eepy

dark blue seemed mature. forgiving. almost responsible, if swimwear could be responsible. it had a low back that made you sit up straighter just looking at the model, and the top had little gold rings at the straps, small enough to pretend they were classy instead of slutty. the bottoms sat high on the hips, which nat called flattering and you called invasive. still, you ordered it. you even paid for express shipping, which felt like signing a contract with your own downfall.

now, standing in tony stark’s guest bathroom with the swimsuit cutting into places you had never invited fabric to develop an opinion about, the delusion had fully left your body. “this is a hate crime,” you mutter at your reflection, tugging the side higher, then lower, then higher again, like one of those positions will suddenly unlock a new body. “against me, specifically.”

the mirror gives you no sympathy. it just shows you exactly what you are trying very hard to survive. thighs. hips. stomach. skin. actual human flesh, very rude of it. you turn slightly, regret it, turn back, regret that too. the swimsuit is pretty. that may be the worst part. if it were ugly, you could blame the swimsuit. but it is pretty and soft and fitted, which means the problem is clearly you, and that feels legally actionable.

natasha knocks twice, then opens the door like locks are a decorative suggestion. she is wearing a black bikini and a loose white shirt, hair braided back, sunglasses resting on her head. she looks like she has never feared a changing room mirror in her life. maybe she killed that fear at sixteen and buried it in a forest. “if you’re dead in there, say something,” she says, leaning against the doorframe with a drink already in hand.

you glare at her through the mirror. “i’m suing you.”

“for making you look hot?”

“for elder abuse.”

“you’re younger than me.”

“for emotional elder abuse.”

her mouth twitches. she steps inside, closes the door with her heel, and turns you by the shoulders before you can protest. the inspection is quick and blunt, clinical in the scariest possible way, then her brows lift. “yeah. you’re wearing it.”

“you didn’t even pretend to think.”

“i did think. silently. very sexy of me.”

you pull at the bottom again, mostly so your hands have a job. it feels safer when your hands have a job. otherwise they might wander up and cover your stomach or your chest or your face, and then nat would make one of those sounds. a small sound, barely a sound, the kind that says she loves you and also wants to shake you until your bones make music. “it’s too much,” you say, quieter.

“it’s a pool party.”

“exactly. people will be near pools. with eyes.”

“tragic.” nat takes another sip. “people might also have necks. horrifying world.”

you make a face at her, but your fingers have started twisting the hem of the towel around your shoulders. the towel is the only thing keeping you from turning around, putting your shorts back on, and telling everyone you’ve developed a sudden aquatic allergy. chlorine intolerance. water-related moral conflict. any excuse with a medical-sounding word might work on steve. sam would ask questions. tony would ask if the water offended you personally, then offer to replace it with imported glacier melt.

bucky would look at you. that thought is the whole disease. bucky barnes looking at you in this swimsuit is either going to kill you outright or make you wish it had. he is already too much in normal clothes. jeans, shirts, those stupid henleys that cling to his shoulders with religious devotion. shirts in general seem desperate around him. fabric has never looked more underpaid. and now there is a very real chance that you will walk outside and find him shirtless by the pool, all broad chest and sun-warmed skin and dark hair falling around his face, and you’ll have to behave like someone who pays taxes and owns a toothbrush. impossible.

even worse, he may look at you and then look away. the thought is small. mean. familiar. he does that sometimes. looks away when you enter the room like your presence is a lamp turned directly into his eyes. you’ve built a whole religion around it. bucky finds you irritating. bucky tolerates you for nat’s sake. bucky can flirt with cashiers, grandmothers, dogs, possibly dangerous machinery, but when it comes to you, he either teases until you want to bite him or turns cold like you spilled something on his favorite memory.

“he’s already here,” nat says.

you blink at her. horrible woman. witch. spy. roommate. “who?”

“the pool boy.”

“tony has a pool boy?”

“no, but if he did, i’d respect his commitment to the theme.” nat watches you through the mirror. “barnes. he’s outside with steve and sam.”

your mouth goes dry. very mature reaction. very dignified. you deserve an award for remaining upright. “thrilling.”

“he asked where you were.”

“to insult me?”

“probably to write a poem.”

you snort despite yourself, then hate the sound for being too fond. bucky inspires many feelings in you, most of them medically confusing. rage, attraction, pettiness, fondness, the strange urge to press your face into his chest and stand there until society collapses. you used to think crushes were supposed to be fun. light. giggly. yours feels like chewing glass while a beautiful man laughs in another room. “i’m putting clothes on,” you announce, turning toward the pile you abandoned on the sink.

natasha catches the towel before you can turn it into armor. her face softens, which is alarming. she is much easier to handle when she is threatening people or calling men idiots. tenderness from nat tends to make you confess things. “you can wear whatever you want. but if you’re changing because barnes might see you, i’m going to be annoying.”

“you’re already annoying.”

“i have levels.” her hand squeezes your shoulder once. “he’s one guy.”

“he’s a large guy.”

“still one.”

“that’s debatable. he has the surface area of three men.”

she smiles into her glass. “come outside.”

you stare at yourself again. the gold rings at your shoulders glint under the bathroom lights. a soft breath leaves you, slow and unwilling. the girl in the mirror looks terrified, which is rude, because you were aiming for bored. maybe indifferent. possibly mysterious. something with less of a wet-cat energy.

bucky is one guy. one guy with eyes. one guy who probably won’t even look long enough to form an opinion. that is worse. “fine,” you say, grabbing the towel and wrapping it around your shoulders instead of your body. “but if i cry, i’m pushing you into the pool.”

nat opens the door, smug and fond. “deal. i swim beautifully.” you hate her. you follow her anyway.

sunlight hits you like a personal accusation. tony’s summer house is all glass, white stone, obnoxious wealth, and views so good they make you suspicious. the pool stretches across the back patio in a ridiculous blue sheet, bright enough to look fake, with lounge chairs lined along one side and a shaded outdoor kitchen on the other. music plays from speakers hidden somewhere in the landscaping, low and expensive. the air smells like sunscreen, grilled pineapple, chlorine, and the rosemary bushes tony probably paid someone to make look effortless.

everyone is already there. wanda is stretched on a lounger with sunglasses over her eyes, red hair spilling over one shoulder. vision sits beside her reading a book in the sun like a man who has never sweated once in his life. steve is by the grill, wearing swim trunks and a white shirt he left open, looking like a recruitment poster for sunscreen safety. sam is in the pool, arguing with clint over a foam football. tony is wearing sunglasses indoors, technically outdoors, but under the shaded bar, so spiritually indoors. bruce is speaking to pepper near a bowl of fruit like he has been assigned fruit diplomacy.

and bucky. bucky is near the far side of the pool, one foot up on the lower rung of a lounger, laughing at something steve says across the patio. shirtless, obviously. cruelly. swim trunks low on his hips, hair tied back in a loose half-bun, a pair of sunglasses hanging from the collar of the shirt he has abandoned on a chair. his skin is already touched by sun, golden at the shoulders, marked with faint scars and old history, and your brain takes one look at him and files for retirement.

of course. of course he gets to look like that near water. like some mythological punishment. like a sailor’s bad decision. like if marble got warm and developed a bad personality.

you stop near the sliding door. nat keeps walking. traitor. sam sees you first. “hey, finally! we were about to send a search party.”

“i was in the bathroom for seven minutes,” you call back, which is mostly true if you ignore the years spent negotiating with your own reflection.

“seven minutes in woman time,” tony says, lifting his drink. “so either twelve seconds or a fiscal quarter.”

“rich men shouldn’t speak,” you say, and tony points at you like you’ve wounded him.

“see, this is why i invite you. keeps the ego limber.”

that gets a few laughs, easy and warm. you can handle them. most of them. everyone here has seen you in pajamas, sick, angry, half asleep, and once crying over a video of a dog getting prosthetic legs. skin should be nothing. thighs should be nothing. a stomach should be nothing. human bodies have been happening for ages. terribly common things.

then bucky turns. it is fast. too fast. his smile is still there from whatever steve said, wide and relaxed, and then his eyes find you and the smile fades in pieces.

you go so still the towel slips down one shoulder.

he looks at your face first, then lower. hardly a second, maybe less, barely enough to count, but your body counts it. the line of his gaze touches your swimsuit, the bare places around it, the curve you have spent twenty minutes trying to negotiate with, and then he looks away.

just like that. his jaw tightens. his hand curls around the back of the lounger. his attention swings back to steve with such sudden force that you almost laugh. there it is. there it fucking is.

you knew this would happen. stupid, stupid girl. standing in a bathroom telling yourself he was only one guy when that one guy apparently needs to look anywhere else the second you show too much skin. amazing. beautiful. maybe you can walk straight into the pool and keep going until you reach a new continent. the patio sounds louder now. sam’s laughter, clint yelling about cheating, ice clinking in tony’s glass. everything keeps moving around you with obscene casualness. no one else saw it. no one else felt the tiny, sharp slice of it. bucky looked at you and looked away, and everyone else gets to continue eating fruit.

natasha glances back. you arrange your face into something flat and vaguely hostile. a familiar costume. better than the swimsuit.“drink?” she asks.

“yes.”

“alcoholic?”

“aggressively.”

tony hears that and brightens. “finally, someone with taste.”

you make your way toward the bar, aware of every step. the swimsuit feels too tight and too revealing and somehow too loud. bucky is across the patio, speaking to steve. he does not look again. that is fine. excellent. merciful, even. you hope he develops hiccups. tony slides a drink toward you. “for the lady with the aggressive liver.”

“thank you. sorry about your personality.”

“accepted. i bought another one.”

sam hoists himself out of the pool with a dramatic groan, water streaming down his shoulders. He grabs a towel, wiping his face, and his gaze flicks over your swimsuit without the weirdness men can sometimes bring to it. Just appreciative, warm, and easy. “Damn. Look at you.”

your fingers tighten around the glass. for one stupid second, praise lands in a place that has been sitting empty for too long. you lift your brows, aiming for casual. “is that surprise?”

“that’s respect,” sam says, pointing at the gold ring on your strap. “little fancy thing going on. i see you.”

“it’s swimsuit technology.”

“no, that’s a whole look. hey, buck.” sam turns his head before you can stop him. “you seeing this?”

murder becomes briefly understandable.

bucky’s shoulders go rigid. Steve looks between sam and bucky with the pained expression of a man witnessing a grenade roll under a picnic table. the second stretches. maybe two. your drink sweats against your palm. bucky does turn, but his eyes barely make it to your shoulder before skating away again. “yeah,” he says, voice rough enough that it sounds dragged from his throat. “i see it.”

that is worse than silence. you swallow. “fantastic. all votes counted.”

sam squints, sensing something in the air with the survival instincts of a man who has chosen chaos as a hobby. “you okay over there, terminator?”

bucky’s mouth moves into something that could pass for a smile in poor lighting. “fine.”

“sounds painful.”

“sam.”

“what? i’m checking on my friend.”

“check quieter.”

you take a long sip. It is sweet, cold, and strong enough to make your teeth feel clean. Wonderful. Tony Stark may be a public hazard, but the man stocks good alcohol. You let the burn settle on your tongue and decide, with the private little click of a door closing, that this is fine. Bucky can avoid looking at you. Great. Wonderful. Plenty of people have eyes.

Sam, for instance. Sam is grinning at you, towel around his neck, eyebrows lifted. He is handsome and safe and not Bucky, which immediately lowers his value in the ugliest part of your brain. But he complimented you. He looked at you without flinching. That counts for something. “you getting in?” sam asks, jerking his chin toward the pool. “or did you dress up to intimidate the tiles?”

“both can be true.”

“come on. clint’s cheating and i need a witness.”

you glance toward the water, then toward nat, who has settled beside wanda. Then, against all better judgment, toward bucky. He is looking at his drink. Very invested in it. Possibly falling in love with it. Good for them. your drink goes onto the counter. the towel slides off your shoulders and onto a chair before you can give yourself time to become normal again. Cool air brushes over your bare back. Too many places. Too much skin. Your arms fight the urge to cross over your middle.

Bucky’s head turns a fraction. You see it. You hate that you see it. The movement is so tiny anyone else would miss it, but you have a tragic little doctorate in James Barnes pretending indifference. His eyes make it to your legs this time. Then his mouth presses flat, and he turns away again.

Fine. Your chin lifts. “i’m a terrible witness,” you tell sam, stepping toward the pool. “i lie under pressure.”

Sam laughs and offers his hand from the water like he is helping royalty down from a carriage. “perfect. we’ll frame clint together.”

The pool is cold at first, a shock around your calves as you sit on the edge and lower yourself in. You bite back the sound that tries to escape, mostly out of pride. The water closes around your waist, then your ribs, and for a second the swimsuit stops feeling like a spotlight. Underwater, everything blurs kinder. Your hips, stomach, thighs. The body becomes a body again. Less evidence. Less argument. Sam tosses you the foam football. You catch it against your chest with both hands, splashing yourself in the face. “very athletic,” clint calls.

you wipe water from your eyes. “i’m preserving my mystery.”

“your mystery is that you suck at catch.”

“my mystery is that i haven’t drowned you.”

That gets a laugh from wanda. Nat smiles behind her sunglasses, proud and terrible. You start to loosen after that. The water helps. The drink helps. Sam helps too, in his loud, easy way, making you feel included without making you feel studied. He shouts fake strategies, accuses clint of crimes against recreational sport, and once spins you by the shoulders to aim your throw while you laugh so hard pool water gets in your mouth.

It should be enough. It almost is. Then you glance over and see Bucky watching. He is no longer pretending to listen to Steve. His sunglasses are on now, hiding his eyes, but his head is angled toward you. His arms are crossed over his chest, one shoulder leaning against a patio pillar, sun catching along the metal of his left hand where it grips his own bicep. There is nothing soft in his posture. Nothing open. He looks carved into place.

Caught, he turns his head slightly. Of course. Your laugh thins. Sam says something, but you miss it. Maybe your name. Maybe a joke. The pool sounds muffle, slipping in and out around your ears. Bucky can look from far away, apparently. From behind sunglasses. From a place where you cannot look back properly. The second you are close enough for him to have to acknowledge you as a body with feelings, he finds the nearest wall or drink or horizon.

There’s a special sort of humiliation in wanting someone who seems vaguely offended by the evidence of you. “you alive?” sam asks, splashing water near your arm.

You blink back to him. “unfortunately.”

“you looked like you were plotting.”

“I plot as cardio.”

“that explains the stamina.”

Bucky’s jaw moves across the patio. You see that too. Tiny. Annoying. Delicious, if you were a healthier person. A reckless little thing uncurls in your chest. It is petty and hot and stupid, so naturally it feels almost holy. You turn back to sam with a brighter smile, the sort that probably looks normal to everyone else and insane to Nat. Sam raises his eyebrows. Brave man. “teach me to throw better,” you say.

He narrows his eyes. “this a trick?”

“i’m asking for athletic help. cherish the moment.”

Sam laughs, then shifts behind you in the water, hands hovering over your elbows before settling lightly when you nod. It is friendly. It is nothing. It is two people in a pool with a foam football and a crowd of friends around them. But you feel Bucky before you see him. His attention has weight. A dark little weather system rolling over the patio. Sam adjusts your arm. “okay, elbow up. no, less like you’re threatening the ball’s family.”

“I am threatening its family.”

“gentle. release here.” His hand taps your wrist.

Across the patio, Steve says something to Bucky. Bucky does not answer. You throw. The ball arcs beautifully for half a second, then smacks clint square in the forehead. The silence is immediate. Then clint sinks under the water like a betrayed submarine. You clap both hands over your mouth. Sam loses his mind laughing, one hand braced on your shoulder as he folds forward. Wanda sits up. Tony lowers his sunglasses. Steve looks concerned. Nat looks delighted. Clint resurfaces, hair plastered over his face. “attempted murder.”

“self-defense,” you gasp, still half laughing, half horrified. “you had criminal energy.”

“You hit me in my innocent head.”

“no jury would convict her,” sam says, wiping his eyes. “that was art.”

A sound comes from the patio. Low. Short. You look before you can stop yourself.

Bucky is laughing. Not loud. Not like sam. Barely more than a breath, but his mouth has curved despite whatever terrible thing he has been doing with his face all afternoon. He is looking at you now. Fully. Sunglasses pushed up into his hair, blue eyes narrowed against the sun, and for one ridiculous moment, all the air in the day seems to gather in your throat.

Then he catches himself. The smile fades. His gaze drops to the water near your waist, moves away, and he reaches for his drink. It is a slap with no hand.

Your smile goes with it. The water suddenly feels too cold. “i need another drink,” you announce, heading for the stairs before anyone can see your face arrange itself badly.

Sam calls after you, still laughing about clint’s tragic head injury. Nat’s sunglasses follow you from the lounger. Bucky stays by the pillar, but the closer you get to the edge, the more you feel him there. A terrible awareness. Like walking past a stove you know is on. Your hands grip the metal rail as you climb the pool steps. Water streams down your body, cooler where the breeze hits. The swimsuit clings hard now, slick to your skin, making every curve more obvious instead of less. Wonderful design choice. Truly innovative cruelty. You reach for the towel on the chair, but it is farther than you thought, and the stone under your wet feet is slippery.

Your heel slides. For one bright, stupid second, you are suspended in pure indignity. Then a hand clamps around your upper arm. Not sam. Not nat. Not anyone safe enough to survive.

Bucky. His other hand catches your waist, broad palm spreading over wet skin, fingers pressing into the soft give above your hip. The contact goes straight through you with such force that your brain empties. Chlorine, sun, his skin, the faint spice of whatever soap he uses, all of it crowds too close. Your hand lands on his chest to steady yourself, and he is warm. Warm and solid and right there, which is deeply unfair for a man who has spent the afternoon treating eye contact like a hostage negotiation.

“careful,” he says.

One word. Low. Rough. Stupid. Your embarrassment catches fire. You laugh. It comes out bitter, thin at the edges, nothing like the easy laugh you gave sam. Bucky’s fingers tighten once at your waist, and that little pressure makes the whole thing worse. “relax, barnes.” You pull your hand from his chest, hating the wet print your palm leaves behind. “you don’t have to touch me longer than necessary.”

The whole patio seems to keep making noise, but in your little corner, the sentence has teeth. Bucky goes still. His hand stays on your waist for half a second too long, then leaves like he has been burned. The absence is immediate and awful. You hate him for touching you. You hate him more for stopping. His face has changed, though you refuse to name the change. His brows draw together, mouth parting slightly as if he has lost the next line. Good. Let him lose something. “What?” he says, quiet.

You grab the towel and pull it around yourself, too late to feel covered. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrow at that, and for once he does not look away. “That didn’t sound like nothing.”

“You’re very observant.”

“Don’t do that.”

A laugh tries to crawl out of you and dies ugly. “Do what?”

“Act like I did something to you when all I did was catch you.”

You look at him then. Really, probably too much. Big mistake. His skin is still damp at the temples from sweat or the pool water someone splashed earlier, and the sun catches the blue of his eyes so sharply you want to be mad at nature. His chest rises under your gaze. Your palm still remembers him, every warm inch. A handprint in reverse. “you looked away,” you say, and the words escape before pride can shoot them down.

Bucky’s face tightens. “When?”

You hate him. You hate him so much you could kiss him until both of you forget language. “Forget it.”

You turn away, but he catches the edge of the towel. Not enough to pull you back, only enough to stop the escape from being clean. “When?” he repeats, and the softness in his voice is so much worse than anger.

You should have kept your mouth shut. You should have stayed in the bathroom and sued Natasha from there. Instead you’re wet, half naked, humiliated, and Bucky Barnes is holding your towel like it matters. “When I came out,” you say, staring hard at the bar instead of him. “When sam called you. When I got in the pool. Pick one, you’ve been consistent.”

His grip loosens. For a second you think he will explain. He might laugh. He might say you’re imagining things. He might finally cut the whole sickness open and tell you he does not want to look, and then maybe you can be free through the healing power of public devastation. But he says nothing. Of course he says nothing.

Your eyes sting, which is unacceptable. Chlorine. Obviously chlorine. You pull the towel free and walk toward the bar with as much dignity as a woman can manage while dripping on expensive stone. Behind you, Steve says Bucky’s name. Low. Warning. Or concerned. You do not turn around. Tony is pretending very hard to examine a lime. “Drink,” you say, dropping onto a stool.

He pushes one over without commentary for maybe the first time in his life. “Hydration adjacent.”

“your discretion is unsettling.”

“i’m multifaceted.”

You take the glass. Your hand shakes once, barely. You curl it tighter until it stops.

Across the patio, Bucky remains near the pool steps, one hand low on his hip, the other rubbing over his mouth. Steve stands near him now, speaking quietly. Bucky shakes his head. His eyes cut toward you. This time, you look away first.

Pool parties become less fun once you have emotionally exposed yourself near a wet staircase. A tragic discovery. Someone should tell the youth. The afternoon drags onward with the mean persistence of a song you cannot skip. People eat. People drink. Sam retells the clint football incident with increasing betrayal of facts, making himself sound like a coach and you sound like a trained assassin. Clint claims he can see sounds now. Wanda orders him to stop making it tempting to hit him again. Tony brings out enough food for a wedding and calls it “light snacks,” which makes you wonder if billionaires understand hunger as a concept or merely as a branding opportunity. You sit with nat under the shade, towel around your shoulders, swimsuit drying tight against your skin. The drink has made you warmer, loose at the edges, but not enough to soften the place Bucky opened and then abandoned. He has stayed away. Not dramatically. Not in a way anyone could call obvious. He helps Steve with the grill, talks to Sam, lets Tony make jokes at his expense. He is normal.

That might be the ugliest part. You are sitting here with your nerves scraped raw, and he gets to hold a plate of grilled chicken. Do you want to talk about it?” nat asks.

“No.”

She hums, sipping from her straw. “Do you want to lie about it?”

“Desperately.”

“Go ahead.”

You stare at the water. Sam is trying to shove clint off a float. Clint has accepted death with more grace than expected. “I’m having a nice time.”

“Terrible lie. Try again.”

“I enjoy sunlight.”

“Worse.”

“Bucky Barnes is a normal man whose opinion does nothing to my blood pressure.”

Natasha’s mouth curves. “Almost funny enough to pass.”

You pick at a loose thread on the towel. The fibers are soft, expensive, probably worth more than half your closet. Tony’s towels have better career prospects than you. “He looked at me like he wished I’d worn a tarp.”

Nat says nothing for a second. Her silence is rarely empty. It moves around, checks exits, evaluates weak spots. “That’s what you saw?”

You glance at her, defensive already. “I have eyes.”

“Unfortunately, yes. Dramatic ones.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” She turns her head a little, and you follow her gaze against your will.

Bucky is standing at the grill beside Steve. His posture is casual enough for a stranger. Not for you. You know his casual. This is held too tight at the edges. His shoulders are set, left hand curled around a bottle of beer he has barely touched, eyes trained on the pool with such grim commitment that the pool may owe him money. “He’s been weird all day,” nat says.

“He’s always weird.”

“With you, yes.”

“That’s very comforting.”

She nudges your knee with hers. “You two are exhausting.”

“There is no two. There’s me, suffering heroically, and him, being confusing and broad.”

“Broad?”

“Don’t make me defend my vocabulary. I’m injured.”

“You slipped.”

“Emotionally.”

Natasha laughs softly, then reaches over and plucks the drink from your hand. “Slow down.”

You glare. “This is theft.”

“This is friendship.”

“Friendship would let me make poor choices.”

“I let you buy the swimsuit.”

“That was attempted murder.”

Her hand squeezes your knee once. “He’s looking again.”

Your entire body betrays you. It wants to turn. It wants to pretend it has not been starving for that exact sentence. You hold still with the grim focus of someone defusing a bomb under poor lighting. “Good for him,” you say.

Nat’s smile turns small and unbearable. “You’re allowed to like being looked at.”

“By normal people, maybe.”

“Barnes is many things.”

“Normal does seem optimistic.” The words come out light enough. The thought under them sits heavy. Bucky looking at you feels dangerous because you cannot tell what he sees. All day, you have been trapped between wanting his attention and being wounded by how he spends it. Too quick, too hidden, too late. You want him to look in a way that lets you rest, which is insane. A person should not need another person’s eyes to feel real in their own skin. There are self-help books about that, probably. You have not read them because they would tell you to journal and you would rather eat sand.

Tony calls everyone for food, and the shift saves you from Nat’s terrifying accuracy. Chairs scrape. People gather around the long outdoor table. You end up between wanda and sam, safe enough, with nat across from you and Bucky diagonally down the table beside Steve. Diagonally is awful. Diagonally means accidental glances. Diagonally means you can pretend to look at the salad and still see his hands. Diagonally means his knee might bump yours if the table were smaller, which it is not, thank God, or no thanks to God, depending on where you are in your moral development. 

Food helps. A little. Grilled corn, charred sweet at the edges. Watermelon with feta. Skewers. Tony’s obscene little sliders made with buns so soft you briefly understand wealth. You eat more than you expected, mostly to give your mouth a reason to stay busy. Sam leans closer while reaching for the corn. “You ever think about joining a league?”

You stare at him. “For what, pool homicide?”

“Foam football. You’ve got raw talent.”

“I injured one man.”

“That’s how legends start.”

You laugh, easier this time. Sam is lovely. Sam is safe. Sam has never once made you feel like a bug under glass or a prayer no one taught you how to say. His attention is warm and uncomplicated, and maybe that is why it fails to do the thing you wish it would. You want it to. That would be convenient. You could turn your head and smile at the man making you laugh, and your body could decide to be sensible for once. Across the table, Bucky’s fork scrapes softly against his plate.

You glance up. His eyes are on Sam’s shoulder, where it nearly touches yours. His mouth has gone flat again. When his gaze shifts to yours, it stays. No sunglasses now. No immediate retreat. You should feel triumphant. You feel pinned and furious and too warm under the towel.

Sam keeps talking. You answer. Probably. Words happen from your side of the table. Bucky looks away first, but slower this time, and that almost makes you angrier. 

After food, Tony declares a mandatory sunset swim like a man whose money has left him unfamiliar with the word optional. Wanda declines by pretending to sleep. Vision declines with such politeness that Tony thanks him. Steve gets dragged in by Sam. Clint goes willingly after shouting that the water may heal his head trauma. Natasha sheds her shirt and dives so cleanly that half the patio claps.

You mean to stay on the lounger. You really do. Then Bucky sits on the chair two spaces away with a beer and no intention of swimming.

You stand.

“Coming in?” sam calls from the pool.

“Apparently.”

Bucky’s head lifts. There. There it is again. That first startled drag of his eyes as your towel drops onto the lounger. This time you catch all of it. He looks at your shoulders, your chest, your waist, the high cut at your hips, the damp lines where the swimsuit still clings from earlier. His throat moves. His fingers tighten around the beer bottle.

Then he looks away. Again. The hurt comes faster now, less sharp and more tired. You have run out of ways to be surprised by it. “You coming?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

Bucky looks back. “What?”

“In the pool.” You gesture toward everyone else, voice mild enough to deserve applause. “That large wet rectangle behind you.”

Sam laughs from the water. Steve watches Bucky with the concerned patience of someone looking at a friend about to step on a rake. Bucky’s eyes flick toward the pool, then to you. “I’m fine here.”

