to a nearly paranoid level. The decades it seemed had done nothing to smooth that over.

But still, you nodded and leaned forward, pressing a warm kiss to his cheek, "See you Friday, Michael."

He watched as you walked back inside, conscious of the heat that pulsed against the skin where your lips had been just moments before.

***

"What do you think, Brutus?" You asked, your cat sidling between your legs as you looked at yourself in your floor length mirror. You had chosen form fitting, but simple clothes. A ribbed black sweater and your favorite pair of jeans. "Do you think he'll like it?"

Brutus trilled and stood up on his hind legs, stretching his front paws against your legs, a very clear request to be picked up. You looked down at him and smirked, "You're gonna get cat hair all over my sweater."

He mewled again, claws gently pricking at your jeans before quickly receding. You sighed, already defeated. You could never say no to him. You bent to scoop him up to your chest, pressing your nose into his face as he immediately began purring, "I know you don't like guests, but you have to be on your best behavior tonight, okay? No knocking glassware over if I'm not paying attention to you," You peppered kisses all over his head, "It's not polite."

The doorbell rang and you quickly lowered Brutus back down, running your hands over your sweater in an attempt to brush off the cat hair.

Sliding across the hardwood in your socked feet, you took one deep breath before pulling your front door open.

There in your doorway stood Michael Robinavitch in a button down and jeans, one hand holding a thermal bag you assumed was full of groceries, the other a bottle of wine.

He grinned when you opened the door, his eyes trailing lazily down your body, giving you a once over before meeting your eyes again.

"Hi," You said and stepped to the side, "Come in."

You watched him take in your home as he walked in, kicking off his shoes by the door without you having to ask.

Without a partner to appease or children you'd spent a lot of time creating a calming, beautiful space just for yourself. It resulted in a lot of warm lighting and soothing colors. Lots of windows and cozy nooks. The kitchen was big and open with huge bay windows looking into your backyard behind the sink. As you padded gently behind Robby, you watched him take stock of the sun setting through those windows.

"This is gorgeous." He said, eyes on the fresh tulips that sat in a vase on the island.

"Thank you," You said, and took the wine bottle from his hand, "It's my favorite place in the whole world."

He smirked as he placed the groceries on the counter, "Now I understand why it's so hard to get you to leave."

You took wine glasses down from your cabinet and opened the wine he'd brought, pouring you each a glass and bringing his over to him as he began unpacking the groceries he'd brought.

"What're you making?"

He pulled out a loaf of Challah bread and offered you a piece as he spread everything else out in front of him, "Um, some salad, roast chicken, and potato kugel."

You hummed, "Where'd you learn that?"

He began prepping the veggies and you watched his hands. You remembered from med school you had always been enamored by watching skilled hands at work, especially in the ED. Watching him now you had that same feeling as the wine began to warm you from the inside out.

"They're my grandma's recipes. She used to make this every Friday for Shabbos dinner."

Your mouth fell open slightly in surprise and immediately, you felt touched, "That's… really lovely, Michael. I'm honored that you'd share them with me."

He looked up at you for a moment, smiling, but shrugged his shoulders, "It's the only meal I really know how to cook well because she taught me. I don't do much cooking these days."

You tried not to let his dismissiveness disappoint you, "Do you still… I mean, are you observing Shabbos this weekend?"

He shook his head, "No, no, if I was I'd already have broken the rules," He jerked his head towards the bay windows, where the sky was beginning to bruise, "No cooking after sundown. I don't really practice anymore, but I sometimes go to synagogue on High Holidays."

You let a few moments pass in silence before speaking again, "Can I help?"

He shook his head, "No, you just sit there and look pretty."

The two of you made small talk about work, discussing funny patients or over eager med students, until he put his dishes in the oven.

"Do you want to sit on the porch?" You asked as he washed his hands.

"That sounds lovely," He said, drying his hands on your dish towel before following you outside with his glass of wine.

You tucked your legs underneath yourself as you sat on the love seat, the chill of the spring night had you reaching for the throw blanket. But Robby got there first, gently draping it over your legs and then his own lap. You pretended not to be flustered when he pulled your feet into his lap, tenderly kneading his fingers into the arch of your foot as he sipped his wine.

Over the years, you'd brought men to your place many times. You'd even had the occasional relationship that grew to the point of your partner moving into your place, because it was a nonstarter for any partner to suggest you sell your house, something you were always clear about at the start of the relationship. Maybe it would be the reason you never had a lifelong partner, but you had put an enormous amount of work into this house to create a sanctuary of sorts. It was where you were happiest. You had no desire to live anywhere else. You doubted you'd ever love anyone as much as you loved this house.

But Robby being here, it felt different than it had felt with all others. It felt natural to have him here, like this, cooking dinner in your kitchen, sitting on the porch with you while you told him about the study you'd just been awarded a grant to start. After residency, you'd sworn off dating doctors all together. But there was something refreshing about discussing renal cell carcinoma with Robby and him asking follow up questions that were more complex than "what's a renal cell?"

It felt like he fit here with you, like he could slot into your life effortlessly. But you supposed that could just be the forlorn romantic in you desperate for anyone to desire you again.

"Where'd you go for your residency?" Robby asked.

"Chicago," You said, "Northwestern Memorial. What about you?"

"New Orleans. Big Charity Hospital."

You opened and closed your mouth, thinking silently for a few moments. Trying to remember what years the two of you had gone off to residency and when you would have finished. And the realization of when had your stomach slowly sinking. "Wasn't… Wasn't Katrina during residency?"

He wasn't looking at you, staring off into the darkness of the trees behind your house. His face was partially lit by the candles you'd brought outside. When he nodded, you couldn't get a good read on his expression, but it suddenly felt very cold around you. As if the ghosts had lowered around his shoulders.

"That must have sucked," You said softly, "I'm sorry."

He cleared his throat and looked down at his wine glass, "It was a long time ago."

One thing that had changed about Robby was his openness. Years ago, in med school, you only needed to get him a single beer deep before he was pouring out his most intimate thoughts. Obviously, the time you'd slept together, that had been the most he'd ever revealed to you. About his parents and grandparents. But even before that, he'd opened up to you about his insecurities as a doctor and even when he was having trouble with significant others.

Now, he seemed to be dismissive of his troubles. Never wanting the focus on him for too long. He used to be what your mother would call a peacock, charming to an almost offensive degree. He was impossible to dislike and had everyone thinking they were his best friend. That had all changed. You could feel the barrier he'd put up between you. What had happened to him between then and now to have changed him so drastically?

Likely, you supposed, it started with Katrina.

Another reason you had decided against going into emergency medicine had been that you knew you were too soft for it. Just the rotations had been so detrimental to your well being. You had thought you loved it while you were in it, but the second you were out of it, you realized you had been in survival mode the entire time. Outside of it, you cried for weeks straight, grieving every person you'd watched die and especially the ones that had died on your watch. The heaviness of that responsibility was too much. A lifetime of it would've broken you.

It would break anyone, you imagined. And as you watched Robby curiously, you realized for the first time since reuniting with him just how haunted he had become. You had thought with his easy charm and smile that he was still the same kid, but he had changed. The years had slowly eroded him, smoothed some edges and sharpened others.

A timer went off a few moments later and Robby flashed you a quick smile, carefully removing your feet from his lap, "You hungry?"

"Starved," You said, allowing him to take your hand and gently pull you to standing.

The food was delicious. You caught Robby staring at you more than once over the candles when you licked your fingers or groaned in pleasure, mischief in his eyes.

You had to fight him to let you do the dishes, insisting it was only fair since he had cooked. He protested for a bit until you sternly repeated that you'd be doing the dishes and since he was a guest here, you demanded he relax on the couch while you cleaned up. Eventually, he gave up, sighing heavily and pressing a sweet kiss to your cheek, "Thank you," he murmured, sounding bone tired.

When the last dish was loaded in the dish washer, the cookware washed, the counters wiped down, you found Robby nearly fast asleep, stretched out on your couch. Brutus had come out for the first time since he'd arrived and was now hesitantly sniffing at his hand which hung over the edge of the couch.

"What d'you think, Brutus?" You whispered, "Is he good enough to eat?"

A chuckle rumbled deep in Robby's chest and Brutus scampered off, sufficiently frightened by the sudden movement. Robby cracked an eye open to look up at you, reaching with both arms towards you, "C'mere before I eat you."

You hesitated for just a moment before crawling over him, sighing contentedly as his arms wrapped tightly around you, your ear pressed to his chest.

You were reminded again of that one night with him decades ago, you atop him not unlike this, trying to warm yourself with his body in the frigid apartment.

"It's strange," you said softly, "I don't really know you anymore, but I feel like I understand you more now than I did then."

He hummed, "That's funny. You're still just as much a mystery to me as you were twenty years ago."

You lifted your head from his chest so you could see his face and felt his breath fan your cheeks, "I'm an open book, you just have to ask."

"Why pathology?"

You pursed your lips, brow furrowed in thought, "I liked the simplicity of it. That there were rules and structures and always a correct answer. There's always a clear path to and from diagnosis."

He shook his head, "I know you applied to the emergency medicine residency at Big Charity. I was the second choice, they wanted you."

You felt your cheeks heat, "I—It was so long ago, it doesn't matter—"

"No, you're right, it doesn't matter anymore," He ran a soothing hand down the back of your head to your neck, "It certainly mattered to me then. I was so pissed off at you those first few weeks of intern year when I found out. I tried calling every emergency medicine department in the country I could think of to find you."

You smirked, "You looked for me?"

He nodded, "Never crossed my mind that you would've gone into a different specialty. And pathology even? I never would have guessed. You were so good in the emergency room. A natural. I bet if I threw you in my ED now you'd do just as good as most of my residents."

You gave a short laugh, "Absolutely not, I don't even remember most of my rotations. Honestly, they were so hard for me I think part of my brain blacked it out."

He narrowed his eyes, "Yeah, they're hard for everyone, it's the emergency department."

You nodded, "I know. And I didn't want the rest of my life to look like that."

"Look like what?"

You opened your mouth for a moment and then sighed, "Like I was struggling to stay afloat in a sea of constant compounding grief."

He shook his head slowly, "I remember those rotations, you helped save a lot of people."

You nodded, "At the expense of my sanity, yeah."

"You don't think it would be worth it?"

You tilted your head slightly, "To martyr myself? Do you?"

He sighed and looked away from you, "I used to think so, yeah."

Robby used to come alive in the emergency department, as you recalled it. You knew he was empathetic and had his own struggles because he'd told you on occasion and because you'd seen it. Maybe he hadn't broken down visibly as often as you, but you recalled finding him at least a couple of times out in the ambulance bay, eyes red rimmed and wet.

But you had never doubted that he would thrive in the emergency room. You had been so busy feeling like an imposter yourself and he had made everything look so easy, it had never crossed your mind that maybe he had been struggling the same as you. He just hid it better, even from himself.

"You've lost a lot," You said softly, "the last twenty years, haven't you? Not just patients."

His eyes floated slowly back to yours and it didn't matter what he said, it was sitting there in his eyes as he looked at you. All the ghosts that haunted him, clawing to get out just behind his eyes. He looked tired. He looked shattered.

After a few moments he brought a hand up to your face, brushed the backs of his knuckles across your cheek, "I don't want to talk about that tonight." When he spoke, his voice hitched just slightly, but you politely acted as if you hadn't noticed.

It was a first date, after all. He didn't need to crack open his chest for you tonight, though part of you wished he would. You had never been one for small talk and you were always all in long before anyone else was. You were used to this, being the one kept at the perimeter, debating whether to ignore the Beware of Dog sign and hop the fence.

But he looked so tired and sad. You could be patient for now. Maybe befriend the dog while you waited, tossing treats through the hole in the fence, whistling gently on the wind.

"Okay," You pushed yourself up so your face was closer to his, "We don't have to talk."

A moment passed, two. Your eyes stared longingly at his mouth until his hand slipped to the back of your neck and pulled you to him, mouths crashing together.

You sighed at the feel of his lips on yours, simultaneously soft and rough from the scratch of his beard. It chafed against your chin, but still you pushed yourself closer, the new, but still somehow familiar taste of him intoxicating.

He still kissed the same, teeth digging desperately into your lower lip, tongue stroking against yours almost sweetly. But it was more refined, somehow. Like he'd perfected the art of kissing over the decades.

You'd had many lovers over the years, but few who would make out with you like this for very long without it quickly escalating. Robby's hands, hot and needy, worked their way beneath your shirt, thumbs stroking just below your breasts. Then, one of his hands slid down until it was on your ass, squeezing and groping over your jeans. It was at this point that he whimpered into your mouth and you felt yourself clench instinctually around nothing at the sound.

It had been a long time since you'd been touched like this and longer since you had enjoyed it this much. Usually, it was other partners that acted impatient, that were already tugging at your pants when you were nowhere near warmed up yet, but now it was you who had started grinding on his thigh, searching for friction. You who was frantically pulling at the buttons on his shirt, trying to get it off. You who was now fumbling for his belt when Robby finally stopped you.

"Mmm—Hold on—Wait." Easily, he secured your wrists in his hands and pinned them to his chest which was rising and falling rapidly as you both attempted to catch your breath.

"Are you—Are you sure? I don't want you to think—I'm happy to just end the night like this. I can go home right now—"

You pressed your mouth to his again, kissing him deeply before playfully nipping at his lip, "Do I seem unsure to you?" You asked, nudging your nose against his.

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, "No," He said and kissed you again, fervently.

"Do I… need to beg you to fuck me?" You asked, sucking lightly on his neck as you spoke, "Because I can do that."