“Tragic. We’ll notify the rectangle.”

That gets a laugh from Tony. Even Bucky’s mouth twitches, but it dies before it becomes anything useful. “You scared?” you ask.

The words are easy. The ache under them is less so. You want him to rise. You want him to refuse. You want him to look. You want him to leave. You want so many impossible things at once that your own skin feels crowded. Bucky leans back in the chair, jaw set. “Of you?”

“Of fun.”

“Terrified.”

“Figures.” You turn before he can answer, stepping into the pool with all the dignity you can scrape together. The water feels warmer now after the heat of the day, soft around your knees, your waist, your ribs. Sam splashes near you, and you splash him back half-heartedly. The game restarts in some altered form. Someone throws a beach ball. Tony judges from the side with a drink, claiming he is “morally participating.” The sky slowly bruises pink and gold over the trees.

You laugh again. You even mean some of it. But Bucky stays on the chair. He stays dry and distant, one elbow on the armrest, beer untouched, gaze roaming everywhere except you until it does not. Then you feel it between your shoulder blades, across the back of your neck, sliding down where the swimsuit reveals more than it hides. If he is disgusted, he has a strange way of torturing himself with it.

Maybe he is bored. Maybe he is judging. Maybe he is thinking about someone else. Maybe you are pathetic. That last thought arrives with such calm familiarity that you almost miss the ball flying toward your face.

“Duck!” Sam shouts.

You duck too late. The beach ball clips the side of your head, harmless but startling, and you stumble back with a laugh that turns into a yelp when your foot misses the pool step under the water. This time, you do not fall. This time, Bucky is already there.

The splash of him entering the pool sends water up over your arms. You barely process the movement before his hand catches your waist under the water, bare palm meeting bare skin, fingers firm enough to halt every thought you were trying to have. His other hand closes around your wrist, anchoring you while your toes find the step.

The whole pool erupts around you. Sam says something. Tony whistles. Clint declares another murder attempt. None of it matters.

Bucky is in the water. Bucky is touching you.

Bucky’s hair is wet now, loose strands clinging near his jaw. His chest is inches from yours, water beading on his collarbones, eyes fixed on your face with the sort of focus that makes you feel both held and dissected. The metal hand around your wrist is cool. The flesh hand at your waist is warm even underwater. Your body, treacherous little idiot, forgets every insult it has been rehearsing and leans a fraction closer. “Careful,” he says again.

The same word. Same roughness. Less distance. Your laugh barely works this time. It leaves your mouth thin and tired. “You need a new line.”

His eyes drop to your mouth. Stay there. Move back up. “You need to stop slipping.”

“I’m sure the tiles are honored you blame me.”

“Wasn’t blaming you.”

“No, you’re just leaping into pools now. Very casual.”

His hand slides half an inch on your waist as someone’s wave rolls against you both. The movement is tiny and devastating. Your stomach pulls in under his palm before you can control it, and his fingers flex like he felt the reaction and had to restrain his own. Sam clears his throat loudly. “Everybody alive?”

Bucky does not look away from you. “Yeah.”

“You sure? That looked like a rescue.”

“Wilson,” Steve says, warning plain in his voice.

“What? I’m just asking. Man moved like a torpedo.”

Your face heats, and that saves you. Embarrassment brings language back. “I’m fine,” you say, trying to step back.

Bucky lets go of your wrist. His hand at your waist lingers. You glance down at it. He follows your gaze and releases you, slow enough to feel intentional, quick enough to hurt. “Fine,” he repeats, almost to himself.

You step away, wrapping your arms around your middle under the water. The swimsuit feels nonexistent now, yet somehow everyone can see the exact place his hand had been. Maybe there is a mark. Maybe your skin has announced it to the patio in bright letters. “I’m getting out,” you say, mostly to the water.

Bucky’s brows pull together. “Again?”

“Try to survive it.”

Sam says your name softly as you pass him, but you keep moving. The pool steps are kinder this time. You grip the rail, climb carefully, and grab your towel with wet hands. The sky has gone warmer, streaked with orange, and the air makes goosebumps rise along your arms. You head toward the house before anyone can ask.

The sliding door is blessedly close. The kitchen inside is cooler, dimmer, quiet except for the hum of Tony’s expensive refrigerator and the muted thump of music through glass. You leave wet footprints across the tile and feel guilty for half a second before remembering Tony could probably buy new tile by blinking. The towel goes tighter around you. Your face feels too hot. Your chest feels worse. Everything is tangled. Bucky looked away. Bucky watched. Bucky refused to get in. Bucky jumped in without thinking. Bucky touched you like instinct. Bucky let go like regret.

A normal person would accept complexity. You prefer suffering. The kitchen island has a bowl of cut limes, a bottle of tequila, and a tray of tiny desserts covered in plastic wrap. You peel one back and take a mini tart just to have something to destroy. It tastes like lemon and butter and wealth. You chew angrily. “stealing dessert before dinner’s fully over?”

You close your eyes. No. Absolutely no. The universe can go bother someone else.

Bucky’s voice comes from the doorway behind you, lower after the pool, rougher around the edges. You keep chewing. Swallow. Pick up another tart because dignity left hours ago and dessert is here now.

“Tell tony,” you say. “He’ll have me arrested by the pastry police.”

Wet footsteps cross the tile. He has followed you in dripping too, which should make him less intimidating. It does not. The room fills with him, chlorine and sun and that clean masculine smell under it, the one that has ruined many evenings and one perfectly decent pillow you once pressed your face into after he left it on your couch. He stops on the other side of the island. You look at the tart tray instead of him.

“I was checking on you.”

“Very heroic. I’m eating a tart.”

“So I see.”

“Then your work here is done.”

The old rhythm tries to come back. Snap, deflect, survive. Usually he takes the bait. Usually he smiles or scoffs or says something that makes you want to throw a household object. This time he stays quiet, and the quiet crawls right under your towel. You reach for a third tart. His hand covers the tray.

You stare at his fingers. Human hand. Calloused. Thick. The same hand that had been on your waist in the pool, warm through the water, possessive for one second before he remembered he did not want to be. Your own hand hovers uselessly near his. Lemon sugar sticks to your thumb. “Move,” you say.

“Talk to me.”

Your laugh is small and mean. “About dessert?”

“About what you said outside.”

“I’ve said many beautiful things today.”

His fingers press lightly against the plastic wrap, making it crinkle. “At the pool steps.”

The room cools further. Somewhere outside, Sam laughs. The sound reaches the kitchen thin and far away, like it belongs to another life where people can swim and flirt and enjoy fruit without turning into an open wound near a marble island. “I said you didn’t have to touch me.” You lift one shoulder. The towel slips a little. His eyes move to fix on your face with almost painful discipline. “Seems clear.”

“No.” His jaw tightens around the word. “It doesn’t.”

“It really does.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

There it is. Softer than you expected. Worse, somehow. He sounds angry, but the anger has nowhere clean to go. It sits between you, wet-haired and broad-shouldered and too close. You pick at the sugar on your thumb. “Standing in a kitchen?”

“Trying to stop touching you.”

A humorless sound leaves you. “Aren’t you?”

Bucky’s hand slowly leaves the tray. He comes around the island, and you hate yourself for how fast your body registers each step. Wet tile under his bare feet. The shift of muscle in his thighs. Water slipping from his hair to his neck. He stops beside you, close enough that you can see tiny droplets on his lashes. “You think that’s why I looked away?”

Your fingers curl into the towel at your chest. “I’m very tired of talking about where your eyes go.”

“I’m not.”

“Congratulations.”

His voice lowers. “Look at me.”

“No.”

He breathes out through his nose. A patient sound. Not gentle. Not quite. “Please.”

That word does the damage anger could never do. You look up, furious with him for asking nicely. His face is tense, mouth set, eyes darker in the dim kitchen. He looks too serious for a pool party. Too serious for you standing here in a damp swimsuit and a towel, lemon sugar on your thumb, embarrassment turning your throat tight. “Happy?” you ask.

His gaze moves over your face like he is trying to read something written under your skin. “No.”

That almost gets you. Simple answer. No joke. No little smirk to save either of you. Your own mouth opens, then closes again.

Bucky glances toward the patio doors. Outside, the others are loud and bright and drunk on summer. In here, the air holds still around the refrigerator hum and your wet footprints. “I looked away,” he says, each word measured like it costs him, “because if I kept looking, everybody out there was gonna know.”

You stare at him. It takes a second. Maybe more. Your brain receives the sentence, turns it over, rejects it, picks it up again, then shakes it until meaning falls out. “Know what?”

His laugh is almost silent, rough at the bottom. “Don’t do that.”

“I’m asking.”

“You know what.”

“I really don’t.”

His hand lifts, then stops before touching you. That restraint again. Always that. A hand held back like your skin has rules written over it. You hate it more than anything, and maybe you have loved it too, which is inconvenient and humiliating. His fingers curl into his palm. “That I wanted you.”

The fridge hums. Music thuds through glass. Someone outside yells for Tony to stop cheating at whatever stupid rich-man game he has invented. Your towel slips another inch down your shoulder. Bucky notices. This time, he does not look away fast enough.

Wanted. Past tense? Present tense? A cruel grammar question at the worst possible time.

“You’ve been acting like looking at me causes physical pain,” you say, and it comes out less sharp than you need. More wounded. Awful.

His eyes cut back to yours. “It does.”

You blink. Bucky looks almost mad at himself now, which is satisfying for one brief second before it becomes sad. “You walked out in that thing and I had two choices. Look away, or sit there with everyone watching me stare at you like I’d lost my damn mind.”

“That thing?”

His gaze dips. Brief. Hungry. No disgust in it. None. The realization makes your stomach hollow out and fill at once. “The swimsuit.”

“You hate it.”

His mouth parts, then closes. His brows draw down. “I hate that Sam got to tell you first.”

That sentence finds a deep, stupid place in you and presses there. You hate that place. It has no pride. “He was being nice,” you say.

“I know.” in his mouth, right now, it is not reassurance. It is surrender. It is a man admitting something he does not want to resent and resenting it anyway.

“He looked at you like a friend,” Bucky says. “That made it worse.”

You set the tart down slowly, afraid any sudden movement might shatter the room. “Why?”

His eyes come back to yours. “Because I didn’t.”

The answer moves through you like a slow spill. Outside, someone opens the patio door. You both turn your heads at once. Tony leans in halfway, sunglasses still on though the sun is dying. His gaze takes in the water on the floor, your towel, Bucky’s expression, the tray of tarts, and he immediately lifts both hands.

“Fantastic. Haunted kitchen. Love that for us.” He reaches blindly for a bottle near the door. “Pretend I’m rich furniture.”

“Tony,” Bucky says, voice tight.

“Gone. Emotionally, spiritually, legally.” Tony backs out with the bottle and slides the door shut.

The interruption should break the tension. It does not. It makes it worse. Now the world has peeked in and retreated. Now privacy feels chosen. You wipe your sticky thumb against the towel, then regret it. “People are going to come looking.”

“Let them.”

Your eyes flick to his. “That’s a bad idea.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re agreeing?”

“Trying something new.”

Despite everything, a tiny laugh escapes you. Bucky’s face shifts at the sound. Not a smile, exactly. More dangerous than that. Like the laugh handed him proof he had been starving for and now he is trying to keep from grabbing.

“I thought you were embarrassed,” you say, quieter. The words scrape more than they should. “Of looking. Of me.”

His whole body seems to pull toward you without moving. “Jesus.”

You flinch at the roughness, and he sees it.

“Hey.” His hand finally touches your arm, just above the towel’s edge. Warm, careful, barely there. Still enough to ruin you. “No. I’m angry at myself. Not you.”

“You keep looking away.”

“I was trying to be decent.”

“That felt awful.”

His thumb moves once over your damp skin. You wish it did less. You wish it did more. “I see that now.”

“Great. Character development.”

He huffs, but there’s no real humor in it. His eyes have gone to the place his thumb touches your arm. “I’m sorry.”

You blink again. Bucky apologizes sometimes. To other people. Usually with grumbles and half-smiles and enough charm to make forgiveness feel inevitable. With you, apologies are rarer. Maybe because both of you prefer biting to bleeding. Maybe because he never seems to understand where the wound is. 

This one is plain. You have no idea what to do with it. “I don’t want your pity apology,” you say.

His thumb stops. “Pity?”

“Yes.”

“You think I’m standing here half naked in Stark’s kitchen, dripping on a floor that costs more than my first apartment, apologizing out of pity?”

“When you put it like that, it sounds stupid.”

“It sounded stupid before.”

You glare up at him, relieved by the spark of irritation because anger is easier to hold. “Careful.”

That word. His word. It changes something in his face, turns his attention heavier. Your mouth goes dry. Bucky’s hand slides down your arm, slow enough that you could move away. You do not. His fingers find your wrist, then your hand, lifting it between you. Lemon sugar still clings faintly near your thumb. His eyes meet yours, asking nothing aloud, and maybe you nod. Maybe your hand simply gives up and lets him.

He brings your thumb to his mouth. The first touch of his tongue is warm and wet and obscene in its quietness. He licks the sugar from your skin like he has all the time in the world, lips closing around the tip of your thumb for half a second before he lets it go. Your knees forget their duties. The island is behind you, so you lean back against it before your body can embarrass you further.

Bucky watches the movement. “There,” he says, voice rougher. “No pity.”

You breathe through your nose, which is impressive since your lungs appear to have resigned. “That was unsanitary.”

“Pool water’s worse.”

“Comforting.”

His hand stays around yours. “You always do that.”

“What?”

“Make a joke when you’re shaking.”

You glance down. Your fingers are trembling in his grip. Treacherous little things. You consider cutting them off. Too messy for tony’s floor.

“I’m cold,” you say.

Bucky’s eyes drop to the towel, the damp swimsuit, the little bumps risen along your arms. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to get you dry?”

There is nothing clean in that question. Maybe there could have been, from someone else. From him, with his mouth still wet from your thumb and his hand around yours, the words turn thick. You pull your hand back, mostly so you can breathe. “I can manage a towel.”

“I saw.”

“You saw me almost fall.”

“I saw a lot today.”

A pulse starts low in your body, slow and hot and deeply inconvenient. “You looked away for most of it.”

“I looked back.”

That shuts you up. His hand goes to the edge of the towel. He does not pull. Just touches the cotton near your collarbone, where it has started to sag from water and poor decision-making. “I looked back all damn day.”

You try to swallow. It takes effort. “Bucky…”

The patio door opens again. This time it is Nat. She takes one look at you, one look at Bucky, then at the wet floor. Her face gives away nothing, which means she has figured out everything.

“People are asking about dessert,” she says.

You stare at her helplessly. Bucky’s hand drops from the towel. He turns his head, expression suddenly murderous in a very contained, socially inconvenient way. “They can wait.”

Natasha’s brows rise. “Can they?”

“Yes,” he says.

Something about that single word, the calm certainty of it, makes your thighs press together under the towel. Nat’s eyes flick down for barely a second, then back up. You want the tile to open and swallow you. Preferably gently. With snacks. “Right,” she says. “I’ll tell them the kitchen is occupied.”

“Nat,” you hiss.

Her mouth curves. “What? By wet people.”

Bucky sighs like he is in physical pain. “Romanoff.”

“Relax, Barnes. I’m leaving.” She reaches for the tray of tarts, slides it away from you both, and pauses at the door. “Use one of the guest rooms. Tony has cameras in weird places.”

Your soul leaves your body. “What?” you choke.

Tony’s voice carries from outside. “I do not have cameras in weird places. I have cameras in strategic places.”

Natasha closes the door again. The silence after that is different. Less fragile. More aware of its own stupidity. You cover your face with one hand. “I’m moving.”

Bucky makes a sound that might be a laugh if he were less ruined. “Where?”

“Into the ocean.”

“Pool’s closer.”

“Too many witnesses.”

His hand returns to your waist, over the towel this time, and the casual possession of it melts the last few scraps of your brain. “Guest room’s closer too.”

You lower your hand. He is looking at you now. No retreat. No disgust. No careful sideways glance. He looks exactly how you had feared wishing for. Hungry and unsure and trying to make himself stand still. “This is a terrible idea,” you whisper.

“Probably.”

“People are outside.”

“Yep.”

“You were ignoring me two hours ago.”

His mouth tightens. “I was trying to keep my hands off you two hours ago.”

“And now?”

His fingers press into your waist, pulling you one inch closer. Not enough. Enough to make you greedy. “Now I heard what you thought.”

Your chest aches. “And?”

He leans in, slow. Gives you time. Too much time. Your eyes dip to his mouth, and he sees that too. Of course he sees that, the bastard. His lips brush the corner of yours, barely a touch, more breath than kiss, and your entire body answers like it has been waiting years for a command. “And I’m done letting you think it.”

The first kiss is almost gentle. Almost. That is what ruins it. Bucky’s mouth touches yours with restraint at first, warm and careful, and you stand there stupidly with your hand hovering near his chest. It has taken so long to get here that your body does not trust it. He kisses you once, then draws back just enough to look at your face, and something in that tiny pause makes you angry. “No,” you breathe, grabbing the wet hair at the nape of his neck.

His eyes darken. “No?”

“You don’t get to kiss me like I’m fragile after making me feel insane all day.”

The words are barely out before his hand slides behind your head and his mouth comes back harder. This kiss has teeth in it. Not cruel, not careless, but hungry enough to make your fingers tighten in his hair. He tastes like beer and lemon sugar from your skin. His other arm wraps around your waist, pulling you in until the towel is crushed between you and his damp chest, and you make a sound into his mouth that you would deny in court. Bucky answers with a low groan, and the sound breaks something open. The kiss turns messy fast. Your feet slip a little on the wet tile, and he catches you without breaking away, almost lifting you onto your toes. The island edge presses into your back. His hand spreads wide between your shoulder blades, then drags down over the towel, as if he hates every layer between his palm and the body he kept refusing to look at.

Outside, laughter rises. You jerk back. “Guest room.”

Bucky’s forehead touches yours for one second. His breathing is rough, uneven, gratifyingly ruined. “Yeah.”

He takes your hand. That simple thing nearly undoes you. His fingers lace through yours, warm and firm, and he leads you through Tony’s absurd house with far more purpose than a man dripping pool water should have. The hallway is cool and dim, lined with art that probably costs enough to rescue a small nation. You barely see it. You see his back, the muscles shifting under wet skin, the dark hair curling at his neck, your hand held in his like something he does not plan to misplace. A laugh bursts from the patio behind you, then the sound dulls as the hallway turns. Your pulse beats everywhere. Mouth, wrists, thighs, the places the swimsuit rubs too tight. You have spent hours wishing he would look, and now he is taking you somewhere private to do more than that, which means panic arrives right on schedule, prim little nightmare clipboard in hand.

What if he changes his mind when the door closes? What if this is heat and misunderstanding and chlorine? What if he touches you and finds every soft place you spent the day trying to hide? Bucky stops at the first guest room and opens the door. The room is airy, pale, ridiculous, with a king bed dressed in white and a view of the trees beyond the windows. Too pretty. Too clean. A room for people who have sex beautifully, probably, with matching underwear and no body anxiety.

You hover at the threshold. Bucky turns. His gaze drops to your face, then your hand still in his. “What?”

You hate the gentleness. You might start wanting it everywhere. “Nothing.”

He steps closer, slowly enough to make the hallway feel narrower. “Try again.”

Your fingers tighten around his. “I’m wet.”

His brows lift a fraction. “From the pool,” you snap, heat flooding your face. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

“My face is having a day.”

Despite yourself, a laugh slips out, small and anxious. His thumb strokes over your knuckles, and the laugh fades into something softer. God, this is bad. This is tender now, and tender is much more dangerous than horny. Horny you understand. Horny has a beginning and an end and terrible decision-making in the middle. Tender grows roots. Bucky steps into the room and draws you with him.

The door closes behind you with a quiet click. For one second, neither of you speaks. The silence fills with water dripping from both of you onto the floor, distant music, your own uneven breathing. His hand leaves yours. You miss it immediately, which is humiliating.

Then he reaches for the towel. “Can I?”

You want to say something sharp. Something clever. Something that protects the swollen, nervous thing in your chest. Instead, you nod.

He unwraps you slowly. Not theatrically. Not like some polished movie scene. His fingers fumble once at the tucked corner, and that fumble does more to you than smooth confidence ever could. The towel loosens, slipping from your shoulders, down your arms, catching at your elbows before he pulls it free and drops it onto a chair.

Cool air touches your damp skin. Your hands twitch toward your stomach. Bucky catches them. The movement is fast, but his hold is gentle. Both wrists in his hands, lifted slightly away from your body. His eyes stay on yours. “Don’t hide from me.” The words are low, quiet, and absolutely devastating.

You try to laugh. It barely forms. “That’s ambitious.”

“I can be patient.”

“You? Since when?”

His mouth twitches. “Since about three seconds ago.”

You breathe out, shaky but almost amused. He lifts your hands and kisses the inside of one wrist. Then the other. Your throat tightens. It is so stupid, how much that gets to you. A kiss there. Not your mouth. Not your chest. Just the soft skin where your pulse is making an idiot of itself. “I’m going to look at you,” he says.

Your face burns. “That sounds like a threat.”

“It’s a warning.” His thumb moves over your wrist. “A fair one.”

“Very gentlemanly.”

“Trying.”

You swallow. “Don’t try too hard.”

His eyes darken. The shift is immediate, and you feel it under your skin. The little softness remains, but something hotter moves through it, something less careful. His hands lower yours to your sides. He waits. Gives you the chance to lift them again.

You don’t. Bucky looks. This time, he lets himself. His gaze starts at your face, maybe for mercy, then slips down your throat, over the thin straps, the gold rings, the wet fabric clinging to your breasts. You feel each inch like touch. He looks at the curve of your waist, the high cut at your hips, the soft places you wanted to fold away. His jaw sets hard. A slow breath leaves him, and the sound is not disgust. Not even close. It is almost anger, but turned inward, like he cannot believe he denied himself this all afternoon.

Your eyes sting again. “Oh,” you whisper, then immediately want to slap a hand over your mouth. Not a standalone reaction, you tell yourself absurdly. Put it in a sentence, idiot. “You actually…”

Bucky’s gaze snaps back to your face. “Yeah.”

“You looked away.”

“I was an idiot.”

“That’s established.”

His smile is brief and strained. “Fair.”

His hands come to your hips, bare now, no towel, no water softening the contact. Skin to skin. You inhale too sharply and his grip steadies, thumbs pressing near the swimsuit’s edge. “You thought I didn’t like this?” he asks, voice dragging lower.

Your eyes drop to his chest, safer than his face by maybe half a degree. “You looked like you were suffering.”

“I was.” His fingers slide along the high curve of your hip, then stop there, squeezing once. “Sweetheart, I saw you come out in this and forgot what language I spoke.”

That sounds impossible. It also sounds like him. Rough, a little annoyed, painfully sincere under all that heat. “You recovered fast.”

“I didn’t recover. I panicked.”

The laugh that leaves you is shaky and wet at the edges. “That was panic?”

“Steve asked if I was having a stroke.”

Your mouth opens. “He did not.”

“He did.”

“Was he concerned?”

“Very.”

You laugh fully this time, and Bucky’s hands tighten like he wants to hold the sound against you. The laugh fades when he steps closer. His wet chest brushes the front of your swimsuit. Barely. Your nipples tighten under the damp fabric, and his eyes drop just long enough to notice before returning to your face. The restraint almost kills you. “Sam complimented you,” he says.

You blink, following the turn. “Yes.”

“You smiled.”

“He was nice.”

“I know.”

There it is again. Acknowledgment. His thumbs move, small circles over your hips that turn thought into warm static. “You hated that?”

“I hated how easy it was for him.” Bucky’s voice goes rougher. “He could just say it. Stand there in front of everyone and tell you that you looked good. I stood ten feet away acting like looking at you too long was gonna put me in the ground.”

You study him, the damp hair, the tense mouth, the eyes that keep trying to fall and climb back up. “Would it?”

“Yeah,” he says, and this time he does smile. Small, wrecked, honest enough to hurt. “Maybe.”

That does something worse than praise. Makes you ache. Makes you stupid. Makes you lift your hand to his chest, pressing your fingers over the warm skin where your palm had landed earlier. He looks down at your hand like he wants to thank it. “You could’ve said something,” you murmur.

“I thought I had time to figure out how.”

“Figure out how to say you liked a swimsuit?”

“How to say I wanted to peel it off with my teeth without getting slapped in front of Steve.”

Your fingers curl against his chest. He watches your face. “Too much?”

The question is sincere, but barely. Mostly he is reading you now, and whatever he sees in your expression pulls his mouth into something darker. “No,” you say, and your voice sounds smaller than you want. “Continue.”

His laugh is quiet. “Continue?”

“You heard me.”

“I did.” One hand leaves your hip and comes up to your jaw, thumb brushing near the corner of your mouth. “Trying to decide if I wanna continue with my mouth or my hands.”

Your knees feel untrustworthy. “You’re taking suggestions?”

“From you?” He leans in, lips grazing your cheek, not quite kissing. “Always.”

The word slides down your body and settles low, hot, awful. You press your thighs together, barely, but he is too close to miss it. “Yeah?” His lips brush your ear now. “That where it goes when I say that?”

“Shut up.”

“Been trying all day.”

“To shut up?”

“To keep from saying worse.”

His mouth touches your neck. Your eyes close before you can pretend dignity. It is only one kiss at first, warm and damp from pool water, placed under your jaw with almost unbearable care. Then another, lower. His fingers at your jaw angle your face up, and the little stretch of your throat makes the room tilt through your body without the phrase in your head. You grip his shoulder, nails pressing into skin.

“Bucky,” you whisper.

He hums against your neck. “That sounded nice.”

“Don’t get smug.”

“Too late.”

You would scold him, but his teeth scrape lightly over your pulse and the scolding falls apart into a weak sound. He hears it. Of course he hears it. His hand on your hip slides around to the small of your back, pressing you closer, and the hard line of him through his swim trunks meets your lower stomach.

Your entire body pauses.

Bucky goes still too, but only to let you register it.

“Oh,” you breathe, then rush to fix it, face flaming. “That’s, um. That’s there.”

He pulls back enough to look at you. His eyes are nearly black. “Yeah. It’s been there.”

Your mouth parts.

“All day,” he adds, almost cruel now, and the hand at your jaw keeps your face tipped up. “You want the truth? I had to sit down after you got in the pool.”

A tiny, helpless sound leaves you.

His thumb strokes your cheek. “No. Look at me.”

You do, barely.

“I’m gonna say things,” he says, voice softer but dirtier somehow, stripped of performance. “And you’re gonna believe me this time.”

Your throat works around nothing. “That’s demanding.”

“Yeah.”

“Usually people ask.”

“I spent all day asking myself if I was allowed to want you.” His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, fingers sinking into damp hair. “I’m done asking me.”

That should terrify you. It does, maybe. But it terrifies the part of you that has been begging for exactly this.

His mouth comes back to yours, and this time neither of you pretend at gentleness for long. You open for him almost immediately, and he groans into the kiss, the sound vibrating through his chest under your hand. His tongue slides against yours, slow at first, then deeper when your fingers dig into his shoulders. The kiss turns wet, hungry, breathing ruined between mouths. He walks you backward without breaking it, guiding rather than pushing, until your calves hit the bed.

The bed. White sheets. Guest room. Pool party outside. Bucky’s hands on you.

Your brain tries one last heroic effort at thought.

What if someone comes in?

Bucky’s hands move to your hips.

What if the door isn’t locked?

He turns you, sits on the edge of the bed, and pulls you between his thighs.

What if this changes everything?

His mouth leaves yours and moves down your throat, and your remaining thoughts scatter like birds.

He is sitting now, which makes him lower, makes your body the thing above him for once. It should help. It does not. His hands spread over your thighs, thumbs running along the place where the swimsuit cuts high, and he looks up at you with damp hair falling around his face. He looks wrecked. Actually wrecked. Like the sight of you standing between his legs has finished what the swimsuit started.

“You were hiding under that towel,” he murmurs, tracing the edge of the fabric at your hip.

You swallow. “It was cold.”

“Liar.”

Your face heats, but his mouth presses to your stomach before you can answer. Right over the swimsuit. Soft. Deliberate. You freeze.

He does it again.

Lower this time.

Your hands hover over his shoulders. You do not know what to do with them. Push him away? Pull him closer? Applaud? Cry? Move to Romania?

“Bucky…”

His eyes lift. His lips remain near your stomach. “Yeah?”

You hate the question. Hate how much room it gives you to stop him. Hate how badly you want him to keep going without making you beg for it. “That’s…”

“What?”

You glance away. “You don’t have to…”

He sits back so fast you regret speaking. His hands remain on your thighs, but the warmth of his mouth is gone. “Don’t.”

The single word is sharp enough to bring your eyes back.

His expression is serious again. “Don’t say I don’t have to. I know I don’t have to.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I want to.” His fingers press into your thighs, almost too tight, then ease as he notices. “I have wanted to put my mouth on you since you walked outside.”

Your body responds so hard it feels unfair.

His eyes lower, following the tiny shift of your thighs. His jaw tightens. “Since before that.”

The room has become too warm. Your swimsuit is drying in patches, damp fabric clinging between your legs, and every tiny movement makes you aware of how wet you are under the pool water. Not just pool water anymore. Maybe not for a while. Horrible. Amazing. You may need medical attention. Or less medical attention and more of his mouth.

Bucky’s thumb slides along your inner thigh.

“You thought I didn’t wanna look.” He says it quietly, but the words carry a rough little bite. “You thought I looked away because I didn’t like your body.”

Your fingers curl into his hair. You do not answer.

He leans forward and kisses the inside of your thigh, just below the swimsuit’s edge.

Your breath leaves in a broken little rush.

His mouth lingers there. “I looked away because I wanted to do this in front of everybody.”

“Bucky,” you whisper, scandalized and so turned on you can barely feel your feet.

His lips move higher, still over skin, slow and warm. “Wanted to drag you out of that pool when Wilson had his hands on you.”

“He was helping.”

“I know.” His teeth graze your thigh. “Still wanted to.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Today?” His eyes flick up. “Yeah.”

His fingers hook under the swimsuit at your hips, then stop. The pause makes your skin prickle. He is waiting. Again. That careful, maddening decency under all the dirty want.

You nod, too fast.

His mouth curves, but it is not teasing. More relief than anything. “Words, baby.”

That name hits deep. Worse after the whole day of being looked away from. Baby means wanted. Baby means chosen. Baby means the towel can stay on the chair and the body you were trying to hide is now the only thing he seems able to focus on.

“Take it off,” you say.

Bucky closes his eyes for a second.

You almost laugh. Almost. Instead your fingers tighten in his hair, and that ruins him faster. His eyes open, and the polite thread in him snaps.

The swimsuit comes down slowly at first, peeled over your hips with such careful attention that you want to crawl out of your skin. The damp fabric resists, clinging where it can, and Bucky seems almost personally offended by it. He leans forward, mouth brushing your hip as he works it lower, then your lower stomach, then the soft skin above your mound. Every kiss makes the wait worse. Every inch exposed feels like a confession.

You expect him to look up at your face once you are bare.

He does not.

His gaze fixes between your thighs, and the sound he makes is quiet, dragged deep from his chest, almost pained. You try to close your legs on instinct, but his hands are already there, spreading warm over your thighs.

“Don’t hide,” he says again, rougher now.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“You’re staring.”

“Yeah.” His thumbs slide higher. “I missed a lot today.”

Your face burns so hot it almost hurts. “You can’t just say that.”

“I can.” He kisses the crease of your thigh, eyes still on you. “I am.”

The swimsuit slips lower, down your thighs, then to your knees. You lift one foot, then the other, and he drops the ruined damp thing somewhere on the floor. A wildly expensive room, white sheets, your swimsuit abandoned in a wet little heap. It should feel humiliating.

It does.

It also makes you throb.

Bucky’s hands return to your thighs. He sits there on the bed, still in his wet trunks, and looks at you like this is the first quiet moment he has had all day and he plans to spend it badly. Your arms cross over your chest, but he catches the movement at once.

“Hey.”

You glare, but there is no force behind it. “What?”

His hands slide around to the backs of your thighs. “Come here.”

“I am here.”

“Closer.”

“There is physically no closer unless I climb you.”

His expression changes.

Ah. Idiot mouth. Treacherous mouth. Mouth with no survival instincts.

Bucky leans back slightly, spreading his thighs more. “Then climb.”

Your body gives an almost embarrassing pulse at the command. “You’re very comfortable giving orders for someone who spent half the day staring at landscaping.”

“I had a hard day.”

“You had a chair.”

“I had you in that swimsuit ten feet away from me.”

“That must have been so difficult.”

He pulls you forward by the backs of your thighs, and the sudden movement makes your hands land on his shoulders. “It was.”

There is no joke in his voice now.

Your knees go onto the mattress on either side of him before you fully decide to move. Straddling his lap like this, bare while he is still partly clothed, feels obscene in a way full nudity might not have. His trunks are wet beneath you. The hard length of him presses up between your thighs, thick and hot even through fabric. Your hips jerk before you can stop them, and his hands clamp around you with a groan.

“Shit.” His forehead drops to your collarbone. “Do that again and I’m gonna embarrass myself.”

That should make you smug. Powerful. Instead it makes you needy in a way you did not agree to. You roll your hips again, smaller this time, dragging your bare pussy over the soaked fabric of his trunks. The friction is rough enough to make your mouth fall open. His hands grip your ass, helping and stopping at once, torn between instincts.

“Baby,” he says, warning and pleading in the same breath.

The word feeds something awful in you. You do it again.

Bucky’s head tips back, throat working, eyes squeezed shut for half a second. This beautiful, irritating man who looked away all day now looks as if your body might actually kill him. Good. Maybe balance exists.

“You like this?” you ask, and your voice is shaky, but the question still has a little bite. “Or are you going to look at the curtains?”

His eyes open.

You may have gone too far.

His hand comes up and catches your jaw, not hard, but certain enough that your hips still. “Say it again.”

Your lips part. “What?”

“What you said outside.”

The pool steps return all at once. Wet stone. His hand at your waist. Your own stupid voice, bitter and wounded.

“You don’t have to touch me longer than necessary,” you murmur, quieter now.

Bucky’s jaw flexes. His thumb strokes once along your lower lip, and the tenderness of it makes the shame worse somehow. “That.” His other hand presses at your lower back, bringing you down against him again. “Every time you thought that today, I want it back.”

You have no idea what that means until he kisses you.

It is not careful now. It is deep, claiming, his tongue sliding into your mouth as his hand guides your hips over him. The wet fabric drags against your clit, and you whimper into the kiss, the sound swallowed by him immediately. He does it again, rolls you down, grinds you over the hard shape of his cock, and the pleasure is dirty and sharp, mixed with the faint scratch of his trunks and the slickness between your thighs.

“Long enough?” he mutters against your mouth.

You clutch at him, face burning. “Shut up.”

His hand slips between your bodies, fingers finding your clit with such sudden precision that your whole body jerks. He rubs slow, tight circles, using your wetness and the water still on your skin, watching your face from inches away.

“Answer me.”

You shake your head, pride making a brave final appearance before dying in combat. “No.”

“No?” His mouth brushes yours, and his fingers press a little harder. Your hips chase the touch, humiliating you on contact. “Still not long enough?”

You hate him. You love him. You want to bite his shoulder until he says your name wrong. “Bucky…”

“That’s not an answer.”

His fingers dip lower, sliding through your folds, and his eyes go heavy at what he finds. “Fuck, sweetheart.” His voice drops into something rough and almost disbelieving. “You’re soaked.”

“Pool,” you manage, immediately ashamed of yourself.

He laughs then, a low sound against your mouth. “Yeah? Pool did this?”

His fingers push inside you, two at once, thick enough that your head drops forward to his shoulder. The stretch steals whatever joke you had left. Your hands claw at his back, and he groans like that hurts in the best possible way.

“Guess I owe the pool an apology,” he murmurs, pumping his fingers slowly. “Been mad at it all day for touching you more than I got to.”

Your laugh breaks into a moan. The sound is embarrassing, open, too needy, and he reacts to it with a thrust of his hips up against your bare thigh, his cock hard and trapped in wet fabric.

“Bucky,” you whimper, turning your face into his neck.

His fingers curl.

Your body goes liquid.

“There,” he breathes, and then seems to remember himself. “Yeah, right there?”

You nod into his skin, too far gone to be difficult.

“Use words.”

A sharp little pulse goes through you. He feels it. His laugh is quieter this time, almost awed.

“Oh, you like that.” His fingers press the same spot again, slow and deliberate, and his thumb finds your clit. “All that mouth at the pool, and now look at you.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” His mouth moves to your ear, breath hot over wet skin. “You hated thinking I didn’t want you.”

That one splits you open more than his fingers.

You try to lift your head, but he holds you where you are, face tucked into his neck, body in his lap, nowhere to go but the truth.

“You hated me looking away,” he continues, quieter, filthy and tender in equal measure. “Hated Wilson saying you looked good because you wanted it from me. Hated that I sat there like an idiot when all you wanted was for me to come over and put my hands on you.”

Your thighs shake around his. The pleasure is building faster than you expected, pulled tighter by every word. He is too accurate. Too close. Too deep, and it is only his fingers, which makes you dizzy with terror over what the rest of him will do.

“I didn’t…” You try. Fail. “I didn’t want…”

He kisses under your ear. “Liar.”

“Bucky.”

“You did.” His hand around your waist slides up your back, holding you as his fingers fuck into you a little harder. “You wanted me jealous. You wanted me to see you. You wanted me to stop acting like a saint and do something about it.”

Your nails dig into him.

“There,” he says, sounding pleased and ruined all at once. “That one.”

You are close. Horribly close. Hips rocking into his hand now, your body making choices your pride would never sign off on. His thumb rubs your clit steadily, and his fingers hit that same spot until your vision goes soft at the edges. You bite down on his shoulder to keep from being too loud, and he makes a strangled sound, hips bucking under you.

“God, do that again.”

You do. Harder.

His fingers slip out of rhythm for one second, and that small loss almost makes you sob. “No, no, no, don’t stop.”

Bucky’s hand tightens at your back. “I’ve got you.”

“You keep saying things like that,” you gasp, words breaking as he finds the rhythm again.

“Yeah?”

“It’s annoying.”

He kisses your temple, and the sweetness of it almost tips you over. “Cum, then complain.”

That should not work.

It works.

The orgasm rolls through you hard enough to make your mouth open against his shoulder without sound at first. Then the sound comes, muffled into his skin, high and wrecked. Your hips grind down on his fingers, chasing every last pull of it, and Bucky talks you through it in a rough whisper that barely sounds like him anymore.

“That’s it, baby. Fuck, there you go. Just needed someone to touch you right, huh? Needed me to stop being stupid and put my hands on you.”

Your body shakes in his lap, every muscle loose and trembling. His fingers slow but do not leave right away. He lets you ride the last of it, forehead pressed to the side of your head, breath rough in your ear. The patio music is still going somewhere far away. Someone outside cheers. Maybe a game. Maybe a toast. The world is criminally unaware that you have just collapsed into a man you were pretending to hate this morning.

Then Bucky starts to pull his fingers free.

You whine.

The sound is pathetic. Immediate. You wish to file a complaint against yourself.

Bucky freezes, then laughs under his breath. “Greedy.”

“Shut up.”

His fingers slide out fully, wet and obscene between you. You mean to look away. You fail. He watches your face as he brings them to his mouth, licking them clean with a slow, dirty satisfaction that makes your cunt clench around nothing.

His eyes darken. “Saw that.”

“You see too much.”

“Not enough.” His hands go to your hips again, turning you carefully and laying you back on the bed before you can protest. The white sheets are instantly doomed, damp under your body, but Tony’s laundry issues are not your ministry. Bucky kneels between your thighs, still in his trunks, cock straining hard beneath the clinging fabric. “I’m making up for it.”

A nervous laugh leaves you as your head sinks into the pillows. “By staring at my vagina?”

His brows lift.

Your face burns. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face again.”

“My face likes you.”

“Your face is an idiot.”

“Yeah.” He presses a kiss to your knee, then lower, then lower again, hands sliding under your thighs to open you wider. “It’s got company.”

The first touch of his mouth between your legs almost makes you levitate.

He does not ease in. Not really. Maybe he means to, maybe he has some beautiful plan involving patience, but the second his tongue parts you, his control seems to go with it. His hands hook around your thighs, dragging you closer to his mouth, and the sound he makes against your pussy is so filthy you cover your mouth with one hand.

Bucky stops.

Your eyes fly open.

He lifts his head, mouth wet, eyes furious in the best way. “Move your hand.”

Your fingers loosen over your lips. “They’ll hear.”

“Let them hear the pool wasn’t the reason you left.”

Your whole body clenches. He sees that too. Obviously. Curse him and his newly unleashed observational skills.

“Bucky,” you whisper, scandalized.

He kisses your inner thigh, close enough to make you twitch. “Move it, baby.”

Slowly, your hand drops to the sheets.

He smiles against your skin. “Thank you.”

Then his mouth is back on you, and gratitude becomes a weapon. He licks into you with slow, messy strokes at first, tasting you like he has been denied water and blames you personally. His tongue drags from your entrance to your clit, lingering there until your thighs tense around his head. Then he does it again. Again. Learning with horrifying speed what makes your hips jerk, what makes your fingers twist in the sheets, what makes your mouth form his name without quite saying it.

You understand, distantly, that he is good at this.

Of course he is. Of course Bucky Barnes eats pussy like he has a vendetta against sanity. Of course the man who looked away all afternoon now has his face buried between your thighs with a concentration that feels almost insulting. Like he is determined to win an argument you did not realize your body had started.

His metal hand slides up your stomach, cool against heated skin, holding you down when your hips lift. The contrast makes you moan. His eyes flick up. He does it again, palm pressing lightly between your ribs as his tongue circles your clit.

“Please,” you breathe, though you have no idea what you are asking for.

Bucky hums into you.

Your back arches. The hum vibrates through every over-sensitive nerve he has already ruined, and your hands shoot to his hair. He lets you pull. Encourages it, maybe, with another wet, open-mouthed suck that makes your thighs clamp around his ears.

“Sorry,” you gasp, trying to loosen your grip.

He pulls back just enough to speak, lips shining. “Do it again.”

“What?”

His teeth scrape your thigh. “Pull my hair again.”

You stare at him, then obey with trembling fingers.

His eyes close for a second, and the expression on his face is so openly pleased that something inside you folds. This is him. Not the cold look-away version from the patio. Not the teasing version with everyone watching. This man, wet-haired and greedy, kneeling between your legs like he has found religion and plans to be terrible about it.

He lowers his mouth again, and this time you pull when his tongue presses inside you.

Bucky groans into your cunt.

The sound is enough to make your hips jerk up against his mouth. He holds you down, but barely. Like he wants the fight. Like every needy movement makes him worse. His tongue fucks into you, then slips back to your clit, alternating until you cannot predict anything except pleasure. It grows too quickly. Your last orgasm has left you sensitive, swollen, every touch brighter than it should be.

“Bucky, I can’t,” you gasp, then hate yourself because you absolutely can and probably will.

He lifts his head, but keeps his thumb moving over your clit in lazy, devastating circles. “Can’t what?”

“Again. I can’t…”

His mouth curves, wet and wicked. “You can.”

“You have too much confidence.”

“I have evidence.” His thumb presses a little harder, and your legs shake. “Look at you.”

“No.”

“Yeah.” He leans up over you, thumb still moving, mouth hovering above yours. You can smell yourself on him. The realization makes you clench so hard his eyes drop. “You gonna get shy now? After soaking my fingers? After grinding all over me like you were trying to ruin my life?”

“I was making a point.”

“You made it.” His lips brush yours. “Very persuasive.”

You mean to roll your eyes. He kisses you before you can, pushing the taste of yourself into your mouth while his thumb keeps working your clit. The kiss makes it dirtier. More intimate. Your hand wraps around his wrist, but you don’t pull him away. You hold him there, grinding up in tiny helpless motions as the pressure builds again.

Bucky’s mouth leaves yours only to speak against it. “You’re gonna cum on my hand, then I’m gonna fuck you. If that’s what you want.”

If. Somehow that word remains. A door, not a trap. It makes your eyes sting again, which is so deeply inconvenient while naked with a man’s hand between your legs.

“I want it,” you say, voice shaking.

His forehead touches yours. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” Your grip tightens around his wrist. “I want you. I wanted you all day. I wanted you before today, and you were horrible and confusing and shirtless, which was unnecessary, and I hate that you looked away, and I hate that I cared, and I want you to fuck me so badly I can’t think about any of it.”

Bucky stares at you.

For a moment you regret speaking. Then his mouth crashes into yours, and regret becomes impractical.

His fingers replace his thumb, sliding down and pushing into you again, three this time, the stretch sharper after his mouth. You gasp into the kiss. He swallows it, pumps his fingers deep, heel of his hand grinding against your clit. The pleasure turns immediate and rough, your body already primed by his mouth and his words and the unbearable fact of being wanted after hours of believing the opposite.

“That’s it,” he mutters against your cheek. “There’s my mean girl. Thought I lost you under all that pouting.”

You whimper and slap weakly at his shoulder. “I was wounded.”

“You were jealous.”

“You were avoidant.”

“I was hard enough to see God.”

A shocked laugh bursts out of you, then breaks as his fingers curl. “That’s vulgar.”

“You asked for honesty.”

“I did not ask for theology.”

He laughs into your neck, and somehow the warm sound mixed with the filthy rhythm of his hand tips you closer. You clutch at his shoulders, then his hair, then the sheets. Nothing helps. The orgasm comes slower this time, dragged out of you with cruel patience. Your thighs tense, stomach pulling tight, and Bucky feels the change before you can warn him.

“Yeah, baby. Give me that one too.” His mouth presses near your ear, voice a wrecked whisper. “Need it. Need to feel you cum before I get inside you.”

Need. From him. Bucky Barnes needing anything from you.

Your body gives in.

The second orgasm is messier, wetter, less contained. You cry out before you can bite it back, hips bucking into his hand, and Bucky groans like the sound goes straight through him. His fingers keep moving, slower but deep, dragging the pleasure until you are shaking and trying to push at his wrist.

“Too much,” you gasp.

He stops at once.

The loss makes you whine again, and he laughs softly, kissing your cheek, then your jaw, then your mouth with absurd sweetness for someone who just fingered you into temporary stupidity.

“You’re impossible,” he murmurs.

“Your fault.”

“Yeah.” His hand smooths over your thigh, gentle now. “I’m starting to like that answer.”

You open your eyes. He is above you, wet hair falling forward, mouth swollen from kissing and eating you, eyes on your face with such naked affection that it scares you more than the hunger did.

Affection is hard. Desire has a script. Affection looks at you afterward.

Your hand lifts before you can stop it, touching his cheek. He turns slightly into your palm. That tiny movement ruins you.

“You really wanted me?” you ask, hating the softness in your voice.

His expression tightens. “All day.”

“Before today?”

He presses a kiss to your palm. “Yeah.”

“How long?”

A pause.

The room becomes too quiet again, but this silence is not empty. It is full of him deciding whether to lie. He does not.

“Long enough to act stupid about it.”

“That could be any amount of time.”

“Months.”

Your chest squeezes. “Months?”

“Maybe longer.”

“You’re terrible at flirting.”

“I panicked,” he says again, like that explains the whole tragedy of him. Maybe it does.

You laugh softly. He smiles this time, real and quick, then kisses you. The kiss starts gentle, then deepens when your legs wrap around his waist. His cock presses against you through his trunks, and the teasing drag makes both of you go still.

He looks down between your bodies. “I need these off.”

“Finally, a smart idea.”

His hands go to the waistband, then pause. “Condom?”

Reality returns in a less catastrophic way. Important. Practical. You gesture vaguely toward the side table, then remember this is Tony’s guest room, not a hotel minibar for sex supplies. “Unless Tony keeps them next to the complimentary existential dread, I don’t…”

Bucky drops his forehead to your shoulder with a pained groan.

A laugh bubbles out of you, helpless and mean. “Very prepared seduction, Barnes.”

“I was supposed to be ignoring you by the pool.”

“You did great.”

He bites your shoulder lightly. You yelp, then laugh harder. His own laugh shakes against you, warm and frustrated, and the absurdity of it makes the room feel human again.

Then he lifts his head. “I have one in my wallet.”

You stop laughing.

His brows draw together. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re judging.”

“I am judging.”

“I’m a grown man.”

“With pool-party condoms?”

“One condom. Singular. Emergency.”

“What emergency did you anticipate?”

He gives you a look. “Apparently this one.”

You should make another joke. You truly should. But the thought of him having one, of this actually happening, drains humor out of you and leaves want in its place. “Wallet,” you say.

Bucky’s eyes darken again.

He climbs off the bed, and the loss of his body makes you cold for exactly three seconds before he turns toward the chair where his discarded shirt must be absent, then remembers his wallet is out by the pool with his things. His face changes into genuine despair.

You clap a hand over your mouth.

“Don’t,” he warns.

“You left your emergency outside?”

“I didn’t plan to need it indoors.”

You dissolve into laughter. It is quiet, desperate, half muffled, but laughter all the same. Bucky stares at you, then shakes his head, smiling despite himself. He looks younger like this. Less impossible. Still shirtless and wet and hard in his swim trunks, which does complicate the innocence.

“I’ll go,” he says.

“You are not going outside like that.”

His gaze drops to the obvious tent in his trunks. “Fair.”

You look around the room and spot a folded robe near the bathroom door, white and plush. Perfectly Tony. “Robe.”

“I’m not wearing Stark’s sex robe.”

“Guest robe.”

“Same thing.”

“You want the condom or a philosophical debate?”

Bucky points at you. “Stay there.”

You sink back into the pillows, naked and grinning like an idiot. “Where would I go?”

“Knowing you? Window.”

“Only if things get worse.”

He grabs the robe, pulls it on with visible resentment, and the sight of Bucky Barnes in a plush white guest robe with wet hair and a furious erection is so absurdly beautiful that you almost cry. He catches your face and pauses at the door.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He narrows his eyes. “That smile says something.”

“It says hurry.”

That works. He leaves, closing the door behind him.

The second he is gone, you become aware of yourself again. Naked on white sheets. Swimsuit on the floor. Body cooling, thighs damp, mouth swollen. The laughter fades slowly, leaving a trembling little silence behind it.

This is real.

Bucky wanted you. Bucky is coming back. Bucky went to fetch a condom wearing Tony’s guest robe like some obscene, damp ghost of poor planning.

Your hand presses over your stomach. Not hiding now. Just grounding. It feels different under your own palm after his mouth, his hands, his eyes. Still yours. Still soft in places. Still carrying every insecurity from the bathroom mirror. But his wanting has touched it now, and you hate how much that helps. Hate how badly you needed someone else’s hunger to quiet the awful little voice in your head. Maybe you can work on that later. Maybe growth can wait until after orgasms.

Voices rise in the hall.

You freeze.

Sam: “Barnes, why the hell are you wearing a robe?”

Bucky, low and deadly: “Move.”

Tony, delighted somewhere farther away: “That is Egyptian cotton, by the way.”

Natasha laughs. “Let him live.”

Sam again, audibly grinning: “Is there a fire?”

Bucky says something too low to hear.

A beat of silence.

Then Sam barks out, “Oh my god.”

Your soul exits again, does a lap, returns out of morbid curiosity.

The door opens. Bucky steps in, face red, jaw tight, wallet in hand, robe still tied around him. He closes the door and locks it this time.

You stare.

He points at you again. “Don’t.”

“I said nothing.”

“You’re laughing with your whole face.”

“I would never.”

He stalks back toward the bed, tugging at the robe tie with enough aggression to threaten the cotton’s lineage. “Wilson knows.”

“Oh no.”

“Tony knows.”

“Tony knew before we did.”

“Steve looked proud.”

That breaks you. You roll onto your side, laughing into the pillow. Bucky tosses the wallet onto the bed and grabs your ankle, pulling you back toward him. The movement turns your laughter into a gasp. The robe falls open as he kneels on the mattress, and there he is, absurdity gone in a single second, his body over yours again, desire returning like a hand around your throat.

“Laughing at me?” he asks.

“Yes.”

His hand slides up your calf, over your knee, spreading your leg aside. “That’s brave.”

“I’m very brave.”

“You slipped twice today.”

“Physically brave and spatially cursed.”

His mouth twitches. He bends down and kisses the inside of your knee, then the thigh, and the laughter fades into a softer sound. “You okay?”

The question is quiet. It stops the teasing better than any command could. You look down at him, fingers resting in his wet hair.

“Yes,” you say. Then, more honest, “Nervous.”

His hand stills on your thigh. “About me?”

“About you seeing me.”

His face changes again, but he does not use any of the easy lines. No polished praise. No smooth answer. He moves up your body instead, covering you with his warmth, bracing one arm beside your head. His other hand cups your cheek, thumb damp against your skin.

“I see you,” he says. “I want you. Same sentence.”

Your throat tightens. “That’s unfairly effective.”

“Trying to be clear.”

“Terrible habit.”

His mouth brushes yours. “Can I keep seeing you?”

You nod. “Yeah.”

His lips press to your cheek, your jaw, your neck. “Can I keep touching you?”

Your legs part wider around him. “Yeah.”

His hand slides down between your bodies, and your hips lift when his fingers stroke through your folds again, gentle now, checking. Teasing. Both. “Can I fuck you?”

The bluntness sends a hot pulse through you. Your fingers tighten on his shoulders.

“Yes,” you breathe. “Please.”

Bucky’s eyes close for a beat, and when they open, patience is hanging by a thread.

The robe is shoved away. His trunks follow, dragged down his hips with a wet, clinging sound that would be funny if you had enough brain left. You do not. You are too busy staring. He is thick, heavy in his hand, flushed at the tip, and your mouth goes dry so fast it is almost comic.

Bucky notices. Naturally.

“Still judging my emergency condom?” he asks, tearing the foil with his teeth.

You look up at him. “Less now.”

“Thought so.”

The condom rolls on. His hand pumps once, twice, and your thighs press together around empty air. He sees that too, then settles between your legs and guides them open again. The head of his cock drags through your wetness, and both of you go quiet.

The first press against your entrance is almost too much.

He pauses there, forehead lowering to yours. “Tell me if you need slow.”