Robby sighed and gripped your ass tighter, "Fuck."

You dragged your center across his thigh, "Not an answer."

His hand gripped the back of your neck, forcing you to meet his gaze, "You would beg for me?"

You weren't exactly thinking straight as you looked at him, wild with want. You would have done anything he asked in that moment, you were sure of it. But still, looking at him now, you were dragged back twenty years to his icy apartment. To the way he'd opened up to you and then swiftly rejected you. He denied it now, chalked it up to alcohol, but somewhere in you was still that dejected girl, begging for any scrap of affection.

It'd been a while since you felt her, small and weak, at the edges of your consciousness. She'd been shortsighted and easy, pan handling for love on the side of the road. You still loathed her, felt she was pathetic. Robby could still pull her out of you. It felt easy to slip into her and her wants. You remembered insisting to yourself after that night with him that you'd never let him that close again.

And yet you found yourself tangled in him yet again. You were different, you assured yourself, lied to yourself. In reality, he already had you wrapped around his fingers. He could break you with a single word, a change of expression.

You pushed all that out of your mind, suffocating it with your mouth on his, his all consuming taste in your mouth, "Is that what you want?"

"I want," He said, hand still firm on your neck, kissing you between his words, "Whatever you want. Just want to make you feel good."

You sighed, "Then take me to bed."

Quickly, he sat up, keeping you in his lap. He kissed up the column of your throat to your earlobe, sending chills down your spine, "Lead the way, sweetheart."

On your bed, he undressed you carefully, taking his time in a way you weren't used to. After the way you'd been talking over texts and swapping photos back and forth, you thought he'd be ravenous. And he was, you could tell from his groans and whimpers, but still, he remained steady and patient.

Once you were topless, both of you kneeling across from each other on the bed, you reached to unbuckle his pants before he could get to yours. Robby had been competitive as you remembered it, but in bed it seemed he was fine with handing over the reins. He watched you with heat in his eyes as you spat in your hand and reached down his pants to fist his cock.

As your hand stroked his shaft down to his balls, his eyes rolled back and he swore. You were on fire watching him, his desire seemingly contagious.

"Please," He whimpered after a minute of so of this, "Please, can I… Can I suck on your tits?"

Your belly somersaulted at the thought and immediately you were nodding, scooting closer to him.

As his lips puckered and pulled at your nipple, he was whining more loudly than you were with each stroke of your hand. He muttered praises and pleas into your breasts, heat bubbling up at the sound from your belly to your chest to your neck.

Looking down at his cock in your hand, you noticed the small amount of precum beginning to leak. You leaned down to lick it off, but Robby stopped you before you could.

"No—Wait. Need to take care of you. Please." He was breathless and flushed pink. Needy and desperate to please. You weren't sure that anyone had ever been this desperate to please you.

You gave him a short nod and released him. Immediately, he kissed you, the momentum pushing you flat against the mattress.

As he crawled over you, you opened your eyes to look up at him. There had been times when you were students that he had been vulnerable with you, but that had only been under the heavy influence of alcohol. Mostly, he had been very guarded. And still, earlier this evening you'd sensed the same guard up, though it had been reinforced throughout the decades.

But now he was looking at you with a gentle, almost tender look on his face. Before you could fully digest what that meant, he had leaned back down to kiss along your jaw, rough fingers gently grasping your chin to kiss down your neck.

He kissed all the way down your body, looking up at you occasionally through heavy lids whenever you made a noise he particularly liked.

Down at your waist now, he carefully unbuttoned your jeans and wriggled them down, you lifting up your hips to assist.

In just your panties now, you watched the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he looked at you, ran his rough hands over your soft thighs, kissing and nipping gently at your hips, "So, so pretty for me." He murmured into your skin.

The man in front of you now so at odds with the boy you had imagined was revolted by you. Now he worshiped your body with lips and tongue and teeth. He kissed you now over the fabric of your panties, slowly and methodically, until you felt the fabric begin to soak, both from his saliva and your arousal.

You whined and tried to lift your hips, but he quickly braces an arm over your thighs, "Michael, please." You whimpered.

He groaned against your cunt, sending shockwaves through your body.

"Sorry, baby," He murmured and began tugging your panties down your hips as well, "You need my mouth on you properly, is that it? Need my tongue inside you?"

You nodded, a burning in your eyes from embarrassment or pure desperation, you weren't sure.

Panties out of the way, he ran a finger down your slick folds to separate them. As he sighed, your eyes rolled back, jaw going slack.

"Gorgeous," he murmured, fingers running slowly and gently around your entrance.

It didn't feel like teasing, but admiring. Your hips jumped when he pressed a chase kiss to your puffy clit. You had barely begun to whine again when he licked, long and slow, from the bottom of your entrance up to circle your clit.

The sensation was dizzying as he continued to repeat the motion, moving faster and applying slightly more pressure each time.

"Okay, sweetheart," He said breathlessly, your juices glistening all over his beard, slowly, he slipped his middle finger inside you, stroking the spot deep inside you that had your abdomen tightening in anticipation, "Think you can finish for me?"

Unable to form coherent words, you writhed against him, whining until he relented and lowered his mouth back down to your clit.

It was over quickly after that, though his tongue kept working you until you lightly tugged at his hair, pulling him off you. He wiped his mouth on the back of his forearm and crawled back up to you, pressing kisses all over your sweaty face.

Without preamble, you reached for his cock with the intention of lining it up with your entrance, but he pulled away, "Not yet." He said mildly, propped up on one elbow as he looked at you, his free hand stroking the backs of his knuckles gently against your cheek, "I'm not done with you yet."

You were still a bit dumb from the aftershocks of your orgasm and you blinked blankly at him, "What?"

"I figure I owe you at least three orgasms before I get to cum, that should wipe the previous horrendous encounter from your memory, no?"

A slow, sleepy smile spread across your face and he traced his thumb across your lips, "It's gonna take a while for me to cum again, never mind twice more."

He nodded, "That's why I'm giving you a break, sweet girl."

Flustered, you looked away from him. Who would have thought one man had the potential to be both your best and worst sex?

***

TWENTY SOMETHING YEARS AGO

Your eyelid was twitching as you sat at central, a phone receiver pressed to your ear as you listened to your mother drone on. As she spoke, your eyes drifted to a fresh blood stain on your white sneakers from the man who'd died maybe an hour or two ago from several gunshot wounds to the chest.

"I hear you, I just—" You tried and failed to scrub the bloodstain out with a wet wipe from behind the desk. The grueling twelve hour shift had ended something like forty five minutes ago with you crying into your hands in the ambulance bay. You were exhausted. "I just don't think now is the time for this conversation—"

"Well," Your mother huffed, "Maybe if you ever answered your phone at home we wouldn't need to have this discussion now."

You ground your teeth together, "I appreciate all the support you and dad have given me—"

"You know, I don't think you do. We clawed our way through law school with no help from our families, started our own firm, saved thousands just so you could be as educated as you wanted without having to struggle like we did—"

"—And I'm immensely grateful for that privilege—"

"Then why would you throw it back in our faces by choosing pathology, essentially a glorified lab technician—"

"That's not what it is at all—"

"You should be in neurosurgery."

You had had this argument what felt like a thousand times over the last few weeks when you had first admitted interest in applying to path residencies. Your mother's insistent argument that she knew best and neurosurgery would provide you with the best career and would utilize your strengths—an excruciating attention to detail and laser-like focus—in a way no other specialty could.

But you disagreed. And what you could never admit to your mother was that your emergency medicine rotations had proven to you that you would crumble under that sort of pressure.

"Hey, Bambi," Michael leaned over your desk, "Get off the phone and glove up, incoming MVA in two minutes."

You gave him an incredulous look, "Our shift ended almost an hour ago."

"Okay…" He said slowly, pulling on a clean pair of gloves, "So you're gonna let me just take this one myself? What if it requires intubation? You're gonna pass up that opportunity? You still haven't done one by yourself."

You were so burnt out and frustrated and once again on the verge of bursting into tears, you didn't have the energy for this, "So, what, you're keeping tabs on my procedure log now?"

He pretended to think about it, furrow between his brow, "Yeah, guess I am."

Neither of you had spoken about the night you'd slept together—if you could even call it that—and Michael had been acting like it never happened. Occasionally he'd reference the night it happened, but always before you went home with him. This was fine with you, it saved you from the embarrassment. Though, sometimes, it had you wondering if maybe you'd somehow hallucinated the entire thing.

"Who are you talking to?" Came your mom's tinny voice in your ear.

You hurriedly said that you had to go and hung up the phone, knowing it would lead to more phone calls later, but you had taken to leaving your phone off the hook when she began calling repeatedly like that. Which was often. It was the only way to ensure you got enough sleep.

Normally, you would jump at any opportunity to try to show up Michael in a trauma, but you were barely holding it together right now. The thought of watching another person die on the table today had you fighting back the instinct to dry heave.

You rested your elbows on the table in front of you and kneaded lightly at your temples, "You can have the MVA, I'm going home."

"That your mom on the phone?" Michael asked, leaning forward and apparently ignoring what you'd just said, "Is she waiting at home for you with a fresh meal and a warm bath?" He taunted, "Bambi needs to be pampered? The ER is too rough for the princess?"

Slowly, you tilted your face up to look at him, "You jealous that I still have a mother who takes care of me, Robinavitch?"

If you weren't as tired, you wouldn't have said it. As it was, your stomach churned when the smile melted off his face. Yes, he had taunted you and teased you and tortured you for most of both MS3 and 4, but you shouldn't have sank to his level. Really, you had sunk below his level, you thought. Even with how cruel he could be, he'd never mocked you when he found you crying out in the ambulance bay. On occasion he'd actually silently stood next to you or offered you a cigarette.

Your relationship was strange as he could be downright abusive in front of attendings or other colleagues, but when it was just the two of you it was like being on hallowed ground. He had only ever been nice to you when it was just the two of you with no one else around to hear. Something you struggled to reconcile. And now you had weaponized one of the only times he had opened up to you.

He shook his head, but otherwise didn't say anything, ducking away from you, "Michael—Wait—"

"It's fine, Bambi," He called over his shoulder, "Go home. As you've so astutely pointed out, not all of us have one of those."

Later, after you'd crawled into bed and couldn't sleep despite your exhaustion for the guilt that wracked you, you picked up the phone next to your bed and dialed Michael.

It rang for a while and you thought he might let it go to voicemail, but when he finally picked up his voice was rough with sleep.

"Hello?"

You hesitated, then breathed softly, "Hi."

A moment of silence passed, "Bambi?"

"Yeah."

"It's… late."

You sighed, "Yeah, um, sorry. Did I wake you?"

You heard him stifle a yawn, "You did, yeah." Silence again, but for the sound of both your breathing, "Um, did you need something?"

"I—Yeah, I, um… I couldn't sleep."

"Okay," He drew out the word, long and smooth, "Have you tried… Counting sheep?"

You huffed a laugh, "No, I—I can't sleep because I feel horrible about what I said to you earlier. About—about your mom. I'm so, so sorry, Michael. It was awful and—and it was unacceptable and unprofessional."

He was quiet for a moment, then, "It's alright, Bambi. I've said worse to you. You didn't know about—It was just a lucky shot."

Your mouth fell open slightly, confusion clouding your brain, "What?"

"You—What you said earlier hit a nerve, but you couldn't have known. I've—I've never spoken about my mother to anyone."

You stared at the popcorn ceiling of your apartment, mouth still agape. Did he not remember?

And you were nothing if not a coward, so you kept quiet. Didn't correct him. The fact was, what you said was so much worse knowing what you knew. And he didn't even know you knew.

"Right," You said, swallowing, "Well either way, it was a really shitty thing for me to say. So I'm sorry."

"I appreciate it and I'm sorry for pushing you earlier."

You exhaled slowly and closed your eyes, "Thank you."

"Think you can sleep now, princess?" Despite the nickname, his tone was playful, almost gentle in your ear. You had the insane thought that you'd like to hear him talk you to sleep.

"Yeah. Goodnight, Michael."

"Goodnight, Bambi."

***

Robby shot up in bed, his skin tacky with sweat and his chest heaving, lungs struggling to fill. Nightmares were common for him, but what was so disorienting this night was that at first, he wasn't sure where he was. The bed sheets were unfamiliar to him where they stuck to his skin. They felt more expensive than what he had at home, reminded him of hotel sheets. The mattress was softer as well.

And then there was the soft sigh the came from the pillow next to him. His eyes followed the noise and he saw you laying beside him, fast asleep. At the sight of you, his panic began to recede just slightly. He was in your bed. Had shared a lovely dinner with you and slept with you and spoke in hushed whispers across pillows until you'd fallen asleep.

When he had nightmares at home, he would often get out of bed, crack open a beer or smoke a cigarette, unable to properly fall back asleep. But looking down at you, he feared he'd wake you if he did that. The last however many hours he'd spent with you had been the most at peace he'd felt in recent memory. Even with the nightmare, he already felt his heart rate slowing, just watching the even rise and fall of your chest.

He sank back down into the mattress and laid his head down on the pillow, his forehead nearly touching yours.

Unable to help himself, he rested his hand against your neck and ran his thumb over your cheekbone. You mewled and then your eyes began to blink open.

"Sorry," He said immediately when your eyes opened into his, "Didn't mean to wake you."

You gave him a sleepy smile and nudged your nose against his, "S'okay… It's almost nice to wake up in the middle of the night when there's someone else here."

Lying close to you, he allowed himself to believe that he deserved love like this. That he deserved a life like this. That you could love him and stay despite the ugly parts of him he'd try like hell to keep from you.