You hate that. You love that. You want to ruin him for it.

“I need you to stop talking like a responsible adult,” you whisper.

A short laugh leaves him, strained. “Sweetheart, I am hanging on by a thread.”

“Then stop hanging.”

His hips push forward.

The stretch is slow and full and immediate enough to make your mouth fall open. Bucky watches your face as he enters you, jaw clenched, breath breaking through his nose. He gives you the first inch, then another, then stops when your nails dig into his arms.

“Okay?”

You nod too quickly, body caught between ache and hunger. “More.”

His control slips for half a second. His hips roll deeper, and the sound that leaves both of you is ugly and perfect. He is bigger than his fingers, thicker than your imagination had kindly prepared you for, filling you in a way that makes thought stagger. Your legs wrap around his waist. His hand grips the sheet beside your head.

“Fuck,” he breathes, almost helpless. “You feel…”

You wait for the line. Pretty. Tight. Perfect. Something dirty and easy.

He lowers his face to your neck. “I’m gonna lose my mind.”

That is better.

You clench around him, and his hips jerk. His teeth press into your shoulder. “Do that again and this ends fast.”

“Maybe I want that.”

He lifts his head, eyes dark. “No, you don’t.”

Your body gives you away, warmth spreading under your skin. “Annoying.”

“You want me to take my time now.” He pulls out slightly, then pushes back in, slow enough that you feel every inch. “You wanted me to look, right? Wanted me to stop looking away?”

Your hands twist in the sheets.

He does it again, dragging the pleasure into something deep and almost unbearable. “I’m looking.”

You cannot answer. There is no room. He fills too much of you, his body heavy over yours, wet hair brushing your cheek, the scent of chlorine and him wrapped around every breath. His eyes hold your face as he starts a slow rhythm, each thrust smooth and deep, his mouth parting when you tighten around him.

“Bucky,” you moan, and his name sounds ruined.

His hand slips under your knee, hitching your leg higher. The angle changes, and his next thrust hits so deep your back bows off the bed. He groans, dropping his head to your shoulder.

“There?” he asks, already doing it again.

You nod, frantic. “There, please, there.”

“Yeah, baby.” His pace picks up, still controlled but rougher now, bed shifting under both of you. “Knew you’d sound pretty begging.”

Your face burns. “I’m not begging.”

He thrusts harder.

The words vanish.

“That sounded like begging.” His mouth presses to your cheek, deceptively sweet while his hips drive into you with enough force to make your fingers claw at his back. “Pool made you mouthy. My cock’s fixing it.”

The filth of it makes you clench.

Bucky laughs, but it breaks halfway into a groan. “Shit, you like that.”

“You’re so smug.”

“I’m inside you,” he says, breath hot against your mouth. “I earned a little.”

You would argue, but his hand slides between you and finds your clit. The first touch makes you jolt. After his mouth and his fingers, you are too sensitive, every nerve overfed and greedy. He rubs tight circles as he fucks you, watching your expression collapse.

“Oh, that’s it.” His voice turns thick, affectionate in the dirtiest possible way. “There’s my girl.”

My girl.

You fall apart a little just hearing it.

His eyes sharpen. “Yeah? That one?”

“Bucky…”

“My girl,” he repeats, and his hips hit deeper, harder. “Mine to look at. Mine to touch. Mine to pull out of the pool when she’s trying to make me jealous.”

You shake your head, but your body is a liar and both of you know it.

“No?” His thumb presses harder on your clit. “You didn’t like me jumping in after you?”

“You looked ridiculous,” you gasp.

“Yeah, well. You looked wet and half naked and mad at me. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

A laugh escapes you, then turns into a moan when he rolls his hips. He smiles against your mouth, kissing the sound away, and for a few seconds the rhythm becomes messy. Kissing, thrusting, breathing into each other, his hand working between you, your nails leaving half-moon marks in his shoulders. No clean choreography. No grace. Just damp skin, white sheets, the slap of his hips against yours growing louder, the ridiculous fear that someone outside might hear and the worse realization that you want them to know he came after you.

You turn your face into the pillow to muffle yourself.

Bucky catches your jaw and pulls you back. “No.”

“They’ll hear.”

“Good.”

“Bucky.”

His eyes are dark, almost feverish. “Spent all day watching you think I didn’t want you. Let them hear me prove it.”

Your orgasm rises so fast it scares you. It starts low, tightening through your stomach, then spreads until your thighs tremble around his waist. He feels it. His thrusts lose some smoothness, turning heavier, more desperate.

“You close?”

You nod, helpless.

“Say it.”

“I’m close.”

His mouth brushes yours. “Ask me.”

Your eyes open. “What?”

“Ask me to make you cum.”

The request should annoy you. It does. It also sends pleasure twisting sharply through your body, so your irritation lacks credibility.

“You’re impossible,” you whimper.

“Ask.”

His hips slow.

That is evil.

You grab at his shoulders. “Don’t slow down.”

“Ask me, baby.”

A second passes, filled with the obscene pressure of him buried deep and almost still, his thumb barely moving over your clit. You glare at him with whatever strength remains.

“Please,” you say, hating how breathless it is. Loving how his face changes. “Please make me cum.”

Bucky groans, and the restraint goes.

His hips drive into you hard enough to shove you up the bed, one arm hooking under your back to keep you close. His thumb works your clit faster, and his mouth moves over your jaw, your cheek, your lips, wherever he can reach while he fucks you. He is talking now, rough and uneven, less like performance and more like words escaping under pressure.

“Wanted this so bad. Wanted you so bad, sweetheart. Sitting out there in that fucking swimsuit, looking at me like you wanted to scratch my eyes out. Thought I was gonna snap when you smiled at Sam. Thought I was gonna drag you inside when you said I didn’t have to touch you. Stupid thing to say to me. Like I haven’t been thinking about putting my hands on you for months.”

Months. Again. The word breaks over you with the thrusts, with the pressure, with the hard heat of him inside you.

Your orgasm hits with his name in your mouth.

It is bigger this time, deeper, pulled from every place he touched and every place he looked. You cry out, hips lifting into him, cunt clenching around his cock so hard his rhythm stutters. Bucky curses against your throat, fucking you through it with short, rough thrusts that make the pleasure keep sparking long after the first wave should have ended.

“That’s it,” he groans. “That’s it, baby. Fuck, you feel so good when you cum.”

You cannot answer. Your body is trembling too hard, arms wrapped around him, face pressed into his neck as he loses the last of his rhythm. His thrusts turn desperate, deeper and less controlled, and something about that undoes you almost as much as your own release. Bucky, who spent all day looking away, is now buried inside you and shaking apart over it.

“Where?” he rasps.

The condom. Practicality. Again, somehow.

“Inside,” you breathe. “You have the condom, inside, please.”

He makes a sound against your skin, broken and almost grateful. His hips slam once, twice, then bury deep as he comes. His whole body tenses over yours, breath caught against your shoulder, hands gripping you like he needs somewhere to put the force of it. You feel the pulse of him through the condom, feel the weight of him, the shudder that runs across his back under your hands.

Then he softens by degrees.

His forehead rests against your shoulder. His breathing is rough, warm, damp over your skin. Your own body feels boneless, wrung out and too sensitive, thighs still locked around his waist like they have not received news of the ending.

Outside, someone cheers again.

Bucky huffs a laugh into your neck. “If that’s about us, I’m moving to Siberia.”

You laugh weakly, fingers combing through the wet hair at his nape. “That was my plan.”

“We can carpool.”

“After you get off me. You’re heavy.”

He lifts his head, affronted and beautiful. “You wound me.”

“You crushed me.”

“You wrapped around me.”

“You were available.”

His smile comes slowly this time, soft and disbelieving, and the sight hurts in a new way. Not bad. Just big. Too big for a guest room during a pool party. Too big for a body still buzzing from sex.

He kisses you once, gentle and quick. “I’m gonna move.”

You make a deeply embarrassing sound of protest before you can stop it.

Bucky pauses. The smugness returns in miniature. “Yeah?”

“Don’t start.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face is speaking.”

“My face has been through a lot today.”

He eases out carefully, and even that makes you wince. His hand strokes your thigh in apology, and the tenderness of it makes you look away. He handles the condom, ties it off, finds a trash bin in the bathroom, washes his hands. Normal things. Human things. Meanwhile you lie in Tony Stark’s guest bed naked, damp, and fucked so thoroughly that your bones feel rearranged.

When Bucky returns, he grabs the towel from the chair and wipes gently at the wetness on your thighs. The care makes your throat tighten.

“You don’t have to do that,” you murmur, then immediately regret the phrasing.

His eyes lift.

Right.

You both hear the echo.

This time, he does not get angry. He leans down and kisses the inside of your knee. “I want to.”

The answer settles over the old wound quietly.

You nod, unable to make a joke fast enough.

He cleans you with warm water from the bathroom after that, careful between your legs while you try not to squirm from sensitivity. Then he finds another towel, pats the sheets around you with the resigned air of a man who knows Tony will make comments for the rest of his life. Your swimsuit remains on the floor. He picks it up, holds it between two fingers, and gives it an unreadable look.

You lift your head. “Don’t insult it. We’ve all grown.”

Bucky’s mouth twitches. “I owe it an apology.”

“You owe me an apology.”

“I gave you one.”

“I want another.”

He climbs back onto the bed beside you, still naked, shameless in a way that should be illegal. The mattress dips under his weight. “For what?”

“For being weird at the pool.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For looking away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For making me think you hated it.”

His face softens in that unbearable way again. He reaches for you, then pauses until you shift closer yourself. Once you do, his arm slides around you, pulling you against his chest. His skin is warm now, less wet, still smelling faintly of chlorine. “I’m sorry.”

You rest your cheek against him, listening to his heart. It is beating fast. Not hammering. You refuse to give it dramatic language. Just fast enough to comfort you.

“And for making me feel like I needed sam to tell me I looked nice,” you add, quieter.

His arm tightens.

A few seconds pass. Not empty. Not awkward. Full of that sentence sitting between you and breathing.

“You looked beautiful,” he says, voice low. “You looked so good I forgot how to act like a person. And that’s on me, not you.”

Your eyes sting again, which is becoming repetitive and rude. “You need to stop saying decent things after sex. It’s confusing.”

His lips press to your hair. “Would it help if I said something indecent?”

“Yes.”

“Your thighs almost killed me.”

A laugh bursts out of you, wet and startled. “Bucky.”

“I’m serious. National threat.”

“You’re so stupid.”

He kisses your forehead, smiling against your skin. “Yeah, but you like me.”

You go still for half a second.

He feels it.

The words sit there, too close to another word neither of you has touched yet. Like. Want. Months. My girl. All safer than the one with teeth. Bucky’s hand moves slowly over your back, giving you somewhere to put the panic.

“You like me too,” he says, softer, almost cautious beneath the tease.

You close your eyes. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Don’t get greedy.”

His chest moves under your cheek with a quiet laugh. “Too late.”

A knock hits the door.

Both of you freeze.

Tony’s voice comes through the wood, bright with theatrical politeness. “As the owner of this house, its Egyptian cotton robe, and several traumatized guests, I would like to announce that dinner part two is happening in twenty minutes. Clothing encouraged. Applause optional.”

You bury your face in Bucky’s chest.

Bucky sighs. “Go away, Stark.”

“Gladly. Also, Wilson owes me fifty dollars. Carry on.”

Footsteps retreat.

Your face is burning so badly it may light the bed on fire. “I hate everyone.”

Bucky’s hand slides possessively over your hip. “Want me to get your clothes?”

The thought of walking back outside in the swimsuit after everything makes you want to dissolve. But then again, the old shame does not bite quite the same now. The swimsuit is still a damp heap on the floor. Your body is still your body. Your friends are still awful. Bucky is still a confusing, broad disaster.

Only now he has seen you. Touched you. Wanted you. Said it clearly enough that even your mean little brain has to work harder to ruin it.

“Eventually,” you say.

He hums. “Eventually sounds good.”

“You can’t keep me in Tony’s guest room forever.”

“No,” he agrees, hand moving lazily over your side. “But I can try for another ten minutes.”

“That’s ambitious.”

His mouth finds your neck, and the smile against your skin is warm enough to melt whatever was left of you. “I can be patient.”

“You said that before.”

“I lied.”

You laugh, and he kisses the sound before it can get away.

You have been the perfect day shift intern for five months. Five freaking months of listening to mostly constructive criticism, five months of adapting and learning on the go with not a single complaint voiced, five months of diligent note-taking, studying, and practice. Five months of weaseling your way into the list of interns-slash-young-doctors that your residents actually respect. Five months of grueling shifts, hard losses, and never saying no when someone needs you to do something.

Five months of being the untouchable, “perfect” intern. Robby’s newest addition to his growing list of “work-wards.”

Five months of unflinching effort and dedication and it took four hours of your third night-shift to reduce you to a miserable, snotty mess on the supply closet floor. Tucked into the space between the two shelves, just the toes of your blood and snot and god knows what else covered shoes peeking out, the rest of you obscured.

Five months, four hours, and back to back fuck-ups that escalated into Dr. Jack Abbot, the man you may or may not have had the hugest crush on since beginning your intern year, removing you from a case. Five months, four hours, and two parents screaming at Dr. Abbot, telling him that you’re not fit to be a doctor.

Tonight isn’t the first night a patient has yelled at you. Tonight isn’t even the first time you’ve been removed from a case. It’s not the first time Dr. Abbot has had to correct you, and it’s certainly not the first time you’ve made a mistake.

You’re an intern. It’s your job to fuck up, learn from it, and keep going. That’s what Dr. Mohan said to one of the other interns awhile back. They’d ended up flunking out, but oh well. It was good advice. It wasn’t meant for you, but hell if you don’t say it to yourself every night like a prayer.

But right now, the usual calming mantra is doing absolutely nothing. You’re stifling ugly sobs into the tops of your knees, arms wrapped around and squeezing as tight as you can, your chest shaking and shuddering with the force of your complete and total freak-out.

The patient isn’t dead. Despite your mistakes, they didn’t die. There’s really nothing to cry about. Nothing to hide in the supply closet for.

And yet, here you are.

Your first mistake wasn’t terrible, but it was ridiculously stupid and incredibly embarrassing. Triage room, emergency measures being taken. And you, tired and off kilter from being so used to the day-shift, broke the sterile field. Like some dumb medical student, not a fairly seasoned intern who’s drilled sterile protocol into her head until it’s muscle memory.

For a scalpel. You dropped a scalpel. Arguably the worst thing to drop. And then, like an idiot, you picked it back up.

And, well. There’s no time to re-scrub, so there wasn’t a need for you in the triage room anymore.

Your second mistake was equally stupid and avoidable, if you’d focused more. Dr. Garcia was kind enough to let you scrub in on an emergency appendectomy.

It was a test. Not your first.

And you ripped the fucking purse strings.

Once again, you were unceremoniously booted from the room (being kicked out of an OR feels a hell of a lot worse than being kicked out of a triage room) and sent back to the pit. Dr. Abbot immediately caught wind of it and demoted you to scut work until “you get your head back in the game.”

And, well. You tried really hard to devote yourself to your new task, but you had to keep blinking tears out of your eyes every five seconds and you absolutely refuse to cry in front of literally any of your coworkers, lest they think you some weak-willed weak-stomached intern who can’t handle some criticism and correction. You’re a hard worker. You’re good at this. You have to be.

So yeah. Crying in the supply closet.

You’ve always been a frustrated cryer, which is annoying on a good day and downright awful on a bad one (case in point.)

You’re just so upset with yourself. You’re better than this. You know you are. You’ve proven that you are. You don’t drop scalpels. You don’t break the sterile field. You don’t rip purse strings.

But you did tonight. And maybe one day you’ll laugh, but today is not that day.

You just don’t get it. Day shift? Incredible. Manageable. You’re on top of things, put together, and worthy of Dr. Robby’s respect.

But tonight? Quite literally the exact opposite.

You can’t be burning out, right? That’s not how burn out works. There’s like, signs, and you start to feel terrible and awful and exhausted and sure you definitely feel all of those things, but that’s because you work in medicine. And you’re an intern. You’re supposed to feel terrible and awful and exhausted. But maybe you’re not? You do enjoy your work, and it’s exhilarating, especially when you try something for the first time and execute it well, because you always do, you always get things right on the first try, obviously, so that means that this can’t be burn out. You don’t burn out. That’s not you. Right? No. Of course not.

You gasp a particularly rough sob into your knees, air feeling like knives as you inhale, making you cough horrendously. You must be quite a sight.

Unfortunately, due to your alternating hacking coughs and dramatic crying, you don’t quite hear the door open.

You do, however, hear the quiet “Oh.” that’s mumbled a few moments later.

Of-fucking-course.

You scramble upright, aggressively wiping at your face and attempting to make it look like you weren’t just crying on the ground.

“Dr. Abbot! I’m so sorry, this is very unprofessional and I know you have me on scut work but I promise I’m still working on it—“

He holds up a hand, and you slam your jaw shut with an audible click.

“Just needed some four by fours, kid.”

Always one to be helpful (especially to the guy you have a crush on who also happens to be your boss, aka the same person who professionally told you to get your shit together about forty minutes ago) you reach beside yourself and hand him the package of gauze, an awkward smile fixed on your face.

“…Those are three by threes.”

Bitch. Motherfucker. Fuck your life.

“Right,” You mumble, dragging your hand down your face. “I’ll just get out of your way. Sorry.”

You turn to walk past him, attempting to go quick enough that he might not notice the new tears shining in your eyes before a hand lands on your shoulder.

“Look,” Dr. Abbot starts. “You’re one of Robby’s adopted interns, right? Robby-Junior?”

“That is one of the rumors Santos has been spreading, yes.”

His hand is on your shoulder. His hand is on your shoulder. (!!!)

You don’t know what to do. He’s looking at you. Your boss doesn’t fluster you. You’re chill. You’re normal. You’re cool as a cucumber, yep yep yep.

“Robby doesn’t adopt interns lightly. Don’t let one bad shift mess you up. It happens to everyone.”

You purse your lips. You should let it go. Take his advice. Thank him.

The all-consuming-guilt and ever-present-need to prove yourself itches too painfully to ignore.

Dr. Abbot seems to notice, and he catches your gaze again.

“What, it doesn’t happen to you?”

A jolt of panic stabs your chest. “No! Of course it happens to me, I didn’t mean to imply that I’m like, above making mistakes or having bad shifts at all—“

Genuinely what is wrong with you. Why the fuck does he do this you. You’re a smart, confident woman who apparently chucks her brain into the garbage bin whenever her boss is around.

Dr. Abbot, probably picking up on a pattern of behavior by now, levels you with another look that shuts you up fairly quickly. He’s got a sort of impish grin on his face, and it shouldn’t be hot, but he’s got his hand on your shoulder and you’re having a ridiculously shitty night. Does anything matter anymore?

“Usually, we try to mix up interns schedules so you don’t get into a rhythm on one specific shift so that when you inevitably switch, the change doesn’t mess up your flow. But I'm sure your knack for keeping your head down and doing good work let you fall through the cracks.”

He takes his hand off your shoulder and shoves it into his pocket, but you almost don’t notice because he said you do good work.

Abbot gives you another grin. “And I didn’t stick you on scut as a punishment. Mindless work tends to be calming, which in turn helps focus your mind.”

“But I ripped the purse strings,” You blurt like a Catholic school girl in a particularly rife confessional, “Like an idiot.”

“You ripped them like an intern doing something for the first time.”

“I practiced hundreds of times to make sure it didn’t happen!”

He tilts his head, almost cat-like. “Did you also practice on a live person in a higher stakes situation while your body is messed up from a sudden and huge sleep schedule change?”

“…No?”

He snorts. “Exactly. Dr. Garcia probably won’t hold it against you. She’ll give you shit for it, but it’s not like she’s never going to give you another chance.”

You wipe the last bit of wetness of your cheeks with the back of your hand, embarrassment heating your face. Despite the awfulness of being caught crying in the supply closet, the beginnings of pleasant warmth is spreading through your chest, Dr. Abbot’s reassurances echoing in your head.

“Thank you, Dr. Abbot. Um. Sorry about the crying. I promise I don’t usually do that.”

Dr. Abbot snorts as he saunters towards the door. “Wouldn’t judge you if you did, kid.”

—

Dr. Jack Abbot is bored.

He has his work, which is great. He became a doctor after being discharged because he’s always been the kind of man that needs something to do. Something to mind, something to watch, something to fix. Robby and him and much the same in this way.

Working at the ED was enough for a while. There was a certain challenge to it, an unpredictability that itch sated, kept him sane. And, well. Now he’s an attending. Night shift lead.

He started to get restless again.

He thought a pet might work. He was going to get a dog, but it didn’t sit right with him to get an animal built for companionship and then leave it at home for over twelve hours a day. Then he thought a cat might do the trick. He looked online first, saw beautiful, well bred felines that could probably compete and win for best in show for whatever the cat equivalent is for the Westminster Dog Show.

And then he made the mistake of going to the shelter and seeing an old, one eared tuxedo cat that stared at him with something in between fear and spite and its eyes. And well. The shelter attendants assured him that the cat in question prefers being left alone and having its own space, but might warm up eventually, and he brought him home that day.

And then it was just Jack, occasionally Robby, and now his asshole cat who might not love him back.

That also worked for a while. Having Charlie was fun. It was nice having another living creature in his house that wasn’t him. Even if he did have a habit of chewing on power cords when left unattended and eventually progressed into attempting to destroy Jack’s stethoscope if he left it anywhere he could find.

Minding the cat gave him something to do that wasn’t tedious, and it was a special sort of bonus to wake up every now and then and see the cat sprawled at the foot of the bed, snoring away. He didn’t actually know cats could snore like that.

Around the time that the itch came back and Jack was considering adopting a second cat from the shelter (well on his path to becoming a crazy cat lady, as Robby said in the park over beers) he met you for the first time.

Sometimes Jack slips quietly into the ED and watches the chaos of day shift’s conclusions. He’s picked up a very special language of gauging what he’s getting into based on the body language and behavior of the rest of the hospital staff. Robby had told him about the latest intern— a motivated, stubborn sort of girl that frequently went toe-to-toe with Santos but without any of the pushback when receiving correction or criticism. He’d heard that you were smart, capable, and well on your way of becoming a great doctor.

Robby failed to mention that you were pretty.

He’d watch you, comparing notes with Mohan with a certain intense focus on your face, worrying your lip between your teeth and repeatedly tucking a piece of hair behind your ear because it’d fallen out of your disheveled pony tail he thinks ‘Oh.’

And then, a few months later, he finds you crying in a closet, subtly confessing fears of failure and falling short of expectations, and then he thinks ‘Well, there’s something to do.’

Jack tries not to think about you, at first. You, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes, bottom lip jutted out just a bit, hugging your knees. He tries not to think about how you’d looked at him when he’d assured you that you did good work, the awkward thank you, and the way that for the rest of the shift, all the annoying menial tasks that get forgotten in the chaos were all mysteriously taken care of.

He tells himself that he’s just going to keep an eye on you. For Robby’s sake. He’d do the same for Whitaker.

The next time you have a night shift, you’re clearly more prepared for the exhaustion, and when he finally sees you in true, proper action, he understands immediately why Robby likes you and Mohan frequently attaches you to her cases. Skill, patience, and focus.

When he watches you trach a patient with a certain ease that only comes from practicing hundreds of times, Ellis shoots him a knowing look. Raised eyebrows and smirk. When she passes him in the hall a few hours later, she jabs her thumb behind her shoulder at where you’re diligently filling out a chart.

“That one yours, then?”

Jack shakes his head. “It’s not like that. You make me sound like a creep.”

Another raised eyebrow. “Sure it isn’t.”

“She’s Robby’s intern.”

“Mhm.”

“She’s way too young.”

Parker shrugs. “She’s good.”

“She is.”

The senior resident cuts a glance back to you. “Think she’ll burn out?”

“Maybe.”

Parker crosses his arms. “Are you gonna let it happen?”

“She’s not my intern.”

Up to three Parker Ellis looks and counting.

“It’s an HR nightmare.”

Parker shrugs. “You just said she’s not your intern.”

He narrows his eyes. “You know what I meant.”

“Do I? It’s been awhile, Jack. No one would really judge you for having some fun.”

“Parker.”

“Jack.”

He shakes his head, walks towards the boards. “You’re the worst.”

Parker just laughs. “Sure I am.”

To your credit, he doesn’t find you crying in a supply closet again to see evidence of you doing so for a solid few weeks. But, like most things in the ED, the peace doesn’t last.

You came into work soaking wet, which is odd, considering the fact that he knows you drive, and the walk to the parking lot isn’t far enough to account how you’re shivering in your freshly changed scrubs. He brushes it off, chalks it up to freakish Pittsburg weather.

Some night shifts are relatively slow and mild. Tonight is not one of those shifts. Patients are extra irritable at late hours, which is to be expected, but what he’s not expecting is to walk by South 15 and see a 50-something year old man slap you.

Jack blinks, and in the next second he’s in the room, standing in between you and the patient.

“Excuse me, what the fuck is going on here?”

Gloria will probably give him shit for his language later, but right now all he can think about is the startled look on your face and the echo that the contact made.

“I said I want a real doctor, not this fucking—“

“Get the fuck out of my hospital.”

Shen peaks his head in. “Security’s on their way.”

Jack reaches behind him to where you’re still standing, your hand covering your cheek, and gently pushes you towards Shen, towards the door. You stumble over your feet a bit, but truly, Jack’s never been more thankful for his residents because then Parker is right there, ushering you out the door with a hand on your shoulder. Jack resolutely ignores your mumbled “I’m fine, really, he just surprised me.”

Thankfully, security doesn’t take that long to get to the room, and the second Jack is finished explaining, he’s out the door and scanning the ED for your face. Nurse Young jerks her head towards the break room, and he thinks he manages to give her what he hopes is a thankful smile before he’s beelining for it.

When he opens the door, you’re sitting on the floor again, holding an ice pack to your cheek with one hand and dabbing at your lip with a paper towel. Like you’ve never heard of medical protocol in your entire life.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

You jerk your head up, a kid caught with its hand in the cookie jar.

“Dr. Abbot!”

Lowering himself to the ground is awkward, physically. Prosthetics don’t lend to much mobility and he’s too old to be doing this, but he just. There are little beads of blood collecting and then sliding down your chin, dripping onto the leg of your scrubs. At the same angle of the split in your lip, there’s a little cut he can see peaking out from under the ice pack.

He reaches forward, fingers itching towards the deep scarlet dripping steadily. He pauses, remembering things like words and questions and sees the wild look in your eyes.

“Can I…?” Jack’s voice trails off, the words clunky and useless in this bubble that’s seemed to form around the two of you, on the probably disgusting floor of the ED break room.

You slowly drop the napkin, let the ice pack lower to your lap and nod.

“He had a ring on. I guess it caught me. I didn’t really notice until I got here.”

“Parker and Shen didn’t notice?”

You look at your lap. “I told them I was fine… And covered it with my hand. There are other patients. It’s just a little cut.”

Jack’s fingers finally reach your face, and he almost takes them back when you flinch on the initial contact, shaking ever so slightly.

But then, with noticeable effort, you relax into his palm, his fingers curling around the side of your jaw. He should grab gloves. He should get up, take his hand off your face.

Anyone could walk in right now and call Gloria on his ass.

His thumb sweeps across your cheekbone, just below the cut, which does have some faint bruising around it. And truthfully, the split in your lip doesn’t look that bad either.

But there’s still little dots and trails of scarlet and he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to calm down until he fixes it. He needs to fix something.

“If I leave you here so I can get supplies,” He starts, voice a little rough, “Can I trust that you’ll stay here and not do anything stupid?”

“Uh, yes? Should I move to a real chair though?”

Jack huffs as he hauls himself to his feet. “That’d be preferable.”

Later, when he’s at home in his bed, he’ll assure himself that the night shift wasn’t truly that busy and he trusts his residents to handle things while he’s busy.

No one stops him on his way to the medical supply closet (the irony of the location is not lost on him) and he makes it back without interruption. Upon opening the door, you have in fact moved to a chair, and it seems the bleeding slowed in his absence.

What he should do is sit down in the chair opposite of you and handle this situation like a professional, like the Dr. Abbot, night shift attending, not Jack who’s got a thing for fixing.

He does try to remove his emotions and feelings from the situation, he really does. It’s something he’s generally very good at —which is where he and Robby differ; Robby would prefer to feel too much and Jack would prefer to feel nothing at all— but you’re looking up at him and there’s something really dangerous in the air and it must’ve gotten into your blood stream or something cause it’s swimming in your eyes and he realizes that removing his feelings is not going to be possible.

He decides he could at least tone it down. You’re an intern. Robby’s intern. So what if you’re bleeding all over the break room? Jack’s just doing his job as the attending to look after the doctors and nurses under his jurisdiction or whatever. That’s all.

“Tilt your head up.”

He sets to work cleaning up the cut and split as detached and clinically as possible, even puts on gloves so there’s no skin to skin contact, just protocol, but he can feel the warmth of your skin through the latex and you keep sucking in these tiny little breathes when something stings and he can’t get the sound of the slap out of his head and it’s all just kind of a lot.

He readjusts his hand on the side of your face, sort of holding your forehead now to have better access and control over the cut on your cheek and wow. Your skin is really warm. It kind of feels like you’re burning up.

Jack tosses the piece of gauze he was using and rests the back of his hand against your forehead. Shit, you are burning up.

He thinks back to you, walking in today, soaked to the bone.

“Did you walk to work today?”

You wince. “My car kind of died? On the way here? I was only a mile away. But I called a towing company, so I didn’t just leave my car in the middle of the road.”

He blinks.

“Your car died, so you had it towed and walked a mile to work, in the rain, late at night, and didn’t tell anybody?”

You just keep staring at him, brows furrowed.

“Yeah? I carry a knife and I’ve taken self defense classes, and my car was just towed back to my place, so. I had a shift to work.”

There’s… a lot to unpack in your answer.

“Kid,” He starts, wondering why Robby never thought to give him a heads up before you started working more night shifts, “What was your plan to get home?”

“Walk, probably. I was thinking about taking the bus. Dr. King knows the bus schedule, so I’m probably going to text her.”

Jack decides to just finish cleaning you up, before he does something stupid like shake you by your shoulders and ask why you didn’t think to let your boss know that your car broke down and you’d be walking home in the rain. Or that when a patient slapped you in the face, his ring cut your face and lip open.

God.

“It’s really fine though,” You say, gesticulating animatedly with your hands. “My place isn’t that far, and it’s not the first time my car’s died. The battery’s kind of shot, but I guess my car has a weird battery, and it’s like, crazy expensive to get a new one, so. Besides, I like walking. I’ve been meaning to catch up on my audiobooks.”

He wishes you’d stop talking so he’d stop hearing things that make him want to do things he can’t and shouldn’t do. Like find out what car you drive so he can buy you a new battery. Or buy you a new car all together.

Christ, you have him wrapped around your fucking finger.

“I’ll drive you home. If you’re fine with that.”

Jack has to fight a grin at how comically wide your eyes grow at his suggestion.

“Oh no, you really don’t have to. I promise I’m—“

“Please stop saying you're fine,” He begs, “You don’t have a working car, a patient slapped you in the face, and I think you’re coming down with something.”

The smile that’s seemed permanently fixed on your face since he came into the break room falters, for a bit.

“Well,” You grimace, hands fisting the hem of your scrub top, “Things certainly aren’t… great, but I’ll survive. I’m not like, incapable, or anything.”

Jacks quiet for a bit, not just mulling over your words but the way you said them; the cadence and tone.

He hums. “Is that what you think? That I or someone else here will think you’re not competent or that you’re weak if you take a break or ask for help?”

Your face falters again. “No, no, of course not I just… I don’t know. I’m an intern. It’s my job, supposedly, to mess up and have to be looked after in case I accidentally kill someone and stuff like that. I just don’t want to be someone that people think they have to worry about. I need— internships are competitive. They’re competitions, really. And I want to win.”

Jack Abbot knows what it’s like to want to win. That need to prove yourself, prove that you’re capable and strong and unfailing.

So Jack also knows how quickly that can all go south.

“You’re a smart kid,” He says, voice ever so slightly soft in the quiet tension of the break room, empty except for the two of you, “And you’re going to make a great resident, and one day, a damn good attending. But none of that means shit if you burn out or get run yourself into the ground before you get there.”

He avoids eye-contact while he carefully applies the bandage to your cheek. “This industry will chew you up and spit you back out if you don’t take care of yourself. I get it. We’re doctors. We make the worst patients. But you got slapped in the face during a shitty day. It’s okay to… not be okay for a minute.”

You huff a watery laugh. “Isn’t that what energy drinks are for?”

He shakes his head. “What, trying to die faster?”

“Anything to shake those student loans. Can’t be in debt if you’re dead.”

“Don’t they just pass it to your family? Next of kin or whatever?”

“I don’t think they can give student loans to a cactus. I mean, I consider her my daughter, but I hardly think it’ll hold up in court.”

Jack mentally files that information away for later. What later is, he isn’t sure.

He stands, pulls off his gloves and tosses all the used gauze and shit in the trash can.

“I gotta get back out there,” He jams his thumb towards the door, “But feel free to take five. No one’s judging you. Matter of fact, as your boss, I’m telling you to take a break.”

You roll your eyes. “Whatever you say, Dr. Abbot. But thank you. For the…”

You gesture to your bandaged cheek and lip. “…And for the advice.”

He shrugs, like taking care of you hasn’t become a persona fantasy he may or may not fall asleep imagining most nights. Like it doesn’t matter, like he’s just doing his job.

“Offer for the ride’s still open. Just let me know by the end of shift.”

And with that, he’s out the door.

It’s the end of shift, and you’re staring at the double doors that lead to the outside world, and beyond that, absolutely fucking miserable weather for walking, a dead car, and cold as shit apartment.

You’re not exactly rushing out the door.

You’re clutching at the strap of your bag, regular clothes on, still damp despite the fact that it’s been over thirteen hours since you originally took them off, begging the universe to strike you down where you stand. Spontaneous lightning bolts happen indoors too, right?

The doors just stare back at you, unchanging in their miserable-ness, and after a solid ten minutes of staring, you feel rather than see Jack sidle up next to you.

“Still raining out there?”

“Yep. Looks worse now.”

“Not great weather to walk in. Especially considering the low-grade fever.”

“Mhm.”

“Did you text Dr. King for the bus schedule?”

“No. I didn’t want to wake her up.”

Jack huffs a breath, then jerks his head towards the doors that lead to the employee parking lot.

“Come on, kid.”

The ride is quiet and awkward. Well. Dr. Abbot probably doesn’t think it’s awkward, because he seems like the kind of man not to be bothered by long stretches of silence. Or silence at all.

He’d been kind enough to turn the heat on full blast (you started shivering the moment you stepped outside) and the radio is softly playing, and it’s only thanks to Sabrina Carpenter’s voice that you don’t feel like completely freaking out.

You mouth along to the lyrics, quietly humming the chorus under your breath.

“—I get wet at the thought of you being a responsible guy—“

“—Treating me like you’re supposed to do, tears run down my thighs—“

By the time you’ve realized that perhaps this isn’t the best song choice to sing along to, considering the situation and who’s car you’re currently riding in, the words “I get wet” have already left your mouth so there’s no real point in stopping.

On a completely unrelated note, Dr. Abbot starts smiling a little bit when you hum.

Pittsburgh traffic is terrible, so the drive kind of drags on. The radio is playing Chappell Roan now. Casual specifically. You’re considering changing the radio station because god.

“So,” You start, just to say anything that drowns out “knee-deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out, is it casual now?”, “Did you… have a good shift?”

That was a terrible question. Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you? How did you get through medical school?

Dr. Abbot snorts. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”

Ah. Right. The Incident.

“I told you I’m—“

“Didn’t I tell you to stop saying that?”

Your lap has never looked more interesting. Wow, is that a loose thread on your sweats?

He continues. “Fine or not, a patient assaulted you. Even if he didn’t leave a mark, that’s still shitty.”

“Have you been hit by a patient before?”

He huffs. “Hell yeah. It happens to everyone eventually. It’ll happen again. You get better at keeping your cool.”

“Sorry you had to step in. I’ve been hit by a patient before and I was fine.”

“Oh yeah?”

You nod. “It was during my Pedes rotation, actually. I’ve always known working with kids probably wasn’t going to be for me, but, well. Kid came in for intussusception, and she was screaming and writhing in pain, and I failed to restrain her properly.”

“What, did she slap you too?”

“Nope. Kicked me in the chin. Ended up biting almost clean through my tongue.”

“Fucking hell, kid. What’d you do?”

You shrug. “Kept my blood in my mouth until we finished sedating the patient. Ended up with three stitches.”

Dr. Abbot lets out a low whistle. “Always the patients you least expect.”

“The importance of proper patient restraint was thoroughly impressed upon me, I assure you.”

The silence after your short conversation is slightly more comfortable, and thankfully the radio station has decided to play less pointed music.

Between the warmth of the car, the smell permeating the seats that smells distinctly like Dr. Abbot, and the drumming of rain outside, it doesn’t take long for drowsiness to begin to overtake you.

Your last thought before falling asleep is that you don’t remember if you gave Dr. Abbot your address or not.

Someone is gently shaking your shoulder, and you feel like shit.

“What?” You attempt to say, but the side of your mouth is pressed against the seatbelt and your shoulder so it comes out sounding like: “Whamfgh?”

Opening your eyes is a herculean task, like someone sewed miniature weights to your eyelids while you were asleep. You’re absolutely freezing, despite the steady hum of the car's heat, still on high, and you vaguely recognize the street the car is currently parked on.

Oh right, your apartment.

“Oh,” You yawn, hauling yourself semi-upright, aiming for woman who has it together, and less disheveled swooning woman in a Baroque painting.

Dr. Abbot is staring at you with equal parts humor and concern.

You rub at your eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Little over forty minutes. You looked like you needed it.”

“It doesn’t take that long to drive to my place, even with traffic.”

Your brain is moving like molasses, so it takes you a second to catch up with the implication of his statement.

“Did you just… park in front of my house? So I could keep sleeping?”

He just shrugs. “Like I said. You looked like you needed it.”

Embarrassment and a touch of something else floods through your body, hot and cold at the same time.

“Sorry. You didn’t have to wait.”

“If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have.”

Still moving slowly, you gather up your bag from where it partially spilled on the floor all over your feet, shoving old receipts and pads and chapstick back in with the reckless abandon of a person who isn’t nearly aware enough of social cues to be in a car alone with their hot boss.

Whilst you're grabbing and shoving, Dr. Abbot reaches into his back seat, rifles around for a bit, and then drops something rather unceremoniously over your head and shoulders. After a quiet “hey” you pull it into your lap, and then that hot feeling is back in full force.

It’s a rain jacket. Clearly Dr. Abbot’s. You can see his name written on the inside pocket. It’s nice too. Definitely not the kind of rain jacket you could afford on an intern’s budget.

“For the next time your car dies,” He clarifies, as if the jacket’s purpose is the thing that’s stupefied you, not the fact that he’s the one giving it to you, “In case of rain.”

“You really don’t have to,” your words are rushed and clunky in your mouth, tumbling over each other in your haste to say something, anything, “I mean, I can just buy my own—“

“First of all,” He cuts you off, voice smooth and rough at the same time, “Do I seem to be the kind of guy in the habit of doing things I don’t want to? And second of all…”

He tilts his head, gaze sharp. “Are you really going to buy one for yourself?”

Your mouth goes dry.

“I was planning on looking online—“

Dr. Abbot interrupts you. “Now you don’t have to.”

Like it’s that easy. Does he want it to be?

“Dr. Abbot, I—“

“Jack.”

His grin goes from mild to shit-eating as you stare at him, obviously radiating confusion.

“Jack,” you start, testing out the name in your mouth, hearing how it sounds in the air. “I can take care of myself. You don’t need to give me your jacket. I’ve been doing just fine on my own.”

“Kid—“

The prickling of perceived weakness makes anger spark in your chest.

“Don’t call me kid like I’m stupid.”

Dr. Abb— Jack seems simultaneously impressed that you interrupted him for a change and vaguely put out.

He holds up a finger, effectively silencing anything else you were thinking of saying.

“I don’t call you kid because I think you’re stupid. I don’t think you’re stupid. You’d know if I thought you were stupid, because I would tell you. ‘Kid’ is a…” He trails off, free hand tapping thoughtful rhythms on the steering wheel, “…Nickname. Term of endearment. Whatever you want to call it, but it’s not derogatory.”

Jack holds up a second finger.

“You have not been taking care of yourself. If you were, you wouldn’t have a low grade fever, and you would’ve called me as your boss or one of your friends to drive you instead of walking after your car died. You’ve been surviving. There’s a difference.”

Shame burns white hot through you— all your recent failings laid out by the person you want least to notice them. Clearly, he has.

Possibly out of pity in response to your no doubt miserable expression, Jack continues.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. It’d be an honest-to-god miracle if any intern managed to properly take care of themself. Hell, residents don’t do it either, and neither do attendings. Does Robby strike you as the kind of man who takes perfect care of himself?”

“That depends. Is my answer going to make it back to him?”

Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “Exactly. Doctors make the worst patients, in and out of a hospital setting. Knowing better doesn’t actually make us all that inclined to do better. Terrible misconception.”

He nudges the jacket on your lap. “So just take the jacket. One less thing to worry about.”

Emboldened by his recent streak of kindness towards you and the flush of fever running through your veins, you look over to him.

“You worry about me?”

Something dances in his eyes for a split second, gone before you can blink.

“I worry about all the interns and residents on my service, but especially the ones my best friend has taken a liking to.”

Right. Of course. He only cares because of Robby. And Robby only cares so he can add another doctor to the already short-staffed PTMC. It’s not like Jack actually likes you or anything.

You clutch the jacket to your stomach, finally finding the energy to get out of the car. Jack’s car.

“Well. Thanks for the ride, Dr. Abbot. And the jacket.”

“No problem, kid.”

And if later on that evening, in the safety of your tiny apartment, you take in the deep, fresh, almost spicy smell that makes up Jack, lingering on the jacket, that’s no one’s business but yours.

—

From that night on, it feels like Jack Abbot is everywhere.

Whether it’s something he’s doing on purpose or you’ve just developed a heightened sense to his whereabouts— it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s a whiff of his cologne (eerily similar to Dior Sauvage, which makes you shudder. Certainly he didn’t choose a cologne similar to the number one male manipulator scent on purpose?) or seeing his handwriting on a whiteboard or his notes in a chart, he’s there.

You’re being scheduled for night shifts fairly regularly now, in addition to the 24-hour shifts you have the pleasure of being put on as an intern.

Working a double isn’t horrific, really. Exhausting, sure, but Robby and Jack’s solid presence makes the shifts more bearable. Plus, you’re quickly becoming friends with the fresher residents, Whitaker and Santos, plus some of the older residents like Mohan and King. Even Dr. Langdon gives pretty solid advice and mentorship, despite the tension in the air whenever he happens to be working with or near Robby.

Normally, 24 hour shifts are grueling, but not impossible. Somewhere around the 15 or 16 hour mark, the sleep deprivation hits, and you can just coast on stress-induced inertia and a healthy does of energy drinks and mania.

Today, though, has been particularly fucking awful. Maybe it’s the fact that the fever never really went away, or the fact that you started your period the day before (being sick on your period should be illegal.) It’s probably both of those things.

But there isn’t really anything to do but grin and bear it. The day will pass, and you have the next two days off anyways. Just survive the next however-many hours of the shift and then you can go home, dress in exclusively fluffy clothes, and binge watch tv whilst eating heart-stopping junk food.

You’re distracted from your charting, propped up on the counter at the nurses station by a light tap on your shoulder and someone saying your name.

Dr. Langdon has sidled up next you, voice hushed.

“Hey, uh. I just wanted to let you know that you seem to have… bled through.”

If a spontaneous earthquake could open a chasm beneath your feet and swallow you whole, now would be the time.

“Fuck fuck-ity fuck fuck,” You mumble, wiping your hands down your face. “Right. Yeah. Of course. Thank you for letting me know.”

In a moment that is as mortifying as it is kind of sweet, Langdon passes you a hoodie that is clearly his.

“To tie around your waist,” He clarifies, holding the object out across the meager space between the two of you, voice a bit awkward and stilted, like you might decide to spit in his face or something.

You don’t actually know what it is that Dr. Langdon did before your arrival that makes the break room go quiet when he walks in (unless Dr. King is there) but you don’t particularly care. If it was truly something horrific that you should be worried about, he wouldn’t be working here. Robby wouldn’t let that kind of thing slide.

So you take the offered hoodie with a strained smile (can this shift just be over) and speed-walk to the break room, praying no one decides to snag you on the way there.

What you should do is go to your locker where your stash of pads, tampons, spare underwear, and extra scrubs are, and then probably the bathroom to get changed, so you can keep on going but you also just saw Dr. King go into the break room and you just really need a hit of her specific brand of optimism.

The woman in question perks up when she notices your arrival, hastily eating the same snack she always eats around this time— a tiny bag of pretzels.

She watches as you collapse into the chair across from her, letting your head thunk onto the table.

“Bad shift?”

“Bad life,” You grumble. “Dr. Langdon had to give me his hoodie to tie around my waist because I bled through onto my scrubs. Like a middle schooler who doesn’t know what pad sizes are for.”

Dr. King nods thoughtfully. “He asked me if it would be weird of him to let you know and offer his hoodie. To which I replied that periods are a normal bodily function and he’s a doctor.”

“Here here,” You half-heartedly cheer, any actual cheer or enthusiasm severely lacking in your voice. “How did you survive your intern year, Dr. King?”

“We’ve been working together for awhile, you can call me Mel,”

She pops another pretzel in her mouth before answering. “But to answer your question, I mostly just kept telling myself that failing wasn’t an option. Which. Probably isn’t helpful, or good advice, but it worked for me. Something that’s nice is if you have a fellow intern or doctor that you enjoy working with. I know the other two interns who matched into the PTMC dropped out of the course, so it’s just you, but you have Dr. Robby, right?”

You nod, picking absently at a spot on the table and ignoring the way that it wasn’t Robby who popped into your head, but Jack.

Your teeny, ignorable crush on him has become a full-blown thing, with semi-weekly dreams about him in various… situations, and casual daydreams at all hours of the day of what it would be like to just be with him, or hear him, in any capacity that couldn’t be qualified as work or a boss checking on his employee. Intern. Whatever.

Hormonal and fever-ish, you suddenly feel like you’re going to explode and die if you don’t have someone to confide in right this very second. You haven’t heard Mel really talk about anyone you work with outside of professional doctor-to-doctor conversation, not even about Dr. Langdon, who she seems almost suspiciously close with.

“Mel,” You start, voice a little too thick and watery to just be talking about your stupid, annoying, one-sided workplace crush, “Can I tell you a secret?”

She seems to consider the pros and cons first, and looks fairly caught off guard, but she answers. “Um. Sure?”

“Have you ever had a crush on a coworker before? Or like, a boss or mentor?”

Mel sets down her bag of pretzels. “Is this about Dr.—“

“I have the biggest crush on Dr. Abbot and I think it’s ruining my life.”

The words burst out of you all at once, and Mel’s expression goes from shocked, to confused, before finally settling in abject amusement.

“Ah,” She says, sliding the pretzels across to you. “Um. Well I personally don’t have a crush on Dr. Abbot, but I think I understand the sentiment.”

You bury your face into your hands and groan. “It’s awful. It’s so cliche. It’s so fucking Grey’s Anatomy.”

“I’ve never actually seen that show. Becca likes it though.”

Mel allows you a few moments of wallowing and pretzel eating before she speaks again.

“Have you… acted on it?”

“No!” You snap your head up. “I mean. No, I haven’t. I’m not naive enough to think that he would reciprocate. He’s an attending and I’m an intern.”

She leans in. “But…?”

“But sometimes… I wonder? I don’t know. I’m probably crazy. He drove me home the other day, cause my car died, and it was raining, and I got slapped by a patient, and that was when I first came down with this stupid fever, and like, that’s normal, right?”

Mel nods. “Fr— Langdon drives me to work when we share shifts, and sometimes when we don’t. I think Dr. Santos and Dr. Whitaker carpool too. So maybe?”

“Right. Yeah.”

She takes the pretzel bag back. “Is there more evidence that makes you feel crazy?”

Your skin flushes hot at the memory alone.

“He gave me his rain jacket. To keep.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Mel once again takes a few minutes, and the rest of her pretzels before responding.

“I’m honestly not the best person to ask for advice about this. I’ve been told I can be… dense when it comes to romantic endeavors.”

You shrug. “You’re a great listener, and you haven’t steered me wrong in the past.”

She brightens. “That’s good! I think my advice would be to talk to Dr. Mohan. She has experience with your… particular situation.”

Mel tosses the empty pretzel bag and heads toward the door. “I’ll let Robby know you’re taking ten, so don’t worry about someone looking for you while you’re changing.”

“You’re the best. I love you.”

The resident flushes at your gratitude, and then ducks out the door, leaving you alone to stew on her advice.

—

Talking to Dr. Mohan proves difficult, at first. How exactly do you start that conversation? “Hey, I heard you had advice on having a world-ending crush on your boss, got any tips?”

Additionally, she’s kind of hard to track down. You greatly respect Dr. Mohan’s work ethic and truly aspire to her unflinching devotion to patient care at the PTMC.

After a few days (which turns into a few weeks, because you are an emotional coward) of trying (and failing) to find a moment to talk, Dr. Mohan actually ends up finding you.

“Hey!” She jogs up to you as you’re walking to your car, a too-bright smile on her face for the fact that you both just got off a fourteen hour shift.

“Sorry to be that annoying coworker who talks to you in the parking lot, but I wanted to catch you before you left. Mel said you wanted to talk to me?”

“Right!” You stammer, slightly mortified. You admire Dr. Mohan so much and really want her to think you’re capable but you really need some advice on Jack Abbot as a whole, and it sounds like she’s the only expert around. “Yes. That. It’s a really normal question, you know.”

Dr. Mohan just nods, a smile still fixed on her face, like this is a totally normal conversation. “Uh, sure?”

There’s a beat of silence where you both stare at each other, and then she gasps.

“This is about Abbot, isn’t it?”

You groan, throwing your head back in defeat. “Am I that obvious?”

She laughs goodnaturedly. “No. Probably not. You’re just the only intern in the ED right now so I try to make it a habit to keep an eye on you. Plus, Mel is literally the only person in the world who knows about my now-dead crush on him, so. I just connected the dots.”

“He’s so hot, Dr. Mohan. I feel like I’m dying.”

She makes a noise of sympathy. “He is. It’s fucking annoying, at a certain point.”

“Thank you!” You shout, “Like it’s just so there. It should be illegal to just walk around and look like that. I should be focusing on like, studying and learning, but instead I’m just harboring this stupid crush on an attending.”

“Have you ever seen Grey’s—“

“Yes. I know. I can’t be Meredith. Meredith was like, always a mess. Am I a mess?”

Mohan purses her lips. “Well. You did just say you felt like you were dying.”

“I know,” You sigh. “It makes me feel… shallow. I like being a doctor. I was so excited to get matched into the PTMC, and this stupid crush is throwing me off my game.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“On my first night shift rotation I dropped a scalpel, picked it back up, and then ripped the purse strings on my first appendectomy.”

She winces. “Oh. That’s not… great.”

Your hand finds its way to your comfort necklace. “He found me crying in the supply closet like some medical student, and then he comforted me. It was terrible.”

Mohan starts ambling towards the direction you assume her car is in. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’ve been caught crying in the supply closet several times. I think it’s a right of passage. And as for that second part…”

She shrugs. “Abbot gives credit where credit is due, but he won’t coddle you. If he actually offered real comfort or advice or whatever, then he meant it.”

“That’s what he said. It just didn’t really help the whole crush-on-him part. And then there was the slapping incident, and he drove me home, and now I have his rain jacket in my backseat in case my car dies again.”

Mohan actually looks taken back.

“Okay. It sounds to me like this is a situation that is in serious need of wine. Do you drink?”

“Whenever I have a spare twenty dollars.”

She grins. “I happen to have a couple bottles at home that might do the trick. Follow me back to my place?”

“Yes please.”

Wine and, eventually, takeout at Samira’s is much more enjoyable than you expected— considering the fact that you’re an intern and she’s a resident. She confides that she doesn’t have very many friends outside of the ED and was excited at the opportunity to have “real girl-time”.

She shares how she weathered her own seemingly life-ending crush on Jack, gasps and screams at the appropriate times when you tell her about the slapping, the events that occurred in the break room afterwards, the drive home, and the jacket.

You leave her apartment feeling lighter than ever. Like life might be worth living. Like you could survive your intern year.

Maybe everything will be okay.

—

Everything is not okay.

You’re now two full weeks into a never-ending fever, you keep getting stuck with shitty shifts (how many times a month can one person possibly be scheduled to work a double?) and top it all off, you’ve been pissed on not once, but twice in the same fucking shift.

Santos snorts when she sees you go by in your third set of scrubs for the day.

“Careful. You’re gonna replace Huckleberry pretty soon.”

You shoot her a look. “Supportive as ever, Dr. Santos.”

“I try.”

You sink into the chair next to hers, taking a moment to press the heels of your hands into your eyes and maybe, like, take a thirty second nap.

It doesn’t help much.

There’s a particular misery in watching the day-shift rotation handoff with the night shift and not being able to join in the process. Because you’re still there. And will be, until you see them again for your handoff, in twelve fucking hours.

Patients tend to get bitchier the later it gets, and it’s one of those nights where every patient bleeds into the next in a never-ending sea of complaints, pain, and fixing.

The fixing is fine. You like the fixing.

You’re just… having a hard time keeping up with everything while the fever perpetually runs you down. It’s the kind of thing where no amount of sleep can help you. Unless it was for 48 hours straight and then you got another 48 hours off after that to relax while you’re awake, and then another 48 hours to be productive.

A vacation. A week off. You’re describing taking a week off work. It’s comical, actually. Imagine requesting a week off from work. Gloria or whoever it is would never grant that. Not as an intern.

You notice Jack lingering around your general vicinity, which is fairly normal on a night like tonight. Technically, as the only intern on shift, you’re the only liability he has to really worry about.

Somewhere around the eighteen hour mark, he slides into the chair next to you while you’re charting.