He kissed you then, to avoid thinking about all the ways in which he was bound to disappoint you if this continued. And you kissed him back, pulled him closer, your hand at the nape of his neck and he catalogued it—the feeling of your gentle fingers stroking the back of his head.

"Mmm," You hummed and pulled away from him slightly, your brow furrowed, "Is it raining?"

Sure enough, as both of you stilled, there was the sound of rain tapping against the windows, "Sounds like it."

You grinned at him, "Would you like to drink tea and watch the rain from the porch?"

You seemed already giddy by the idea so he couldn't say no, not that he wanted to. It was so simple, really, the act of watching the rain. But you stood outside wrapped in a throw blanket, your hands warming a mug of tea, and looking out into your yard with awe as the sun started to stretch over the horizon, lighting up the storm clouds from behind.

He wanted to see the world like that. To be enamored by simple pleasures, the way you were.

"You seem so happy," He said into your ear.

You hummed, "I am."

"Is this what it's like being you? In this stunning house? Just a cup of tea while it rains can bring joy?"

You turned slightly in his arms to see his face and he recognized it when you scanned his face: You were trying to gauge if he was making fun of you. Old habits died hard, he supposed.

Seemingly satisfied that he wasn't mocking you, you turned back toward the rain, "It's a lot nicer when there's someone to share it all with."

You said it casually, but he heard the note of sadness in your tone, "You've been alone for a while?" You nodded, "What about family? Your parents?"

You stiffened in his embrace and he almost regretted it. He knew what happened when you got like this, if someone moved too quickly or suddenly—you bolted.

But after a moment, you softened, "We don't really talk much anymore."

"Oh," He said softly in surprise, "Sorry, I thought—You always seemed close when we were in school."

"You mistook financial support as love. And even if it was, they promptly cut that off the second I moved to Chicago."

He frowned, "You haven't spoken since residency? Why?" In the silence that followed, he sensed your hesitancy, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I don't mind," You said softly, "I just haven't thought about it in a while. We have talked since, but sporadically. It's mostly just happy birthday texts now." You sighed heavily, "The short answer is that they wanted me to go into neurosurgery and treated me going into pathology as some personal affront to them. It felt like they only ever saw me as some sort of investment instead of their kid."

Robby had been guilty of assuming that you had it all. After thinking it over more, he'd come to the conclusion the way he treated you had had more to do with jealousy than anything else. You always seemed so put off by talking to your parents, your parents who took care of everything for you. What he would have done to have anyone like that in his corner when he was in his twenties. He felt you were ungrateful.

But now, having done a lot of growing up himself and watching residents with all sorts of parental issues come and go through his ER, he understood that just throwing money at a kid was no way to raise them.

"I'm sorry," He said again and leaned down slightly to kiss the back of your neck, "You deserved better than that."

You turned in his arms to face him, "Do you really believe that? That what I do is just as important as what you do? Or neurosurgery?"

"Yes," He said immediately, "If it was me I might be… bored out of my mind, but we need pathologists. The ED needs them, surgery needs them, oncology needs them, hematology needs them, you're absolutely vital to all of us. But that's not what I meant. I meant that you deserved better parents."

Though you had changed over the years, not so skittish and quiet, there were things about you that remained. Your anxious state, bordering on paranoia the way you worried that others would betray you. Your quiet but desperate need of approval—of love. Your empathy, the way you felt everything so deeply and openly, even when you tried to hide it.

Right now, you were scared. Of him, of his ability to hurt you. He was also scared of his ability to hurt you. Terrified, really.

But still, you swallowed and looked away from him, "Thank you," you said quietly and tugged his arms tighter around you.

Bambi—his fawn—now stable on your own two feet. It'd be you that would have to keep him steady now, keep him from running.

***

When Robby was at work now, when the shifts got bad, he excused himself for just a moment and closed his eyes. He'd conjure your home in his head, your cat Brutus, the sound of your laugh, watching rain from your covered porch while drinking coffee, waking up to the smell of your shampoo on the pillow, movie nights on your couch, long showers and your hands on his skin.

It had been weeks now since your first date and things had moved quickly. It hadn't been discussed explicitly, but Robby spent most nights at your house now. The simple domesticity of it, of having someone to come home to, had felt nearly life changing. You often asked if he wanted you to stay at his place for a change to which he always turned down.

He loved everything about your place, from the way it always smelt like something delicious, to the fact that Brutus was always there, to just how lived in it felt. Just last weekend the two of you had spent entire days digging up the garden beds so you could start planting vegetables and fruits and herbs. You talked about cucumber salads and fresh baked pies and it all felt so… domestic. Mundane. And it was the only place he felt peace.

Today's shift had been horrible. And so after calling time of death on a patient that he'd worked on for far longer than was clinically appropriate, he told Dana he'd be outside for a few minutes. In the ambulance bay, with silent tears streaming down his cheeks, he tried to slow his breathing. In through his nose, out through his mouth.

Closing his eyes, he willed the images of the woman away, of her child. Instead, he pictured you, the sleepy smile on your face when he woke up first in the morning, whispered in your ear that he was going to make pancakes. He pictured you fast asleep on your couch, a paperback abandoned in your hand and Brutus snuggled up on your chest. He pictured you spinning around your backyard in the rain, green rain boots up to your knees and your wild laughter.

As his breathing slowed, the sound of the ambulance bay doors sliding open had him turning his attention to the doors to see Abbot walking toward him.

Silently, Jack stood next to Robby and crossed his arms, "Your girlfriend's down here looking for you."

Robby sighed and ran his hand over the back of his neck, "She's not my girlfriend."

"Sorry, your pathologist."

Robby huffed a laugh, "I guess she is sort of my girlfriend."

"Well, you better watch out because I hear all the nurses warning her about your… 'seven week itch' I think they're calling it."

He shook his head, "She's not the type to listen to rumors."

Jack hummed, "She might start if you keep her waiting much longer."

"Alright, alright," He sighed and pushed himself off the wall, "I'll go find her."

"'Atta boy," Jack said and clapped him over the shoulder, the two of them walking back into the Pitt.

Robby's eyes found you almost immediately, talking to Dana, and you, as if sensing his gaze, looked up to meet his. There was concern all over your face and Robby didn't even have the time to properly wonder if Dana had filled you in about the terrible shift they'd had before you were marching over to him.

You were apparently so intently focused on him, you didn't notice the puddle of water on the floor and before Robby could warn you, you'd slipped.

Your feet went up over your head and your back hit the ground—hard.

Instantly, Robby was there, a hand on your shoulder to stop you as you tried to sit up— "Hey, don't move, don't move."

"Ow," you groaned and tried to push him out of your way, "I'm fine, Michael."

"Did you hit your head?" His penlight was already out, ready to assess.

You sighed, "I don't know, I don't think so."

"Dana," he called over his shoulder, "What's open?"

"Central 11."

"I just wanna go home," You said softly, "I'm fine, I swear."

But seeing you fall like that after the shift he'd had, he couldn't seem to slow the spiral he was beginning to fall down. What if you had a concussion? A brain bleed? Untreated one could lead to irreparable brain damage and the other, death.

"It'll be quick," He said, "Promise. Just… Please, it'll make me feel better."

You tilted your head slightly, doe eyes out in full force. Like you were concerned about him. But you nodded anyway, conceded to him, even when he insisted on a wheelchair to transport you.

When it was just the two of you and he had started your exam, you continued to watch him carefully.

"Did something happen today?" You asked softly, "During shift?"

He hummed in question, gently turning your head this way and that, "What d'you mean?"

"You're being… hypervigilant. I'm just wondering if something happened today to trigger that."

The two of you had discussed covid and Adamson. You had been back in Pittsburgh at that point, but at Westbridge. Robby had felt a pang of resentment at first, thinking that you likely hadn't had to be on the front lines like he had.

But then you told him about the autopsies. How there were so many bodies that you, who had built a career off studying cancers and blood, had had to assist with autopsies. You told him how you hadn't really done an autopsy since residency, but now with how many you'd had to do during the pandemic, you could do them with your eyes closed.

"It fucked with me," You'd told him, "I saw those bodies everywhere, even if I wasn't in the hospital. I could smell them no matter how many candles I lit at home. I dreamt about them for weeks after. I cried for months."

And when you'd divulged that, the flood gates had opened for him. He told you everything, from covid to PittFest. When he got choked up, he found himself instinctually reaching for your hand, needing you to anchor him. Without hesitation, you practically pulled him into your lap, cradled his head to your chest and whispered soothing words in his ear.

So then it shouldn't have surprised him that you would catch on so quickly. For being so young when you went through med school, he had assumed upon first meeting you that you'd have no idea about anything. But it had struck him immediately how emotionally intelligent you were, how you had from the very beginning been able to read even the most closed off of patients.

Still, he felt himself recoil at your assessment, "You fell," He said, "I'm just making sure you're alright."

"Well I'm also a doctor and I'm telling you, I'm fine. There's no tenderness at the back of my head, no nausea, no dizziness—"

"I'm ordering you a head CT."

Your mouth fell open, indignation in the tug of your lips. After a moment, you scoffed, "I don't want that so please get me the AMA forms to sign, if you don't mind."

He raised his eyebrows and finally met your eyes, "Really?"

"You're exposing me to unnecessary radiation when I have zero symptoms—"

"You don't remember if you hit your head—"

"Robby?" He whipped his head around to see Dana in the doorway, "The cops are here, they wanna talk to you about the boy and his mother who—"

"Yeah, okay, I'll be there in a minute."

Dana left and he hung his head, braced his hands against his legs, hoping they didn't shake, "I would really appreciate it… if you could please stay for a CT."

He felt your gaze even as he avoided it, "Why are the cops here?"

He sighed, "A kid's here with no parental guardian."

There was a pause, then, "What happened to his mother?"

"I really can't talk about this right now—"

"Then I'd like the AMA forms, please."

He made an exasperated groan and looked up at you, tried pleading with his eyes, but you stayed firm, expectant, until he sighed, "A woman was brought in today with her ten year old son who'd found her unresponsive in the bathtub when he came home from school today. She'd slashed her own wrists. We couldn't get a pulse back." He ran a hand along the back of his neck, "The kid doesn't have anyone else."

In a moment, you were on your knees in front of him, his hands clasped in yours, "You worked the resuscitation?"

He nodded, and to his surprise salty tears fell onto your clasped hands. Embarrassed, he tried for nonchalant as he spoke, "It's uh—It's been a long day, but that happened almost first thing this morning. I don't know why I can't shake it."

"Well… That's unsurprising." You said slowly, "Considering your childhood."

His entire body stiffened and he pulled away, "What'd you say?"

You opened and closed your mouth, still lowered to the ground in front of him. He watched as you seemed to calculate your misstep too late and then rush to correct, "I just, um, I remember you telling me once that… that your parents weren't really… present in your life."

Robby shook his head, "I never told you about that."

You bit your lip for a moment and then shrugged, "You told me… everything, Michael. The night we slept together in med school. You were very drunk."

He bristled and scoffed, "Right, we got drunk, I told you that my mother killed herself, and then we fucked?"

It seemed absurd. The truth that he was so ashamed of, that he'd held so close to his chest, that he hadn't allowed anyone to know, he had told you. His grandparents had been the only other people to know and when they died they took it with them. He had assumed he would do the same. But here you were, this contradiction to the one fundamental truth he'd had. That no one would ever need to know the ugly truth that the single person on this Earth who was supposed to love him unconditionally had abandoned him with such violent permanence.

You seemed a bit embarrassed at his hostility, lifting yourself back up to your feet again, "Look, you don't have to try to humiliate me just because you don't believe me. I'm sorry I brought it up, I was just trying to let you know that I understand why that case was difficult for you."

"Yeah, well, it's not your fucking place."

He thought he saw you flinch, but just as quickly, you became stoic, "I think it's time for me to go and I'd prefer it if you stayed at your own place tonight."

You left without waiting for him to respond and immediately, the anger left him in a rush, replaced with shame. When he walked back towards central, you were gone, Dana looking at him now with a question in her eyes, "Your girl left in a rush, I thought you were leaving with her?"

He sighed, ran both hands over his face, "Where's the kid?"

"BH1," She said and leaned closer to him, "It's her birthday today and you let her leave here without you?"

Fuck. "It's her birthday?"

Dana nodded, "You don't know your own girl's birthday?"

"She's not—How do you know it's her birthday?"

"She told me about ten minutes ago."

Unbelievable.

"Well," He said, fingers interlaced at the back of his neck, "I don't think she'll want to spend it with me now."

Dana watched him for a moment, "Tell you what, Baran's still here, I'm sure she wouldn't mind handling the police. You should go. Get her a cake and flowers and apologize. You had a hard day, she'll understand."

You had understood, but he thought you'd likely be heaps and bounds less understanding now.

But hadn't he promised himself, when he first agreed to date you, seriously, that he'd be different this time? That he wouldn't fall back into old habits? That he wouldn't push people away when they got too close?

You already knew the worst of him, apparently. Had known it for decades it seemed and still, you wanted him. And as always, he'd hurt you anyway.

So, he was really prepared to grovel when he finally got to your place, a bouquet of tulips and white bakery box in hand. He knocked gently on the door and waited until he heard the twist of the doorknob, and then saw you. You were in sweats and a tank top and you crossed your arms over your chest when you saw him.

"Hi," he said softly.

"I thought I asked you not to come here tonight."

"I know, and I'll go, I just, Dana mentioned that it was your birthday so I got you a cake and some flowers and I just wanted to say that I'm—I'm really sorry. I just, I've never told… anyone about her, or so I thought, and it just caught me off guard. But, I shouldn't have spoken to you that way, you were only trying to help."