“You’re flagging.”

Your eyes burn as you tap information into the tablet, then check on the computer in front of you. “I’m fine. I just need a Redbull or something.”

He slides the tablet out of your hands. “Part of being a good doctor is knowing when to take a break. Can’t be a good doctor if you’re falling asleep during the exam, right?”

“I would never fall asleep during an exam.”

He shrugs. “I’ve seen it happen.”

Jack jerks his head towards the break room. “Take five. Get an energy drink or whatever. Then I want you on chairs for at least an hour.”

“Yes sir.”

He rolls his eyes. “Get going.”

Chairs don't prove to be as uneventful as you (and probably Jack) hoped it would be. You get vomited on by a teenage girl, who apologizes profusely when she finally manages to stop throwing up, narrowly avoid a swing from a patient that quickly becomes a behavioral case, and become an unwilling participant in another patient’s doctor fantasy.

Security had to get involved with that last one. It was. Something.

Your shift ends with little fanfare. It’s honestly a miracle you survived. You’re exhausted, achey, and still feverish. The only thing you can think about is crawling into your bed, indulging in a rare expense of turning your heat up, and sleeping until your next shift.

Walking into your apartment ends up being a slap in the face. First of all, it’s fucking freezing. As if you left every single window open while you were gone. Secondly, it’s dark. Like, not even the clock on the microwave is on.

“Fuck,” you mumble under your breath, tears beginning to burn with unshed tears digging through your bag and fumbling with your phone, about to text your landlord when you see that he’s already texted.

Eric (Landlord): Power and AC is down. Might take some time to fix. Power should be back on by tonight.

And that’s just the last straw, really.

You slam the door behind you, not even bothering to go inside your apartment at all, chest tight and face hot, you race down the stairs, trying to find Samira’s contact through blurry eyes. When you think you’ve found it you click call, collapsing on the curb with your body doubled over, crying like a crazy person into your knees, at something like nine in the morning.

The phone rings for a bit, and you’re about to give up when the line finally stops and somebody picks up.

“Hello?”

It’s not Samira who answers. It’s Jack.

You sniffle. “Why are you answering Samira’s phone?”

“I didn’t. I answered my phone. Because you called me. Are you okay?”

“Oh,” You decide to ignore his question, “I meant to call Samira. Sorry.”

“Wait,” Jack’s voice comes out all rough and tinny through the speaker, but even distorted through a phone, you could listen to it for hours, “Answer the question. Are you okay?”

Your bottom lip wobbles dangerously.

“The power’s out in my building. And the heating went out too. My landlord said the power won’t be on until tonight, and I just wanted to go to sleep, but it’s cold and I'm tired and this stupid fever won’t go away.”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

Always a man of action, Jack is.

You shrug, then make a non-committal noise when you remember he can’t see it. “I was supposed to call Samira and see if she’d let me sleep on her couch.”

“I have a guest bedroom.”

The statement hangs in the crisp morning air. You think of Jack’s encouraging advice, Jack’s steady presence, Jack’s warm car and his nice smelling rain- jacket. Jack, Jack, Jack.

“Jack?”

“Yes?”

“What’s your address?”

The drive over involves bawling your eyes out to Vienna by Billy Joel. It’s just that kind of day.

You have no problems finding parking (miraculously) and no one stops you as you head up to Jack’s apartment as directed.

It’s… fancy. Like, polished floor lobby, lounge area adjacent to the front desk fancy.

The actual building itself isn’t very tall, nothing like a skyscraper, so it’s not exactly surprising that Jack’s apartment is the penthouse. It’s just suddenly very awkward standing in front of the door, in the same sweatshirt you’ve had since high school, sweats that have seen better years, looking exactly like the kind of girl who sobbed on the ride over to Billy Joel.

Jack opens the door almost immediately after you knock, and.

If seeing him in scrubs was bad, it doesn’t hold a fucking candle to him in a tight, army green shirt and grey sweatpants. Grey sweatpants. That couldn’t have been intentional, right? Is he online enough to know these things? God.

His features soften when he takes in your tear-streaked face and disheveled appearance.

He makes a low noise in his throat.

“Oh, you poor thing. Come here,”

Jack had actually been gesturing to the apartment, saying ‘come inside’ but the dam breaks the moment he says “poor thing” and you don’t have the wherewithal to think anything more complex than “Jack=Comfort and Safety".

Your bag drops with a dull thud onto the ground and then you’re crashing into him, face pressed into his chest and arms wrapped around his middle. You can barely find it within yourself to be embarrassed.

Jack doesn’t react at first, going completely stiff in your hold, and you think maybe you’ve gone and fucked this up too, like everything good in your life, but right when you move to pull away a hand finds its way to the back of your head, and another rubs circles on your back.

“Poor girl,” he murmurs, voice a soothing rumble with your ear close to his chest, “They been running you ragged?”

You nod uselessly, feeling raw and cut open— like you’ve been smashed against a rock and everything you keep tucked inside is spilling out and you can’t stop it.

“I’m so tired.” You half-mumble-half-sob into him, a sentiment that feels too light to convey everything that’s happened since you became an intern at the PTMC, and everything else you don’t talk about that happened before.

“I know sweetheart, I know,” Jack is solid beneath your cheek and arms, a lifeboat in a storm. “How about we get you inside and get you warm, huh? That sound nice?”

At the promise of warmth you finally detach from him, shame burning through you when you eye the wet spot on his shirt.

“Sorry,” You say, voice barely above a whisper. “I think I got snot on your shirt.”

“Trust me kid, it’s seen worse.”

He grabs your bag before you can even make a move for it, and you trail behind him into his apartment, attempting to ground yourself by looking around his apartment.

It’s nice. Lived in, not sterile. It doesn’t, actually, look the inside of a dentist’s office, like you were half expecting. Most new apartments have that doctor’s office lobby feel. Not exactly comfortable when you’re a doctor and the goal of home is to not remind you of your job.

Jack hangs your bag on a hook by the door, right next to his own. Something twinges in your chest at the sight.

There’s a feeling under your skin you can’t place as you shuffle into his apartment, something warm and skittish that aches for this to not be a one time thing, to be able to compare the pale morning light you’re watching now to late afternoon sun. To know where he keeps his mugs, what drawer the silverware is in, if he’s got a junk drawer with random shit in it, and what the random shit is. What it feels like to be in his kitchen, shoulders brushing.

But that’s a lot of complicated things to name or voice just past the threshold of the foyer, so you wrap your arms around yourself and toe your shoes off, then pad quietly after him.

Jack is— inviting, or maybe enticing; all those words that beckon the skittish thing closer and it feels just on the tip of danger to obediently sit on the couch he ushers you to.

“By the way,” Jack says somewhere behind you, maybe in the kitchen? “I have a cat. His name is Charlie. He probably won’t come near you, but be warned, he’s an asshole when he wants to be.”

“Oh, that’s fine. I like cats. Especially the asshole ones.”

“That explains a lot of things.”

His statement is kind of loaded, chock full of subtext you don’t care to parse through at the moment.

“Um,” You start, feeling a bit unsteady, “Is— Do you mind if I shower? I kind of smell gross probably, and I feel… grimy. Your apartment seems clean and I’d hate to get my hospital grime on anything.”

Jack just chuckles. “One, I wouldn’t care if you got ‘hospital grime’ on anything because that would be a very hypocritical thing to care about, and two, of course you can shower. Do you have spare clothes?”

“I might’ve forgotten to grab those.”

Another huffy laugh. “That’s fine. You can borrow some of mine. I’ll leave them on the bed.”

That’s like. Wow. Yeah. You’re just gonna borrow some clothes from him. From Jack. You’re going to shower in Jack’s shower and use whatever bodywash he has (hopefully not 5-in-one) and then put on his clothes and you are totally capable of being Completely Normal about these things.

“I already started on dinner when you said you were coming over. Should be done by the time you get out of the shower. Chicken noodle okay?”

Damn Jack Abbot and damn your shitty emotional regulation and damn your life for putting you in these situations.

“Yeah,” You croak, thinking about things like soup and family and being cold and strong and alone, “Yeah that’s fine. Thank you.”

Jack politely does not comment on the fact that soup is reducing you to a tangled heap of emotions and tears, and instead directs you to where his shower is and says to use whatever you want and take however long you want. He says want, not need. You’re not sure if there’s an intention behind the word choice.

Once in the shower, you allow yourself time to cry, to feel awful and self-pitying and all those things that are terrible to go through in front of another person. His shower is expensive and the water is warm and he does not have 5-in-one. There’s a litter box nestled next to the toilet, and it’s not funny, but it kind of is, because Jack would be the kind of guy to look at a litter box and put it right next to the toilet. Everything in its place.

Maybe that’s your problem. You haven’t felt like anything is in the right place in years.

You want to stay in the shower, in the bubble of protection it provides, but the idea of running up Jack’s water bill is enough to guilt you into getting out. You shiver, dry, aggressively attempt to make yourself look less like a wreck at the sink, and then tip-toe into the attached bedroom and carefully pull on the clothes Jack left for you on the bed; a faded, oversized college shirt, and a comfy pair of sweatpants.

They smell like him. You smell like him, like his body wash. The house smells like him. Everything you take in is a pleasant assault of Jack, Jack, Jack.

Enough guilt to fuel an entire room of ex-Catholic’s is the only thing keeping you from snooping around his room. The idea of stumbling upon something private or hidden away makes you feel slimy and gross, so you exit the bedroom and pretend like you don’t feel like a foster dog on its first night home from the shelter.

(Do shelter dogs miss the shelter? Do they miss its familiarity? Do dogs miss anything at all?)

The apartment smells of more spices and good smelling food than you privately thought Jack capable of. You’d read him as the kind of guy to subsist on takeout and maybe like, protein bars. But he’s dutifully stirring a metal pot with all the diligence of the military man that he once was.

Quietly, as if he might throw the wooden spoon he’s stirring with if you make too much noise or take up too much space, you carefully pull out a barstool in front of his kitchen island, the one closest to the door, and haul yourself onto it.

He gives you an examining glance over his shoulder, turns a knob on the stove, then rests his forearms on the island counter across from you. His rather delicious looking forearms, you might add.

“Feeling better after your shower?”

You hum an affirmation, folding your arms and resting your chin on them.

“Isn’t it kind of weird to make soup for breakfast?”

He shrugs. “It’s dinner for us. Or, well, me. I’m not sure your body knows what meal it is.”

He taps a pointer finger rhythmically on the counter. “Any word from your landlord?”

“No. Sorry for… all of this. I know you’re tired.”

“I wish you’d stop apologizing for things I don’t mind doing for you.”

You don’t really know how to respond to that, or what to do with how it makes you feel, so you elect to save it for later. Good at compartmentalizing, ED doctors are.

You clear your throat. “I can call Samira whenever. She’d probably be excited to have girl time. So you know. Don’t feel like— I have other options. If or when you want me to leave.”

“Do you want to leave?”

You wish he’d stop asking questions you don’t want to answer.

You try to play it off, smother your fear and exhaustion with humor. Robby’s kid, through and through.

“Well, I can’t have you getting sick of me. You’re the only person I know who has a very rob-able house if this whole internship doesn’t pan out.”

Jack straightens, shoulders pulling and flexing. “Who said I’d get sick of you? Maybe I like the idea of you in my house.”

“Do you?”

You ask the question before you’re aware of how terrified you are of the answer. But you’ve already said it, and it feels nice to be the one asking the hard question instead.

Jack, likely experienced in this sort of thing, doesn’t look outwardly bothered by it, but he gets a sort-of-sad look on his face, almost like he’s disappointed that you had to ask.

“Have I given you any reason to think otherwise?”

“I don’t know,” You look down, picking at a hangnail to avoid his expression and his eyes and his everything, “I don’t want to assume anything.”

“You’ve already assumed quite a bit.”

You scrunch your face. “That’s different. Those are safe assumptions.”

“Are they?”

“Obviously, it’s safer to assume that you don’t want me to stay here, or at least not for very long, because if I assume that I do I’ll bother you and I want you to—“

You cut yourself off, jaw shutting with a firm click, but the end of the sentence hangs in the air unspoken anyways. It’s not hard to figure out what you were going to say.

I want you to like me.

Jack sighs, and alarm blares are going off in your head and your chest starts to feel tight and cold despite the warmth of his apartment, and then he’s rounding the island and you turn your body to follow him —never turn you back, never let your guard down— and then he’s standing in front of you, over you, and you’re not sure if you want to run or metaphorically curl up at his feet, tail tucked.

It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing. It’s impossible to ignore.

(What does a shelter dog think, on that first night? Do they hope? Do dogs hope?)

He raises a hand, slowly, giving you a chance to lean away, and when you don’t, it comes to rest on the side of your face, his thumb swiping at the barely-there wetness from earlier tears.

It’s cleaning the cut from the slap, it’s a kindness you can curl into, and it might be a threat. Might be bad, might turn harsh and painful, might leave without a word.

Unlike that day in the break room, there’s no fluorescent lights to suck any heat out of the room and no gloves as a barrier; as a reminder of who he is, of what you are, of how things work.

It’s just you and Jack, in Jack’s apartment, wearing Jack’s clothes, and pretty soon you’re going to eat food that Jack made. Just for you.

And you think maybe, possibly, if he stops here you could kind of hold onto this moment for the rest of your life and it would get you through being alive and strong and alone, and you’d make it through this, whatever this is, if he stops here.

He doesn’t. He starts talking.

“I like knowing that you’re safe. That you’re taken care of. I like knowing with certainty that these things are true because I’m the one making sure of it.”

Your breath hitches in your chest.

“That’s kind of a lot of work, though.”

He hums. “It is. Luckily, I just so happen to be a pretty hard worker.”

Everything about the current situation is a lot and your nerves are over-taxed and dialed up to hundred, so it’s not surprising that you start crying again.

Jack brings up a second hand to the other side of your face and gently wipes away the tears as they come. It feels sort of like the physical version of everything he’s been doing for you since that day in the supply closet.

“You don’t have to do anything, or say anything, or make any kind of decision right now, okay? We can do whatever you want. I’ll do whatever you want.”

There’s the word choice again; want, not need. Is there a difference? What does the difference mean to him? What does he mean? Why is he doing any of this?

Jack's phone goes off in his pocket, and he steps back, drops his hands, and goes back to the stove.

Jack said you don’t have to make a decision right now, but you kind of feel like if you don’t do something you’re going to be sick with everything that’s swirling and clawing inside you, threatening to burst. Like the very essence of you is going to explode, and your soul will be painted on Jack’s perfectly decorated walls.

That would be something, wouldn’t it.

You stay seated at the island, turning to stare at Jack’s back while he adds the final touches to the soup. He doesn’t talk anymore, but he keeps looking back every few minutes, like he’s making sure you’re still there.

Eventually Jack turns the stove off, dishes up a bowl of soup for you, and sets it gently in front of you. He uses his pinky to cushion the placing of the bowl, so there’s no loud clinking noise when he sets the bowl down.

There’s a tiny sprig of parsley on top of the soup, right in the center. Like a Panera ad for soup in September.

You start crying again, in earnest.

“I’m sorry,” You gasp, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m— I don’t know. I don’t know.”

You’re hoping the last sentence encompasses an entire lifetime of events, accidents, mistakes, and memories that have never been able to find a place in your head except dead center, at the forefront of your mind at all times, stamped on your forehead for anyone with eyes to see.

Your life hasn’t been wants or choices for a very long time. And here Jack is, giving you an array of both, and saying things like he wants you to want.

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Hey, hey hey hey, shhh,” Strong arms wrap around you, tucking your head into a warm chest, effectively shutting off all sensory input that isn’t Jack. “You’re okay, you’re safe, you’re okay, I got you.”

He rubs circles into your back, then switches to tracing shapes, and he lets you cry into him again and he doesn’t tell you to stop, or to calm down, or you’re being too much too fast.

“You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay sweetheart. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

—

You, embarrassingly, fall asleep right there, sitting at the kitchen island over a bowl of soup and twenty-something years of holding up your life with hands that never quite seemed big enough to do it.

You wake up in Jack’s bed, his comforter pulled up to your chin and the clock at the bedside table reading 8:17 p.m. There’s the muffled sound of several voices coming from beyond the door.

Holy shit. What the fuck.

Deciding to ignore the implication that Jack carried you to bed, you mentally take stock of what’s around you.

In front of the clock is your phone (plugged in to charge), a glass of water, and a note with Jack’s handwriting on it.

Kid-

I’ll probably be in the ED for the night shift by the time you wake up. I called Mohan (who called Mel, who was with Langdon, for reasons unknown) to go to your place and grab you some things. There may be people in the apartment when you wake up. You are in no way obligated to interact with them. They have to leave eventually.

Charlie is in the room with you because he hates strangers, but he probably won’t leave the bathroom. Probably. Drink water and eat something, if you can. Text me if you need anything.

The voices beyond the door are, more than likely, the aforementioned individuals who have now seen the glorified closet you call home. It’s not ideal, but you’re wrung out and don’t have the energy to really care. Besides, Samira and Mel are too nice to judge you that hard (you hope) and from what you’ve heard, Langdon isn’t really in a place to say anything.

On one hand, going out there requires socializing. Which, ew. On the other hand, Samira and Mel are the best. Langdon is maybe okay.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you shuffle out of bed and then continue shuffling to the door, hoping that whatever you look like isn’t too terribly awful.

Samira, Mel, and Langdon are standing around the kitchen island, various takeout containers and bottles of alcohol littering the space. For some reason, Trinity, Dennis, and Robby are also present.

Samira and Langdon are engaged in what looks to be a rather animated discussion-slash-argument, and Mel is standing just a little closer to Langdon than what could be considered normal for friends. Trinity is very obviously ignoring Langdon’s general existence, bickering with Dennis on the couch, and Robby is seated in the armchair by the window, nursing a beer and watching both conversations unfold.

You sniff aggressively, and all heads snap to you.

“There are more of you here then there’s supposed to be,” You grumble, scrubbing at your face. “Why are you all here?”

Mel is the first to speak.

“It was Frank actually!” Trinity rolls her eyes, and part of you wants to share the sentiment, “He figured Trinity would be upset that something happened to you and he knew and didn’t tell her, so Trinity decided that me and Samira would get your stuff while everyone else stayed here in case you woke up before we came back!”

Wow, okay, that’s. A Lot.

You squint. “That doesn’t explain why you’re all here. I mean it does, but only like, why you’re here physically.”

Robby frowns. “We heard that you were going through a rough time and you had to stay with Jack, so we came.”

Trinity snorts on the couch and Dennis, next to her, looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.

Robby shoots her a look, but continues. “We care about you. We— I don’t want you to feel like you have to do everything on your own. In or out of the ED.”

Trinity blows out a loud sigh and low whistle. “Jee-zus Robby, give the woman some time to wake up before trying to induce tears again.”

Robby does look a little apologetic, maybe a teensy bit chastised (and annoyed that Trinity was the one doing the chastising) and turns his deep brown eyes back to you.

"Sorry. Can't help these Dad tendencies, you know."

Your face gets hot, maybe a tiny, wet prickle behind your eyes forms while Robby smiles, and the tension leaves the room all in one go, and you start to think that maybe things are in the right place.

–

At the ED, Jack Abbot, who's been checking his phone whenever he gets a free moment like a highschooler with a crush, opens the first text that pops up on his screen after hours of waiting.

It's a picture from Robby. You, with your head thrown back in a cackle of a laugh, not a single bit of stress evident in any of the lines of your body. There's one text accompanying the picture:

Please don't make me give you a shovel talk. I think you already know what's at stake here.

Jack snorts and pockets his phone, because yeah, he does.

–

When Jack finally gets back to his apartment, he's half-expecting to see the kind of mess that a large grouping of obnoxious people leave behind. Trash, maybe a few red solo cups, empty takeout containers, someone asleep on his couch, someone passed out on the floor.

He's not expecting to see a clean space. The only evidence that people were there at all is some rearranged pillows, a half-empty bottle of wine on the counter, and some new takeout menus on his fridge.

And then there's you. You're lying on the couch, eyes glued to the TV, watching a show he doesn't really recognize. There's a well-loved backpack on the floor, just under the coffee table. The shocking bit is Charlie, his resident asshole, is 'loafing' right on your chest, purring away.

You lift your head when you hear the jingle of his keys, a smile immediately brightening your face. He mentally takes a picture, right there, so he can remember this exact moment forever.

"What'd you bribe him with?" Jack says instead of something much more neurotic, like 'You don't have to go back to your place when the power comes back on.'

You shrug, unaware of his emotional and romantic pain. "You were right. He came out from under the bed after everybody left. He kind of growled at me for a little bit, but once I settled down here he just kind of... came right up."

You plant a little kiss to the top of his head, right in between furry ears. Great, now Jack's jealous of a senior cat with one ear who licks his own butt. "How could I resist this face? I see why you brought him home."

Jack rounds the end of the couch, shuffling by, and Charlie opens his eyes just enough to shoot him a look that Jack takes to mean: If you make her get up and move me, I will kill you in your sleep.

Jack does not disturb his cat as he sits down on the couch. There's a moment when things almost get hairy- you pull your legs back when he goes to sit, slightly jostling The Asshole, who pins his only ear back in annoyance.

Jack solves this problem by taking your legs, clad in some soft flannel pajama pants and pink fuzzy socks, and lays them across his lap. There. Problem solved.

The warmth of your legs on his lap and the look on your face is reward enough for him. He can't think of a way he'd rather spend his time.

Jack, in a rare show of mercy, does not tease you, and decides that you've probably had enough excitement for one day.

"So," He says instead, looking up at the TV and grimacing at the mutilated corpse on the screen, "What are we watching?"

He watches you shrink into yourself. He hates it when you do that. He hates that you feel like you have to.

"Uh, Bones. I can turn it off, though. I'm sure you don't want to watch this."

He doesn't answer the question you've not-subtly voiced, instead choosing to redirect the conversation.

"Why did you put it on?"

You start chewing on your lower lip. Your signature 'I don't want to answer this question so I'm going to think really hard about it' move.

"It's kind of my comfort show? I don't know. I watched it a lot growing up. We didn't have cable, but the hotels I stayed at sometimes did. I'd wait until my dad fell asleep and then I'd turn on the TV and watch from the sci-fi or drama channels. Watched a lot of Bones. Supernatural too, and sometimes Doctor Who, if it was on. But Bones was my favorite."

The characters on the screen are involved in some sort of car chase now, police siren flashing on a black SUV. Jack isn't paying attention to that at all, because this is the first time since the day you walked into the PTMC and introduced yourself that he's ever heard you talk about your childhood.

"How come?"

"I don't know. I've always liked procedural shows. Had a huge House MD phase. Death and bones and corpses and stuff has never really grossed me out, which is part of the reason I became a doctor. But also..."

You point to the male character. "You see him? That's Booth. Seeley Booth. They all have kind of crazy names. He's an FBI agent, and his partner is that woman there. Temperance Brennan. Booth calls her Bones."

"She doesn't look like an FBI agent."

You smile. "She's not. She's a forensic anthropologist, but she consults on murder cases and stuff like that because she's kind of a genius. She's smart, strong, and capable. She and Booth don't always get along, because they both can be headstrong and stubborn. But he respects and trusts her, implicitly. No matter what. They love each other."

Your throat bobs, but your voice is steady when you speak.

"And when Brennan needs him, if she's in trouble or she needs him by her side, even if she doesn't know she does, he's always there. He always saves her."

Jack can picture it, in his mind. You, small and alone, watching these characters on some shitty hotel TV and getting it into your head that this kind of thing only exists in TV shows. He pictures you dreaming of having a Booth, of having someone to be there for you, to pick you up when you fall. He thinks of you crying in the supply closet and how quietly you'd done it. Almost silent.

He thinks of what happens to a person to make them learn how to cry without making a sound.

He rests a hand on your ankle, fingers instinctively drifting towards the pulse point there- posterior tibial. He keeps two fingers on it, even though he can't feel it through your fuzzy socks. With his thumb he makes circles, because he's seen how you lean into Robby's shoulder grabs, how you preen at physical and verbal praise, how you'd slumped like a marionette with its strings cut into his arms just yesterday.

"Jack?" Your voice is tentative, unsure.

"Hmm?"

"Am I..." You start chewing your lip again, "Are you— I don't to assume anything. So if I fuck this up and make you uncomfortable—"

"I want to kiss you."

Jack has learned how to speak fluent you. He knows how to stop an incoming spiral, how to soothe old wounds rearing their heads.

He continues when you don't speak.

"I want you to wear my clothes. I want to take care of you. I want you, in whatever way you'll let me."

"Oh."

"I was laying it on pretty thick, kid."

You look away from him, and this is another moment he'd like to keep forever.

"I thought I was just reading into things!"

"Do you think I call every intern sweetheart?"

Jack is positive Charlie's presence on your stomach is the only thing keeping you from actively squirming in place.

"I thought maybe you were just one of those guys. Samira said it was possible!"

He rolls his eyes. "You can't ask Mohan for romantic advice. She's you in a different font."

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

You turn back to your show, losing yourself in the plot for a while. When the murderer has been caught and the credits are playing, you look at him again.

"We don't. Um. Can we just keep doing this? For now?"

For the first time since meeting you, Jack gets to say exactly what he's thinking.

"We can do this forever. We can do whatever you want."

“Hiya, neighbor. We just saw yer text and wanted to make sure you were alright,” Johnny replies. Hearing his voice after these few days away sparks a fluttering in your chest, though it’s mostly smothered out by the more tumultuous emotions that have a stranglehold on you.

“Oh, I’m fine. He just asked me some questions. Questions about that night at the bar, I mean,” you explain with a hurried clarification. “I didn’t recognize the person he was looking for, but I did tell him about that guy I met.”

You pause, but there’s only dead air over the line. A slow stream of crimson dribbles from your cut, so you press on it with your thumb. Simon’s voice eventually pierces the silence.

“That all?”

You increase the pressure until it stings.

“They asked if I’d be able to identify him,” you answer promptly, no time to decipher how much you think they know. Gambling with the partial truth that you can always add to later. “Like in a lineup, I guess? I was a little nervous, so I didn’t think to ask for details.”

Johnny hums, which buzzes through the phone and directly against your ear. “Must’ve been a real shock for the police to show up at yer door, hen.”

There’s not much concern in his tone, just thinly veiled amusement, as if there’s truly no reason why the cops would ever make a visit to the neighborhood. It’s better than suspicion, though, or worse, anger, but it’s not enough for you to drop your guard, not when their wrath is a venomous snake slithering unseen through tall grass.

“It was pretty unexpected, yeah. And a little scary to hear that someone actually went missing that night...” You trail off with an uneasy laugh because you really hadn’t processed how your paranoid fear of almost being kidnapped was completely justified. Though you really shouldn’t be so surprised when peril is always cozied up right next to you, knees bumping against yours. Skirting danger might just be in your nature. “Like, could you imagine if that was me? Crazy, right?”

It’s your own version of their favorite joke. Ha-ha-ha, who amongst the people you know would want to lock you up in a dark and scary place?

But they don’t laugh.

Simon scoffs instead, and you stiffen, fearing that fangs have pierced your skin without you realizing.

“If you’d disappeared,” he declares gruffly, like the jagged edge of your hunting knife, “we would have found you and brought you home already.”

It’s dizzying, hearing how serious he is. You’re so lightheaded you worry that you’ve lost more blood than you realized, but when you glance at your cut, you see the bleeding has stopped.

“Really?” you ask, so softly and meekly that you think they might not hear you over the phone. Your thumb fidgets, smearing the remnant blood around and letting it soak into your cuticles.

“‘Course, love. We wouldn’t let anyone snatch up our favorite neighbor and get away with it,” Johnny proclaims, sleek and sharp as your knife’s honed edge. Treacherous joy surges. 

“Oh. Thank you,” you squeak. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

It’s this sweetness that makes your teeth ache and drags the truth to the tip of your tongue. Tempts you to spill your guts, to inform your neighbors about the detective looking into a second missing person who vanished a year ago. To reveal the name and phone number you squirreled away.

But once you start, you might not be able to hold back the torrent of other things you’ve kept hidden from your neighbors. Desire and desperation to seek warmth they might share. Envy towards what’s kept in the basement, fear of becoming its replacement. And your dream, the same dream that invades your sleep and pins you down, again and again, each and every night, leaving you haunted and unfulfilled. It all dangles on the precipice, almost ready to tumble from your lips.

“When will you be back?”

Temperance wins out, though. If you lean in too closely just because they’ve shown you benevolence, the eventual whiplash will break your neck.

“Soon,” Simon replies. Another vague, non-answer, but you hadn’t expected anything else. It was a question to nudge the conversation in a safer direction.

“It must be nice out there,” you remark. Nice enough to keep them away, you comment only to yourself.

If they detect any of your childish resentment, Johnny doesn’t give it away. “Sure is, hen. Nothin’ quite like it.”

Their camping destination was also kept a secret from you, so you use your imagination to fill in the blanks. Crisp air and stillness. Lush greenery of a seemingly endless forest. Peaceful scenery for a weary mind that wakes before dawn and is battered with adversity at every turn. A place to rest.

While you’re caught in a daydream, control slips. “Would you take me there sometime?” you ask aloud instead of in your head. Your eyes widen in horror at your blunder. “Wait, no, I was just kidding, you don’t have to—”

“That would be up to you, neighbor,” Simon responds, ignoring your shoddy attempts to backtrack. You don’t understand what he’s implying, but you’re too mortified to ask anything else, sewing your lips together instead. Your silence backfires, though, because it gives your neighbors the opportunity to change the subject. “Been over to the house yet?”

“No,” you assert, too quickly, too curtly, heart beating at a wild speed. Your fingers clutch your phone even tighter, the cut on your other hand nearly splitting open when you ball up a fist. Johnny might have chuckled, but the blood in your ears muffles the sound. “There hasn’t been any reason to.”

“Really?” Johnny waggles the question like a teasing schoolboy, holding something just out of reach. “Weren’t tempted to take a wee peek inside?”

You know he’s only winding you up, but you’re already coiled so taut, you can’t help but react. “No. Never.”

“Hmmm,” Johnny contemplates, like he’s stretching the thought over a rack. You feel the strain in your own muscles until a laugh snaps it in half. “Just pullin’ yer leg, neighbor. We know you wouldn’t snoop.”

“Wouldn’t have given you the keys if we thought you would,” Simon adds.

Their trust in you burrows into your chest and nibbles on your heartstrings like a parasite, though you’re somewhat dubious about whether they truly trust you. For all you know, there could be a trap laid out in their home, waiting for you to slide a key into a door. Still, the iron grip on your phone loosens by the slightest amount.

“I’m glad to be your...” (Good, good, good girl—) “...reliable neighbor.”

“That ye are, love,” Johnny proudly attests, and you have to remember to battle the enticing heat that flares at his praise. Don’t let it scorch you, don’t let it boil the pot they’ve placed you in.

Sweat forms on your palms, adding another uncomfortable sensation on top of the tackiness left by blood and peach. While you’d love to wash your hands of everything that stains your skin, diverting any of your attention away from your neighbors is never a wise move.

“Well, I’d better let you two get back to enjoying your trip,” you dare to propose, thinking it’ll be more productive to pry yourself loose from this conversation first. But you’ve never been very successful at ending things on your own terms. Simon reminds you of that.

“Hold on there, neighbor,” he rumbles with halting authority. Your hackles rise, swift to detect a threat.

“While we’ve gotcha on the line...” Johnny hums, a hint of malicious glee in his voice stringing you up. “There's something we need you to check on at the house.”

In a heartbeat, your knees weaken. You lean on the counter for support because they’ll hear it if you collapse, and loudly crashing to the floor is not polite, neighborly behavior. You know what’s coming, but you hope you’re wrong for once.

Johnny casually manifests your worst fears. “Simon thinks I left a light on in the basement, but I know I turned it off. Need ye to settle this for us.”

You bite back what could have been either a devastated whimper or a defeated laugh. It’s a comically flimsy reason for you to enter their home, not much better than the texts you’ve been sending them to report where you’re going when you leave the house. The minimum pretence for a forceful instruction.

You’ve proven you know how to stay out of the basement; now, your neighbors want to see if you’ll go in it on command.

You’re not ready. You’ll never be ready. The stars could be falling from the sky, hellfire could be raining down, and you’d still take your chances above ground if given the choice.

“Still with us, hen?”

But you aren’t really given the choice, and great calamities can’t compel you quite like Johnny and Simon can anyway. It’s another fork in the road, but when you cast your tired gaze down either path, they both lead to the same place.

“Yes. Sorry, got distracted for a second.” There's a warble in your voice that you couldn’t suppress, so you tightly shut your eyes in concentration. “You need me to...check on a light in your basement.”

“Turn it off while you’re at it,” Simon tacks on, ensuring you can’t just get away with a peek from the top of the stairs.

Johnny tuts impishly. “If it’s on. Which it won’t be, of course.” You can practically hear him winking.

“Of course,” you parrot back instinctively, anxiety gnawing on you like a starving animal. “I’ll let you know either way.” Out of habit, you start to wrack your brain for an ill-conceived excuse to put this off for as long as you can, but your neighbors know your tricks too well.

“Don’t keep us waitin’ now,” Simon directs, cutting off any chance of delaying the inevitable. They hang up before you can respond, and you’re alone again with a bloodied finger and a mutilated peach.

...

...

...

It’s an unusual thing when you approach your neighbors’ front door and it doesn’t open by the time you reach the front steps. There’s no one on the other side who’s able to let you in today. You hold the house key in a death grip between your thumb and index finger. The basement key dangles off the keyring, swinging like a noose.

The pair of keys, your phone, and a phone number stashed away in your memory—that’s all you’ve brought with you. You left your hunting knife at home because you’re not about to give yourself or anyone else the opportunity to use it. After a deep, forlorn breath, you unlock the first hurdle of your accursed duty.

Silence greets you in place of Johnny and Simon when you step inside. All the tranquility of a graveyard in this seemingly empty house. Familiar rooms are now uncanny spaces when your neighbors aren’t occupying them. A sense of malaise builds with each small, quiet step you take towards your destination.

You’ve never known fear quite like the bone-deep terror of standing before your neighbors’ basement door. This unbearable fear sinks its claws into you and drains the blood from your veins until you’re a listless husk without the strength to slot a key into a lock. You dream of this door so much that you almost expect it to fling open on its own and drag you inside.

If only it were that simple. Instead, you have to open it with your own free will.

While you remain motionless in the face of your greatest adversity so far, scrutiny prickles the back of your skull as if there were curious eyes upon you. It wouldn’t surprise you if your neighbors are watching you through a camera hidden from view, not wanting to miss out on all the amusement your struggles provide. It also wouldn’t surprise you if they aren’t, where the idea that there are two ever-present observers of your life has just been hammered into you.

Either way, there’s only so much more stalling you can get away before you start accumulating consequences. You’ve got to keep up your pretense of a neighbor who lives in a world where everything is fine and nothing is wrong.

Rigid, mechanical movements bring the basement key up to the lock. When it slides in and turns without a problem, you feel the last of your hope dry up. Before you proceed any further, you remind yourself of your plan.

Whatever’s down there, you won’t acknowledge it. Even if it screams and cries and begs and begs and begs, you’ll ignore it. You’ll pretend like it’s not there, and you’re very good at pretending, so why stop now? Hopefully, it’ll understand that you can’t help it. No one can.

You’re just there to turn off a light and leave the room in darkness.

The key slips out just as easily as it was inserted. You tuck it away in a secure spot on your person where it couldn’t be carelessly grabbed from you. With a jittery hand on the doorknob, you open the basement door.

CREEEAAAK.

You thought you’d be ready when the door lets out its signature creak, but you flinch anyway. It goes to show that all the preparation in the world can’t save you. But now the gate to hell has been opened, and your arrival has been announced. There’s no turning back.

A dim light from below is waiting for you. It faintly illuminates the staircase, but all you can see from here is an unfinished wall at the bottom. You stretch your arm out over the threshold to flip a nearby lightswitch, which only turns on the light above the stairs. Another desperate hope squashed.

The first step is the hardest. You timidly shuffle a foot across the doorway and sluggishly drag the rest of your body along with it. Now that you’re solidly in the basement, you close the door behind you. Your neighbors never leave the door open, so you can’t either.

Clutching the banister for support, you keep your eyes locked on the ground as you descend, counting each step down. When you reach the bottom, you take a brief moment to silently hyperventilate. But you can do this, you have to do this. You have no choice.

You finally raise your head to face the monster in the basement, and...

It’s empty.

Your eyes dart around the room in crazed vigilance, but there’s no one here but you.

It’s empty!

There’s the light you’re supposed to turn off—a single lightbulb mounted to a wooden beam on the ceiling with a simple chain pull. Beneath it...is nothing! Sweet, glorious nothing. On the whole, there’s practically nothing in here. A mostly bare shelf fastened to a wall, two folding chairs leaning against a wall. A small bathroom in the corner and a broad pillar in the middle. But otherwise, empty.

Ah hah hah, the basement is fucking empty, and you’ve never been so happy to be dead wrong about something. It means they’re gone! The one who was here before is gone and...

The one who was here before?

An image of someone in this room flashes behind your eyelids when you blink. Frigid ice shoots through your veins as your gaze crawls around the basement and recognition creeps in.

There’s an exposed copper pipe running across the back wall and up into the ceiling. You know that pipe, how it bends just so and has a section that’s been cut out and replaced. This pipe and the grid of pipes it joins is a newer addition to your dream that you see as you fall through the basement door. Wandering over to it, you tap on the pipe and hear a familiar tink tink tink.

And the pillar in the center of the room is so familiar to you as well, but it’s missing something. You take hesitant steps closer and spy a spot where a hole has been recently patched over. Your fingers brush over it until you remember what’s missing—a bulky, metal chain bolted into the pillar.

It’s more than just your imagination. It’s the unearthing of a memory. And one not from a dream, but from reality.

You’ve been here. You’ve been here before, and when you were last here, there was a person in this basement chained to that pillar. As hazy as your recollection is, you’re certain of that fact. And if there was someone here before, and they’re gone now, then...

A plastic tarp, a cord of rope. Two new knives, not counting your own. Remote, unspoiled wilderness stretching for miles in every direction. The verdant foliage you’d envisioned surrounding Johnny and Simon suddenly withers and becomes the ground beneath their boots, decomposed and returned to earth.

You can smell it now too, a faint scent of bleach rising from the concrete floor. It makes you gag, and you fight the urge to vomit because you can’t spew bile all over your neighbors’ freshly cleaned basement. Lightheaded and swaying, you lean against the pillar to stay upright. You remind yourself that someone could be watching, so you need to keep it together.

Ignore it, don’t acknowledge it, pretend like it doesn’t exist. You have to keep doing what you always do, and if you persevere, you’ll survive. What you’ve discovered was always a possibility, it’s just not the possibility you expected to confront when you stepped into the basement. You couldn’t help them before, and you definitely can’t help them now.

Still resting against the post, you reach up with a trembling hand and grasp the chain for the lightbulb. With a swift tug, the light is extinguished, and your task is complete; there’s no reason to stay here any longer. You aren’t about to become the basement’s next resident now that there’s a vacancy.

Legs wobbling like an injured fawn, you stumble over to the stairs and claw your way towards the surface. When you reach the door, against all odds, it opens. You hastily flip the lightswitch on the way out, and the basement is fully engulfed in darkness.

The door squeals like a gutted pig when you slam it shut behind you. Both hands press against it to steady yourself while you get your ragged, uneven breathing under control. But you’ve done it, you’ve escaped.

“So was the light on, neighbor?”

Johnny’s voice is a knife plunged into your back. When it’s pulled out, it rips an earsplitting scream from your lungs. You whip around in a frenzy, head bashing against the door in the process.

Your neighbors stand before you in the flesh, backpacks still slung over their shoulders, hunting knives on their belts, fresh mud on their shoes. Your legs buckle at the sight, and you crumple to the ground with a loud, harsh THUMP. Neither of them make any move to help you up.

“Well?” Simon prompts, the corner of his mouth pulled into a sinisterly entertained smirk. Johnny grins with the same ghoulish amusement.

Your brain buzzes with the proper response—an awkward laugh at your overreaction to their little surprise and a simple report that the light was on. But you’ve been flailing and struggling and fighting to keep up this inane charade of a blissfully ignorant neighbor since you entered the basement, since your neighbors called, since the cops showed up. Since you moved in next door.

You’re wound so tight that you’re suffocating yourself. You open your mouth to speak, but all that comes out are choked, staccato gasps. Johnny’s head tilts curiously while Simon raises an eyebrow.

The next sound out of you is a wounded hiccup. Then the tears start. Overflowing and blurring your vision, they pour out of you uncontrolled, where every effort to stop them forces them out faster. Raw, pure emotion streams down your face, unfiltered and fully on display.

You gaze up at Johnny and Simon with fear that you’ve forgotten how to hide.

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and of course it only gets worse when you finally make it to your feet - teeth brushed twice after two whole water bottles and a shower hot enough to burn the devil out of hell - and notice something silver glinting on the table by your door that most definitely wasn’t there yesterday morning.

“oh…god.” your heart flips up into your throat.

his dog tags.

you’ve known simon long enough to know what this is. he didn’t forget them. he didn’t misplace them. he left them there to tell you he heard every fuckin word you said and he’s not letting you off the hook for it. it’s a test. if you meant it - which you did - you’ll bring them to him. you’ll say it to him sober like he asked.

a man of morals. who knew war criminals had it in them.

you spend what has to be a full ten minutes just staring at them - like maybe you’re still drunk, maybe you’re seeing things and they’ll vanish if you focus hard enough. maybe you can unsay every devastatingly honest thing you said with sheer mental fortitude alone and they’ll magically fly back to him on their own.

spoiler alert: they don’t move. because of course they don’t. and it takes another ten before you finally stuff them into your pocket.

it’s probably best to just rip the bandaid off. bring them to him before you have to face him infront of the others in mess or briefing - damage control before the rest of the world finds out about the stunt you pulled. you don’t even know what you’re going to say - sorry? thanks? let’s just pretend i never told you i fantasize about fucking you when i can’t sleep?

fuck. it doesn’t matter. you know you owe him the return. a peace offering, a penance, a silent white-flag kind of knock on his door.

and so you walk the hall like it’s the green mile. you’ve never done a walk of shame but you imagine this has got to be as close as it comes. his door is shut when you reach it, and you stand in front of it like a coward for another unnecessary amount of time - complexion almost ill. ghostly. like you could float right through the fuckin wood if the wind blew hard enough.

finally, you knock.

it’s a moment, and then he answers, filling his doorframe with those thick shoulders stretching a tight black t-shirt, looking right as rain besides damp hair and bloodshot eyes.

you wonder, fleetingly, if he even slept. but then his gaze drops over the length of you and you busy yourself with fighting the urge to run for your fucking life.

you clear your throat. “can i..uh. can we talk?”

he nods and pops the door open, gesturing for you to come in. you take a few steps into his room - dark, organized, rather sparse - and nearly jump out of your flesh when the door shuts behind you. the click of a cell door closing, announcing your sealed fate.

you spin to face him once his boots have stopped dragging across the tiles, and find him leaning back against his desk - ankles and arms crossed.

you swallow, and pull the tags from your pocket. “i um. i think you forgot these.”

his brow twitches, barely, as he takes a glance at your hand. a flash of something behind his eyes you can’t name.

“did i?” he doesn’t move.

you shift your weight. the mortification could eat you alive. you’re certain it currently is.

“figured i’d bring them back.” you add, quieter now, trying your fucking hardest to sound normal. like you didn’t just spend the night saying all kinds of unholy things into the palm of his hand. “incase…uh, you were looking for them.”

he still doesn’t take them.

“strange,” his lips tilt. the first sign he’s shown that he's enjoying this. “coulda sworn i left em’ somewhere on purpose.”

your stomach flips. you try to laugh but it’s brittle. “right. sure.”

he shrugs. “not the kinda thing i usually misplace.”

you bite the inside of your cheek so hard you think it might bleed, unsure how to respond to that. it’s hard to even breathe with the way he’s watching you - like he’s taking notes - reading everything you’re not saying in the line of your mouth, in the way your fingers tremble around the chain of his tags.

“shaky this mornin, yeah?” he says, just casually knocking the rest of the wind out of your chest.

“i-“

you falter, because what the fuck are you even supposed to say? no, i’m fine. i’m totally good, actually. i definitely didn’t spend all morning curled fetal, praying to gods who’ve certainly damned me for a head injury so i can forget the mental car crash that was last nights events.

simon waits, eyes blazing like you’re a twitchy little experiment. trying to see which wire makes you spark the hardest.

you clear your throat. try again. “m’just tired.”

“mm.” he hums with a lazy nod. “musta been all that talkin you were doin.”

and there it is. here it comes.

“can’t really remember, but i’m sure it’s part of it.” you lie with a forced laugh. lie so awkwardly it hurts. “tequila. you know how it is.”

“do i ever.” he replies, dragging a hand through his damp hair.

silence stretches thick, after that. it’s so thick it makes the walls feel closer, the floor feel further away. you avert your gaze, and realize almost immediately how big of a mistake that is because the motion pulls your eyes across his forearm - his bare, inked forearm, tendons flexing with the movement he’s making.

you remember that arm last night, wrapped tight around your waist. pulling you close before you moaned god yes and please beneath the big hand attached to it like fucking gospel.

when you flinch, he smirks. not even pretending like he didn’t notice. “y’remember nothin from last night, then?”

your eyes snap up to his. you hate yourself for the fact that all of last nights confidence seems to be no where in fucking sight.

“well, uh, it’s fuzzy but…i remember bits.”

“bits.” he echos. nodding. “yeah. must be a shame.”

oh god.

“shame?”

“shame t’forget all that detail.” he lets the words sink in, watching your face as he leans a hand on the desk behind him. “pretty interestin things. real deep. could write a bloody novel, the way y’were goin on.”

“oh.” you choke, again, and mentally slap yourself. get it together. “well. thats-“

he hums again. “suppose i could walk y’through it.”

“walk me-“

earth tilts. he doesn’t let you finish. “y’know. help piece it together. fill in the gaps.”

“you don’t-you don’t have to-“

he lifts a hand to gesture vaguely toward his bed. your pulse races to the moon.

“your room, y’were right there. lookin at me like i was gonna eat y’alive.” his voice lowers. you swallow and it tastes like sin. his finger shifts to the space before his bed. pointing at the edge. “and i was right there, tryin’ like hell t’be a fuckin gentleman.”

you could laugh, maybe cry, or just absolutely combust right there on the floor because it all floods back in an instant. the way you moaned his name when he knelt over you to undo your boots. the way your thighs tensed as you told him you think about him. the way you stared at him while your brain short circuited and your mouth betrayed every secret you thought you’d die with.

part of you did die, you suppose. the part with your dignity. right there on the floor of your room, next to your boots he took off.

“look, simon-“

he steps closer now. just a step. “y’said you’d been into me for ages.”

you blink, holding your breath.

“said y’think bout me when y’cant sleep.” his voice is a rasp now, the muscle in his jaw ticks. “i asked y’a question, then. d’you remember it?”

fucking hell.

“yes.” you exhale.

“what was it.”

your heart is a jackhammer, breaking through your sternum.

“you-you asked if i think about you when…” you hesitate, and he cocks an eyebrow. “…when i touch myself.”

“yeah.” he says lowly. a breath, not a word. “tha’s right.”

your skin is burning and your limbs feel foreign, at this point. you feel nerve endings pulsing in place you didn’t know you even had nerves.

“d’you remember your answer?” he continues, taking another step toward you.

and it’s then that the anxiety takes over - you blink twice and bite down until you taste blood, shaking your head no. not because you’ve forgotten - fucking hell you remember everything - but because saying it out loud feels like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.

he doesn’t buy it.

“mm, sure y’do.” he calls your bluff, says it so soft it’s almost a coo. “y’know i know your tells - two blinks while bitin the inside of your cheek.” his eyes gleam as his lips twitch. “y’can’t lie t’me, princess.”

christ, you can’t help but laugh at that. it’s exactly the reason why you’ve been into him - he’s perceptive and cunning and cocky all at once.

this is the man you’ve thought about fucking for months.

“yes.” you whisper in admittance. “i said yes.”

“god yes.” he corrects with another step until he’s so close you have to kink your neck back to meet his eyes. his shoulders swallow the edges of your vision until all you see is him. “…still true?”

you nod. a broken thing. “yes.”

“yeah?” his head tilts, the heat of him sweltering. “y’think bout me when y’put hands on yourself?”

“simon-“

he hushes you with a shake of his head, eyes dipping to your lips. “tell me.”

it’s then that you realize dragging this on is for nothing. whatever drunken confession you made last night clearly cracked open whatever restraint simon’s been exercising for months.

clearly whatever you feel, he’s feeling it too.

“yes.” you confess, as firm as you possibly can. nothing coy in it now. “yes, i think about you when im alone. when i touch myself…doesn’t even feel right unless im picturing you. your hands. touching me.”

it all comes out of you in a rushed whisper, desperate and dripping sweet from your lips like it’s been saturating behind your teeth for too long. when he doesn’t respond right away, you realize you’ve stunned him, and pull on whatever courage you have left to press forward.

“i’ve wanted you for so long ive stopped tryin to figure out when it started.” you murmur, lost in his eyes. “and you?”

his breath catches. just the faintest hitch, like he wasn’t prepared for the edge of your honesty to turn and face him instead. it’s delectable, the slight composure tilt, but it doesn’t last long. because slowly - slowly, his mouth curls into something wrecked. something that says fuckin hell, it’s on.

his knuckles come up to graze your jaw, he lowers his head until his lips find your ear—

“y’askin if i think bout you when i’ve got my fist wrapped round my cock?” you inhale sharply, then choke on it when his mouth brushes your lobe. “course i fuckin do.”

your hands lift timidly to find his shirt, curling into it, dog tags still clinking between your fingers.

“y’think i haven’t been losin sleep over you?” he continues, dragging his mouth along your jaw. “think i didn’t cum with your name in my mouth last night, after you begged so nice n pretty f’me to fuck y’senseless?”

your lashes flutter. his free hand slips around your waist. “fuck, simon-“

“i know, sweet’eart.” he murmurs it, almost gentle, like it’s something you share. “tha’s what y’need, ain’t it? f’me to admit you’re not the only one losin mind here.”

you nod, partly frantic and partly delirious, and he exhales something strained - something from somewhere deep, catching on the parts of him dying to stay patient.

“good.” his hand slides up the back of your shirt, while the other finds the one of yours still holding his tags. “y’really come here just to return these, then?”

“no.” it chokes out of you instantly, mouth tilting toward his. “you wanted me to say it to you sober. made a promise bout what you’d do if i did?”

something feral flashes over his face, at that. translated through the grip he tightens on your waist, the exhale he washes over your jaw.

“yeah.” he says, tight. “i did.”

his mouth is barely a breath from yours.

“well here i am. sober.” you whisper. “wanting you more than i did while drunk.”

he makes a sound you’ve never heard before. not a groan, not a moan, something deep and feral punched straight out of his chest.

“fuckin hell.”

and then he’s kissing you.

no more waiting, no more games. simon’s a man of his word and it shows in the way his mouth crashes into yours - hungry and bruising and impatient - teeth knocking, one hand fisting in the back of your shirt and tearing it off you while the other pulls you in. he spins you both so your ass hits the edge of his desk, and then breaks away - trailing spit slick lips down your jaw and throat, thick fingers working to tease the band of your sweats.

“tell me where y’want me, sweet’eart.” he growls into your pulse.

you blink, dazed. “i-what?”

his teeth graze just enough to make you whimper, before his mouth drags back up beside your ear - ruinous in the inflection.

“tell me how you’ve imagined it,” his finger tips slide under your waistband, just teasing. “what you’ve pictured when you’re thinkin’ of me like this. right ‘ere.”

“oh god, simon.” you moan by his words alone, too wound to be embarrassed, fingers cinched tight in the fabric of his shirt. “your-your fingers. your mouth. your cock-“

that sound again. deep and devastated. restraint being ripped out by the roots.

“fuck. filthy thing f’me, aren’t you?” he says, as two fingers slide lower, slipping under heat soaked fabric and finding your slit, pressing in no further than they need to before circling back up - spreading the mess you’ve made just to feel it. “you’re fuckin soaked.”

you whimper as he teases your clit. his mouth finds your throat again, teeth grazing where your pulse stutters wild beneath flushed skin. you don’t trust your legs to hold you upright under the weight of it all - his touch, his voice, the feral gleam in his eye when he looks at you like you’re some prophecy being fulfilled.

“s’this what i do t’you?” he murmurs. “just from talkin t’you like this?”

you nod, a frantic little thing. “yes-god, yes.”

he exhales hard like it's kicked out of him, tugging your sweats down until they slide off your ankles before he lifts you back onto his desk and parts your thighs with hands so big they nearly span the entire width of them.

you fucking moan at the sight.

and of course it only fuels him - braces you back on your elbows, spine arched, breath caught in your throat as he steps in close between your legs. his eyes drag down to where you glisten in the dim light - slick, flushed, waiting - and he lets out a curse before returning his fingers to your aching cunt.

he presses in one digit slow, then adds another. knuckle deep until your eyes roll, hips jerking at the stretch.

“oh, fuck-“

he hisses through his teeth. “tight little cunt. fuckin meltin f’me.”

his thumb catches your clit in the same motion - rubbing soft circles, pushing you closer, dragging you toward the edge with every brutal curl of his fingers inside you.

“that feel good?” he growls against your jaw. “touched y’self in bed thinkin bout me between your thighs like this?”

you’re panting now. shaking.

“i-“ you gasp. “yes, simon-yes-“

“yeah?” his thumb speeds up, his fingers pump deeper, your head spins. “and did y’cum like this? like you’re about to f’me now?”

you don’t answer fast enough. he bites at your jaw.

“tell me.”

“no-n-never like this—”

he growls something vile under his breath. “poor thing. s’okay. i’ve got you.”

your walls flutter around him, your thighs shaking where they frame his hips, and he feels it - feels the beginning of the end stutter through you.

“simon-“ you whinge.

he cuts you off. “look at me.”

you do. barely.