You stared at him for a few moments, mouth twisted to the side and bounced on the balls of your feet, "You got me a birthday cake?"

His mouth twitched into a smirk, but he fought it, "Yeah, but I didn't know what sort of cake you like so I—I got you funfetti cake. It reminded me of you."

Now it was you fighting a smirk, "Funfetti cake reminds you of me?"

He nodded, "Yeah, you're bright, colorful, pretty, happy—You're everything. Funfetti."

You uncrossed your arms and interlocked them behind your back instead, "You can come inside."

Ten minutes later, you both sat on the couch with a slice of cake, "No one's ever gotten me a birthday cake before."

Robby balked, "What?"

You shrugged, "My parents were always too busy to celebrate my birthday. I think they forgot most years. And I didn't have many friends growing up. And then when I got to be an adult I just… stopped telling people when my birthday was. To avoid being disappointed."

He felt an ache in his chest for the child he saw in his head, the kid he used to know. How lonely you must've been. "Why'd you tell Dana?"

"One of my students is a bit of a kiss ass and found out it was my birthday from the internet. Got the whole class to sign a card for me. Dana just happened to see it."

He sighed, "I'm really sorry if I contributed to your day being shitty."

You shook your head, "I really don't even think about it much anymore, truly. And anyway, it sounded like you had a much harder day than I did."

"That's not an excuse."

You put your plate on the coffee table and turned your attention fully to Robby, taking his face gently in your hands, "You came here and you apologized," You said softly, "And I've forgiven you. So enough with the self flagellation, hm?" You stroked your thumbs gently over his cheekbones, "And why don't you tell me about the mother that came in today."

Again, he felt the involuntary raise of his hackles at the suggestion that he discuss today. But there was warmth and tenderness in your eyes. Your fingers ran through his hair and scratched at his scalp gently, and his eyes fluttered closed, hackles falling.

And so the words flowed out of him. He recounted the horror and fear that reverberated through him as the woman was rolled in, her son shaking and sobbing at her side. How difficult it was for him to focus on anything other than this boy, this baby, now alone in the world. It was frightening, really, to come face to face with the boy he used to be. How young he was when his mother had passed, something he'd been unable to appreciate at the time.

He'd done a lot of work to forgive her for leaving. Had studied up on suicidality and bipolar depression. In his career he met many people who reminded him of his mother and his empathy had stretched and grown and while he'd thought he'd forgiven her, there was still just a kernel of bitterness deep in his chest.

He had never been confronted with himself, with the child he used to be, until today. How his heart bled for that child. He could recall every memory of that day, every smell, every sound, every touch. The world had fractured and reassembled for that boy today, much like it had for him so many years ago. And he'd had to listen to his colleagues all day, talk about that boy as if he was the one who had died and it pissed him off. That they could so easily written off that kid's future because of a single day, because of the choices his mother had made.

But then came the small, nagging voice at the back of his head, But wasn't it true? Aren't you broken beyond repair? Isn't that the one truth you've been running from all this time?

"You're not broken," You said softly to him when he'd finished speaking, still holding him tightly to you, now with one hand beneath his shirt and running your nails soothingly up and down his back.

You repeated it to him like a mantra until he leaned up, captured your soft, warm mouth with his. And whenever he opened his eyes to look into yours, he knew you didn't believe your own words. Walls that you had begun to deconstruct over the last few weeks were now built back up. Now, barbed wire adorned the walls like vines.

He had the distinct feeling that you'd never allow him to see over the walls again.

***

"Well I heard from Edith who heard from Sam who sometimes has lunch with Dana that Robby's been staying late and picking up more shifts again, since he bought that motorcycle… You know what that means."

"The seven week itch has struck again. That motorcycle's a breakup motorcycle if I've ever seen one."

You sighed heavily as you adjusted your microscope, "You guys are not being as quiet as you think you are."

Your students giggled at your admonishment, "Sorry, the drama is just way more fascinating in the Pitt than it is up here."

You were silent after that and their whispers died down, but never completely. You had never paid much attention to rumors around the hospital until you and Robby started seeing each other. The women in the hospital loved gossiping about him. And more and more it ate away at you.

Things hadn't been quite right between you since your birthday. You had forgiven him for how he'd acted, but still there was a cold dread in your stomach that seemed to intensify every time you saw him. You felt yourself overcompensating, looking for reassurance. You had convincingly kept up the illusion of confidence, but now it waned.

You had the feeling he had sussed it out, how desperate you were. Before, for any companionship. Now, specifically, for his. You were frightened by the way your heart squeezed when you woke up to him beside you in the morning. The way he had slipped into your routine so effortlessly. Helping you out in the garden on the weekends. Putting the kettle on at exactly 9PM for tea before bed. Trying all your desserts even after insisting he needed to watch what he ate. Recently, he'd began reading your well-worn, tattered copy of The Princess Bride aloud to you, using character voices that got more and more ridiculous until you were crying with laughter. More and more regularly, he fell asleep on the couch, glasses askew and Brutus on his chest.

It was terrifying how easily he slotted into your life. This was what you'd wanted, what you'd always wanted, had wanted so badly at times you'd forced relationships you knew would never work.

And you kept waiting, day after day, for him to leave and not come back. The day he'd been short with you in the ER, you'd been flung back to an earlier relationship. Remembered in vivid details the ugly fights you'd had.

"You're not listening to me!"

"Maybe I just don't like the sound of your voice."

It didn't matter how he apologized after, the words had burrowed deep in your head. They stuck with you from relationship to relationship and you'd heard similar disdain from Robby that day.

So with all of this, you were already struggling before the rumors and before the motorcycle. You felt him pulling away from you inch by inch and you clung to him harder, certain if you just enticed him the correct way he'd want to stay.

And for a while, you thought it was working, until dinner one day on the porch. The vibrant strawberry sky was beginning to bruise with dusk as you each sat in silent after cleaning your plates.

Then Robby cleared his throat, "You know how I've been fixing up the motorcycle with Duke?"

You nodded. You knew the fact that you were jealous of a sixty year old biker spending time with your boyfriend was not healthy. You were glad he had picked up a hobby outside of the ER, it was good for him. And still, you couldn't help the way dread curdled in your gut every time he spoke about it. What it really felt like was an escape plan. No matter how you tried to convince yourself it wasn't, you couldn't stop the constant spirals. The souring of your mood whenever he stated he was going to Duke's or he couldn't make it tonight because he stayed too late at Duke's so he'd just sleep at his own place. You knew he noticed the shift in energy whenever the motorcycle was brought up, but he never commented on it.

"It's finished," He gave you a wry smile, "It's rideable now, in really good shape."

"Oh," You said, "That's… great."

Again, he ignored the uneasiness in your tone. Or maybe he truly was oblivious. Because next he said, "I was thinking about taking some time off from work and doing a cross country ride."

"Oh," You said again, feeling dumb at your sudden lack of vocabulary, "For how long?"

"I don't know," He avoided looking at you as he said, "Three months?"

The pain in your chest was spectacular. Again and again you were reminded of how unlovable you were. You tried so hard and it was never enough, not for your parents, not for friends, not for every other partner who left quickly and quietly. Your eyes burned as you pushed back from the table and picked up your plate, "You don't have to flee across the country to get rid of me, you could just break up with me like a mature, grown man." You said bitterly and walked back inside.

Assumedly shocked at your outburst, it took him a minute before following you back inside, "This is not about us," He said quietly over your shoulder as you dropped the dirty dishes unceremoniously into your sink.

"Frankly, it doesn't matter if it isn't," You said turning to face him, "If you leave for three months our relationship is effectively dead. And you know this."

He scoffed, "Three months is not that long—"

"Three months is not that long when you've been in a relationship for a decade, it's everything when you've barely even been together that long."

He watched you and slowly shook his head, "It doesn't have to be. You could come with me."

You laughed and pushed past him, "What, and bring Brutus as well? Let my garden wither away? You don't really want me to come, you're just offering out of guilt."

"That's not true, I—I want to be here with you, being with you is the only thing that feels right in my life right now. I don't want to lose that."

"Then why are you running away?" You asked, exasperated and humiliated when tears began to blur your vision.

You were sitting on the couch now and he crouched in front of you, looked at you with his big wet, brown cow eyes. Eyes you adored, crow's feet you wished to sink into, freckles you'd counted and memorized over many nights.

"I feel like…" He said slowly, "Like… if I don't get out of that hospital, of this city soon that I'm a ticking time bomb."

You nodded and sniffed, pushed the heels of your hands into your eyes, "And I feel like if you leave I'm never gonna see you again."

He tilted his head to the side, eyebrow furrowed and watery eyes studying you. You waited and waited for him to say it wasn't true, but he obviously couldn't. Instead he cupped your cheeks in his hands and gently brushed away your tears, "C'mon sweetheart, don't cry. It's okay. I've got you."

Leaning in, he gently kissed your forehead, the tops of your cheeks, your nose, then your mouth, his beard scratching the soft skin of your face. Stifling the cries that attempted to crawl up your throat, you kissed him back fiercely, wondering if it would be the last time you got to do so. He matched your fervor, groaning into your mouth as you deepened the kiss—and then his hands were everywhere.

He hoisted you up and around his waist and walked you to the bedroom, a path he knew well at this point, could do it with his eyes closed. He placed you down and then crawled over you, arms bracketing your head as he kissed your lips swollen and raw. The smell of him, the taste of him, had become so comforting to you it was agony to imagine a time when you couldn't have them whenever you wanted. That he would be so far away from you, your house lonely and empty once again. And it was this thought that had you burst promptly into tears.

"Wh—What's wrong? Sweetheart—Do you wanna stop? We can stop—"

"No, no," You said quickly through hiccuping sobs and opened your eyes into his, "Please—Please don't stop, Michael, please—"

"Okay," He kissed all over your face again as your sobs began to quiet, "Okay, baby. I'm right here—" In response to his words, you pulled him closer until his weight was almost fully on you, "I'm right here." He repeated.

When your tears dried, he slowly undressed you, his kisses painfully tender and eyes that melted you. It took everything in you not to rush him along. The need to have him inside you, to fill you up, felt almost primal. You needed to be close to him, as close as you could be. Soon he'd be gone and all you'd have was the ghost of a feeling.

He leaned his forehead against yours as he slowly pushed inside you, both of you sighing into one another, "So perfect," He murmured and kissed you, "Feel so perfect, baby."

"Please," You kept saying over and over as he pushed himself in and out of you. You weren't quite sure what you were begging for, for him to fuck you? For him to stay? For him to love you?

Pulling out of you, he turned you onto your stomach, positioned your hips until you felt him press into you again, his belly against the small of your back and the cold chain around his neck falling against your shoulders, sending a chill down your spine.

The feel of him inside you was exquisite, like nothing else you'd experienced before. He pushed his hand beneath your belly until his fingers found your swollen clit and this coupled with the way he filled you up was too much, the sensation overwhelming. You were coming before you even had the chance to warn him, unraveling as he moaned and kissed the back of your neck when he felt your walls pulse around him.

The pleasure was so overwhelming and the feel of him so stifling, it was almost involuntary when you blurted out, "I love you, Michael, I love you."

With your face partially obscured by the mattress, you hoped he hadn't heard it. But his hips stuttered for a second and panic seized in your chest until— "Oh, God, fuck—" he came inside you.

His skin stuck to yours as he caught his breath, still inside you as he softened. You laid like that for a while in silence, spooning in your bed. The sun had still cast shadows in your room when you first came in here, but now it was nearly pitch black.

"You're still leaving?" You asked, voice steadier than you felt, unwilling to hope.

He was quiet for long enough that you wondered if he'd fallen asleep. But then came the soft, "Yes," in your ear.

You said nothing else that night. Neither of you spoke about what you'd confessed during sex and when you woke in the morning, he had left. There was no trace of him left in the house. He'd taken his toothbrush, his beard trimmer, his duffel of clothes and other toiletries. All gone.

He left a single t-shirt—by accident or not, you couldn't say—draped over your hamper. When you picked it up and brought it to your face, it smelt like him.

You sank to the floor of your closet like a child and cried.

***

Robby saw you everywhere and in everything. He thought about you most mornings when he put on a pair of pants and noticed how they were a bit too snug—Having regular meals most days at your place had meant he'd put on a few pounds while dating you. He thought about you and Brutus whenever Trinity showed him pictures of her new kittens. Whenever he had a cookie or a slice of blueberry pie, he remembered the sweet buttery smell of your house whenever you were baking.

He missed you with a devotion that felt almost religious, but he never picked up the phone. After having made you cry and then hearing you admit that you were in love with him, he'd been absolutely certain he couldn't have you. He'd thought in the beginning, he'd been able to delude himself that he could have someone like you. That he deserved someone like you, so sweet and gentle and loving. But despite his precautions, you'd still crumbled to dust in his hands.

He was terrified that if he didn't leave he'd repeat his mother's mistakes and leave you even more devastated than you were now.

But when you looked at him and said you didn't think you'd ever see him again, he'd wondered if you'd understood. If you'd understood his fears and instead worried that if he did leave he'd become his mother.

He didn't want to think about that and so as he packed up his gear and clothes and whatever else he thought he might need onto his bike, he tried and failed to stop thinking about you.

As he left town, he rode by your house knowing you'd be at work. He rolled slowly, memorized every detail he could of the house, the only place he'd ever felt at home besides his grandparents' house. In a last minute decision, he pulled out his phone and took a quick photo.

This was when he saw Brutus in the window, watching him, tail swishing back and forth. He'd miss that little rascal, too, even if he had broken his favorite mug. He gave a quick salute to Brutus and then he left before he could change his mind.

For a while, being on the road felt as freeing as he hoped it would. Everyone before he left seemed so worried he was about to kill himself, but honestly, with new air in his lungs, he felt great. For around four hundred miles.

He was a few days into the trip, having only driven something like a hundred miles each day, and closing in on Chicago when the fatigue really began to set in. Every part of his body ached. He had been very careful not to let his mind wander to you since he'd left, but it wandered anyhow. Now he thought of the Epsom salt baths you insisted on whenever he had aches and pains. He wished more than anything that you'd be there in Chicago, waiting by the hot bath, pretending to resist when he coaxed you in with him. You'd sit between his legs, back to his chest as you told him about your day as he gently kneaded your shoulders with his thumbs. You'd talk about the study you were working on. Or, since it was a Saturday, maybe you'd spent time in the garden, pulling weeds as you listened to an audiobook for a new mystery novel.

Robby was so immersed in the fantasy, he didn't register the oncoming headlights until it was already too late. Still, as the car crossed the double yellow line into his lane, on instinct, he jerked the bike away from the oncoming collision.

He was able to avoid the car, but lost control of the bike, skidding off the road and into a guardrail. He felt it when the gravel tore through his pants, then his skin, the weight of his bike pinning him to the ground as he came to a complete stop.

Robby was so used to watching other people die, he thought he knew what it'd be like when his time came. Stupidly, he thought he'd made his peace with his own mortality, his inevitable demise. But in the split second it took for him to see the oncoming headlights and jerk his bike out of the way, he understood immediately and with complete clarity that he didn't want to die.

As he felt his skin being torn up and his leg being crushed, time slowed, and he saw your face. Heard your voice tell him you loved him. The sound of your laugh. The smell of your shampoo.

And just as quickly as it happened, it was over, and the pain exploded throughout his body.

Pain, glorious pain, and as he categorized it all he understood it meant he was alive and he laughed, wildly. The paramedics that showed up afterwards and told him how lucky he was likely thought him insane as he laughed and laughed.

He was alive. He was fucking alive. And the realization filled him with indescribable joy. Logically he knew most of this was due to the adrenaline rush, but he couldn't help but feel like this had to have been some divine intervention. And soon enough, as the adrenaline fled him and the pain meds kicked in, he couldn't stop crying.

The nurses and doctors looked at him with sympathy and one nurse, Angela, asked gently, "Is there anyone we can call?"

The only person he wanted to call right now was you. His bike was totaled and he found he didn't even care. He just wanted to go home. He wanted to play chess on your porch while it rained. He wanted to play hide and seek with Brutus while you giggled from the sofa, watching him. He wanted to let you pick a movie for movie night only to have you unceremoniously fall asleep in his arms less than ten minutes in. He wanted to beg your forgiveness. He wanted to tell you he loved you, was in love with you, like he should have before he left. He wanted to go home.

But he shook his head, wiped his eyes and asked if he could have his phone. He would be waiting a while for imaging on his leg. The thought for sure something was broken and based on what he felt when he went down, he concurred with that opinion. He thought it possible he might even need surgery, though they hadn't said as much yet.

Angela returned with his phone and a smile, repeated as he looked at his cracked screen that she'd be happy to call, but he thanked her and waved her off.

His phone seemed to be working fine and he immediately scrolled over to his photo album where he pulled up photos of you. Photos of the two of you together, you making a silly face at the camera and him with a toothy smile on his face as he looked down at you. Happy.

He felt suddenly very stupid for how he'd handled everything. Wished he'd listened to you when you asked him why he seemed to be sabotaging the one good thing in his life.

The answer was that he didn't think he deserved anything good, least of all, you. He was destined to a miserable life and a miserable death and he had no desire to bring you down with him.

But looking at this photo, it was becoming more and more clear to him that you had changed him. He thought he was destined for tragedy, but you'd rewritten his ending. Only he'd been much too stupid to see it.

Eventually, he worked up the courage to call you, not expecting you to answer. As the phone rang he could picture you in your pajama set, sleepytime tea on your nightstand and Brutus curled up in your lap as you stared at the caller ID with rage in your eyes.

But you surprised him. You picked up after just three rings.

"Hello?" You sounded a bit breathless and a lot confused.

"Hi."

"Michael?" He closed his eyes at the sound of his name, always so sweet from your mouth, "What's wrong? Where are you?"

"Why are you assuming something's wrong?"

"Because I haven't heard from you in weeks," You said bitterly, "And I can hear beeping monitors in the background and I know you're not at work because Abbot told me you left for your sabbatical days ago."

"So you've been asking about me?" He said, teasing lilt to his voice.

You sighed, "Michael, so help me, I will hang up this phone—"

"Alright, okay, sorry, sorry, you're right," He ran a hand over his face, "I'm sorry—I—I'm in an emergency room in Chicago and I just wanted to hear your voice."

"Why are you in an emergency room?" He could tell you were fighting to keep your voice level from how slowly you asked the question.

"I totaled the bike," He scratched at his beard, "I was driving too late and I was tired and a car drifted into my lane and I swerved and went into a guardrail."

"Oh my God—Fuck—Are you—Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I have some pretty bad road rash and think maybe my leg's broken—" He heard movement on the other end of the phone, "What're you doing?"

"Packing." You said matter of factly, "If I leave now I should get to Chicago by morning."

He felt his eyes burn immediately. That after everything you'd still go to him without hesitation. Again, he felt that pang in his chest, that overwhelming ache that said he didn't deserve you.

"You shouldn't drive this late," Was all he said, swallowing past the lump in his throat.

"Please," You said dismissively, "Do you need anything from your house? I can stop on my way."

"Sweetheart, I'm—I'm so sorry for leaving. You were right, you're the only thing that matters and I thought I didn't deserve it—Deserve you and so I ran away. I'm a coward. And I don't expect you to forgive me, but I'll beg for it anyway. I love you so much and I just want to be with you, if you'll still have me."

There was silence on the other line and then a soft sigh, "You're on so many drugs right now, aren't you?"

"What? No—Well, yes, but that's not why—"

"We can talk about it in a few days when you're not high out of your mind. Do you need anything from your house?" You repeated it like you were talking to a petulant toddler and he felt stupid again. He hadn't considered what this would look like to you. And yes, his accident had forced him to confront what he was actually doing and feeling, but that didn't make it less true. He'd known he loved you long before he left, long before you even said it. He thought he'd likely been a little bit in love with you since med school.

Your caution was understandable, though, so he wouldn't push.

"No," He said finally, "No, thanks. But would you mind sharing your location with me since you insist on driving through the night? Would make me feel better if I can follow along."

"Sure," you said, and he heard the way your voice softened at his concern, "Goodnight, Michael."

For a moment, time seemed to crunch like an accordian and he was back in med school, your voice in his ear in the middle of the night, asking for his forgiveness. He felt a bit fuzzy at the edges.

"Goodnight, Bambi." He murmured and his phone slipped from his hand.

***

Michael was asleep when you got to the hospital and had been admitted to Ortho upstairs for surgery.

Your emotions were all over the place, but seeing him in a hospital bed, a bit bloodied up and hooked up to monitors, you felt your defenses falling. You wanted to be angry with him, but how could you be? When you had been so close to losing him for good?

As you got closer, you noted that he'd let his beard and hair grow out a bit longer since the last you saw him. It made him appear softer. You had been pleased before he left when his cheeks began to fill out a bit having made him eat properly since you began dating. That weight was still there, if not as obvious as before.

The rush of affection that filled you upon seeing him was nearly suffocating.

As you pulled up a chair to his bedside, he began to wake and you smiled at him with watery eyes, "Hi."

He smiled back and reached a hand out for you which you immediately took and brought to your lips.

"I'm sorry," He said immediately, but you dismissed him with a shake of your head.

"What did the doctor say? Why do you need surgery?"

"It's… shattered. The bike fell on it, crushed my leg. Have to screw it all back together."

You frowned as he grimaced, "Are you in pain? Let me go get a nurse—"

You stood to go, but he wrapped a hand around your wrist, "No, no, don't. I asked them to… take me off the meds."

You stared at him, mouth agape, "Why would you do something like that?"

"So that I could tell you how in love with you I am with a clear head."

You nearly laughed, "Michael Robinavitch, have you lost your goddamn mind?"

"You said we should wait," He shook his head, "I don't want you to go another second thinking that I don't love you."

Your eyes watered, but you shook your head, "It's gonna take a lot longer than you saying it once for me to trust you again."

"I know that," He grimaced again, "I just wanted to say it now."

You brought a hand to his cheek and scratched lightly along his jaw, "Can I go grab a nurse now if you're done with the dramatics?"

He smirked and nodded and you hid a grin as you stood and walked from the room.

It was a day or two after surgery that Robby was finally cleared to go home with you. On the way home, high on pain meds, Robby read The Princess Bride to you in his silly voices to keep you entertained.

At home, you set him up in bed with strict instructions to Brutus to keep him company while you made him food.

And slowly, the two of you settled back into the usual rhthym. He told you he loved you many times a day. Even when he didn't say it, he'd run his fingers over the tattoo on your wrist, or say something just to make you laugh. He watched you with an expression on his face that you'd never seen before and when you asked if something was wrong, he shook his head, said "Everything's perfect."

As he got back on his feet, you took slow walks to and from the park, fed the birds. Robby even downloaded an app on his phone that could identify the birds by thsid song. His face would light up with joy whenever the app told him a bird he didn't recognize was around.

Life was quiet and peaceful and love found a way to fill every crack and crevice in each of your hearts.

A year later, when Robby's leg had healed entirely, when the only pain was used to predict the rain, was when he asked you.

"Sweetheart?" Your head was in his lap on the sofa, you watching TV while he did a crossword. You hummed in response so he knew you were listening, "I've been thinking and I think it's time I put my house up for sale."

You sat up slowly and looked at him. Your eyes instantly scanning for deception.

Robby was a great roommate. He was pretty handy and so could usually fix most minor wear and tear problems without having to call in an expert. He took care of Brutus and the plants. He loved gardening with you. He never let the chores go too long without being done. Always washed the toilet because he knew it was your least favorite chore.

You had no qualms about living with him. But you always assumed, even though most of you had grown to trust him again, that he'd keep his house as a backup plan. It was realistic, you told yourself. Relationships all had expiration dates.

"Really?"

He nodded, "The last year I've only ever gone home to to make sure nobody's broken in. I've moved everything I use here already. My clothes, my toiletries, my tools, my books, my records—everything's here. It's a waste, don't you think?"

You opened and closed your mouth, ran your fingers absently over the tattoo on your wrist, "What if… What if we fight and you want space?"

He shrugged, "I don't think that would happen, but I could always get a hotel for a night. I still have the cabin in the mountains."

You swallowed and looked down at your hands, "If we break up you'll hate me because you sold your house."

You felt the couch shift as he sat up and took your hands, "If we broke up, I could never hate you. Besides, this is my decision. You didn't pressure me into it. I also figured this way it was only fair that I start helping out with the bills here. Now, if me permanently moving in feels like too big of a step to you—"

"No," You said quickly, "No, I want you to. I love having you here, it's been…" You shook your head, "It's been the best year of my life."

He smiled and brought your hands up to his lips, "Mine too."

And as the two of you talked over a bottle of wine about the logistics of moving the remainder of his things into your house and calling realtors and what you should do with the extra money (Should you travel? Put it into retirement?) it was like the final piece of your previously shattered heart was glued back into place.

Before Michael, you often wondered if you were too picky. If your standards were too high as your mother loved to tell you and that's why you'd end up a spinster. Alone and bitter, always denied the one thing you wanted and craved most in the world: love and companionship.

But as you and Michael talked late into the night and fell asleep in each other's arms, you knew you'd been right to wait.

Sammy considered himself to be a pretty tolerant man, you had to be with a wife like his and a job that required endless patience and levelheadedness.

He tried not to let anything get under his skin and he prided himself on his ability to keep calm in tough situations. Clearly he had not properly prepared himself for the sight of you on any given day, especially today as you greeted him from across Nate’s pool.

You’d started to babysit for the Moretta family when you had just turned eighteen, needing to make some quick money for the summer without wanting to do any actual hard work.

Sammy had laughed at the sight of you when he first came over to one of Nate’s cookouts and saw you in the front yard with Petey, wearing these ridiculously tiny shorts and squealing with laughter as you threw water balloons at each other.

“No way you’re having that in your house all summer.” He had scoffed at the thought and nudged Nate with his elbow knowingly, eyeing you from where they’d been working on the new grill in the garage.

“Shut up it’s not like that. Pete loves her and she’s flexible.” He said back, shaking his head and doing his best to avoid looking at you considering you were pretty close to his daughter’s age and he was apparently a bit more morally sound than Sammy at the moment.

Speaking of, he was currently raising his eyebrows at Nate’s choice of words which earned him an eye roll and a wrench tossed in his direction.

A year had passed and you hadn’t gone anywhere, getting a part time job somewhere else but asking Nate and Mariella if you could still babysit occasionally. You liked the kids and the house but, admittedly you also liked the rare occasions you got to see Nate’s partner.

He didn’t come over often and if he did it was always brief outside of the occasional backyard barbecue he managed to get forced into attending. You weren’t a stranger to older guys looking at you but you didn’t mind it at all when it came from Sammy.

All the curious and half longing stares made more sense to you when you finally met his wife on one of those weekends and saw the way they interacted, how tense and unhappy they both seemed. You figured she must have something severely wrong with her to look at Sammy in the disgusted way she did for the entire evening before disappearing into the house with some of the other wives.

“Officer Bryant.” You greeted with a smile and your amused eyes gleaming beneath your hand that you were using to block the sun, hip cocking dangerously as you stood in front of him. “You look lonely over here.”

He was leaned against the house with a beer he was barely sipping, raising his eyebrows at the title you used and smiling.

“Shouldn’t you be watching Petey?” He was only teasing back, both of you well aware the little boy had been following his mom around the entire party. You’d helped set up and then been invited to stick around as a courtesy and a thank you.

You rolled your eyes at him and reached your hand out for his beer, sighing when he sent you a warning glare and pulled it further away from you.

“Your wife seems nice.” Your attempt at a compliment fell flat and you both heard it.

“You don’t mean that.” He replied easily but thankfully he still looked amused even if he had tensed a little at the mention of Tammi.

And even if she was nice, you wouldn’t have meant it. You didn’t feel much guilt towards being attracted to him regardless but it certainly helped your small moral dilemma that the taken man you were lusting over was married to a gigantic bitch.

Just like you weren’t a stranger to the way he looked at you, Sammy was well aware of your goal when you came over to him. You liked to flirt with him when Nate wasn’t paying attention even though his presence sometimes wasn’t enough to stop you either, although you kept it more PG when he was around since he was technically your boss still.

You pulled all the typical moves that almost left him wondering if he was being pranked, if one of the guys at the station who came over for food sometimes had put you up to it.

You’d bat your eyelashes and ask him about his day, run your finger along his belt buckle and pout whenever he said it had been a rough shift. Your constant innuendos and scandalous outfits were poison to any man let alone one as desperate as Sammy.

He hadn’t even really considered himself deprived until he met you. Sure, his marriage was basically a hostile roommate agreement and you were certainly the hottest woman he’s ever had so openly flirting with him but you were also young and he had figured he was a better man than that.

Assumed he wasn’t the type of guy to be in his late thirties and getting all warm at the sight of you in your wet bikini top and jean shorts.

“I don’t, you’re right.” You say and take a few dangerous steps closer to him that make him audibly sigh. “You staying long tonight?”

“Cut that out.” He said and his tone was still light but bordering scolding now, eyes less amused the closer you got to him with a yard full of people around you.

You hadn’t been drinking considering you were underaged and surrounded by cops, off duty or not, but you still had a natural flush to your neck and chest from the sun and he selfishly let his eyes trail down it now that you were so close.

“What?” You replied softly and your head tilted a little at him in question even though you both knew you were well aware of what you were doing to him. You had that effect on most people but especially Sammy.

You liked that he was a little awkward, nervous and good at pretending he had game but still stilted and out of practice in his delivery. You could tell he was married before you even subtly asked Nate, knew it had been a long time since he had tried to flirt with somebody casually.

Even though he really didn’t do it often in his defense, he tried his best to just be kind to you but it was almost impossible to make small talk around your constant advances. You certainly weren’t as shy as him and you only laid it on thicker when he squirmed.

“You know what.” He sighed back and you frowned at the tone of voice he’d taken, hand sliding over his to take the beer bottle and set it down on the outdoor table beside him. He tensed at the feeling of your skin on his but surprisingly didn’t immediately shut it down.

“Tell me Sammy.” You whispered and shifted closer, way too close for anybody who looked over to consider it remotely casual. Especially considering you looked like that and Sammy definitely had the expression of somebody about to lose their mind from a simple hand touch. “What am I doing?”

Luckily he was halfway saved by the slider door opening and Nate poking his head with a tray full of hotdogs, his relief fading when his partner furrowed his eyebrows at the sight of you nearly caging Sammy in against the wall. You took a step back and sighed a little at the much needed interruption, Sammy’s face turning a little red as he straightened up and pushed off the house.

He grabbed his beer on his way past you and you felt his palm run across your stomach, regardless if it was intentional or not you still felt a burst of heat hit you hard at the feeling of his fingertips on your bare skin. You were half tempted to follow him inside but you decided against it very quickly when you remembered Tammi was in there.

Sammy managed to avoid you for the rest of the night and he tried his best to focus on Tammi. Despite their problems that seemed to have no end in sight, she was still his wife and once upon a time he had loved her.

She used to be nice and she’d even flirt with him too even although he couldn’t remember ever feeling as affected by her as he did with you.

Maybe it wasn’t a far comparison considering you were quite literally walking sin and he was sure no girl your age could even hold a candle to you let alone somebody twenty years older like Tammi.

Had a younger version of her even made him feel like that?

He told himself that when Tammi was ready to leave a few hours after arriving that he only stayed to help Nate clean up after. He also told himself that he wasn’t half expecting it when you came into the kitchen only a few minutes after his wife’s car pulled out of the driveway, a more serious look on your face than he was used to.

“Trouble in paradise?” You said softly, leaning against the counter as you eyed him putting untouched fruit appetizers into a container for later.

Thankfully you were wearing a shirt now but the tiny tight tank top did little to help him, almost worse than your bikini considering it was still wet underneath and causing the fabric to cling to your sun kissed skin.

“Wouldn’t necessarily call it that.” He tried to keep his voice gruff and uninterested but he was already aware you knew better than that.

“Trouble or paradise?” You smile and move closer as you say it like putting down his marriage gives you a free pass to nearly invade his personal space.

He hates that you’re not exactly wrong either, his marriage so dull and lifeless that there isn’t even enough care to argue from either of them. He would almost prefer screaming matches with Tammi than how completely stale they’d become.

His hands stop moving, pretty sure he wasn’t doing anything productive anyways since you walked in the room, and he turns his head to look at you more directly. It’s a mistake on his part because you’re so devastatingly pretty that he feels like a sixteen year old boy seeing a pair of tits for the first time again.

“I don’t want to talk about this with you.” He says back to your invasive teasing and he finds himself genuinely meaning it.

Partially for all the right reasons, you have clear intentions with him for whatever purpose you’ve decided and discussing the cons of his marriage with you felt shady enough within itself. But also because he could barely remember Tammi’s name whenever you got that look on your face.

Pleased. Like you had won something that he didn’t even know you had been competing for.

“That’s fine.” Your voice was low, nearing a whisper and Sammy was suddenly very aware of the fact this was the first time he’d been truly alone with you. “I have better ideas for conversation.”

You’d moved fully into his space now and he made the mistake of facing you, back to the counter and his eyes pained as he watched you get closer. You might as well have been slithering, your expression like one of a satisfied predator even though he was sure the roles were typically reversed.

It was straying incredibly far from the stereotypical dynamic of a pervy older guy trying to seduce a cute young girl but you seemed more than comfortable in the part you were playing.

He wondered for half a second if he was the only pathetic married man you tried to seduce like this and then mentally scolded himself for sounding like a jealous high schooler.

“Bad idea.” He eventually replied in reference to your innuendo but it was paired perfectly with your hands brushing against his belts leather. “Terrible.”

“You always say that.” You pout and it would have been extremely cute if it wasn’t for the look in your eyes, completely mocking and almost gleaming the more he denied you. “It’s not fun Sammy.”

“I’m not supposed to be fun. I’m married.” He said it simply even though you didn’t need the reminder.

You made a show of widening your eyes slightly before looking over both of your shoulders in an exaggerated scan of the room. Then you were back to staring up at him and letting your hand brush his stomach next, stopping and applying light pressure just under his ribs.

“I don’t see your wife.” You concluded and he couldn’t stop the huff of laughter that left him at the audacity.

His hand landed ontop of yours that was still on his shirt, confusing you for a second as he pressed down before you realized he was rubbing his wedding band against your skin. You glanced down between your bodies and wanted to sneer at the sight of it but instead you smiled and his eyebrows raised in question.

It was clearly a mistake to try and assert himself like that because your fingers wrapped around the metal and you tugged it off slowly, letting it loosely hang around the final knuckle before you were removing it completely.

He halfway watched as you stretched behind him to set it down on the counter, your bodies pressing together for a few seconds as a result.

“She doesn’t wear hers.” You pointed out to him and his shoulders deflated, knowing you were right.

Tammi hadn’t been wearing her ring for over a year now, giving him some bullshit story about it clanking uncomfortably against her camera as she held it. He’d demanded to see it for weeks while he slept on the couch, knowing in his gut she probably pawned it for that new lens she carried around.

Eventually he stopped asking and it never made an appearance again.

He wondered for a second if you were the type of girl to flaunt a wedding ring, eyes shifting to your pretty hand that was now resting against his chest.

“Such a shame Officer Bryant.” You frown again, the same mocking one that brings heat to his neck, and rub up and down his chest. “I bet you make a good husband.”

“I try my best.” He replies in a lower tone and he knows he means it, or maybe meant it before he met you and apparently threw all of his vows in the trash can.

Technically he hadn’t done anything wrong, he always turned you down when your advances got further than light touching and flirty lines. But the way he thought about you was a sin within itself, maybe worse than if he had actually just cheated.

He lets out a deep sigh when your hand rubs his chest softly over his shirt, your eyes peering up at him with the same level of desire you always seem to have. It makes no sense to him that somebody who looks like you would want him that bad and he’s still not convinced he’s not being pranked by somebody.

“You should go back outside.” He whispers and he really means it because it’s getting harder and harder to keep his hands off of you.

You hesitate and he’s shocked when you actually take a step back and give him a long look, hand lingering on his chest for a second before you’re retracting that too.

It’s perfect timing because the slider door is opening and Nate is appearing again, interrupting like he had earlier and mirroring the expression too. He looks between you both with suspicion, narrowing his eyes at Sammy specifically when you smile and go back outside.

“You’re an idiot.” He tells him simply, shaking his head and moving to put away unopened beers in the fridge.

Sammy can’t even defend himself to his partner, still stuck on the feeling of your hands on him a few seconds ago.

He’s well aware of how idiotic he’s being and he isn’t sure if it’s because he’s so bored and withdrawn from his marriage or if he was secretly that depraved and perverted this entire time. He wonders if maybe it was just dormant until you arrived but the thought makes his stomach ache so he tries to forget it.

There’s a strong effort that goes into avoiding you for the next few weeks, refusing any opportunity to go to Nate’s house and keeping his distance when he has no choice. He stays out in the car or only comes around when he knows you’re not babysitting, hair on the back of his neck standing up whenever he hears your honey voice from the backyard.

He feels pretty proud of himself for resisting the pull to you, the magnetic energy you have constantly calling to him even when he’s at home in bed.

That is until he walks in after work and sees you sitting at his dining room table with Tammi.

He freezes in place and feels like all his worst fears are coming true, a crossover episode straight out of his nightmares. He’s hit with a moment of panic and certainty that you’re here to tell his wife about all the times he’s stood there uselessly and let you flirt with him or touch him lightly.

There aren’t any real stories to tell where he actually participated but he never stopped you and his wandering gaze was bad enough alone.

But Tammi is smiling at you and turning her laptop further in your direction, pointing at something on the screen and talking about coloring and editing in the obnoxiously pretentious way she does. It’s a lot of buzzwords without any real meaning so she can attempt to sound professional and normally it would drive him crazy but he can’t even hear the words she’s saying currently.

You’re looking at him as soon as he enters the kitchen and you have the same expression as always. It’s dangerously wanting and a little smug now.

“Hi Officer Bryant.” You say softly while Tammi doesn’t even glance in his direction, rarely acknowledging him when he comes home.

He stares at you as he takes off his jacket and sets it down on the counter, eye contact not waning for even a second as Tammi continues to talk to you.

“What’s going on?” He finally speaks and he hates how hoarse his voice comes out. If Tammi was ever paying attention to him then she’d probably realize something was going on internally.

“Mariella said she’s in photography club at school and wanted some pointers.” Tammi says and her excitement is palpable, clearly proud that somebody had thought of her when it came to mentorship.

His eyes narrow at you and your smile brightens, shrugging your shoulders innocently like he would believe for a second you had actually wanted Tammi’s help with anything.

He knows he’s right when you softly tell Tammi that you were interested in seeing her variety of lenses and cameras, his wife jumping out of her chair at the opportunity to show off. She tells you to just wait there for a few minutes while she goes and gets them all to present to you.

You’re standing and coming closer to him the second she leaves the room and he sighs automatically, knowing he should have expected it.

“How was work?” You ask him in a soft tone as you fiddle with the buttons on his shirt, his eyes tired as he stares down at you in light disbelief. The sheer audacity of trying to make domestic small talk with him when you lied your way into his kitchen and were sitting rambling about hobbies with his wife.

“Why are you here?” He asks and he knows how pained it comes across but he can’t be bothered to rein it in.

“You were avoiding me.” You pout up at him like it makes perfect sense to you, as if this was the only logical next step after he stopped coming around.

Your hands stop playing with the buttons in favor of rubbing over his chest and shoulders until your arms are looped around his neck. He sighs and lets himself rest his on your waist, feeling the warmth of the sliver of skin your shirt doesn’t cover.

You smile at the rare touch from him, clearly not expecting it and it takes everything in him not to rub your sides curiously.

“This is exactly why.” He tells you and shakes his head, upset with himself already.

“Because you want me?” Your head tilts and he thinks you might be teasing him but he can’t stop himself from nodding his head in quick agreement. That only seems to excite you more, fingers playing with the hair that touches the back of his neck.

You shift even closer if it’s possible and stand on your tiptoes so you can press light kisses against his jaw. It’s the first real time you’re touching him and he visibly melts at the sensation, doing nothing to stop it as his hands clench around your sides and instinctively tug you even closer.

Your lips are warm and moving so softly across his skin as you cling to him, careful not to leave marks but still sucking enough to bring a stir of heat to his gut.

He knows he should be stopping you, should shove you away and confess to Tammi your true intentions coming here but clearly he’s not as good as he can pretend he is because the thought of ending this barely crosses his mind.

“She’s not right for you Sammy.” You whisper softly in between kisses, moving down his neck which he easily bares for you. “I’d make you feel so good.”

His big hand rubs from your side to the small of your back, skin on skin as he pulls you tight against him and keeps you in place. You smile against his skin at the clear show of need, kissing further down until you’re stopped by the collar of his shirt.

“You’ve got to leave.” He sighs and you pull away from his neck to frown at him, the most disgruntled expression he’s ever seen from you.

You look genuinely upset by his rejections this time around and he wonders for a second if maybe this is actually more to you than just some fun.

“Let me do something for you Sammy.” You pout up at him and press closer again, hand rubbing down his stomach and stopping at his belt. “Can I suck you off atleast?”

His hand grips your wrist and he groans lowly, beyond conflicted just from lewd words like that leaving your mouth. It takes everything in him to remove your hand and shift you backwards so you’re not leaning against him anymore.

“We aren’t doing this.” He tries to sound firm but it comes out as weak and nearly desperately. “You’re a nice girl.”

“I’m not.” You shake your head immediately and he has to bite his lip and look away from you and your wanting eyes. “I’m really not.”

Clearly that’s the truth because you’re rocking forward to kiss him lightly and he instinctively melts into it, mouth moving with yours for a few seconds before he’s making a pained noise and moving your backwards with his hands that are still on your waist.

His thumbs press into your stomach until he releases you once you’re on the other side of the kitchen and your eyebrows furrow before you’re turning around and placing your hands behind your back. Your wrist cross each other and you look over your shoulder at him and smile at his confused stare, raking up and down your body.

“You should cuff me Officer Bryant.” You say softly and your voice has taken that low seductive tone you liked to use when you were really testing him.

He wishes he could stop himself from stepping forward and moving your hair over your shoulder so your neck is exposed, pressing a light kiss against it and drinking in the deep inhale you take. His hand goes down to hold your wrist in place, keeping them pinned there like you’re fantasizing about.

Sammy shifts closer until he’s pressed against you from behind and you rest your forehead against the wall.

His free hand slides around your body until he can rub the smooth skin of your stomach softly, his thumb teasing the edge of your tank top.

He’s as close to a man losing control as somebody has probably ever been, his hands nearly shaking from how bad he just wants to touch you. You’re so desperate for him it almost feels comical on his part, not understanding how he possibly got so lucky and cursed at the same time that a pretty girl like you would go this far just to make him feel good.

You make the prettiest sound when he first really presses himself against you, intentional in the way his hips rock forward to feel the curve of your shorts.

“Sammy.” Your voice is so sweet and he knows he can’t handle it so he moves his palm to cover your mouth, resting his forehead on your shoulder blade as he shushes you.

You seemed to like that, either the direction or the feeling of his hand on you because your back arches and you push back into him.

You’re both quiet as you can be aside from some soft noises, muffled and choked on your part. He’s shutting his eyes tight as he moves against you to try and rid himself of any guilt while also being hyper aware of Tammi coming back any second.

You feel so small pressed into the wall the way you are, hands still pinned behind your back like you’re cuffed. He thinks about how much he’d actually like to see you like that, maybe down on your knees for him and unable to touch him other than with your mouth.

He considers bringing it up to you but he knows you’re a live wire and probably wouldn’t hesitate to drop down despite his wife being a few rooms over.

The reminder of how limited time you have spurs him on and he manages to completely forget how wrong this is in favor of letting himself feel good.

Sammy has you pressed against the wall even harder as he ruts into you, grunting low in your ear with his hands leaving your mouth and wrist to press bruises into your hips. He seems almost pained as he moves but your soft whimpers and the way you press back against him makes him unable to think clearly.

“God Sammy you’re so hard.” You whine as you arch your back enough to feel him even more, the way he’s using your body to get off clearly driving you absolutely insane. You feel almost dizzy as his frame crowds yours against the wall, knees weakening but being stabilized by his grip on you.

“Fuck, you know exactly what you do to me.” He groans as he keeps rubbing himself on you, one of his hands sliding from your hips to where your zipper sits. He pulls you further backwards with a hand on your shorts and you made a pleased noise. “Walking around here dressed like that.”

“Just for you.” You whimper and he already knew it but hearing you say it out loud is a whole new beast. “Only you Sammy.”

He can hear Tammi making disgruntled noises from the bedroom, complaining about not being able to find a certain piece of equipment and he somehow finds it in himself to push away from you.

He’s running a hand over his face to attempt to sober himself up when she comes back, glancing at you and being glad to see you had turned around and managed to present semi normal other than the wild look in your eyes.

The signs are obvious to him, the way your shirt is slightly pushed up to your ribs and how your thighs rub together when you sit back down by Tammi. He can’t stand the sight of you so needy still, left unsatisfied but still turning your head to watch him with that same adoring look.

Tammi thankfully never pays attention to anyone but herself and certainty doesn’t notice the dent in his pants or how tense his jaw is when he leaves the room in a hurry.

-

Sammy feels guilty about it for days afterwards, laying in bed with tears in his eyes as he thinks about how wrong it was.

How terrible it is that he still wants you so bad, consumed by the thought of you even more now that he’s felt your skin and heard you whine so desperately for him. The taste of your mouth is haunting him and he can barely stomach arguing back with Tammi when she creates a problem because he feels so torn.

He knows it’s the worst choice to make when he seeks you out but he tells himself it’s about closure.

You’re leaving Nate’s house later than usual after they had a date night, something he’d casually mentioned to Sammy on their way out of the station. He’d been parked outside for almost an hour waiting for you to come out, watching you and the unfamiliar tired look on your face as it turns into recognition at the sight of his car.

He starts the engine as soon as you notice him, letting the headlights turn on and illuminate your figure, painting an image of a spotlight that seems fitting considering how beautiful you look even after a long day.

You take the hint and make your way over to the passenger side of his car, opening the door and getting in quickly incase Nate or Mariella look out their window.

It’s quiet when Sammy pulls away even though he can almost feel the excitement radiating off of you, your hands fidgeting together in your lap and your gaze constantly on the side of his face.

He has half the urge to scold you for getting into a car with him when you barely know him but he can hear how paternal that sounds and quickly decides against it, stomach turning a little at the thought.

He sighs when he pulls into an empty parking lot, some old restaurant that closed down a few years ago in an area that saw little foot traffic. You angle your body towards him expectantly and he finally looks at you directly for the first time that night, how wide and hopeful your eyes are reminding him that this might be more than fun to you.

“What we did was wrong.” He starts softly and your face falls before it hardens, eyebrows furrowing as you start to shake your head in denial. “It was wrong and I need you to know that.”

“It wasn’t.” You say quickly as soon as he’s done and sit up straighter, shifting forward so your stomach is almost bent over the middle console in an attempt to get closer to him. “It felt good Sammy, you know it did.”

“That’s not the point.” He scoffs in near disbelief even though he figures he should have expected you to react like this. “It’s not about it feeling good.”

“But it did?” You ask and he pauses at the sound of your voice sounding almost insecure. He’d foolishly built you up as this sex driven vixen wanting to destroy his marriage out of teenage boredom but he was realizing more and more with each encounter how wrong he was about you.

He stares at you for a long few seconds in the silence of his car, the smell of your perfume mixing with the familiar leather and creating a whole dilemma of its own.

There’s a small awareness of how wrong the sight of the two of you is, how much younger you look when your hair is a little messy and your eyes are searching for his reassurance.

He hates that it doesn’t deter the want still steadily building inside of him.

If anything it just makes it ten times worse, the want to praise you and soothe all of your insecurities away hitting him hard. He’d never been very in control when it came to Tammi, her sharp demands and pickiness bleeding into their intimacy too.

He’d simply settled for shutting up and doing whatever she said made her feel good no matter how vanilla or repetitive it got to avoid an argument afterwards.

But now here you were, sitting sideways in the darkness of his car and bringing a level of excitement to his veins that could rival foreplay.

“Of course it did.” He says softly after the silence starts to settle almost uncomfortably, your shoulders relax and you lean almost naturally closer to him.

He convinces himself he feels bad for you and that’s why his hand reaches out to brush your hair behind your ear. You let out a breath and nuzzle into his palm for the brief moment he keeps it there before it’s dropping back to his lap.

“Why are you doing this?” He doesn’t know why he asks, why he feels that same need in his chest he gets when he sees a helpless victim or a kid going down the wrong path. The urge to help you and steer you away from any wrongdoings, even if he’s included in that.

“Because I want to.” You say it firmly and you sound a little bit more like the version of you he was used to before this, self assured and confident. “I’m not a little girl Sammy. I’m choosing this.”

He almost asks you why, demands you give him some sort of backstory or trauma lore that would explain why you are making these choices.

The chance is stolen by your lips pressing against his and he folds immediately, mouth moving against yours as he shifts closer to you. His hand goes back to cupping your face to keep you near him, kiss heated from the beginning and not slowing down.

You kiss for a long time, your tongue running across his bottom lip for a while before he actually lets you in to taste him. And then it’s even worse, wet and sloppy as you sit up on your knees and nearly climb over the middle console to get to his lap.

He stops you with a firm hand on your hip and you whine into his mouth, clearly not liking the distance between your bodies that he knows is for the best. It’s bad enough he has you panting and squirming from a simple make out session but he definitely doesn’t need to feel the weight of you on top of him.

His hand tightens around your face, holding your jaw so tight your cheeks puff a little in a pucker look. You look so beyond cute and helpless like that but he forces himself to focus as he pushes your face back away from his.

You whine his name and he sighs, shushing you and shaking his head to try and get some clarity knocked around.

Sammy hadn’t kissed anyone like that since high school, long before Tammi even. He sits back in his seat and puts the car in drive as you frown and hesitantly put your seatbelt back on.

“Gonna drive you home.” He says gruffly and you don’t even try to protest when you hear the strained tone he’s taken on.

You come around more and more after that under the guise of getting help from Tammi but he knows better so he tries to stay out of your way.

It never works, you either corner him in the kitchen or pretend you need the bathroom just to make your way down to their bedroom.

That’s the worst place for him because he can’t resist the sight of you in the dimly lit room, hands tangled in your hair as you make out desperately. Your back hits the dresser and a wedding photo topples over and lands on its front aggressively, a soft giggle leaving you when he pulls back and sees what the sound was.

He can’t help the laugh that comes out of him too, head pressing into your neck and kissing lightly, a little dazed from the absurdity of it all.

Sammy was already addicted to you, to your teasing and your eyes locked on him but now it’s so much worse and he can’t resist it anymore. He takes any opportunity you give him and goes out of his way to bring things over to Nate’s house or offers to carpool to work despite the fact it’s actually out of his way completely.

It’s pathetic and his partner knows it too but luckily he’s stopped calling him out on it after the first few times Sammy walked past him looking a little too flushed to be normal.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Nate had asked him one day at lunch when Sammy was engrossed with his phone, eyes locked on a selfie you had sent him that was far from appropriate.

“Nope.” He answered easily before turning the screen off and shoving it into his pocket.

It was an all over consumption that easily ate away at the guilt and replaced it with a thick level of excitement. He’d pick you up almost every night now, parking his car somewhere and spending hours just kissing and touching in the protection of the dark.

He knew your age gap wasn’t small, even if he wasn’t married it wasn’t going to result in small side eyes and the occasional disapproval. It would be a full out scandal if anybody found out how he had you panting in the backseat, begging him to go further while he tried his best to resist you gently.

That didn’t last long either and it was only a few weeks of the sneaking off late at night before things were escalating.

Sammy was sure at some point Tammi would notice the nights he didn’t come home at all, maybe even check his credit cards and see the random charges to hotels downtown. She never once seemed to bat an eye when he was a bit more frazzled then normal after she’d return from the bathroom, your skirt pushed up on your thighs and a hungry smile plastered on your pretty face.

He liked you best when you were alone in the hotels, wrapped in a robe and kissing down his neck like you were his wife instead. You could be so sweet when you weren’t desperate and pleading, learning to take it slow the more he insisted.

He wasn’t sure who in your life made you feel like you needed to be so rushed with it all the time, so quick to jump to quick meaningless sex. You seemed almost emotional whenever he kissed you gently and whispered how good you were doing, how patient you were being for him.

He’d asked a few times, demanded during others.

You wouldn’t give him any names but you would nuzzle in his neck and curl up against him in the large beds that somehow felt more comfortable than the one he shared with his wife at home.

Sammy liked you like that but he liked the darker side you brought out of him too. When you’d get really needy and slide down onto your knees, rubbing your hands up and down his thighs like you were self soothing and bumping your nose and mouth against his boxer covered hard on.

You’d beg him so desperately, voice high pitched and sometimes on the verge of tears when you thought he was going to deny you.

It was your favorite place to be, something you’d told him countless times when he tried to tell you that you didn’t always need to do that for him. You’d say how much you liked it and then prove it but how eagerly you took him in your mouth each time.

He even got to use the handcuffs like he had been daydreaming about those months ago.

The favor was always returned because Sammy just short of worshipped you, your body left his head spinning everytime he got you undressed and he’d lose himself in the taste of you. You’d been surprisingly shy the first time he parted your legs and got between them, tugging on his hair and trying to close them around his head.

He liked you in the shower too, sometimes quiet and in a floaty headspace after an intense night. You’d cling to him as he lathered soap all over your body, paying special selfish attention to your ass and using the tender moment as an excuse to grope at your chest.

You never would mind, panting softly and often times bending over so he could slip right back inside. You made him feel insatiable, like a new man.

You gave him purpose all over again, something he had lost a long time ago when he accepted his role as the silent and forgiving husband. He couldn’t react to Tammi’s outburst because she’d get more upset and he couldn’t speak his mind because she’d take it as a direct insult.

That was never a problem with you and it was bad how much he loved being around you, being with you in every sense of the word.

He found that he liked taking care of you in any way he could and you were always so appreciative, even if it was as simple as getting you a coffee or giving you money for lunch.

Things felt so easy despite how impossible the situation was.

He’s currently got you pressed into the mattress after a hard day at work, a rough fight with Tammi leading him to book a room and call you immediately. He would always feels so guilty about using you until you would beg for it, pleading for him to take his stress and anger out on your body instead of anything else.

And it’s clear that you mean it, genuinely want it. You’re nearly sobbing as he fucks into you and he knows it’s not because of the brutal pace, it’s because you absolutely love the feeling of him ramming into you like he doesn’t care about you.

It’s something else he wants to unpack eventually but for now he’s just as lost in the sensation of it, how tight you are around him and the way your breast move when you’re panting for air in between sobs.

“There we go baby, you’re so pretty.” He’s grunting as his hips move, his hand sitting around your throat but not applying any real pressure. The other one is holding you down by your stomach after you’d tried to squirm away from the rough thrust on instinct. “So slutty for me. Look at you letting me use your hole like this.”

You nearly scream out a sob at that and nod your head, hair a complete mess and nearly drooling. You’d told him before how much you loved it when he held you down, how you liked to fight back against his strength and find out just how useless it was to try.

“Fuck Sammy.” You can’t say much else, clearly so dazed and out of it.

It drives him crazy, makes him feel capable in a way he didn’t even realize he was lacking. It’s like he’s stepping back into manhood after years of it being so dormant just because of a band around his finger, a band you had taken off with your teeth after sucking his finger down to the last knuckle.

You’d giggle while you did it and he’d smile almost boyishly the entire time he watched you, spitting it back out into your palm before placing it on the dresser.

You didn’t shy away from talking about Tammi, if anything it seemed like you liked the fact he was married. Like everytime he actively chose to see you instead was a win in your book, overriding any jealousy you might feel.

Sometimes you’d get upset with him if she kissed him when he got home from work or if you saw the two of them in a rare good mood together. He’d watch your face fall and have to try and make it up to you with soft kisses to your face while you ignored him with a pout.

More often than not though you were the one to bring her up, making him tell you how much better you were than her.

At first he hated doing it, feeling like he was somehow doing worse than cheating despite the fact he would be deep inside of you. It felt wrong to insult her so openly like that but you’d get so excited over it, eyes wide and pleased whenever he told you how much he preferred you.

And it was worse because it was the truth.

He preferred you in almost every way, not just when you were underneath him. Even though he couldn’t deny how much weight the soft high pitched sounds you’d make pulled in the one sided competition.

But he also liked the way you smelled in the morning and how you made his coffee on the rare times you got to spend a few hours together after waking up, your attentiveness to his schedule and the way you’d kiss him extra soft when he’d seen something hard to cope with on the job.

You were perfect in every way other than how morally criminal it was to feel like that.

He tried to forget about it like he always did, thrusting into you and kissing your mouth sloppily since you were too fucked out to even respond. You’d cried the first time you had sex and he had insisted on wearing a condom so he had stopped, not ever wanting to make you more upset than he had to.

He’d been telling Tammi he wasn’t in the mood for weeks and solely giving himself to you, barely thinking about it each time he filled you up and then cleaned you with his tongue after.

The same routine happening now as he finished deep inside of you, your legs twitching around his waist as you followed shortly after. He could feel your nails on his back when he slumped down against you, being careful to not lay too much weight on your small frame.

He wasn’t used to being so rough still despite how much you liked it, kissing your neck and chest softly and rubbing your sides like it was a silent apology.

“I love it when you get like that.” You’re whispering and he thinks it’s more for his sake than anything, knowing he sometimes beats himself up after getting particularly intense with you. “You make me feel so good Sammy.”

He hums in acknowledgment and picks his head up to kiss you, slow and bordering dangerously close to romantic.

He slips himself out of you at the same time and you immediately whimper at the loss, tightening your legs around him. He can see the look on your face and knows you’re about to beg for more even if that means he just keeps himself inside you without actually moving.

You frowned against his mouth when he kissed his teeth to scold you.

“You okay baby?” He said lowly back and now you were smiling at the sound of his voice. You were quick to nod and kiss the corner of his mouth in double reassurance. “Didn’t hurt you?”

“Not in any way I didn’t like.” Your face is beyond pretty coated in after glow and he almost has to look away. “You’d never hurt me Sammy, I know that.”

You’re kissing again and it’s all softness now, staying that way when he’s shifting your bodies so he can pick you up off the bed and bring you to the shower.

It’s full of wandering hands and the sounds of your giggles, his phone no doubt vibrating somewhere out in the main room and being ignored like it is every other night lately. You get out before him this time with the excuse that you want to get your robe ready, one of your self appointed favorite perks of the hotels he gets.

You’re gone for long enough that his chest starts to feel weird, the same ache it gets when he’s too busy to see you for days at a time.

He shuts off the water and halfway dries himself before he’s wrapping the towel around his waist and entering the room you’re standing in.

In your defense, you are wearing your robe but you have a guilty look on your face that makes his eyebrows furrow.

For some reason, maybe his detective instincts kicking in, his eyes automatically go to the dresser his ring had been abandoned on. He hates that he’s not surprised to find it barren, the metal band no where in sight.

Next he spots the phone in your hand, too big to be the one he’d bought you a month ago when yours started to slow down. Also noticeably lacking the cute case you insisted on at the store, a picture of the two of you with your faces slightly cropped out in the back of it.

“Sammy.” You whisper it as your face falls in premature devastation like you know how upset he’s going to be.

Your fingers are hovering over the end call button and he doesn’t know how he just knows what you’ve done.

“Tell me you didn’t pick it up.” His voice is lower than even he recognizes and you take a step back when he inches forward.

“I’m so sorry Sammy. I thought it was mine I swear to god.” Your eyes are wide and you place the phone down in favor of holding both of your hands up like you’re torn between reaching out for him and surrendering. “It wouldn’t stop ringing and I wanted us to have a nice time and..”

You trail off like you know how weak your defenses sound and he pinches the bridge of his nose to try and calm down.

“Who was it?” He asks slowly because he knows the answer and doesn’t really want to hear you say it.

The look on your face is very telling and he can’t even be bothered to remember to ask what you’ve done with his ring, to inform you of how much more damning that makes the accidental phone call seem.

You look so sad and he can’t escape the urge to make you feel better, to accept your touch when you finally step forward and rub his biceps soothingly. You kiss him gently like you’re scared he’ll reject you now and you let out a deep breath into it when he returns it.

“I’m so sorry I just love you so much.” You’re whispering into his mouth and he wants to tell you to stop but it’s too late, you’ve already said it. “I love you and didn’t want this to end like it always does.”

Sammy can’t even tell you that you’re wrong and you don’t know what love is because he’s positive you fully do believe that’s what you feel for him. You’re too young to fully understand the consequences of what you did and he’s not moral enough to try and teach you, a selfish warmth at how far you’d really go just to have him.

It was you that had invited him here, but you didn't think he'd show. He was always bitching about how he hated Manhattan, how it was hot and smelt like piss, how it was too crowded.

And yet, here he was in yours and Samira's East Village apartment eating dinner and acting like everything was normal. You had dismissed the twinge in your chest when you overheard him talking to one of Samira's friends, telling them he was a friend of yours.

"Oh," Samira's friend Zack, ever the gossip had said knowingly, "A friend? Because I've heard she has a secret boyfriend but I can't get it out of her or Mira. It wouldn't be you, would it?"

Robby had chuckled dismissively, "No, no. We're just friends."

Just friends. The ease with which it had rolled off his tongue made you feel sick. Never mind just an hour earlier he'd been between your legs as you sat atop the bathroom sink, his tongue shoved deep inside you and your fist in your mouth to keep from moaning too loudly.

You were so out of control around him you felt like a runaway train about to run out of track. Constantly you were denying your feelings for him, but since you moved, you knew it didn't really matter. You remembered telling him you were leaving, still in his bed, his arms wrapped around you and mouth pressing kisses to your bare shoulders. He had frozen, his mouth still pressed to your shoulder when you said it.

"Oh." Was all he'd said.

You'd hoped he'd ask you to stay, finally stop tiptoeing around whatever you were doing. But he hadn't done that. Hadn't remarked on it much at all, in fact.

Your last night in Pittsburgh he'd shown up at your door and your heart had lifted the tiniest bit. A strand of hope still pulling at your heart, reaching out for him. He doesn't want me to go. But still, he hadn't said anything real. He'd fucked you on the air mattress, the only piece of furniture still in your apartment, and slipped out with a kiss on your forehead and a quiet Good luck whispered in your ear.

You'd cried partway through the drive to Manhattan, shaking your head silently whenever Samira asked what was wrong.

"I just hate moving," You'd said. And it was true. But it wasn't why you were crying.

You'd thought that was it, that he'd never talk to you again, but two days later he called you.

"Hey, how's the Big Apple?"

You frowned as you climbed out onto the fire escape outside your bedroom window, hoping to avoid Samira overhearing, "It's okay. Loud."

"Are you sleeping okay?"

You paused, unsure of what exactly was occurring. The sound of his voice in your ear was soothing, as it usually was, but you thought two days ago was the last time you'd hear it.

"Like I said, it's loud. It's an adjustment."

He hummed, "You should get one of those, uh… white noise machines. That'd probably help."

"Maybe."

You let the silence fall, no matter how badly you wanted to fill it, no matter how badly you wanted to ask him what he was really calling about—

"The Pirates are playing at Yankee Stadium this Thursday."

You blinked, "Oh."

"I have tickets."

"You hate the Pirates."

"Yeah." He paused, then, "Do you want to come to the game with me?"

That was how you ended up in his hotel room a few days later, riding him as he looked up at you reverently, your fingers curled around the gold chain at his neck. He gifted you a white noise machine before he drove back to Pittsburgh.

It went like this for weeks and weeks, Robby making any excuse he could to come to see you. You acting like it was normal. Rolling your eyes and not commenting every time Samira teased you about your secret boyfriend.

He wasn't your boyfriend so how could he really be a secret?

Samira had pestered you when she found out you were inviting Robby to her dinner party, "Oh my God… is Robby your secret boyfriend?"

You'd rolled your eyes, "Don't be ridiculous, Samira. We're just friends."

She'd laughed, "That man doesn't have friends."

You'd gone quiet after that and Samira apologized for upsetting you, but you insisted she hadn't, that you were just tired. Later, when you were winding down for bed, Robby had called you.

"I was just about to go to sleep," You said, stifling a yawn.

"Sorry," He said, "I was just calling to tell you I picked up that book you recommended the last time I saw you, This Is How You Lose The Time War."

You hummed, pleased he listened to you, "Oh, that's great."

"Do you think… Could I read to you? Until you fall asleep?"

Your eyes burned. You couldn't keep doing this, this game, whatever it was. It was starting to take up permanent real estate in your heart and you weren't sure you'd survive it if he took a match to it.

Still, you reached over your bed to turn off the lamp on your nightstand and nestled yourself into your bed, allowed yourself to be lulled to sleep by the sound of his voice.

Afterwards he'd gone back and forth about whether or not he was coming to the dinner party until last night when you'd finally snapped and told him not to bother. You hadn't spoken since he'd gotten here, but he'd cornered you into the bathroom, getting on his knees in front of you by way of apology.

You already knew he was at your back before you turned around, the two of you by an open window and partially separated from the rest of the party.

"Can I get you more wine?" He asked mildly, gesturing to your now empty wine glass.

"No thanks."

You heard him inhale deeply through his nose beside you, something you knew he did when he was irritated, "You wanna explain to me why you're mad at me?"

"I'm not mad."

"Bullshit."

You closed your eyes in an attempt to quietly dispel your exasperation, "Don't cause a scene."

"Is that what you're so worried about? All of your friends finding out I'm the old man you've been secretly fucking?" You were so shocked by his outburst, you turned to him, confusion clear on your face, "Yeah, you think I don't know? That you invited me here out of obligation? That you're terrified they'll find out and you'll be humiliated?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Christ, you probably fucking moved all the way here to get away from me and here I am, following you around like a stray—"

"Have you lost your mind?"

"Why don't you just admit it?"

"Because it's not true!" You hissed, "If anything it's you who's embarrassed of me!"

He laughed quietly and rubbed at his beard, "Yeah, I'm mortified by you, that's why I've been openly staring at you all night." He shook his head, "You notice how no one ever asks you if we're together? It's always me who gets asked. Because I'm constantly fucking looking at you like you put the stars in the sky."

Your chest was tight as you looked at him, his eyes wet and skin flushed, "I invited you here because I wanted you here. Because whenever I haven't talked to you in a few days I feel this… inescapable fucking ache in my chest." You swallowed, "I wanted you to ask me not to go. When I told you I was moving."

He stared at you for a moment and then shook his head, turning away, "You wanted to move here."

"I did, but I wanted you more."

He let out a soft, humorless laugh and shook his head, "Makes no difference how in love with you I am when you won't move back home and I don't want to be here."

You blinked slowly, "Did you just say... that you're in love with me?"

He stared at you for a moment, eyes widened a fraction, open and vulnerable in a way you weren't sure you'd ever seen on him previously.