“tha’s it,” he breathes. “cum on my fuckin fingers. show me what i’ve been missin.”

you’re starved for it, beyond saving, and its only a couple more deep pumps before you break.

it floods through you - white hot and searing. you cry out his name as you clamp around his digits, trembling apart on his desk while he watches you like you’re art - jaw clenched, pupils blown - his fingers still moving, dragging you through it until you’re sobbing into his shoulder.

“there we go.” when it passes and you’re limp, blinking up at him stunned - he withdraws slowly. “attagirl. s’fuckin good.”

you swallow, watching wide eyed as he brings those same fingers to his mouth and sucks them clean.

“been dreamin bout that taste, knew it’d be sweet.” he purrs as he leans down, wiping his spit slick digits over your cheek. “gonna need it proper soon.”

you don’t even have time to question or respond to that, because then he’s unbuckling his belt.

when you finally look back up, his eyes are wild.

“s’this what y’want?” he murmurs, tugging leather through loops before undoing the button at his waist. “when you came t’me this mornin, all flushed and pretendin t’be innocent. was this it? wantin’ me to bend y’over and take what y’fuckin offered?”

you choke as he tugs himself free - thick, leaking at the tip and throbbing - bigger than anything you’ve ever seen, nevermind taken.

the nod that follows is compulsive desperation. “holy fuck-yes-“

he smacks light at your thigh. “stand up. bend over f’me.”

you do as you’re told without hesitation - legs shaking as you stand spin and lean forward over the desk - breath still stuttering in your chest, heart going a mile a minute. your hands barely meet wood before he’s on you - no preamble. no breath between. grabs your hips like it’s instinct, like his hands were molded to hold you like this, and yanks you back against him with a roughness that steals whatever’s left in your lungs.

you shudder when he slides his cock against your slit once - twice - dragging the head through slick and stalls notched just shy of your entrance, breathing hard like it’s killing him to wait.

“y’remember what else y’said last night?”

you barely manage a nod. your mouth opens, but nothing comes out. he exhales something like a laugh.

“not compliments. not the fantasies. not the whining.” he drags through your mess again, slower this time. deliberate. “you said—“ his hips press forward just enough to make you gasp. “—you wondered if it’d hurt.”

you whine, embarrassed, but god it shoots straight through you. he bends low now, chest flush to your back, mouth to your ear.

“truth is, it might.” his lips curl into a smile. “so don’t fuckin run now.”

and then - only then - he pushes in. you gasp so hard your chest deflates on impact, thick head stretching sopping walls wide and dragging deeper than you’ve ever imagined - too much and not enough all at once.

“ohfuck-simon-“ your head drops toward the desk, eyes stinging.

“mm. tha’s it.” he groans, loud, burying himself halfway before pausing there. “tightest fuckin—bloody hell.”

he presses forward a little more - just enough to make your knees shake as he steadies you with one hand at your hip and grits his teeth. he pulls out just to feel you clench, then shoves back in - hard enough to jolt the desk and feed you all of him before you can even brace for it.

“ffffuck-ohfuck-“ you wail, knuckles bloodless where they clutch the desk. “you-you’re-“

“deep.” he bends over you, grabs a fistful of your hair, and drags your head back to his mouth, voice hot on your skin. “i fuckin know.”

he thrusts once. hard. then again. slower. deeper.

“jesus christ,” he undoes your bra with his free hand, paws at your tits until it hurts. “walked around this whole time with this cunt made f’me and didn’t say a fuckin word.”

“fuck simon-“

“yeah.” he grits against your ear. “tha’s how you moaned it last night. just like that.”

it’s punishing, the pace he sets. each snap of his hips smacking against your ass drags stars down into your retinas - body rocking and cervix kissed with each thrust - his grip is bruising and his mouth works at your neck, forcing noises out of you loud enough to rattle the fucking walls.

it doesn’t take long before your chest collapses onto slick wood, drool coated cheek pressed to the desk - vision bleeding white around the edges. he’s relentless - driven, brutal in rhythm, like he’s trying to fuck the memory of your voice out of his head, the memory of your thighs pressed together last night when he walked away instead of dropping to his knees and giving in.

he groans, open-mouthed, flushed everywhere. he’s not just fucking you. he’s wrecking you. dragging you across the edge by the throat and holding your broken pieces together with his own.

“mmf-fuck.” he snarls, burying his fist back in your hair. his palm cracks hard across your ass before snaking around your thigh to find your clit. devastating. “this. this is what i thought of for months. you. fuckin boneless f’me.”

he pulls out slow with a shuttering exhale, just enough for you to whine before he roars back in - hard and fast, fingers never slowing.

you shriek, squirming with no where to go.

“y’got no fuckin clue what y’did to me last night.” he’s panting, fingernails burning your scalp. “sat there slurrin filth. darin me t’do somethin bout it. tested every fuckin moral i’ve got.”

your second orgasm is a charging tide - and god, you know he feels it. you know by the way he rolls his fingers faster to chase it, moans in your ear when your walls flutter around him, fucks you deeper and slower just to drag you over by your hair.

“cum f’me. give me another.” he grits. “let me fuckin feel it sweet’eart.”

“ff-fuck simon! yes-yes-“

you sob, and then it hits you - violent and wet and cataclysmic - like every single one of your fantasies brought to life, like every pathetic orgasm you gave yourself to the thought of him and his fuckin hands all combined to create this. it’s stratospheric depths of bliss, all the colours of the rainbow erupting behind your eyes as he fucks you through it, not stalling his fingers until you’re sobbing.

“mhm. messy little thing.”

he growls with it before pulling out just enough to slap his cock against your soaked cunt, watching the slick stretch, the way you whine and arch out of pure fuckin instinct.

“look at this pretty cunt,” he rasps, teasing his tip over your clit. “drippin. tremblin. fuckin cryin f’me.”

you try to say something, try to catch a breath, but that all falls void as he thrusts back in without warning - one brutal, complete thrust, pushing everything out of you. screams, his name, your fucking soul. he groans as his hand finds your jaw, forcing your head to turn just enough so he can see your face. cheeks flushed, tears caught in your lashes.

“shh. don’t run—don’t fuckin run,” he growls against your mouth, arm cinched tight across your waist when your hips jerk away like it’s too much. “y’asked for this. said it t’me sober.”

“si-simon. please.” it’s breathless, ruined, wrecked beyond meaning, your mouth falling open on another sob when his hips grind deeper, when the head of him kisses a spot that has your knees giving out entirely. “fuck. s’good. s’m-much-“

“yeah?” he snarls. “s’good, huh?”

you nod something pathetic, lost for words. broken around him.

“want y’to think bout this when you’re alone.” his free hand drags down to your stomach, rests just high on your pelvis, feeling where he’s drilling. “how deep m’buried in this tight little cunt. how good my name feels in your fuckin throat.”

another nod. another hiccuped moan dragged out of you. “y-yes-yes i’ll think about it-mmff-“

“mhm,” he kisses you once. fleeting and viscous and hot. “good. s’good.”

a few more ragged thrusts and a sound gets torn from him, pulled from somewhere deep, feral and hoarse and ragged. his hips punch forward one final time, burying himself to the hilt, and then—

“fuck—fuck.”

he lets go.

he groans, voice breaking at the edges, forehead falling to the space between your shoulder blades. he pulses deep inside you, all of his pent up heat flooding you full until he’s spent, until he’s got nothing left to give and collapses against your back in one shuddering, boneless exhale.

and when it’s over, it’s just breathing - a long quiet moment full of everything neither of you know how to say before you register that he’s moving - leaning over you to grab at where his dog tags were discarded on the desk.

he slips them around your neck, and then pulls out.

sukuna laughs again, low and full. “aw, shit. that was adorable.”

you shoot him a look. glare weak, eyes watery.

“you okay, sweetheart?” he asks, already brushing your back, soothing in a way that shouldn’t feel as good as it does.

“i’m fine,” you mumble, embarrassed. your voice cracks.

he grins again, mouth all smug and soft. “wanna try again?”

“…maybe.”

he watches you this time. doesn’t say anything when you steal another puff, smaller this time. still a little rough. still not good. but you don’t choke. not as bad, anyway.

“attagirl,” he says, and something in your stomach twists.

you hand it back.

“tastes weird,” you admit.

“you’ll get used to it.” he takes another hit, exhales toward the sky. then he glances over. “bet you’d like it better from my mouth.”

your heart skips.

“w-what?”

he shrugs, casual. “shotgun. ever tried?”

you shake your head.

he taps ash into an old beer can on the railing, then takes one more drag. when he looks back at you, it’s all heat.

“c’mere,” he says again, voice lower. slower. “i’ll show you.”

and you do. you hesitate, which only makes him smirk deeper. cocky. knowing. like he can feel your pulse skipping through your wrist.

“relax,” sukuna murmurs, voice thick with smoke. “just open your mouth for me.”

you shouldn’t listen. you know that. but your lips part before you can think twice.

he steps in closer. impossibly close. one arm braces against the railing beside your head, his other hand holding the joint with two lazy fingers, almost burned down now. the smoke clings to him, to the collar of his shirt, to his breath. he brings it to his lips again, inhales slow—then leans down before he exhales, catching your chin between his thumb and forefinger like he’s done this a hundred times.

his mouth barely grazes yours.

and then he breathes it out.

warm smoke floods your mouth, your lungs. it’s smoother than before, still hazy, but your focus is too scrambled to register the burn. because sukuna’s lips are hovering over yours, eyes half-lidded, watching you like he’s already undressed you with his gaze.

you swallow, hard. his mouth lingers, breath mingling with yours, lips not quite touching.

“good girl,” he says, so low it’s almost a growl.

your stomach flips violently. the praise settles between your thighs like heat.

“see?” he adds, thumb dragging down the curve of your jaw. “tastes better like that, doesn’t it?”

you nod. or try to. it’s barely a motion, just enough to make him grin again.

“one more?” he offers, already moving in again, like he doesn’t need your answer.

and this time—this time when he exhales, your lips brush. soft. smoky.

he’s not kissing you. not really. but it feels like one anyway.

your knees wobble. his mouth hovers again, so fucking close.

and then he licks his lips. eyes flick down to your parted ones. waits.

“you wanna taste me again?” he asks, almost amused. “or you gonna be shy on me now, sweetheart?”

you don’t realize how warm you are until you’re back inside. maybe it’s the way the room tilts a little. not enough to scare you, just enough to feel like the floor’s moving soft beneath your socks. maybe it’s the bass still thumping through the walls. maybe it’s him, still pressed against your side.

you’re not even high, really.

just… warm. tingly. floaty. like a fizzy drink. like your mouth tastes like smoke and sugar and you’re not sure if it’s from the shotgunning or just him.

he doesn’t move away. his hand finds the small of your back when you wobble slightly. not to steady you. just to touch.

“you good?” he asks, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

you nod. too quickly. then blink up at him.

and then—god help you—you giggle.

his brow arches. “oh?”

you don’t even know what’s funny. the way his shirt’s positioned? the way his necklace dangles right at your eyeline? the way your body feels like it’s made of candlewax?

you can’t stop staring at his mouth.

and he knows it.

“you’re high,” he says, a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth.

you shake your head. “no,” you whisper, though you sound more breathless than you mean to. “just a little… floaty.”

he hums. fingers brushing your side, lower now.

“floaty,” he echoes. “that what we’re calling it?”

you nod again. but slower this time. eyes still locked on his mouth like it’s the only solid thing in the room.

“you’re staring,” he murmurs.

“m’not.”

“mmhm.”

you’re still staring. especially when his tongue flicks across his lip, like he’s daring you to do something about it.

and—god. you do.

you lean in.

not a kiss. not yet. just close. your nose grazes his. your breath catches. your hand fists the front of his shirt like you need something to hold onto, and his eyes flicker, half-lidded.

“you’re actin’ different,” he murmurs, voice dipped in something low and amused.

“noooo,” you whisper, lashes fluttering.

“no?” his hands slide down to your hips, pulling you snug against him.

“you’re just… really sexy,” you say. it slips out too fast. too soft. the moment it leaves your mouth, your eyes widen in horror.

he laughs. full-on.

you cover your face with both hands, mortified.

he pulls them down, gently.

“don’t hide,” he says, grinning now. “i like this version of you. high and horny.”

your mouth drops open. “am not—”

“baby,” he interrupts, dipping his head until your noses bump, “you’re grinding on my thigh.”

you freeze.

then blink down.

you are. barely. just a little. soft and slow, like you didn’t even notice. and now your hands fly back up to your face.

he groans, deep in his chest.

“fuck,” he mutters, voice ragged. “you’re gonna kill me.”

he presses a thigh up firmer between your legs and watches your lashes flutter.

“damn,” he murmurs, pulling your leg over his lap, “who knew my girl just needed a little smoke to show me how she really is.”

you squirm, half-embarrassed, half still riding whatever fuzzy, low-buzz high is humming in your limbs. you press your face into his shoulder, but he’s already grinning, hand dragging up the inside of your thigh like it’s second nature.

“don’t get all shy now,” he teases, voice dipped in that lazy charm. “too late for that.”

your legs tighten around him.

and he feels it.

he groans under his breath, head falling back for a second like he’s collecting himself, before his eyes drop back to you—a little heavy, a little wild.

“bathroom,” he says.

you blink. “what?”

“bathroom,” he repeats, already shifting you off his lap, steadying you when you stumble slightly. “unless you wanna grind my thigh in front of the whole fuckin’ party.”

your eyes widen, heat climbing up your cheeks. but your hand still finds his, fingers lacing without thinking.

the walk is a blur. music thudding behind you, hallway lights too bright. you barely notice people talking. laughing. someone calls his name but he doesn’t answer, just tugs you down the hall, his hand firm on your waist like he owns it.

you hadn’t even realized how bad it’d gotten until he locked the bathroom door behind you.

until the echo of the party vanished, muffled through tile walls and music-thick floors, leaving you both in this tiny, hazy space that smelled like weed and faded cologne and something sweeter—him. you were dizzy. not just high, not just warm from the smoke still coating the back of your throat, but dizzy from the way he’d been looking at you all night. since the shotgun. since the way your lips had brushed and you’d looked up at him with glassy eyes, pupils blown wide.

you don’t remember who kissed first, only that your back hit the counter and his hands were already everywhere. under your skirt, gripping your thighs, lifting you like you weighed nothing and sitting you on the edge of the sink.

“can’t believe you,” he muttered, pulling your panties down to your knees. “you’re fuckin’ soaked. this from one hit?”

you whimpered—barely nodded. it wasn’t just one. it was him. the heat of his palm against your neck. the heavy drag of his voice every time he called you baby in front of the other guys. the way he looked at you like he wanted to ruin you, just so he could build you back up again.

his rings were cold when they brushed your folds, but the burn of his mouth made you jolt. he knelt between your legs like he had something to prove, mouthing at your pussy like it was the only thing in the world worth praying to.

and fuck, you wanted to cry—his tongue was slow, thick, greedy, curling inside you while his thumb circled your clit just the way you liked. you could feel yourself dripping down the curve of his wrist, making a mess all over his hand, but he didn’t care. didn’t pause. just kept groaning into your cunt like he was starving and you were the only meal he’d ever wanted.

you tugged his hair. moaned his name. rocked your hips against his face and choked out a high, half-sobbing plea when your thighs started to shake.

“’kuna—fuck, wait, i’m—”

he didn’t wait. he never waited when it came to your pleasure. you came on his tongue like it was the only thing that made sense anymore, thighs clamped around his head, one hand slipping behind you to keep from sliding off the sink. your vision blurred. your lungs trembled. your legs twitched as he kissed back up your body, his cock already out, already hard—heavy against your inner thigh as he licked his lips like he could still taste you.

“you want me inside?” he asked, and you nodded fast, too fast, whispering something that barely made sense but sounded like yes and please and need it now.

he fucked you slow at first, one hand gripping your waist to keep you steady, the other sliding up the back of your neck to cradle your head. he kissed you while he did it, tongue hot and slick, swallowing every noise you made, like he didn’t want anyone outside that door to hear how good he made you feel.

but he got mean when you clenched. when you whispered his name like a prayer. his hand dropped to your throat, thumb resting against your jaw, and his hips snapped harder, faster—fucking up into you like he owned you. like you were his, and he was going to fuck that fact into your soul.

“look at you,” he rasped, fucking you so deep your body jolted back against the mirror, “high off one little hit. letting me fuck you dumb in the frat bathroom. you like this, baby?”

you nodded, gasped, whimpered—his cock hitting that soft spot inside you over and over until tears leaked out the corners of your eyes.

“yeah,” he growled, fucking you harder, sloppier, voice breaking with it. “you’re my good fuckin’ girl, huh? my sweet little thing who gets high and begs for dick. gonna let me cum in this pussy, sweetheart?”

you couldn’t answer. not really. not with how hard you were trembling, how your nails dug into his shoulders and your mouth parted in a silent moan. he took it as a yes anyway, slamming in once more and spilling inside you with a guttural sound you’d never forget. you were still panting when he kissed you again, slower this time. messier. his cum leaking out of you, still pulsing around the base of his cock.

he pulled back, sweat-damp and grinning, brushing your cheek with the back of his fingers.

your lips are kiss-swollen. your lashes heavy. your thighs still trembling.

his thumb traces the corner of your mouth.

“fuck,” he mutters, voice ragged. “you’re unreal.”

you blink up at him, a little dazed. still floaty. still warm.

“can we go again?” you whisper.

his brow arches. “...like round two?”

you nod slowly, lips tugging into a half-smile.

“of which one?” he asks, grin tugging at his mouth. “smoking or sex?”

you pause, pretend to think about it, then shrug.

“both?” you offer, sweet as sugar.

he groans.

It had started as a glib comment on your first day.

“You the new desk jockey?” a soldier walking by had asked as you booted up your computer for the first time.

Surprised, you burbled, “Oh, yes! So nice to meet you.” You scurried around the desk to shake his hand, but he was already halfway down the hall.

Desk jockey. Apt, you supposed. More than half of the people who worked on this base were soldiers, medics, or other specialists that regularly saw combat. The rest, like you, were administrative. It was natural for the warriors to look down on the pencil-pushers like you, sitting in a cushioned chair all day while they hunkered in sniper’s nests or breached enemy bases amidst sprays of bullets. They were more important in every way that mattered.

But after several years in this industry, you knew that nothing happened on those battlefields without mounds and mounds of paperwork. Equipment had to be ordered or requisitioned; flights needed to be booked and paid for; missions had to be scheduled around any number of factors; permits needed to be filed to secure space to stage vehicles; and each op required approvals beforehand and reports afterwards. Administration sure as hell wasn’t as sexy as parachuting out of helicopters with definitely-compensating-for-something machine guns, but it was every bit as crucial for international peacekeeping.

When Kate Laswell hired you as Operations Coordinator for Task Force 141, you were beside yourself with joy. Naturally organized, impeccable attention to detail, great people skills – you were born for this role.

So while it was a bit disheartening to be relegated to “desk jockey” mere minutes into the new job, you took it on the chin. Give it a week, you thought to yourself, not smugly, but with the confidence of a woman who had never handed in a late assignment in her life. They’ll see what I’m capable of.

And they did. Kyle and Johnny came around to you right away, eager to answer your questions and grateful for your hard work. They explained that your predecessor was a combat vet who only took the job when he was discharged.  Kyle described the man’s work ethic as “whatever the opposite of above and beyond is… below and within?” which had led to mission complications more than once.

The Captain took a lot longer to warm up. He at first mistook your sunny attitude for absent-mindedness, observing you circumspectly as he waited for the other shoe to drop. But the only things that dropped were meticulously annotated reports on his desk, with executive summaries and arrow-shaped stickers where he needed to sign. If there was one thing that could earn his trust, it was competence. Once he saw your clerical prowess, you became one of his favorite people on base.

The jury was still out on Ghost, who remained an enigma almost certainly on purpose. But somewhere along the way, you liked to think that his grunts of dismissal turned into grunts of indifference and eventually grunts of acknowledgement.

So, as the months went by, you self-deprecatingly referred to yourself as the desk jockey. Then a few of the soldiers started saying it like it was your name, especially as your reputation grew. (“Your admin doesn’t know where that file is? Ask 141’s desk jockey, she’ll know.”) It didn’t take long for Johnny to shorten it to DJ.

And just like Gaz and Soap and Ghost, you gained your own callsign. You liked to think of it as one of those terms where the original meaning had evolved past its etymological roots. No one remembered that “laser” and “scuba” started as acronyms – they were just words. And you were just DJ.

Well, very few people on base would preface your moniker with “just.” You were a tour de force, streamlining and updating and improving everything you touched. Operatives complained that their report submission software is slow? There’s a memo on Price’s desk the next morning comparing alternatives with pros, cons, and costs. Backlog of hard copy files from 1978 – 1985 that needed digitizing? The portable scanner started going with you everywhere as you blazed through file after file during downtime. That grumpy guy in the office down the hall bitched about running out of K-cups for the Keurig? Now dark roast and decaf are on auto-ship, with a new, rotating flavor added each month.

As you settled in, you found opportunities to make things easier for your team. You distributed printed calendars before the start of each month. Technically they received them by email as well, but you figured they might want to leave a hard copy on their bureau to glance at when they were trying to plan their days. As you learned more about each of them, you began to add custom doodles along the borders: cartoonish bombs for Johnny, the mascot of Kyle’s favorite football club, smiling roaches for Gary, little skulls for Ghost. At first you were nervous they might find it unprofessional, but Johnny was so delighted he started showing it to his colleagues in other departments (“Bet yer admin dinnae do that for ye”). It became another one of those quirks the 141 was known for.

Laswell always commented that she didn’t know where you got the energy, but the answer was simple. You loved the 141 – the boys, you called them, like you were their mom. They were brave and generous and funny and hard-working. They saw you and appreciated you, accepted you into their little found family. And on an even more basic level, you all got on like a house on fire. Kyle was a huge gossip who loved to dish about anything he overheard in the gym or cafeteria. Johnny was easily the best storyteller on base – frankly you would listen to him read the phone book with that accent – but he was also a surprisingly good listener. Price might come off as gruff, but you bonded over a shared love of classic films and threw friendly jabs back and forth like old pals.

And then, there was Ghost. You had a soft spot for him, knowing he’d had a hard life although you weren’t privy to the details. He had never been rude to you, even if his demeanor was aloof. Your foremost goal was never to be an added stressor. You didn’t need recognition or a smile or a pat on the back; you were perfectly content being just as much of a ghost as he was, as long as it made his life easier.

When your probationary period was up, you were given access to petty cash for miscellaneous office expenses. Through careful budgeting, you were able to spend most of it on little treats for the team: sports drinks, protein bars, and a stash of candy that you distributed liberally when someone stopped by to chat with you.

Birthdays were your favorite, because you loved celebrating people rather than what they could contribute. You knew everyone’s favorite baked good (recorded on an ancient piece of looseleaf tucked beneath your cup of pens) and would bring enough for folks from other departments to share. Everyone had important work to do, so the festivities had to be efficient: a card handed over in the morning signed by the staff, their favorite flavor of cake stationed in the breakroom throughout the day, and an optional activity in the afternoon, like guessing which of several baby pictures was the birthday boy. Two years ago, you had organized a mini roast for Johnny that people still circulated clips of.

Not everyone enjoyed these extravagant displays. Some soldiers on base, especially the older ones, called them frivolous – which, you supposed, was true.  But what’s so bad about frivolity between deployments, little respites of silly, normal things before plunging back into the whirlpools of war?

Ghost would participate in the parties, lean against the far wall with his arms crossed and an amused gleam in his eye, but it was obvious from your first day on the job that he would never wish to be the center of attention himself. He even made Kyle pass along the message that he did not want a “pin the mask on Simon” game (okay, you made one “pin the cigar on Price” poster and everyone got scared they were next…) or anything else in the breakroom for his birthday. Of course you wouldn’t do that! This was about celebrating him, on his own terms.

So early on the morning of his birthday, you snuck into the locker room with a skeleton key Price had let you borrow to set up his surprise. You quickly taped up the goofy ghost and skeleton decorations –purchased online from a Halloween depot – and placed his gifts on the top shelf: a bottle of scotch, a dish of blackberry crumble, and a slip of paper stylized like a coupon that said, “good for one free smack to Johnny’s head.” You hoped that if nothing else, the silliness of it would make him smile.

He never commented on it, so you had no idea how it went over. But when you did the same next year, you saw him leaving with the bottle of scotch gripped in one hand and the Tupperware container in the other. He tipped his head towards you and held up the bottle as though to say “cheers,” and you smiled like an idiot for the rest of the evening.

The toughest part of your job – emotionally, at least – was when the 141 went away on missions. They could be gone for anywhere from a few days to a few months. The office became dreadfully dull, like a regular 9 to 5 instead of your dream job, during those periods. There was still plenty of work to do, as periodic reports and requests trickled in from the field, not to mention your years-long reorganization project to clean up the previous admin’s mess. And of course, you worried terribly that one of them may not come back. When they finally returned, it always felt like Christmas morning to you.

In short, being hired as the Operations Coordinator for the 141 – becoming DJ – was one of the best things that had ever happened to you. Relocating to the UK to work on the base was so worth it. You vowed to never, ever rest on your laurels.

But at the end of these long days, after the work you completed with skill and with joy, you returned to a quiet flat that stank of stale air and too-old leftovers. The space was untidy, with mounds of laundry everywhere and mail piled up that you had been meaning to open. It was like the moment you walked through that door, a switch flipped. You didn’t need to be cheerful and capable and overachieving. There was no one to impress, no deadline to meet. Certainly no one to come home to.

For a long time, you had blamed your lack of a love life on being overweight. Although you did your best to dress in a flattering and professional manner, your oversized belly and undefined chin and flabby arms were all you saw when looking in the mirror. Who cared if you had a pretty face, when your body looked like… this? Your self-image issues were not helped by being around gorgeous, sculpted super-soldiers with muscles like Atlas.

But that was an excuse, wasn’t it? Plenty of fat women had partners. Plenty of women who threw themselves into their careers had partners. So what was wrong with you? Why did you spend your weekends desperately lonely and spiraling, playing video games to escape, praying for Monday so that your life would be infused with purpose again?

Therapy was helping, slowly but surely. Although it was difficult, you did your best to put yourself “out there,” wherever there was. The effort felt Sisyphean, but at least your headstone could say you tried.

~~~~~~~~~

It was a pleasant Wednesday morning when it happened.

You were in a good mood, having treated yourself to a smoothie at a new place that just opened along your route to work. The drink had a dreadful name, something like “fruity fingerbang” or “erogenous elderberry,” but it tasted delicious. Balancing the drink in one hand, you scanned your badge for entry and rushed to the elevator.

The team had just recently returned from a three-week mission in the Middle East, which meant all sorts of reports and documentation were rolling in. You planned to focus on closeout paperwork for the majority of the day with little breaks to inventory the supply closet.

When you arrived on your floor, you were surprised to see a manila envelope in the center of your desk. Your workspace was always immaculate; you never left for the day without putting everything in its place. Whatever this was, it must have been delivered very early.

Placing down the smoothie, you flipped it over to see who it was from, but there was no writing on it anywhere.

You had an ominous feeling when you unbound the string and slipped out a sheaf of papers, filled front and back with paragraphs of text. No letterhead, no memorandum header, just a bold, centered title that read:

CHAPTER ONE

But it was the line underneath that made your brain short-circuit: