About: When Brendon Park's mother takes him to her favourite farmers market on his day off, he meets a beloved local coffee vendor and suddenly his life falls into place. Now he has to make you his.
A/n: First fic kinda nervous! I was at my local farmers market the other day and suddenly got hit with the inspiration for this fic. Its going to be multiple chapters (idk how many but i have a basic fic outline) and i hope everyone thinks this is as cute as I do! I wish i could say the title was an Elvis reference bc that would be really cool but actually it's a reference to the Maneskin cover of the same song.
Warnings: 10 yr age gap (reader late 20's, Park late 30's), ooc but like he has 30 seconds of screen time so what do you expect, mention of parental death, some angst later (reader has a bad relationship with parents), eventual smut, im sure there will be more but i can't think of any right now!!
Chapter one - The first market
Word count - 1.3k
Brendon Park was a dedicated man.
Dedicated to his work, dedicated to going to the gym everyday, dedicated to his protein intake. But the thing he was most dedicated to was his relationship with his mother.
As Brendon’s father had died when he was 13, Brendon had felt from that point onwards that he must care for his mother and cultivate a close and trusting relationship with her.
Therefore, he found himself spending every Saturday morning out in Pittsburgh spending time with his mother.
Their activity of choice varied every week from brunch, museum visits, art galleries and sometimes even aquariums. Any place that you would never expect to see orthopedic surgeon Park the Shark, that was where he ended up.
This Saturday was different, however. Instead of the usual brunch spot that they had practically become regulars at, Brendon found himself walking towards the entrance of a local farmers market. He could immediately tell why his mother had been so excited to visit, though it pained him to admit it,this truly was a beautiful place.
There were around 30 stalls running down the street, all filled with an abundance of produce and colour. Brendon was wearing his usual fitted black t - shirt with a pair of well tailored black jeans and couldn’t help but feel out of place amongst all the beautiful bright colours that surrounded him.
To his left he saw a stall run by a mother and her son, who could not be more than 12 years old, selling colourfully labelled homemade chutneys in mason jars.
To his right he saw a middle aged man running a massive stall of home grown produce. The array of fresh vegetables actually gave Brendon some semblance of excitement.
He was busy thinking about which of the vegetables he could incorporate into his meal prep for the week when his mother appeared at his side telling him all about the local honey vendor she had just met. He chuckled slightly at her enthusiasm before they started to walk further into the farmers market.
They passed stalls filled with enormous bouquets of flowers, local farmers selling many different types of cheese and families selling food from their respective cultures that even Brendon (who sticks to a strict diet) had to admit smelt heavenly.
He followed his mother around as she picked up anything she wanted from each vendor. She had long since accepted that he was going to insist on paying for everything when they were together so she had stopped arguing with him every time he tried.
Once they were laden down with local produce - everything from home grown carrots to a beautiful bouquet of lilies with snapdragons and baby's breath - his mother insisted on one final stop. She gestured towards a coffee cart painted in a deep blue situated next to a stall selling authentic greek food.
There was an impressive line running outside the cart and once they reached the front Brendon immediately knew why.
When you turned around to take their order he was taken aback by the bubbly energy radiating from you. It was clear that you loved your job and you loved the community created by the farmers market. It seemed to Brendon that you were willing to enthusiastically chat to anyone and everyone that had the pleasure of coming across your cart.
God, he thought, if you worked at the hospital you’d probably have the highest patient satisfaction score out of anyone.
He began to examine your features with the precise nature that only comes with being a surgeon. He revelled in the incredible colour of your eyes and became particularly focused on the glittery lip gloss you had painted over your lips.
You were dressed in a plain white top and dark blue jeans with a blue and white striped apron over the top. The apron had your name etched in a blue cursive in the top left hand side. Even in such basic clothes, Brendon was struck by your beauty.
While he stood, almost in awe, he felt his mothers hand on his arm bringing him back down to earth.
‘Brendon, honey, what do you want to order?’ she asked, having already ordered her cappuccino leaving you both awkwardly stood waiting for his order.
He was so absorbed in you that he had completely forgotten that he had intended to get a coffee.
His eyes began to scan the coffee cart. You had a blackboard behind you that was filled with every type of coffee under the sun. Around the outside of the board you had drawn delicate chalk flowers alongside a little note about your special this week (raspberry and white chocolate muffins). On the front mantel of the cart you had set out trays of the most perfect cake, cookies, brownies. Any baked good you could think of, it was there.
He began to realise that this was his favourite stall he had discovered at the market yet.
Finally, he spoke up, meeting your eye as he ordered.
‘I’ll just take a black americano. Please.’
He watched your eyebrow quirk as you added his order to the bill.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to be more adventurous? We have about 25 different flavoured syrups! My personal favourite is vanilla which I know is quite basic but you strike me as being more of a gingerbread or maple kind of man!'
Brendon couldn’t help but form a disgusted expression on his face at that. The idea of a sugary, syrupy drink - the type that some of the students at the hospital would have - was horrifying to him.
‘Okay… not a syrup guy. No worries!’ you chirped as you started to prepare their order.
‘No, no. It’s not like that.’ Brendon blanched. He was desperate to redeem this interaction. He didn’t know why he had been so taken in by you but he needed you to know that he wasn’t an awful man who refused any and all types of sugar - especially as so many of your products relied on it.
‘Look, I’ll take a brownie as well!’ he hastily said.
He watched the corners of your lips lift in a small smile. God he would order every brownie you were selling just to see you smile again.
‘Perfect! I’ll sort these coffees then I'll package that for you!’ you said with a slightly surprised but satisfied lilt in your voice.
He felt his mothers piercing gaze on him, attempting to assess why his personality had changed so much in the past 30 seconds. The Brendon she had known his whole life would never have ordered a brownie.
Never.
Not until he met this beautiful young woman running a coffee cart.
Brendon paid and took their coffees. You thanked them for their purchase and sent them off with a wave and a smile directed specifically towards Brendon. He immediately regretted leaving without attempting to ask for your number but your line was only growing and he didn't want to impact the perfect flow of business.
As his mother began to fire questions towards him about the interaction, he glanced back once more.. To his surprise your eyes met as they followed his large frame slowly walking away from your cart.
Of course, in his stupor he had failed to notice the small heart you had drawn on the side of his takeaway cup until his mother pointed it out to him.
Brendon, ever the cynic, began to attempt to justify it: 'She probably puts them on every cup. I mean come on she is basically sunshine and rainbows personified...'
His sentence trailed off as his mother gestured to her cup. There was no heart on it. No drawing at all. He felt a slight heat rise up his cheeks in a manner that was totally unexpected of the scariest surgeon at the PTMC.
At that moment he decided. He was coming back to the farmers market at any chance he could get.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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I hate when people make the male love interest call reader “Ma” just bc they’re black. Like, Carl Gallagher is more likely to call reader “Ma” than freaking Blaise Zabini!!!??
when there’s a false fire alarm in your office, you are gifted with the sight of the finest man you’ve ever seen. you want him now.
tags: smut, fluff, 18+, attraction at first sight, reader is HORNY 24/7, nervous!bkg, somewhat of a chronological order, facts might differ throughout. mixture of fics n drabbles
summary: sukuna has loved you since you were in high school, and when he finally gets his chance with you, four years after graduation, he's the perfect boyfriend.
he treats you like you're worth more than the entire world, devoted solely to you, committed to keeping you healthy and happy in his arms for all eternity.
if only he wasn't killing people behind your back.
content: 18+ mdni, smut, dub-con in the later chapters, rough sex, yandere sukuna, obsession, stalking, murder, blood, gore, manipulation, deception, unhealthy dynamics, jealousy, cheating (reader cheats on her bf with sukuna), sukuna is awful in this but he's LOVELY to reader exclusively, more tags to be added on a chapter by chapter basis!
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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
SUMMARY: Reader is an author who has recently begun writing a book with sexual content. She's experiencing a bit of a roadblock because, well... she's a twenty-five-year-old virgin. She doesn't know what to do until hot and sweet Jack Abbot comes up to her in her beloved coffee shop-slash-office and changes her entire life.
WARNINGS: This series is very spicy. Their relationship begins sexually, and emotions, vulnerability and story telling comes after. There are mentions of starting a family, as well as toxic relationships (previous partners; not current). The speed of their relationship is also quite fast in comparison to real life relationships. This is fiction.
PAIRING: Jack Abbot x afab reader
A/N: This is an age gap fic. Jack is 45 and reader is 25, turning 26. Reader in this series does not have a chosen race or ethnicity, but usually reader is envisioned as a bit chubbier (that is how reader is in most of my fics).
STATUS: Ongoing
PINTEREST BOARD
CHAPTERS
Chapter One: Roadblock (6.5k)
Chapter Two: A Date and a List (5.5k)
Chapter Three: Falling for Jack Abbot (Literally) (6.2k)
THE ETHICS OF RELATIONSHIPS - 'THE PROF GETO SERIES'
INSTRUCTOR INFORMATION
Professor Suguru Geto
Level: Advanced (18+)
Total Points: 91,264 / 91,264 (100% Complete)
Extra Credit Earned: 3,603
Recommended Study Playlist
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Professor Suguru Geto is a renown ethics professor, and you're a 4.0, straight A student whose GPA he's trying to ruin (or that's what you think). Instead of dropping the class, you're more intent on making him see your brilliance -- but you get more than you bargained for, when the two of you learn more about the other -- and what you owe to each other.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
I. I NEED SOMEONE OLDER....................................10,376 POINTS
II. ILLICIT AFFAIRS......................................................16,821 POINTS
III. THE WRONG PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME......12,010 POINTS
IV. YOU DREW STARS AROUND MY SCARS.........14,288 POINTS
V. WAIT FOR YOUR LOVE..........................................12,464 POINTS
VI. TEACH YOU HOW FOREVER FEELS…………….25,305 POINTS
EXTRA CREDIT
I. SUDDENLY, I HAVE A VALENTINE.......................1,208 POINTS
II. SAY YOU CAN'T SLEEP (BABY I KNOW).............2,395 POINTS
a collection of my favorite geto suguru fics i’ve read over the years that i want to spotlight, consisting of pieces that include fluff, angst, smut, and more. fics are divided by series/oneshots/drabbles. please heed all warnings & give all included authors their very much deserved flowers! shamelessly plugging my own geto fics as well :p i’ve marked superscript next to authors to indicate if they’ve been included multiple times in this post! will be updated regularly-ish with new recs
series:
best friend!geto (ongoing?) by @fricks ; i’ve reread all of the entries in this series so many times that i could beam this shit onto the back of my eyelids and reread them all over again just like that. i adoreeee geto’s characterization here (fricks is a geto expert truly) he’s such a charming little shit and the witty convos between him and reader are just tew good. i can’t decide on a favorite part cos they’re all amazing IM SERIOUS. THIS IS MY LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA PLEASE DONT BURN IT DOWN!!!!
dishonorable (complete) on ao3 ; regency/bridgerton aus are always divine and this fic is no exception. duke geto and reader’s chemistry is too good 🚬 love how they want to strangle each other yet they flirt with each other in the same breath. duke geto take it out its hurtingggguuuhhhh
six degrees of separation (complete) by @starmapz ² ; i read this yeaaaars ago so imagine my surprise when i dug this fic up again and realized trish wrote it 😭 the angst in this has stuck with me for YEARS . geto loves so hard and that facet really shines in this fic. the entire thing is incredibly true to his character as a whole and serves as an amazing analysis of his character. how am i even allowed to read this masterpiece without a price? like wdym this is FREE?
strangers (ongoing) by @yenayaps ; this fic will hit you hard cos jfc this is a truck of ANGST. i’ve never wanted eternal happiness and peace for two people so badly in my life. geto and reader have grown distant after a miscarriage and are in the process of learning & choosing to love each other again, and it makes me wanna bawllll. their arguments and thoughts are so grounded and feel incredibly real, making this fic all the more immersive and making the angst pack a few extra punches. i think about the diabolical restaurant scene once a month at least 😭
no. one party anthem (ongoing) by @indiewritesxoxo ⁵ ; this rockstar suguru right here is one i would suck right off the bone like hes a box of chicken wings. girl dad? charmer of the year n hes slick wit it too? THE PINING THE CHASING THE GROVELING THE TRYING TO BE BETTER FOR READER??? top tier truly. indie always shows out with her various geto series and this has gottaaaaa be one of the best. the angst and smut here are unparalleled. that hotel sex scene STAYS living in my head (gif of the duck smoking and shaking its head with a satisfied smirk). im forever rooting for geto in this fic IDGAF!!!!
meow or never (complete) on ao3 ; geto’s little shit of a cat (aptly named gojo) gets reader’s cat pregnant and chaos ensues. geto wants reader’s cookie so bad lmfaoooo just like gojo with reader’s cat… this whole fic is genuinely SO hilarious. super domestic, fluffy, and very slice-of-life too!
fwb!suguru (ongoing?) by @eraserbread ² ; elly’s prose is to die for and her word choice is so unique too so her works are always a treat to the soul. the way she writes geto.. mm… truly a five course meal. need geto and reader to communicate and stop trying to win the nonchalant-off (they’re both failing to be nonchalant). i’m shaking them. god i wanna smash these two together like barbie dolls 😢 (😏). let me get my wallet because it must be illegal to read this piece of art for FREEEEE?
lazy sunday morning and whispers in the library (complete) on ao3 ; going from domestic intimacy and first times in the first fic to some freaky exhibition shit in the second fic… yeaaaah this is my bread and butter. geto is SO romantic and sweet in these installments, especially the first part 😪 this geto needs to be in my bed by yesterday or i’m hanging myself by the ears on the nearest tower
smoking with stoner!getou suguru (complete) on ao3 ; been a while since i’ve read this but geto is slick and sexy ass motherfucker in this fic. his dialogue had me cheesinggggg I WANT HIM BAD BRAH! the exposition here is so lively and perfectly immersive, idk how to explain it but its SUCH a vibe. gojo and toji are total clowns in this fic lmfao the shit they were pulling in the background had me ctfuuuu. this fic is a certified fave
the roommate part 1 & part 2 (ongoing?) by @kenzieluvsnanami ; call this puth british with the way roommate geto is innittttt 🇬🇧 the way geto is written in these makes me nut untouched and on the spot… this man is a sexy ass fiend and ykw i like them crazy just like this. ESPECIALLY when it’s geto. love his cheekiness and tomfoolery here lmfaooo he’s entertaining asf
sometimes i peep on the handsome dad next door (complete) on ao3 ; the dilf suguru to beat all sugurus 🙂↔️ every time there was so much of a mention of either 1. his gray streaks or 2. how he interacts with nanako and mimiko, i started shaking like a little rabid dog on steroids. reader is such a freak in this LMFAOOJTKWHR just like me fr… i too would wake up at 5am just to watch geto get dressed 🤤 he’s so hot and assured and confident in this fic and it makes me wanna jump his bonessss. his and reader’s relationship and build-up is something you don’t wanna miss out on!
darling (complete) on ao3 ; the second i saw black reader x musician geto i knew this would be amazing. AND IT IS! op did such a lovely job of portraying the hard of hearing reader here. i adore how geto and reader use each other as inspiration for music and for writing, and seeing their arrangement develop into a relationship is so worth the read c:
breathe me in on ao3 ; fwb!suguru in this fic… i gotta light a blunt every time i think of him. i was sold the second he asked reader to come over not for sex but to cuddle and to have someone simply there with him. geto is soooo sensual to his core here like every thing he does and says feels like honey… and he’s SO smooth jfc. so fine. my sweetheart AND my little shit :,) the smut here is toe-curling
the ethics of relationships (complete) by @gojonanami ; i typically don’t read prof/students but this fic is just one of those onessss and if you haven’t read it then you’re missing out 🙂↔️ that’s how yummy this whole five course meal is. i’ve harassed so many friends with the link to this fic LMFAO i just want everyone to read this BAD… i’m due for a reread because it’s been a WHILE but so many scenes in this fic stand out in my memory. super good overall!!
brat (ongoing) by @kunareads ; producer geto and pop star reader you are so very famous to me! reader is such a vibe in this fic and it makes her relationship with geto all the more fun & enticing. their dynamic feels like snorting a line of coke in the best way possible but also i need these fools to communicate asap 😣 the formatting of this fic is SO fun and feels super interactive/immersive!!
vault boy (ongoing) by @/indiewritesxoxo ; fallout/apocalypse au!! if u havent gotten into fallout, indie makes the universe easy to understand. geto is such a sweetie pie in this fic and his humanity is devastating… MY POOR BABY :( i wanna hide him away in a bunker. speaking of bunkers, give me one to shack up with him in and we’d repopulate the entire world in just a few years TRRRRUST 🤣✌🏽
oneshots:
#INTRO2MUNCH101 by @satorena ; another situation where i read a fic years ago and became mutuals with the author later on (haiii serena). this fic is comedy fawking golddddd no joke but its also hot as hell. serena is too good at building up the chemistry between geto and reader (#welovemeanreadersbtw) and i love how desperate geto is here, he wants that cookie BAD. his fake nonchalant shit had no one fooled and every time reader called him out i was ctfu. the smut had me writhing brah WRITHING (and giggling profusely for many reasons)
rock you up on ao3 ; TA geto and professor reader is an unmatched dynamic brah YALL DONT EVEN GETTTT HOW MUCH I FUCK WITH THEM ANDDD THIS FIC… submissive geto was a very exciting surprise HEHEHEHEEEE i love seeing my man getting his shit rocked <3 the banter here is too mfing good and is something this writer very much excels at!!
why suguru’s wife is the best cook in the world! by @yunamoona ; a super good take on geto and his relationship with food AND the cutest meet cute to ever meet cute… yeah this is a banger. repeating what i said in the comments but when geto ate reader’s cookies i was smiling at my phone like a freak, because sometimes all it takes is just the act of kindness/love to be able to guide you down a path of healing :,) i love this fic sm. it’s one of a kind
what if you’re just someone i want around (i’m falling again) on ao3 ; post-jjk0 fix it fic where reader is assigned to watch over geto 😣💔 < the sound of my heart shattering. you can feel geto’s jadedness and bitterness radiating through the screen due to how vivid and deeply thoughtful each scene is written out. but despite it all, geto is such a sweetheart and lover to his core 😢
i’m afraid that’s just the way the world works (but i think that it could work for you and me) on ao3 ; an au where geto never defected and years later, reader and geto take in nanako and mimiko. such a heartwarming fic all around. i love my miminana forever and ever and they deserve the world
bed chem by @nanamiskentos ; this is sexy AND fucking hilarious, what MORE could you ask for. suguru had me curling my toessss in this fic jhtjwhrjsi his dialogue has me hot and ready like lil caesars. the descriptions here make me wanna lick my screen and digest every single word. best believe i’m cleaning my plate every time i reread this
the haunting by @/starmapz ; if you like horror fics this is absolutely the fic for you :3 if geto were my ex… shittttt i would crack him again and take him back too. this fic is a perfect blend of hot smut, angst, and unsettling horror. i can’t say much else cos of spoilers but the ending had me GAGGED
it will come back by @hellowoolf ; ballerina au with instructor geto and ballerina reader!! their push and pull in this fic had me reading with my hands (and puth 😣) clenched… the chemistry is SO buzzy and so loud. the smut is mfing fantasticcccc and the build-up to it is EXCELLENT. dialogue is on point toooooo everything geto says makes me giggle
top of the class on ao3 ; if my TA was as pretty (and pathetic) as geto in this fic, i’d crack tf out of them too 🤭 love the switch-up in the power dynamic here and how reader sooo effortlessly has geto wrapped around her finger
ghostface pussy killer by @saintkaylaa ; one thing about me is i loveeee a good fic where one chases the other and then they fuck nasty 😣 the aphrodisiacs being involved makes the stakes sm more intense (and hotter 😏). i’m obligated to reread this everyyyy october because this fic is peak
the best kind of remedy by @reignpage ; santa can i please get herbalist geto under my tree for christmas 🙏🏽 preferably naked and already oiled up 🙏🏽 stoner geto is absolutely and 100% my kryptonite everyyyy time and he’s extra sexy asl in this fic. DREAMY SIGH. the smut is so buzzyyyyy
one night only? by @uzugeto ² ; this is a certified hood classic iykwim. every time this fic pops up on my dash or in my memory, i just HAVE to reread it. jade is really and truly the god of managing to make fics perfectly fluffy, hilarious, and smutty like whewwwww… geto and reader here are so special to me I LOVE THEM DEARLY 😣😋
how to baby trap marry your best friend! by @/indiewritesxoxo ; FUCK MY BABY DAD ALRIGHT!!! i love idiot best friends in love bro like just put the crush in the bag and pop the questionnnnn, the yearning in this kills me in the best way possible! the first time they have sex and take pictures of each other is forever branded in my head cos its tooooo hot 🚬
lessons in love on ao3 ; oh to fall in love with dilf geto and to retire with him… whimsical sigh. such a comforting slice of life fic. if my future partner isn’t this sweet and devoted and understanding, i don’t want em! geto here is really the perfect husband 😋
cry for me by @bunnieeteeth ; coach geto and figure skater reader! really cannot say much about this fic for the sake of spoilers, but also because i genuinely have no words for how this fic makes me feel. just wow. trust me when i say that this fic will have you sitting up in your seat and staring at your phone in shock. i want geto and reader to get together so bad but at what cost 💔
the torture of small talk with someone you used to know by @betterinvienna ; rockstar geto (and your ex) and photographer reader how you’ve both moved me and changed me irreversibly. geto is a first class yearner with a ticket straight to piningville because ohhhh my goddddd he wants reader back so mfing bad . he’s losing the nonchalant war #chalantking and i’m happy about it! such a good angst & hurt/comfort fic. i love exes fics. EVERY SINGLE SONG IS ABOUT YOU… WAH…. 😢😢😢🥺🥺🥺🥺
the practice of kissing by @lovelivision ; we all cheer for kissing practice fics!!! geto is such a mouthwatering tease in this fic ughhtksjrns i have got to fuck him . he’s such a cocky little shit but also sososo sweet with reader and so accommodating… his duality is unmatched!
ghost of you by @suguruss1ut ³ ; this fic is my 13th reason ☹️ post-defection geto and reader who still love each other despite geto’s actions/ideals is lethal. so lethal. this fic had me rolling around in bed thinking about it for dayssss after finishing it… it’s so heartbreaking UGHHHH 💔
#THE PARTY AND THE AFTER PARTY by @screampied ; lock me in a room with stripper!geto for about an hour (please trap us together longer though.) and he’s walking out pregnant god willing. whole fic had me twirling my hair and checking my wallet for extra cash to toss geto’s way
you & me by @getosurya ; perfect perfect perfect hurt/comfort after an argument between geto and reader. despite everything, they love each other sm and it bleeds through each and every action of theirs… this fic is so tender and reassuring that it makes me melt :,)
maw on ao3 ; there are no words to describe this fic or how it makes me feel without my description/thoughts majorly falling flat. i simply cannot do this fic justice… PLEASE READ IT.
ask me to bleed (for you i will) on ao3 ; post-defection geto and non-sorcerer reader who works at a bakery… another fic that is my 13th reason lowkey. this is another fic that i cannot do justice nor summarize my feelings for properly but i am once again urging you all to read this
geto’s bride by @/uzugeto ; the effect that this fic has had on me actually needs to be studied because why am i so charmed by chucky doll geto to the point that i’ve sent this fic to multiple friends individually 😭😭 this shit had me CRYINGGGGG cos of how fucking funny it is alllll the way through lmfaooohtkwhrj and imagining certain scenes had me cracking up. i am such a sucker for sub geto in this fic… MAKE HIM WHIMPER!!!! (will update with new link when i can!)
simply ear-resistible! by @/indiewritesxoxo ; bunny geto is the cutest fucking thing to ever existtttt 🥺😭 even if he has a massive attitude LMFAO. him retaining a few bunny traits/habits after returning to his original form actually makes me want to chew on his cheek. reader and geto are TOOOO cute here and i want the best for them :]
purrrfect surprise by @/suguruss1ut ; do you like men who crawl on all fours while wearing cat ears?? look no further cos this is the fic for YOU!!! THIS IS MY SHIT!!! I love me some sub geto and this fic is pure peak. need him desperate justttt like this
STILL CANT HEAR ME? by @forgiven4u ; ive never liked a fic so mfing fast in my goddamned life . Wdym this is funny, sexy, well-written, prose is on point and the author’s voice in the exposition is hilarious… wdym i could read this fic for free brah!!! if geto ragebaited me this hard i too would start bouncing on it like crazy and making him empty his balls just to hear him whimper loud as hell (added on 4/23!)
the failing grade by @macbethinchains ; phy’s prose and exposition and word choices hit differentttt every time. she’s fr the type of writer that makes you wanna sit in silence and hold your head and just marvel in silence over how she creates her scenes in such a beautifully descriptive way… and ohhhh how that talent shines in this fic. again i’m not usually one to read prof/students so you know i’m #moved by this fic. the writing is just SO beautiful bro i wanna marinate in phy’s fics 😭😭😭 UGHHH AND THEIR DYNAMIC MAKES ME FEEL COO COO FOR COCOA PUFFSSSSS reader’s chasing… suguru’s restraint (until it snapped crackled and popped 😋)… reader being a freak (#real)… the i love you… OUUUUHHHHH. 20/10 as always (added on 4/25!)
PAINT THE TOWN RED! by @mamashima ; SAVE A HORSE RIDE A MFING COWBOYYYYYY!!!! … even though suguru is not one and doesn’t like to be called one LMFAO. suguru is the sheriff of a town that you, a vampire who hates men, moseys right on into. the wit imbedded in this entire fic, from the dialogue to the exposition to the inner thoughts, had me ROLLING brah, op is tewww smooth n funny with it 🙂↕️ and you know i love me some humor AND some mouth-watering push and pulls like the dynamic between suguru and reader. this fic is a new favorite so y’all are naturally obligated to read this. also switchy bottom!suguru >>>> everything else ever (added on 6/13!)
talk dirty by @kamiflix ; this fic has me running around in circles like a rabid doggggghtkwhejdkw cos suguru is slick asl and so cocky and perfect like ugh . Need that bad… suguru gets turned on by the mere sound of reader’s voice, and what was once a normal phone call turns into suguru putting on a show over video call 👅 AND WHAT A SHOWWWWW IT IS… after that i’d be at his place in 10 seconds flat so i can slob on him 😇 (added on 6/13!)
drabbles:
(i’ve written so many summaries/thoughts already that i won’t be doing so for these fics. titles are all pretty self-explanatory for the most part, and these are all super good short reads!! 🫶🏽)
emo!suguru and his pretty pink princess by @epicderpface
suguru + independent gf by @satoruined
mornings with suguru by @hayajiku
sub!suguru wax play by @bluukive
arcturus beaming by @oporotheca
love, as if it were carved in stone by @go6jo
tutor!geto getting overwhelmed by @/eraserbread
suguru volunteers to model for your art class and you didn’t expect him to have such a perfect dick by @gojosconsort
afterglow by @feyrinnn
kissing suguru by @sugurusbadhabit
binded bunny by @meowguru
domain expansion: unlimited creampies by @/suguruss1ut
lost in the sauce (you) by @fushiguho
childhood friend!suguru by @digitalro
guy next door by @seraphicsuguru (added on 4/17!)
stress toy!suguru by @fushi6oro (added on 4/23!)
tongue split by @sugurusbadhabit (added on 5/14!)
suguru is obsessed with aftercare… and you apparently by @princeable (added on 5/21!)
boyfriend!suguru by @jumpjo (added on 5/25!)
hungover breakfast with bf!suguru by @diaafterdark (added on 6/3!)
tracing suguru’s scar by @rengoatku (added on 6/13!)
playing with bsf!suguru’s hair before class by @reveries0fmine (added on 6/13!)
magic mishaps by @/indiewritesxoxo (added on 6/13!)
suguru’s retribution by @ohfreshlinen (added on 6/16!)
SUMMARY: Jack Abbot is not an overly-neighborly person. He has secret nicknames in his head for most of the people on his floor and actively avoids any and all types of neighbor politics. However, he can’t deny his growing fondness for the single mom and toddler in apartment seventeen. (Nor his burning hatred for your baby daddy).
WARNINGS: this series includes a very chaotic reader with an even more chaotic toddler, mentions of abandonment, Jack's inability to consider anything good and worthwhile for himself, eventual smut, friends to lovers, mentions of previous abusive relationships, mentions of mental health struggles, miscommunication, age gap (reader is around 27 and Jack is in his 40's), medical inaccuracies and more.
A/N: I am very very excited to share this series and bring it to life. It started as a very random idea that quickly transpired into a huge story in my head within a matter of minutes. It does touch on some potentially triggering topics but warnings will be given in each chapter!
PAIRING: Jack Abbot x Single Mom!Reader
STATUS: Ongoing
Alternatively, you can read on Wattpad or Ao3!
─── ⋆ CHAPTERS ⋆
PART ONE 𖤓♡ — Jack Abbot values his routine and structure. Work, SWAT, gym... and for the past six weeks, spending his Sunday mornings admiring the enigmatic single mom who's apartment balcony sits across from his. [3k]
PART TWO 𖤓♡ — A scuffle in the hall causes Jack to accidentally take Phoebe’s wallet to work instead of his. He gains himself a new nickname amongst the Pitt and finally learns a thing or two about you and your daughter. [7.3k]
PART THREE 𖤓 — A trip to the ED, a retirement meal, and a phone call with Robby. One leaves you up close and personal with your neighbor, one has Phoebe spilling secrets like it's an Olympic sport, and another has Jack realizing he's got a fucking crush on the single mom in apartment seventeen. [7.1k]
PART FOUR 𖤓♡ — Phoebe's birthday party consists of four sets of eyes ogling Jack from the second he enters your apartment, screaming children, your mom noticing something rather interesting, and a night on the balcony that changes the trajectory of everything. [8.7k]
⤷ PART 4.5 𖤓 — You don't hear from Jack for three days after the kiss. But despite being swamped at the hospital, after he reaches out via text, he doesn't stop. [SMAU]
PART FIVE 𖤓★ — When Jack offers his company in the form of a date to celebrate your book release, he gets to understand the inner workings of your mind a bit more. Unfortunately, it does leave him with an ache he has to tend to using nothing but his own imagination. [7.8k]
PART SIX 𖤓★ — Three months of dating with no label and no real sense of security has you spiralling a bit when Tom demands to meet Jack. And you quickly start to realize that despite your attempts of keeping Phoebe and Jack apart, some bonds form whether you intend for them to or not. [8.2k]
PART SEVEN 𖤓★ — When the double date from Hell roles around, you're left with a new friend while Jack is struggling to come to terms with the type of person Phoebe is stuck with as a father. But despite that, it doesn't stop you and Jack from ending your evening with a bang. [12.2k]
PART EIGHT 𖤓★ — Pizzas, karaoke, movies and a sleepover. All at Phoebe’s request, of course, for Jack to spend Saturday night with them. And when Sunday morning rolls around, she’s got some things that she needs to get off her chest. [7.1k]
PART NINE 𖤓♡ — When Phoebe's field day goes nowhere near as planned, Bella is left to pick up the pieces of your broken heart while Karis goes into labor and Jack and your father have a heart to heart. [10.1k]
PART TEN (FINALE) 𖤓★ — TBA
─── ⋆ BONUS CONTENT ⋆
TBA
─── ⋆ MISC ⋆
#APT.17 (a tag for anything related to this series)
summary — the worst-cared-for girl in the county keeps washing up in jack’s er, and he can’t help but start paying attention.
warnings — 19.2k. large age gap (jack’s fifty/reader’s in twenties), doctor/patient dynamic initially, power imbalance (attending/nursing student, age, life experience), yearning!jack, protective!jack, jealous!jack, and literally every single word in the book, mutual pining, slow burn, he falls first, hurt/comfort, reader shows signs of adhd but it isn’t explicit, alcohol use (recurrent drunkenness, mention of alcohol poisoning, ER, and repeated intoxication played somewhat lightly), loneliness/self isolation, low self-worth, it’s very difficult for her to accept care, lack of family support/implied estrangement, financial stress and overworking, she’s also spending an unrealistic amt of time hanging out in the ed but it’s fanfic so it’s ok, jokes about financial stress, injuries (sprains, split lip, bruising, gravel burns), medical setting, blood, referenced patient death (patient dies, off-page, Jack grieves), making out/heavy kissing, suggestiveeee content (thumb-in-mouth beat, grinding) but nothing explicit.
notes — oops sorry this fic is so so self-indulgent 🫶 i literally loved writing them tho i was thinking about them for days on end. tried to take a swing at this based on this idea i had + thank you @ker0senebunny for inspriring the shoe scene!!!! inspired by this post + my er visits where i was literally the worst patient ever
Friday and Saturday after midnight, the board filled up with the same predictable words; alcohol poisonings, bar-fight lacerations, the kids who’d taken things they couldn’t name and showed up convinced they were dying when they were mostly just twenty and having a large thought. Jack triaged it on autopilot, and he’d stopped finding any of it interesting somewhere around year seven.
Sure, sometimes there were some cases that got a mild laugh out of him or turned his head. There was a kid who’d superglued his halloween mask on his own face for a dare. The guy who’d lost a bet and swallowed something he wouldn’t name in front of his mother, who was present and furious. The occasional genuinely strange thing the human body did that still, after all these years, made Jack think huh, that’s interesting, the small grim curiosity that was about the only part of the job the years hadn’t fully sanded down. He kept those and told them to new nurses over shitty coffee at four a.m. because he supposed that was a better story than what he could say about the Middle East.
The first time you came in, he’d handed you over to Shen. You were a sprained wrist and a BAC that explained the wrist, sixteen other things were louder, and Shen was free then.
He’d clocked you for half a second on his way to a GI bleed in bay nine: girl on the gurney, one heel too high on, and one somewhere in the greater metropolitan area, some little pink lace-trimmed thing sliding off one shoulder, telling Shen with enormous seriousness that she was so sorry, she didn’t usually do this, she’d had a singular margarita. Only.
Singular. He’d categorized it under the thousand other single margaritas he’d sworn to in this department and forgotten you before he’d reached the bleed.
The second time, he didn’t take you either, but he noticed the wrist.
Same wrist. Different night — a Saturday, three weeks in, the sort of shift where the waiting room sounded like a kennel — and he caught it sideways while he reviewed another chart. It was the same left wrist, taped this time, the nails on that one hand done in some soft pinky color gone chipped at the tips as though the week itself outlasted the manicure, somebody walking you through the discharge paperwork you clearly were ignoring. Something thought for him instead of him thinking much for it, some pattern-recognition thing buried under twenty-some years of reading bodies fast, the same instinct that made him glance twice at something almost normal. A wrist that kept coming back, he supposed. A thread snagging on a nail, there and gone.
The third time, it was Shen, breezing past the station with his Dunkin, saying over his shoulder, “Frequent flyer’s back.”
He shrugged, not yet placing that you were the frequent flyer, and went to bed four.
And that — somewhere between the third time and a number he stopped keeping an honest count of — was where it stopped being a chart and became some sort of thing. A bit, he’d say. The nights the bars let out and the board lit up, he’d find himself reading the incoming names a half-second longer than triage required, and feeling something wrong in his chest when yours wasn’t in them.
Pittsburgh was notoriously interesting, Jack learned through you, in that it apparently contained an infinite supply of ways a girl could get herself in trouble. He was convinced he could’ve drawn a map of the city by your injuries. There was the ankle, of course, a recurring grievance, always the shoes, never your fault. There was one time you’d burned your hand on a curling iron getting ready tipsy and come in more upset about the makeup you’d had to redo (because of crying it off) than the blister. The night you’d gone over in a parking lot because you refused to look at the ground while walking — looking at the ground, while drunk, you informed him, was how you trip — and the time you sliced your finger open trying to shotgun a White Claw with a key because someone had bet you couldn’t. You were really proud of the last one, you’d won the bet.
You were never the same disaster twice, he had to give you that. A little too keen on busting yourself up here and there, sure, but at least it was the wrist once, then a knee that met a curb, then a memorable evening involving a fence you’d been certain you could clear. You came in apologizing — always apologizing, to him, to the nurses, once, memorably, to the wall — and you came in sweet, which was the part that got under him, because drunk people in this ER were a lot of things and sweet was rarely one of them.
“Mmm,” you hummed the fourth or fifth time, the second your eyes found him through the gap in the curtain, going boneless with relief like Jack was the cavalry and not the man who was meant to flash light into your eyes for thirty seconds. “The pretty one.”
Jack let out a huff. “Thanks, doll.”
“Doll,” you repeated, the word going gummy in your mouth. “He calls me doll.”
“Eyes open. Follow the light.”
“You call everyone that, Dr. Abbot?” you said, his name coming out in a cluster like you were losing thread of it, the Abbot dissolving into something closer to a hum.
“Sure do,” he lied. “Track the light.”
You looked at his mouth, then his hands, then back up, a slow uncoordinated sweep because your eyes had stopped reporting to anything in particular, much less what they had to. Pupils blown wide and lazy. He thumbed your eyelid up a fraction to get the light where he needed it; your lashes were clumped and starry with whatever mascara had survived the night.
He held the penlight steady and waited you out. He had nowhere to be. That was the thing about the dead hours after bars closed; the bleed had been signed up to the floor, the chest pain turned out to be a panic attack and a large energy drink, and there was just you, and the saline ticking into your arm one slow drop at a time.
“What’d you get up to tonight?” he murmured, thumb finding the pulse at your wrist, counting without meaning to.
“S’fast ‘cause you’re here,” you said, sounding very pleased with yourself.
“Sure it is. Where’d you hurt yourself tonight?”
“... stairs,” you said after a moment, like your brain had to run a few laps to get to the word.
“Oh, yeah?” He hummed. You lifted your free hand a little off the mattress, lost track of it, and dropped it back down. “How many?”
“Mm. Four?” You squinted at the ceiling. “Maybe three. I dunno. Not the Great Wall or somethin’. Promise.”
“I believe you.” He nodded, then turned your forearm to the light, finding the scrape you’d come in with. It was gravel-burn, raw, the heel of your hand and a stripe up your wrist. Nothing that needed more than cleaning. You watched him do it with your head tipped against the pillow, gone quiet so the talking had run out for a second, which never lasted.
“Should I get a better first aid kit?” you asked, then clenched your jaw for a second like you felt something was wrong with it. “S’I don’t have to bother you all the time?”
“Might be a good idea to invest,” he said. He pulled the swab through the gravel-burn slowly, and you hissed and tried to pull back the hand on reflex. “Easy.” He kept it, his grip light yet unmoving around your fingers. “Almost done. Don’t fight me.”
You hummed, like you wanted a different answer.
Jack wet his lips, shaking his head slightly. He worked the grit out of the scrape, a fleck of it catching raw skin, and he tilted your arm to the light, getting it on the second pass, and wiped it on the gauze. Your hands twitched in his, and he pressed your fingers flat to the mattress with his thumb, and they stayed.
“You’d have to do it yourself, though,” he said. “Bathroom sink at three in the morning with one hand.” He reached for fresh gauze. “You’d make a mess of it.”
You frowned at the ceiling, nodding. “Sounds a little bad.”
“It’s a lot bad.” He laid the gauze over the scrape, thumbed the tape down at the edge of your wrist slowly, smoothing it flat where it wanted to lift. His knuckle dragged once over the thin skin there, and he felt your pulse jump under it. “You’d scar, probably.” His thumb passed the chipped polish, the chunky gold ring you’d kept on, even for this. “You’ve got nice hands. Shame to wreck ‘em over the sink.”
It took you a second. “You think so?”
“Don’t wreck ‘em.”
“You like when I come in,” you said, delighted.
“What I’d like,” he said, flat, lifting his eyes to yours, “is you off the stairs and down to the one drink.” His thumb settled over the back of your hand again. “But if you’re set on flinging yourself down, then you come here. Deal?”
Your fingers had curled around two of his somewhere in there loosely, without you noticing. He felt them settle, and he held very still so as to not spook you. He chose to not acknowledge it or look at it.
“Deal,” you mumbled, somewhere far off, probably forgetting the front half of the terms.
He let it go at that, taping down the last edge and turning over your wrist once more to be sure of it. Then he set your hand back on the mattress, yours still loosely hooked through his, going nowhere.
“Anyone out there to get you home?” he asked.
“Dunno.” Your nose scrunched. “Was gonna Uber.”
He sighed through his nose. “Where’s that girl — the one you came in with last time? Why don’t you call her?”
“That’s annoying, Dr. Abbot,” you said, almost in a whine.
“Yeah?” He kept looking at the wall behind you. “What’s annoying about a ride home?”
“Calling people. Making it a thing.” Your free hand flopped vaguely. “Then they gotta come get you, and they’re all — have to be nice about it, but you can tell.” Your nose scrunched. “It’s a whole production.”
He pressed his thumb flat back over your hand where your fingers were still caught in his.
“Oh? Nothing annoying about it, sweetheart. You call, she comes. Simple as that.” He turned to face you. “But if you insist on it, I’m not signing you off until you’re good enough to go home alone. So you call your girl, or you sit right here and keep my department company till you’ve cleared enough that I’ll sign off on it.”
Your eyes narrowed as you looked at him as though he’d spoken a different language. “Second one?”
“Obviously you pick that one,” he said.
He pulled the stool over and sat. For a few minutes, he had nowhere to be, and now, apparently, neither did you.
It wasn’t that you simply didn’t let people help you, either. Jack had never seen anyone so committed to being simply fine. Jack had met the stoic kind before; construction guys who walked in with rebar through a forearm acting like it was a small inconvenience; old ladies who’d been having a heart attack since last Tuesday and didn’t want to be a bother. But Jack had always believed those people to be suppressing, and you were just convinced, somewhere down in the foundation, that needing anything was an imposition.
That was also why the shoes confused him so much.
“This is the same damn ankle,” Jack said, turning your foot in his hands, watching the swelling outside of it.
“You don’t have to remind me. Most men buy me a drink before they get this familiar with my ankles,” you said, then groaned as you looked at his eyes going over the swelling.
“No drink.” He pressed along the bone. “Not my fault you keep handing your ankle to me.”
You tipped your head back against the pillow, groaning again. “Dr. Abbot, they look so bad. I feel like I’m pregnant.”
“I can do a quick blood draw and we can rule it out.” His palm flattened on the mattress beside your feet, leaning over to meet your eyes again. “But I think it’s those heels of yours, doll.”
Your eyes snapped to him. “Don’t be a dick, Dr. Abbot.”
He tilted his head, then pointed at the laminated paper stuck to the wall. “Aggressive behavior of any kind toward healthcare workers is a felony.”
“Then arrest me, doctor. I’ll die on this hill — and they’re not heels.” Your lips pursed, and the corner of your mouth kicked up. “Cuffs may be a little forward for a date, but I won’t stop you.”
“Aren’t you just so sweet,” he muttered. “What are they, then?”
“Bottega Lido Mules.”
The words meant absolutely nothing to him — could’ve been a pasta dish, a town in Italy, a wine — but they clearly did to you, so he remembered them.
“That’s nice, doll. They’ll be the reason I see you again.”
“Maybe, ‘cause I’ll never stop wearing them.”
You said the words your whole face, hands coming off the mattress to make the point with a drunk theatrical conviction as you argued something that genuinely mattered to you. Jack thought, not for the first time since he’d met you, that you’d have been magnetic stone-sober at a dinner party, the kind of girl that made a table lean in. It was just that he only ever got the 3am version.
At least you had a hill you’d die on and didn’t apologize for, Jack supposed.
“You married, Doctor?” you asked as he started icing your ankle.
“No,” he said, holding your eyes for a second. “Why — you got a boyfriend I should know about, then?”
He almost wished you did have one. He wished that there were somebody whose name you’d have said just now who’d be in the waiting room with his jaw tight because you’d gone and hurt yourself again. Somebody who’d take care of the ankle when you walked out of here in crutches, who took the keys when you had too many. He wished there was a person in the world whose job you were.
And you weren’t his first patient who he’d understood to not have someone taking care of them. He knew that if he carried them all, he’d drown inside a month if he tried to be the person nobody else had been. He’d never once had it turn into a wish, standing here with an ice pack in his hand going slack in his hand because he was too busy resenting someone who didn’t exist for not being in the waiting room.
He wondered when down the line you’d stopped letting the people in your life around you be the ones you could call, became a girl who said sorry for bleeding and had nobody, nobody, and looked at him like he was the warmest place she’d been in all week.
You laughed. “If I had a boyfriend, would I be laying it on so thick?”
He let out a breath through his nose, despite himself. “Stop wearing the heels, doll. Not nice to not have a foot.”
The next time you came in, it was a Thursday. With some pileup of bad luck, you came in somewhere past one with a split lip and a story about a dance floor he only half got the shape of. Jack hadn’t even been assigned to you yet, he’d just seen your name on the board, and reassigned himself quietly enough that dared anyone on shift to comment. Nobody did.
“Lip’s not bad,” he said, tilting your chin up under the light, thumb at your jaw. The split was already going fat and shining at the center of your lower lip, and he found his eyes stayed on your mouth a second past the part that was his job, on the soft unhurt swell of it under the hurt. He moved his thumb. “Doesn’t need anything. You bit it when you fell down. That’s all.”
“S’throbbing, Doctor,” you mumbled, the word coming around muffled around the split.
“It’ll throb. You’ve got a swollen lip.” He let go of your jaw and reached for the penlight. “Eyes on me.”
“I was so cute before this,” you said through a groan.
The huff that came out of him was almost a laugh, dragged out against his own will, and he shared a fleeting look with Bennet — a fairly new nurse — who had tilted his head briefly and was too afraid to meet your eyes.
“Alright. Still the prettiest girl I’ve treated tonight,” Jack said when your brows had furrowed together.
“You treat other girls?”
“It’s a hospital,” he said. “Few hundred a week.”
Your face looked wounded. “Few hundred.”
He leaned in slightly, faking a whisper. “You’re my top three.”
You were further gone than usual tonight. He’d noticed it the second he came around the curtain, the way your head was having a hard time holding itself up, the loose unmoored swim of your eyes that took longer than it should to find his finger. A piece of hair had come loose and stuck to the gloss at the corner of your mouth and you hadn’t the coordination to deal with it, and he had the unprofessional impulse to, and didn’t.
Bennet kept working the blood pressure cuff up your arm, half an eye on you, half on his own work.
“Track the light,” Jack murmured. “Slowly.”
“Too bright.”
“Tough.” The corner of his mouth moved up slightly. “You can bat your lashes at me when we’re done. Right now, I need ‘em open.”
You batted them anyway, slowly and theatrically, just to be a problem about it. They were long, and the theater of it was so ridiculous, and Jack had to bite down the inside of his cheek to keep his face flat to wait you out, until you gave up and tracked the finger. Your pupils were reactive, equal, and lagging half-a-beat behind. He clicked the light off.
“Too bright,” you said again.
“It’s off,” he drawled, chuckling.
Bennett thread a line into the back of your free hand, and you watched him sink it with a drowsy focus.
“Why’s it go in the back of the hand?” you mumbled. “More nerves there. Hurts more. Why not the — inside. By the elbow.” You tilted your head slightly to let your eyes wander to the crook of your arm. “Bigger vein. The antec—antecubital,” you said carefully, sounding out each syllable, afraid of messing it up. You wet your lips and turned to face him, then Bennet. “Why’s nobody use the good one?”
Jack pursed his lips and looked at you for a moment.
“Saves the good one,” he said, catching up, eyes going back to your chart. “AC vein blows easily when somebody’s moving around, and you —” He tipped his head at you, raising a brow, the squirming drunk of you. “ — Are gonna move around. Back of the hand’ll hold. I’d rather you be sore than re-stuck twice ‘cause you couldn’t sit pretty for thirty seconds.” He paused as he saw your eyes glaze over. He sighed. “Ask me how I know that about you.”
You’d gone busy, lips moving slightly like you were repeating it back to yourself so it’d stick, and Jack felt something in his chest shift a degree as he watched you do it.
He sighed, dragging a palm over the lower half of his face. “Where’d you learn that, then?”
“School,” you said to the ceiling, a small hint of pride taking over your voice. “M’gonna become a nurse. Gonna be good at it.”
Bennet snorted, finishing the tape. “Gonna be patching up drunk girls just like you then, huh,” he said. “Full circle.”
Jack watched the pride go out of your face slowly, like a house losing its power. Your chin dropped and your eyes slid from Bennet to the curtain as your hand fisted in your lap.
“Yeah,” you said, almost curiously. “Guess so.”
Jack’s jaw clenched involuntarily. It wasn’t the guy’s fault, not really. It was a nothing joke, the sort the whole department tossed off a hundred times a shift, the gallows shorthand that kept you sane at two in the morning. Jack had made worse about patients who’d never know, about drunks who wouldn’t remember, about exactly this, exactly girls like you. He’d just never had one of them go quiet before, watched the bright thing fold itself up and get tucked away.
“Bennet, you done?”
“Yeah, line’s good — ”
“Then go take vitals on six. I’ve got her.”
Bennet went, and it was just the two of you again.
Jack pulled the stool over with his foot and sat — lower than he had to, level with you, taking himself out of the column of people standing over you tonight and telling you what you were — and waited until your eyes came up off the curtain and found him.
“There she is,” he said when your eyes found him. He turned your taped hand over under the light like there was still something to do with it. There wasn’t, he just wanted his hands on something of yours while he undid what the room had done. “Look at me. Nothing good on the curtain.”
“How’s school treating you then, doll?” he asked, aiming for offhand and not steering you off whatever Bennet had knocked loose.
“Hard,” you said, but a small smile had crawled up your lips. “But I like it.” Your shoulders came up loosely.
“Yeah?” He kept his thumb moving over the back of your hand slowly, like he could press the bright thing back up to the surface where it belonged. “I think you’ll be good at it.”
It was such a strange feeling, Jack distantly noticed, to feel this utter conviction. He was rarely sure of anything good anymore. Sure of plenty else; sure within ten seconds of a bad rhythm which way the night was going to break, sure of which of the kids wheeled in at 2 am he’d see again and which he wouldn’t, a grim accumulated certainty that had nothing in it he’d ever wanted to be right about.
The job had made him an expert on the downslope of things. He could read the exact moment a body wanted to quit better than he could read most of what people said to his face. And here you were, and he was so sure of the other direction, and he felt the same weight of it behind his sternum, except it had swung and pointed at something good for once. You were going to be excellent at this.
It bothered him a little, how much he wanted to be there to see it, whoever you were going to be once you stopped washing up on his floor on the worst nights of your week. He’d known you, what, a handful of shifts as a frequent flyer, a bit, a name his eyes unconsciously caught on. He had no business feeling certain of anything about you, and he was, and he’d let himself feel it.
Your eyes found him properly again. “Liar.”
He huffed out a short laugh. “Tell you what. You finish that program, you get through all that mess where they try to drown you.” His thumb smoothed over the tape. “Then you come find me here and we’ll see if we can get you here with me on nights. Clearly you’re at your finest then.”
It was maybe something silly to say, and Gloria may have his head for it. He had no actual standing to say anything like it, even though you’d never remember it. He knew better; hope was a controlled substance in his field and he was stingy with it on purpose, because he’d seen the withdrawal.
But God, he’d love to see the part of you he could only catch glimpses of through the wreck like a light under the door. He’d love to be the one who taught you which arrogance to keep and which to let the job take away. He’d love, plainly and without anywhere to put it, to watch you become who you’d just told him you were going to be.
It was a lot of loving for a girl who’d been in his department and wouldn’t recall his face or a word of this by tomorrow morning. He was getting sentimental, or old, or both; the years stacked up behind his eyes until he started mistaking everything for a second chance at something.
Your lips moved. “So I can patch girls up like myself?”
“Nah.” He kept looking at your hand. “You can patch up old bastards like me, too.” Then, he pointed his index finger of his free hand at you, mock-stern. “Gotta make sure you’re not at point three BAC, though. Will have to do that work to get you working with me.”
“Mm.” Your eyes flickered up to the ceiling, weighing it with the enormous gravity of the very drunk as though he’d posed a very real proposition to you. “Okay. For you, I’d stop.”
“For me?” he repeated, mostly to buy himself a second.
“Mm-hm.” You turned your face to him and said it with such ease, no glance away to leave yourself an exit. “You’re worth not drinkin’ over.”
Your words went in clean, the way the best and worst things do, under the ribs where he kept nothing armored because nobody ever aimed there. Jack felt the back of his neck go warm and was abruptly, intensely grateful for the light that wouldn’t display it.
Jack huffed, having to look away at the floor then. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all year, and you’re not gonna remember it. Hell of a thing.”
When he made himself look back up, you’d tipped your face into the pillow, watching him from the side with your eyes gone soft and heavy, the smile arriving unguarded across your mouth. The split tugged one corner of it, that small wince folded right into the sweetness, and you seemed to not feel it.
He had the sudden, idiotic wish to have met you on a night you’d remember. To have perhaps caught you when you fell at the bar, to have been the stranger whose arm happened to be there, not the doctor it eventually routed you to. Perhaps he could’ve been a man in your night instead of a stop in it.
He shook his head. “You’re trouble, you know that, right? Saying all these nice things. What’s a man supposed to do with that?”
He’d have liked to have been remembered, was the bottom of it. By you specifically. He’d spent decades being the man people were grateful to and glad to forget.
“What’s your name, Doctor Abbot?” you asked, drowsy.
He looked down at his badge, then back up at you. “Take a wild guess?” Then, he added, “You never looked at my badge?”
“Sorry. Didn’t read.”
“Don’t apologize to me. It’s Jack.”
Jack was doing his usual rounds this Friday, on a rush from a chest pain in two that turned out to be a panic attack and a kid in five who’d put a kitchen knife through the meat of his own palm trying to halve a frozen bagel when Ellis caught him by the elbow at the board.
“Heads up, Abbot,” she said, grinning. She nodded toward triage, toward the doors. “Bed three. Your, uh—” The grin tipped over, delighted with itself. “Girlfriend’s got a boyfriend.”
It was a running thing now. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time you’d washed up on his shift the staff had started on it — your frequent flyer, your stray, your girl’s back — and Jack had stopped bothering to deny it because that’d only feed it, and he’d learned not denying it had a way of starving the joke faster.
He looked, and was immediately able to notice what you weren’t doing more than what you were; you weren’t grinning at the ceiling, weren’t doing that boneless sweet-relief thing. You were sitting up too straight on the bed, hands folded in your lap, and there was a guy fitted to the chair beside you with one arm slung along the back of yours and a hand resting on your knee like he’d put it there to mark the spot. He was saying something low to the side of your face, and you were nodding at it, and not looking at anybody.
Jack felt a muscle tick in his jaw, immediately not feeling anything nice about the situation. “I got it — you mind taking six for me? I’ll come in a couple minutes.”
By the time he’d made it to you, he’d settled his face into something unbothered. You could read it, he’d realized at some point during your frequent visits, and that only meant he had to be on his better behavior around you.
“Evening.” He pulled the curtain half-round behind him, glanced at the chart clipped to the foot of the bed, then at you. “What’d we do tonight?”
“She caught an elbow,” the guy answered. “Some asshole on the dance floor. It’s nothing — she’s fine. She’s just a lightweight, aren’t you — ” A little squeeze on your knee. “ — didn’t even really need to come in, but y’know. Better safe.”
You weren’t a lightweight, he immediately wanted to correct. He’d seen you put away enough over the months to know your tolerance better than this guy apparently did; he knew the difference between the nights you were genuinely wrecked and the nights you came in clearer than you let on, and looking at you, tonight, you weren’t anywhere near the state implied.
“You,” he said, tipping his chin in your direction. “Not him. Where’d it get you?”
You lifted your hand up from your lap and touched your cheekbone, movement slow, and Jack stepped in and tipped your head up toward the light with two fingers under your chin, thumb resting just shy of the scrape. The skin had gone dark along the bone, tender, an elbow’s worth of it. Nothing that needed more than an ice and a night, but you were still holding still under his hand and not meeting his eyes, and that he didn’t like at all.
“It’s okay,” you said. “Really. S’not even — ”
“Let me be the judge of that, sweetheart. Gettin’ paid for this.” His eyes flicked down to yours and caught, holding it there a second with a small question in the rise of a brow, before he went back to the bone, thumb tracing the edge of the bruise so light you barely felt it. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth at the sight. “Follow my finger. Eyes only.”
You followed, pupils fine and equal. No concussion in it.
“She’s fine, I told you,” the guy said from the chair, a little laugh under it like he was inviting Jack in on something. “Hardly. She bounces back.”
Jack clicked the penlight off and turned to the side. “Gonna need the room.”
“I’ll stay.” The hand went back to your knee. “I’m all good here.”
“Can’t clear a head strike with people in the room. You get it.” Jack tilted his head to the side, raising a shoulder. “Liability. Coffee machine’s down the hall. Give me two minutes with my patient.”
The easy smile on the guy’s lips went thin around the edges, looking for a thing to push against and not finding it. He stood up slow, making a show of it, squeezing your knee and letting you know he’ll be back in a minute, babe, a hand trailing your shoulder on the way past, all of it aimed less at you and more at Jack holding the curtain. Jack pressed his lips in a thin line as he met the guy’s eyes.
The second the curtain closed behind him, a breath left you, tiny and involuntary, and your shoulders came down in the empty room.
“Sorry, Dr. Abbot,” you murmured. “I keep being a mess at this place.” You took in a short, almost shaky breath. “Sorry.”
“None of that,” he almost grumbled, penning your chart. “Your folks down here, sweetheart?”
“No,” you said to your lap, picking the edge of the blanket. “Back home. A few states over.” You let out a laugh. “Just me out here. S’nice.”
Jack forced a small smile, having to look at the ceiling while you looked down at your lap, shaking his head, more of an action for himself than for you. He pulled the stool over with his foot and sat, getting level with you.
“What’s goin’ on with you, huh?” he asked quietly, making sure there was nothing sharp in his tone at all. “Honest. I like seeing you but not like this bruised up with a guy who talks for you.” His thumb found your wrist. “So talk to me. What’s going on?”
“He’s fine,” you said. “Just likes being around.”
Jack tilted his head, dipping his head to meet your eyes that were still facing down. “Not the important part of the question, and you know it.”
You sighed. “Sorry, Jack.”
“Quit it. The only thing I want from you tonight is some honesty, alright?”
A corner of your lip kicked up, even though the dimness in your eyes held. “Your eyes look really pretty tonight.”
“Heard that one before,” he drawled. “Had ‘em fifty years. Try a new one.”
“Your neck’s going red,” you mumbled, fingers reaching up to press flat to the warm of his skin, right there below the jaw, like you just had to feel whether it was true.
Jack stilled. Your fingers were cold on his neck. He distantly registered his pulse was probably going under your fingertips, and you’d feel it if you held there a second longer. And then you caught yourself, hand snapping back to the blanket.
“Sorry. Sorry — I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that — ” you said, the words coming out in a taut string.
“Easy,” he said, voice coming out rough. He swallowed. “Got me all flustered and now you’re gettin’ all shy?”
You huffed a small laugh, your hand still fisted in the blanket where you’d snatched it back. “I’m not allowed to do that. I don’t think.”
“Had no idea you knew how to behave,” he leaned a little back from the stool, crossing his arms. “Should I be worried about that guy out there?”
“Jealous, Doctor?”
He rolled his eyes slightly, not responding.
You sighed when you realized he wasn’t taking the bait. “He’s fine. He just likes being around.”
He stood off the stool and reached for the discharge clipboard at the foot of the bed.
“Whatcha doing there?”
“My job.” He clicked the pen. “Clearing you. You’ve got no concussion. You’re not dying tonight.” He scrawled on the paper. “And I’m writing you a script for the bruise and a code for an Uber — ”
“No, no,” you said immediately. “Please don’t do that.”
He raised his hand with the pen, palm open. “You never let me Uber you back when you’re alone. At least have this.” Your face scrunched up, and he could practically feel the guilt building in you. “Don’t need to use it now. Or ever. You can keep it for whenever.” He set the slip on your lap before you could push it back at him, the matter completely closed on his end. “Goes in your phone case. You can forget it exists until you need it.”
“You can’t keep handing me stuff — ”
“Department’s got a whole stack. You’re not special.” He capped the pen, though the corner of his mouth made it slightly visible that his words were false. “Don’t flatter yourself, doll.”
You looked down at the slip, your thumb worrying the edges of it. “I don’t like taking things.”
“I noticed. A few hundred times now.” He tucked the pen back in his scrub pocket, and his voice came down a notch. “If it really makes you feel so bad, though, then maybe we can start taking care of ourselves so you don’t have to keep ending up here?”
Jack was in the middle of hand-off, Robby doing his thing before Robby left and did whatever the hell he did. They were at the board, Robby running down the floor. It was six-fifteen in the ugly hour, the in-between where the day shift was dragging itself toward the door and the night hadn’t started biting yet, the light through the ambulance doors gone gold and slanted and almost decent for once.
And then the doors slid, and you came through them. Jack’s attention peeled to you the second your shape entered the room, except this was wrong, he distantly registered. It was daylight and six in the evening and you were on your own two feet, upright and, assumedly, sober and walking in through the front like a person as opposed to a patient. You were wearing a jacket that swallowed you, and he assumed underneath it was shorts of some sort. He could see a stripe of navy cotton peeking from under the collar of your jacket as you adjusted a tote bag on your shoulder.
You looked, frankly, like a completely different species from the one he scraped off bed four on weekends. The jacket was too big — his first thought was that it was a man’s, and his second thought, which he didn’t care for, was about whose — sleeves shoved up to your forearms, a stripe of soft navy cotton on the collar, and below it bare legs and shorts and sneakers that had likely never seen the inside of a club. Your hair was up and a little damp at the temple and your face was scrubbed clean.
You looked like somebody’s whole good day, he thought. You looked around around the waiting room with slightly widened eyes, a lost expression coating your features like you’d built up a lot of nerve to walk in here and had no idea what to do with it.
“ — and the tox screen is still pending, so don’t let them,” Robby was saying.
“Mhm,” Jack said, attention already halved.
And Bennet, breezing past the triage desk with cheerful obliviousness, caught your figure and said, out loud, “Don’t tell me you’ve started day drinking. It’s barely past six, you gotta pace yourself — ” He let out a small laugh at his own joke, and kept walking, and didn’t see the way it landed.
Your body stiffened, and you looked like a deer in headlights. Your mouth opened, some sort of flustered apology forming, he was sure.
Jack let out a short groan, shaking his head. He set the tablet on the counter, already moving to cross the floor toward you. “Finish the hand-off with Shen. I gotta go deal with something.”
Robby said something at his back — deal with what? — but Jack was already gone, crossing the floor slowly but somehow still eating the distance fast, and he watched you spot him coming and watched the relief crash over your face. Except you were sober now, in the daylight, and your whole face was going soft and grateful and just slightly wrecked at the sight of him.
He stopped a couple feet short of you, closer than a doctor, further than he stood to you at night. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands — there was no chart to hold (he should’ve brought the tablet) or wrist to take or a penlight to shine — so he clasped them behind his back, and tilted his head to get a better look at you.
“Hi,” you breathed.
“Hey,” he said, eyes doing a quick once-over to make sure you really didn’t have any new injuries.
You shifted the tote under his gaze and clutched whatever was in the bag a little tighter.
“Jack —” you started, stopped, like the name had come out wrong. “ — Dr. Abbot.” You winced, pinching your eyes shut for a second. “Jack?” you tried to say again, smaller, your eyes flicking up to check his face to check if you’d overstepped. “Sorry, I don’t know which — ”
“Jack’s great.” His mouth tugged up, despite himself. “You’ve called me a lot worse. Jack’s a step-up.”
You let out a startled little laugh, your mouth coming over your mouth like you could catch it, as your body eased a degree.
“I’m sorry — I don’t — God, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry.”
“You know how many times you’ve apologized to me? Quit it.” He rubbed a finger over his lips. “What’s got you here today, then?”
“Um, I came to see you.” He raised a brow, and you let out a short breath, then continued, “I might not remember a lot of it, but I remember you took really good care of me. And my friends who came in with me sometimes said you took really good care of me.” The words came out softer now, flowing, more earnest. “Even though I was a mess. Especially when. So I just wanted to —” You shrugged, smiling slightly. “ — come say thanks.”
Jack felt the complete warmth of you land somewhere he kept no armor. “It’s the job,” he said quickly, before he could stop himself. “You didn’t have to come down here for that. That’s — it’s what we do. Anybody on shift would’ve done the same.”
Your expression faltered for a moment, and your eyes dropped to the tote at your side as your shoulders came in. You shook your head, a small motion, then smiled again.
“Right. No — yeah, of course.” You chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it a — I know it’s your job.” You shifted the bag, then shifted your weight from one foot to another. “Still, though. You did, so I wanted to.”
Jack already wanted to take his words back, but he couldn’t, so he just shook his head. “Hey, you’re my problem, though. So thank you. For the thanks. We’re even.”
Your shoulders eased and you nodded. “Well, I also have something for you.” You hauled a container out of your tote and held it out to him with both hands before you could chicken out. “It definitely doesn’t make up for all of the times you helped me.” You looked down at the container. “And I don’t know if you’re lactose intolerant, or have a peanut allergy or anything. I’m sorry if you do — I can — ”
“I’ve got a cast-iron everything. The cookies won’t kill me.” When you pushed the container further to him, he took it off your hands, eyes quickly scanning the round chocolate chip cookies, forcing a smile down. He swallowed whatever had lodged in his throat.
“These are homemade?” He weighed the container in both hands, absurdly. You nodded. He swallowed whatever on earth had lodged in his throat at that.“Didn’t have to do all that for me.”
“I wanted to,” you said quickly. “I wasn’t sure how the food here is, so thought it might be a nice change.”
“Worse than you’re imagining,” he said, then tipped his head to the side as the memory crawled into his brain, uncalled for. “You’ve actually thrown a sandwich across the room.”
Your palm came up to your mouth, and you let out a muffled, “I’m so sorry.”
Jack snorted, shaking his head. Then, after a moment, he cleared his throat before it could get away from him. He looked back toward the board, then at you, knowing time was slipping and he’d have to go back to work and you’d have to go somewhere else, most likely.
“You got finals or anything coming up soon?” he asked.
Your lips curved down, and you nodded. “Yeah, in a couple weeks.”
“Am I gonna be seeing you getting wheeled in wasted?”
“I want to say no,” you said, smiling a little crooked. “I’m working on it. But I’ve said that before and ended up here. So.” You shrugged, lips jutting out like you were also unimpressed with yourself. “Ask me again in a couple weeks, I guess. I’d like it if you didn’t, though.”
“Then quit doing the hard nights alone,” he said, leaning in just slightly. “You keep yourself off the stairs, and you can come bother us instead here with a textbook.” He raised a brow as he held your eyes. “We’ve got a family room that’s almost always empty at night.”
“I couldn’t — ”
“Won’t be a bother. Trust me. You’d be silly not to use people’s help when they’ve clawed through the same exams to get the badge. You get stuck, somebody’ll know it cold.” He shrugged. “Half of ‘em are bored out of their minds some nights. You’d be doing us a favor.”
You let out a breath, brows pinching together. “That’s — yeah.” You let out a short laugh, looking away for a second. “I’d like that. A lot. Thank you, really. As long as you don’t mind.”
“This is a teaching hospital, doll. I don’t mind, so long as you don’t mind the company. Might be nice for me, too.”
You smiled and for a moment, neither of you moved to end it. Then you shifted the tote back up your shoulder, and Jack felt the pull to keep you here one more second before he could stop himself.
“Go home,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll be looking for you. So actually turn up, don’t make me look for nothing.”
The whole sun of you came up at that, stunned, like you hadn’t expected to be looked for by anyone. Jack felt the ground go quietly out from under him, the vertigo of having reached for a person’s happiness on purpose and connected, of being, for once, the cause of a face doing that. He’d gotten so used to delivering news that took the light out that he’d forgotten it ran the other way, too.
“I’ll turn up. I promise.”
He nodded, clearing his throat and turning for the board, bidding you a throaty goodbye.
“She’s the girl that everyone on night talks about?” Robby asked immediately, falling into step beside him.
Jack looked at him sideways, shaking his head. “You got something to say, too?”
“No,” Robby said, rubbing his palm at his chin like he was holding something in. “You like her or something?”
Jack halted for a second, pointing his index at Robby as he lowered his chin. “You shut up. She’s gonna be a nurse.”
“Oh, yeah,” Robby laughed. “Looks like she’s gonna be your nurse, old man. You’ll need it soon enough.”
Thank god you did turn up. Jack had the sense that maybe he’d scared you off altogether by his offer, and the line he’d toed had two very alternate spectrums: you’d find a new hospital altogether to go to in the metropolitan area after your falls or poisonings, or you’d be here a lot more often, which he still wasn’t sure would’ve been often enough.
The first time you came in, it was well past midnight and Jack had unfortunately not been able to catch you off the bat because he was in an emergency surgery. He’d walked out of it with his blood-stained surgical gown still on to be met with the sight of you by the nurse’s station, writing something down on the back of a discharge form for Lena, with another Tupperware laying on the table. He made the guess that you’d brought the whole floor something and were three minutes from having Lena eating out of your hand.
You’d found a corner of his department and made yourself a small soft home in it inside of ten minutes, and you were leaning in, and Jack stood there for a moment with the bad night still ringing in his ears and felt something unclench in his chest by a fraction.
“ — no, but you gotta,” you were saying to Lena in earnest as Jack approached closer. “If you put the brown sugar in while the butter’s still hot, it’s just — it’s a different cookie.”
“You taking the recipe, Lena?” Jack asked then, fully submerging into the knot you’d made with his charge nurse.
You turned to face him, a smile forming on your lips almost immediately, and then your eyes dropped over him, to the gown, the rust-brown stain dried dark across the front of it, the set of his shoulders.
“I am,” Lena replied. “Gonna make these for the kids.” She punctuated her sentence by holding up one of the cookies.
“Gonna make some for us, too, then?” Jack asked, raising a brow, and settled his elbows over the table. He turned his neck to face you properly, putting on his best smile.
Lena laughed shortly. “I don’t like you enough.” She pushed off the counter with some forms in hand. “Her, maybe. You can have whatever she leaves behind.” She shot you a look that was almost warm before she went and disappeared down the hall.
“Could be you someday,” Jack said, tilting his head in the direction of Lena’s chair.
You shook your head, then pushed the container in his hands. “I’ve got to graduate first. And pass pharm, which is currently — ” You patted your tote bag, textbooks heavy. “ — trying to kill me.”
Jack nodded toward the family room, placing the container on the table for a second beside him. “C’mon, then, doll. Let’s see what the pharm’s doing to you.”
“You don’t have to — ” Your eyes flicked down the gown again. “You just came out of surgery. You don’t have to help me study.”
“Actin’ like I’m the one who got the surgery,” Jack muttered, chuckling slightly. He was already peeling off the gown one-handed, balling it up to toss. He started walking, and you followed behind him. “C’mon. It’s pretty empty right now.”
It’d been pleasant that night and the few after to have five to ten minute increments of sitting with you helping you study in between doing his actual job. He’d duck in between things — a lull after discharge, the dread stretch while he waited for a CT scan, the ten minutes a trauma took to roll in once the call came — and you’d be there in the family room with your stack of cards on the couch. He’d drop on the chair across you or the couch beside you and pick up wherever you’d left off like he hadn’t left at all. Then his pager would buzz and he’d be gone, and you’d still be there an hour later when he came back, and he’d sit back down, and both of you’d pretend this was a completely normal way to study.
It’d annoyed him the first night how badly the flashcards were failing you; he’d seen you stare at the words and your eyes would glaze and slide right off it like they were greased. You’d memorized or retained nothing. And then he’d said, half to himself, a story for the why to click, and he’d watched it lock in you.
So he’d stopped quizzing you primarily off the cards and started telling you stories instead and you’d talk it back to him, reasoning out loud, getting there in the saying of it the way you never got there on the page.
The nights stacked up. The first week, you’d sat at a table across from him. By the second, you’d migrated to the chair beside him. Your coffee, the one by the far end of the table, was right by his elbow. Lena started leaving a second cup at the station when she saw you come in, his and yours, and never commented.
You’d stopped apologizing for taking up his time somewhere in there. He noticed when you’d started saving him the worst looking cookie on purpose because he’d once told you he liked the ugly ones. He’d noticed when you learned the rhythm of his pages; you’d go quiet and just hand him the next card when his eyes drifted to the board through the window of the door, would have it ready when he came back, like you’d kept his place for him while he was off keeping someone alive.
He noticed that he more than looked forward to it. Somewhere in the dead middle of a bad shift, his feet would take him toward the family room before his brain could catch up on the why of it all. An empty table on a night you didn’t come in sat wrong with him, a tiny disappointment he didn’t have anything in him to figure out why.
Sometimes, like now, you’d get distracted. Jack had learned. He’d walked into the family room to see you and Ellis folded into opposite ends of the couch, the flashcards abandoned in a fanned mess on the cushion between you, both of you mid-argument and enjoying yourselves too much.
“Poaching my study hall, Ellis?” he said, finally moving in.
Ellis pointed one stern finger in your direction as she pulled herself off the couch. “Do the crossword, not the sudoku.”
“She’s gonna make you a worse student,” Jack said to Ellis’s back.
“She’s making me a worse doctor,” Ellis said cheerfully, already at the door. “I’ve been here twenty minutes. I have patients.” She turned to you one final time. “Crossword. You’ll thank me later.”
She gave Jack a knowing look on her way out, one he didn’t want to read too much into, and she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her in one slow plunge.
You watched the door settle, and the entire wattage of your attention turned to him. He hadn’t gotten used to that, and he didn’t think he ever would. “Looks like I’ll never be a nurse.”
“Don’t say things like that.” He came around and lowered himself onto the couch beside you. “What’re you stuck on? Hit me.”
Your palm met his upper arm, a small smack.
He narrowed his eyes at you. “Hit me all you want. You’re not getting out of this.”
“But Jaaaack,” you drawled, tipping your head back on the couch. “Not here to study today.”
His eyes flickered over to your form briefly as he gathered the cards and squared them. “Oh, no? What’re you here for then?”
“Dunno.” You pulled your knees up to the couch. “Didn’t wanna be at mine. And work was a lot and boring.” You turned to face him then, a small smile growing on your lips. “Thought I’d bother yours instead.”
He set the squared deck on his knee. “Lucky me.”
He’d caught it, though, how you’d folded the sad thing in the middle of the sentence where it’d draw the least attention and moved on before it could sit. He let it move on, but he kept it. The image of you on a Tuesday, work behind you, and the choice you’d made was to drive to a hospital rather than go home to your own quiet. He was getting a picture of what that quiet looked like and learned that he didn’t like it very much.
“Work was boring, huh,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine what a fun day looked like as a waitress. “You working more?”
“Mm. Saturday girl quit, so now I’m on Saturdays, too.” You picked at your sock. “S’okay. Tips are good. I learned that old guys tip better when you call them ‘sir.’”
He huffed. “Do they?”
“Huge. It’s a cheat code.” You tilted your head at him, smiling shyly. “You’d tip well, I think. You’d overcompensate.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and get profiled by you in the only few minutes where I can catch my breath.” He held the card up, front to himself. “And I tip twenty-five percent like every functioning adult, thank you.”
You groaned. “Where can I get tipped more than that?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
“I do. I do. I’m a broke student. Point me to the money — where should I apply?” You shifted on the couch, fully facing him now, the cards apparently abandoned for the moment. “C’mon. You’ve lived a hundred years. You’ve gotta know where I can make some quick cash.”
“You’re sweet to me, doll,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. He set the cards down and looked at you, genuinely considering it now. He tried to ignore the fact that you likely had money troubles and tried to think about how he could actually help. “Define quick.”
“Like — by next Thursday.”
“Legally?”
“No.”
“Legally, you can sell plasma. Twice a week, they pay you, you sit there with a juice box.”
Your nose scrunched. “I don’t love needles in me sober.”
“You’re gonna be a nurse.”
“In other people. That’s totally different.” You waved it off. “Next. What else?”
“Sleep studies pay you to sleep. Egg donation pays a whole lot but it’s a whole process, not a Thursday deal.” He was ticking them off on his fingers, now fully committed. “Medical research’ll pay you to test things. Phase-one trials. You take an experimental drug and they watch you for side effects.”
“That’s the one.” You sat up. “How much?”
“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I bring you in here to keep you from blacking out. I’m not gonna have you volunteering to get poisoned for a quick four hundred bucks.” He pointed at you. “Maybe start laying on the ‘sir’ a little too thick from now on.”
“Sir.” You tested on him directly, dropping your voice, leaning in an inch, lashes going slow. “Could you help me out, sir? Tips have been so slow, sir.”
He turned his face away from you, now making himself look out the window. “I’m not entertaining this.”
“Oh, but sir.” You’d fully abandoned the cards now, scooting closer, a hand under your chin, the picture of innocence. “I’m just a girl. A poor, hardworking girl trying to be a nurse. Don’t you want to help me out, sir?”
“I am trying.” He pulled up the flashcards. “If it’ll help, I’ll bring my SWAT buddies into your place and they can run up a tab.” He waved a card in front of your face, trying to get your attention back to it. “You do this, I’ll have eight cops eating mozzarella sticks in your section by Friday, overtipping ‘cause I saved their lives. Won’t even have to call ‘em sir.”
“Right. No, that’s — ” You let out a little laugh too quickly, eyes widening at his words, and you took the card out of his hand mostly to have something to do with yours. “You don’t have to do that. Obviously. I was kidding — ” You batted the whole thing away with a shake of your head. “God. No. I’m okay, I promise. I was kidding.”
“I’m half-kidding,” he said, raising a brow. “I do know those guys. It’s no skin off me. But it’s okay.”
He let the offer sit like that, and he saw you pinch your eyes shut. He watched the whole thing happen on your face, the small involuntary recoil you always had when anyone offered you real kindness. You were bad at it. For a girl who lied so charmingly about how much she drank and how her night went, you had absolutely no poker face for being cared about. You had not the first idea how to hide it.
He found it unbearably endearing.
You opened your eyes and looked a little caught, a little sheepish as your thumb worried the corner of the card.
“You’re a strange girl,” he mumbled, fond, before he could stop it. “You know that?”
“Shit — Jack,” you said through a small laugh, shaking your head. “I don’t — I’m — ” You pressed your lips together and your shoulders came up almost to your ears in a stiff shrug. “Is there anything I can do for you? I can’t just accept — all your help.”
He snorted. “What help? I give you a study room and review flash cards.”
“Let me do something. I’m a good cleaner — ”
His head went back slightly, shaking his head. “You’re really not.”
“Okay,” you continued, rallying. “A dog? Guys like you always have dogs they don’t walk ‘cause of their hours. I can walk dogs.”
“No dog.” He raised his hand when he saw your mouth move again, stopping you. “You pay me back by passing your boards. You can pay me back plenty if you end up working here, doing good at the job.”
You went quiet for a second. “That’s just me doing my own thing. That’s not real.”
“That’s real to me.” He shrugged, like he hadn’t just made your whole future the price of his kindness. “I get a good nurse out of it someday.” He pulled himself off the couch. “And now I gotta go. Floor’s not gonna run itself.”
“Boo,” you said, pulling the entire deck on your lap now. “You’re the worst study partner. You leave constantly.”
Tonight, Jack had come into the family room after leaving you for a longer stretch of time than usual — a multi-vehicle situation that had eaten two hours and most of his patience — and found the studying had long since lost.
You’d migrated to the couch at some point. The textbook was open face-down on the cushion beside you like a small tented roof, your flashcards fanned across the middle seat, and you were folded in the corner with your knees pulled up and cheek mashed into the worn armrest, fighting your eyes and losing completely. You’d dimmed the overhead lights, lighting the lamp in the corner, the one nobody used, throwing everything low and gold.
He paused in the doorway. “You awake?”
“Mhm. Need a cat nap, though,” you murmured.
Jack snorted, shutting the door behind him as he walked closer to you. “How far’d you get?”
“Far enough.” Then, you added, “Cat nap.”
“Sayin’ it like I’m gonna not let you have one.”
Your eye cracked open a sliver, tracked him, then fell shut again. “Feel like you’re gonna make me do more cards.”
He toed the leg of the coffee table aside, reached down, and started clearing your mess off the cushions. He lifted the textbook and shut it around the receipt you’d jammed as a bookmark; gathered the flashcards and squared them in his palm; capped the highlighter and pocketed it. You watched the cleanup through one half-open eye, not lifting a single finger, your cheek staying flat to the armrest.
“There. No more cards. You’re done for tonight, doll.”
“Hooray,” you mumbled.
He nudged your socked foot where it had crept up across the cushion. “C’mon. Budge up a second. Don’t want you wrecking your neck sleeping like that.”
You made a small sound of protest but you went, peeling your cheek off the armrest with reluctance. There was a crease pressed into your skin where the fabric seam had been and your hair was flat on one side and mushed on the other. You blinked up at him, swaying where you sat, eyes glassy and unfocused in the gold lamplight.
He sank into the space he’d cleared, the cushion dipping, tipping the two of you a fraction into each other. That was all the invitation your body apparently needed, because you folded into him without a beat of thought — too tired to second-guess it, he supposed — your temple finding the warm of his shoulder, your whole side melting against his. You drew your knees up and tucked them against his thigh. Your hand came to rest on his chest, palm flat, fingers spreading once before they went still. You exhaled after a moment, long and slowly, and burrowed your nose into his neck.
Jack stilled.
“Ten minutes,” you murmured, the words barely coming out as words.
He took his arm off the back of the couch and settled it around your back, broad hand spanning between your shoulder blades and drawing you that last fraction deeper into him. You went boneless with it, a small contended hum slipping out of you.
Because he couldn’t help himself, he tipped his head down a fraction to say into your hair, “Been doin’ really well, y’know that, sweetheart?”
You hummed, the sound of it vibrating against his throat, your fingers curling the faintest bit in his scrubs. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Gonna be a good nurse,” he murmured, thumb moving once along your shoulder.
“Gonna work with you,” you mumbled, three-quarters gone. “You said.”
“Mhm.”
“Holdin’ you to it.”
“Yeah, I know you are.” The corner of his mouth flicked up where you couldn’t see it. “Go to sleep. You can hold me to it in ten minutes.”
When you didn’t answer for a second, Jack realized you were already gone. You were warm and trusting at his side, your hand slack over his heart, your breath sinking deep and even into his neck.
Jack let his head tip back against the couch, pinching his eyes shut at the feeling of you, at the feeling you caused. His hand spread slowly across your back, feeling the breath go through you — the proof of you — and he let his thumb find the curve of your shoulder and rest there, keeping his eyes shut. He sat with the enormous fact of you, the girl he’d not seen anyone circle back for, gone soft and so pliant in his arms like she’d always belonged there, and he stopped pretending he wasn’t already lost.
The ten minutes came and went. He let them. He’d have given you the whole night, the whole shift, the whole of whatever this was turning into. There wasn’t one place on the earth worth standing up for, and he’d known it for weeks, and only now, with your breath slow against his throat, did he let himself sit all the way inside of the knowing.
Jack came out of the OR and signed — albeit distantly, mind running a meter a minute about nothing good — what needed signing and said the things he was meant to, feeling the familiar piece of his own damn soul rotting away in the place those things went to rot. He knew the spot by now. It’d been decades of depositing them into the same place, and the place didn’t fill, exactly, but it never emptied, either. It just sat there, getting heavier, like things usually do when you keep adding to it and never take anything out.
This one would sit a while. Jack had started to sense it around the first year in this job; the ones that stayed had a weight, and you knew on the table whether you were getting one of those or whether it’d wash off by morning. This one wouldn’t.
He stripped his gloves, and somebody said something he answered without hearing, and then his feet simply walked past the board, carrying him down the hall toward the one door on the whole floor that wouldn’t have somebody else’s catastrophe behind it.
His hand was flat on the door. He was still wearing the gown, and he looked down and registered it too late. He should’ve changed it, left the thing in the dirty bin with the rest of what the shift had taken, the way he always did before he came to you, kept the two halves of the floor separate on purpose.
He opened the door. You were on the couch, one leg tucked under you and the other foot on the floor and a half-empty cup of coffee on the table going cold. You’d been doing something on your phone, or nothing, when the door opened, and you looked up with the easy expectant expression on your face you always had before it dropped. He watched it melt.
“Hey,” you said, making your voice soft.
“Hey.” His voice came out rough, and he almost winced as he heard it himself.
You set your phone face-down on the cushion and unfolded yourself from the couch and stood, crossing the room to close the gap between you. You stopped in front of him and looked up, your brow doing a small worried thing, and he let himself be looked at.
“Sit down,” you said. “You look like you’re gonna fall through the floor.”
He distantly registered you walking him to the chair — your hand finding his forearm, a light touch — and he let you. He folded into the chair like the strings of his own body had been cut, his elbows finding his knees and head dropping.
He heard you move, small domestic sounds of you filling a cup, the tap somewhere down the hall turning on then shutting off. Then your socks were back in his eyeline, toes pointed to him.
“Here.” You crouched, came into his lowered field of vision, and pressed a cup into his hands — water, cold — and folded his fingers around it when they were slow to close. “Drink it all.”
He drank because that was the path of least resistance. The water caught something he hadn’t registered was bone-dry. You took the empty cup out of his hands when he was done, setting it on the table behind you, and then he felt your hands find his shoulders.
He flinched just slightly, the smallest involuntary thing, for nobody touched him like that. Nobody put their hands on him that weren’t shaking one of his or needing something from him. You settled your thumbs into the iron base of his neck and pressed slowly, working the knots the night, the days, the weeks, and probably the year had wound there.
Your thumbs were unsure of themselves — you weren’t good at it, you weren’t trying to be, you were simply trying — and that was somehow worse because it got further to him than skill would have; there was the unpracticed earnestness to it, like you’d simply decided his shoulders had been holding too much and you wanted to put your hands there to take some of it down.
He felt his head drop lower, coming forward on its own, the tension bleeding out of his neck by degrees under your hands. Your thumbs found a place at the top of his spine that had been clenched so long that it had stopped registering as pain, and you pressed there, and a fraction let go. He felt his shoulders drop the inch they’d been holding up all night, and an uneven breath went out of him.
You kept your hands moving, your thumbs working the meat of his shoulders through the cotton, occasionally finding a knot and leaning your weight into it until it gave.
His head tipped a little forward after a stretch of time — chasing, or simply falling — and it found the soft of your stomach. His forehead rested against the front of you, where you stood close in the gap between his knees. He hadn’t intended for it, or maybe he had, somewhere under where the intention happened, his body had chosen to stop holding its own weight and give it to the nearest thing that felt like it’d take it. His eyes were already shut, and he stayed there, hands coming up on their own to rest at the sides of your waist. His fingers anchored into the fabric of your shirt.
“Shitty job sometimes,” he mumbled after a moment.
“Yeah,” you said softly above him. “I bet it is.”
Your fingers had found his hair, threading through the curls. Then, you added quietly, “But you’re really good at it.”
His fingers tightened a fraction at the fabric on your waist as he let out a short huff.
“Didn’t help him,” he said finally, the words coming out muffled behind his own mouth. “Whatever I’m good at didn’t help him.”
“Maybe not.” Your fingers scraped carefully at his scalp. “I think you were the best shot he had.”
He breathed you in, choosing to let the words rest in his skull for a while instead of fighting them.
“I’m — ” He heard you take in a breath and felt it go through your whole body. “I’m really grateful I met you, Jack.”
For some reason, he waited for you to take it back. There was a primally fast thing in him that told him that you’d take the words back, and he’d have understood.
“You don’t have to say anything,” you added. “I just wanted you to know. While you’re here being all — ” Your thumb moved at the back of his neck, tender and so gentle. “ — Figured it was a decent time to tell you I’m glad you exist.”
He took in a shaky breath against you, fingers tightening again.
“Thank you, sweet girl,” he said, and it sounded like it’d been punched out of him. “Likewise. More than you know,” he finished, his arms wrapping around the rest of your waist now, pulling you in like he could just fold himself smaller if he held hard enough.
Your fingers kept moving slowly in his hair, your other hand coming around the back of his head to hold him there. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d let anybody do this; as far as he could remember, he’d decided in some wordless permanent way that he’d carry his own weight from then on, that it was cheaper, that needing somebody was a bill that came due eventually and he’d rather not run the tab.
“You should sit,” he said after god knows how long without letting go. “Selfish, keepin’ you standing here.”
“It’s okay.”
He hummed, thumb moving once at your waist. “Two more minutes then.”
“Whatever you need, Jack,” you said, voice quiet. “I’m not going.”
Jack’s phone lit up on the arm of the couch at 10:52, face-down, buzzing itself a quarter-inch off the leather before he caught it.
He’d been working his way, with grim completionist patience, through an iceberg video you’d sent him three days ago with the message ‘THIS rabbit hole i need you to fall down.’ You’d followed it up by telling him, ‘do Not skip tiers!!’ He hadn’t skipped tiers. He was, in fact, ninety minutes deep and only about two-thirds down the pyramid, somewhere in the tier where a young man with a serious voice was explaining internet folklore he couldn’t believe was real.
He was fairly sure it’d been invented by some teenager, but Jack only shrugged, distantly wondering why on earth anyone would spend the labor — the diagrams, alone — hoaxing a thing this elaborate for an audience of complete strangers. He also wondered why on earth you were so interested in this. As quickly as the thought arrived, he realized that he was working down the iceberg himself.
Working down a thing you’d handed him felt adjacent to sitting next to you, and his apartment had become the sort of quiet that made adjacent worth ninety minutes of contemporary folklore. He’d sooner have chewed glass than admitted it out loud.
It was a good apartment and an unwitnessed one. He’d realized somewhere in the past year it was untouched by any hand but his. Every object was exactly where he’d last set it down, for there was no second person to nudge the remote three inches or leave a hair tie on the counter or ask why there was a mug in the sink and no bowl. His leg was off for the night, propped against the arm of the couch, the whole standing weight from his night shift to SWAT calls finally set down somewhere it was allowed to stay.
So, the phone going off, went off loud in the silence that had become almost-permanent. Your name lit across the screen, and the picture with it (one you’d set yourself, commandeering his phone to do it). It was already strange that it was a call. You never called; you texted in floods, six messages deep before he’d gotten to the first, but the ringing meant the thing had gotten past the point where typing it out would hold.
He looked at your laughing face buzzing on his phone for a second too long, the cold little instinct, and thumbed it green.
“Hey,” he said. “You know it’s almost eleven on my night-off. This better be good.”
You stayed silent for a second, and he could hear your breath and the hollow of a call connected in a car, the cooling engine’s tick and automotive acoustics.
“Hey,” you said finally, and Jack felt it wrongly. The back half of the word had gone soft and unsteady at the end.
Jack was already sitting up. “Hey, yourself,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He heard you swallow quickly. “Sorry. God, this is so dumb. You — were you asleep?”
“I was almost through with your iceberg, if you want the truth.”
You made a sound that tried to be a laugh but didn’t clear the runway, breaking apart halfway. “You watched it?”
“Almost.” His fingers were drumming against his prosthetic leaning by the couch now. “Are you out?”
“I’m —” You paused, then hummed like you were debating. “I’m kind of near your place, actually?” Your voice rose toward the end, like you were embarrassed or questioning it all yourself. “I know. It’s creepy. But I think I need to — talk to you.”
“Yeah?” He tried to keep his voice light, though he could already feel something in his body start racing, panicking. “You break something?”
“No. No. Promise. It’s nothing like that.”
For some reason, that put a deeper hook in him. If it wasn’t a wrist, an ankle, or your body doing something it shouldn’t, then it was the other kind, and he had no idea how to hold something like that. He wasn’t sure what he could do with a sprain he couldn’t ice.
“Okay — ”
“Wait,” you interrupted, voice pitching higher, and he could see you were psyching yourself out. “I could just say it now, honestly. It’d probably be easier over the phone.”
Jack’s eyes widened a fraction at that. His stomach suddenly felt cold.
“No,” he said, voice rougher than he’d intended. “I won’t make it hard. Whatever you want to say, I promise. Just — not like this, okay? Come here.”
He listened to you breathe as you weighed it and knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he wouldn’t like what you were going to say. “Okay,” you breathed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
Jack opened the door after the first knock, unembarrassed of waiting. You’d come as you were, a coat thrown open over sleep clothes, good wool hanging loose over a thin cami with lace at the collar and soft shorts and bare legs down to the sneakers you hadn’t laced properly. The second fact that registered to Jack was that you’d been crying; there was a soft ruin around your eyes, the mascara long gone, wiped with a sleeve somewhere back in the evening. Your hair was up and losing, a claw clip hanging looser than he believed it was meant to.
“Hi,” you said, eyes raising to meet his. “Thanks for letting me come by.”
Jack felt his shoulders rise to his ears just slightly at the formality. He felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped upon him because somewhere in the past few weeks, you’d stopped apologizing to him as much, which had felt like a small victory he never told you he was counting. And here it was again, your stiff little courtesy, the door swung back shut on a thing that had been open. Jack didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“You don’t thank me for coming by,” he said gruffly, opening the door wider.
You came in, but only just. Before he could steer you to the warmth of his apartment, you were already reaching into the bag on your shoulder — hands shaking, he realized, with a fine tremor — and pulling out a folded piece of paper, creased hard down the middle and then again like you’d tried to bundle it up into a fist.
He unfolded it and smoothed out the edges, eyes looking for yours briefly, but you’d already looked away. Your bottom lip was between your teeth and you were looking at the ground. He forced himself to look down.
It was your pharmacology exam. Your cramped looping handwriting scattered the margins, a star drawn to one question because you starred everything. There was red pen all down the side and a number circled on the top. The number, Jack saw immediately, was not catastrophic, not a failure even. It was a low pass, the sort of grade that would’ve stung for Jack in his school days and evaporated by the next exam. He’d expected worse from the way you’d been shaking holding it.
He looked back at you, confused more than anything. “Congratulations, you passed.”
Your jaw tightened, and he could see your eyes go bright and wounded. “It’s a seventy-one.”
“That’s a pass.”
“Barely. Barely.” You took the paper out of his hands, folding it away like you couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. “And you helped me with this so much and I still couldn’t. I’m so tired of — ” You stopped, looking up at the ceiling as you pressed your lips flat. “It’s not about the test.”
“Okay.” He leaned back against the counter, giving you the whole floor of the room. “Talk, then.”
You looked at him, and he watched you gather it all up, deciding, as it settled into your face, your mouth, whatever you’d come here to say.
“I don’t wanna waste your time anymore,” you said, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth as your eyes landed on the wall behind him. “I can’t — it’s not fair.”
Jack felt the whole floor shift under him and felt his brows go up an inch as he tried to keep his face seem collected.
“You’re you,” you continued. “You’ve got a whole life, a hard one, and I’ve been just — dumping mine on you. Making you sit there and hold my hand through studying and I’m — ” You shook your head, face going grim as you said the words. “It’s not fair to you. You’ve been carrying me for so long, and it’s not fair. None of this is yours to carry. I’m not yours to carry.”
His nose scrunched just slightly, something like burning blooming at the center of his face. Something in his chest had cracked along the seam he had no idea was there, because he’d never had to look at it once straight on. It was easy to carry your own weight when there was no one asking to take some. It was easy to call solitude a principle when nobody had ever made the alternative real. And you had. You’d made it real for months, and here you were proposing — no, telling — to take it back, to hand him his loneliness again because of some measurement of fairness.
The horror of how much Jack didn’t want it — how badly, how completely he didn’t want to go back to how it was before you — was the first honest look he’d taken at himself in longer than he could stand to count.
“That so?” was all he could say, voice roughening as his brows narrowed at you.
“Yes.” You mistook the roughness for agreement, or maybe you just needed to do so, because you kept going. “You don’t have to help me. The only thing I can think is you’re — you are a good person and I was there. And you help people, it’s what you do.” Your hand waved in the general direction of him as your voice cracked. “So help someone who’d actually make it worth it. Who won’t barely pass and keep getting too drunk and — ” You laughed slightly, and it was all wet and terrible, the sound. “I’m a bad use of you. You’re this — you are so much, Jack, and I’m a bad place to put it. So put it somewhere better.”
Jack had to force a swallow when you ended your words with a sharp intake of breath, the pool behind your eyes slipping free slowly down your cheeks. You’d run out of anything that’d make you wipe it away now, and that undid him worse than the crying itself, that you were standing there and letting it fall, done hiding, wrung all the way out.
“I’m sorry — ” he started.
“It’s okay,” you said immediately, shaking your head.
“For making you think that’s what it was,” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s on me, that you talked yourself into thinking this has been some sort of charity.” He cocked his head to the side then, wishing you’d look up at him. “But you’re gonna quit shaking your head for one minute, and hear the rest, ‘cause you got it wrong. All of it, backwards and upside down.”
He came off the counter and closed the space himself, until you had to lift your chin to keep his eyes.
“I’m not a man who spends his nights on a stray out of the goodness of his heart. Ask anyone I work with what I’m like. I don’t have that lying around spare.” His jaw tightened. “So take the halo off. That’s not what this was.”
“Then why — ”
“You,” he said plainly, for he learned it cost him nothing to do so, and a lot if he didn’t. “I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. There’s nowhere else I want to put it.”
He watched everything in your face tighten at his words, the disbelief and reflex to argue all curdling underneath.
“If you don’t want this.” Me. Me, he wanted to say. “Say it. I’ll leave you alone. You don’t owe me anything.”
“That’s not — ”
“But don’t act like it’s some favor for me.” He was closer now than he’d been. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving for my sake. That’s a lie.”
“It’s not — ”
“It’s a lie,” he said, voice going flat and so final, as he slowly nodded his head. He looked at you a second, lips coming between his teeth, then looked away as he felt something physical seize over his entire body.
Jack himself had to process the words as he said them, because he was only just realizing how much truth they held.
“You make it good.”
He forced himself to look back at you, and you had tilted your head now to look up at him, caught and still as stone, the arguing gone completely off your face now and replaced with something more frightened.
“Don’t — ” One of Jack’s shoulders came up in a half-hearted shrug. “You’re the one part of my day that doesn’t take anything out of me. Just — get that straight, sweetheart.”
You were just looking up at him with your whole face undone, the tears gone still on it, as though his words had knocked your own clean out of you.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” you said quietly. “People don’t — that’s not a thing that happens to me, Jack. Being — ” Your sentence broke apart and your hand had come up and fisted loosely in front of his shirt without either of you deciding it should, holding on, holding him there. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Nothing.” His hand came up slowly and covered yours where it fisted in his shirt, holding it flat there against his chest. “It’s just true.”
You made a small, pained sound and dropped your forehead against his sternum, right where his hand held yours, and he felt the whole strung-tight weight of you gave at once and settled into him. He felt you breathe against his shirt at the same time he felt his own pulse going too fast on your knuckles; he wasn’t bothered enough to try and slow it, because there was no point now. You’d already found out.
“Very grateful for you,” he murmured, his other hand pulled up to rest over the back of your skull. “Told you so earlier. Meant it more than you let yourself hear.”
You huffed against his shirt — half a sob, half a laugh, maybe the ruined cousin of both — and he felt it go through the cotton and land warm against his skin, felt your fingers uncurl a fraction from the fist they’d made then re-fist, like even now some part of you was checking he was still there to hold onto.
Jack held still for it, same as you had in the family room for him. He was good at holding still, it was half the job, but this was a different kind — he supposed — where there was a plain animal willingness to be a wall for as long as you needed one and not move a muscle that might spook you out of it.
He rested his chin at the top of your head, murmuring, “I don’t have to tutor you anymore, if that’ll help.” He swallowed, closing his eyes as he breathed in your faint perfume. “We can scrap the whole thing, if that’s what’s making you feel so bad.”
You stilled for a second, then made a small sound against him.
Despite himself, despite it all, he let out a short chuckle. “S’okay. I’m the reason you got a seventy-one. You’re allowed to switch.”
“You’re the reason it’s a seventy-one and not a thirty,” you said, and it came out muffled and immediate. You almost sounded cross, like you didn’t want the slander against him to stand even now.
After a moment against him, you added, “I don’t want to be just someone you help, I think. I don’t want to be somebody — I guess — that you’re just good to.”
When Jack hummed, you continued, “I don’t know what I wanna be instead. Just — a friend — or, I don’t know. Something that goes both ways.”
Jack’s chest swelled at the words. He felt that he’d have been anything you asked of him, simply because it had just become how it was. It was almost outrageous how, if you’d asked, he’d have handed it over, the whole rest of it, whatever you wanted the name to be, whatever box you needed him in.
A man his age was supposed to be past this. He was supposed to have calcified somewhere in the second decade of the job into something that didn’t reorganize himself around what someone he’d known properly only for the better part of the year had asked him.
“Consider it done,” he murmured, letting the word settle. Friend.
You breathed against him, and Jack felt himself want to remain exactly here and knew that he shouldn’t. He knew that the kind thing now was to give you somewhere to put your face that wasn’t his chest, some ordinary ground for you to set your feet back down on.
“C’mon.” He got a hand on your shoulder and eased you off him gently, a slow, slow reclaiming of the eight inches of air between your body and his. He dipped his head to catch your eyes, which were pink-rimmed and swollen and doing their utter best to avoid his now that the worst was out of you. “Do you want me to order food?”
Your neck rolled back slightly as you met his eyes, caught slightly off-guard at the shift of tone. You blinked. “That was a lot, and now you’re asking about food?”
“It was a lot,” he agreed. He reached up and thumbed a smudge of leftover mascara from under your eye briskly, and you let him. “And now it’s done. So, food, and we can watch the stupid video you sent me before you head home.”
It had been six days since you showed up at his apartment, and Jack had embarrassingly counted every single one of them. You’d left his apartment somewhere past two with your eyes finally dry and a paper bag of his leftover Thai you’d protested and taken anyway, and he’d walked you down to your car and stood in the lot like some idiot in a movie until your taillights turned off his street, and then he’d gone back up to a quiet that felt, for the first time in years, like something had been in it.
Since then it had gone like it always had and nothing like it; you still turned up with flashcards and left a graveyard of half-drunk coffees on every surface. But he’d noticed how you started letting him sit closer now, let a compliment land without flinching off, and once, mid-story, had reached over and fixed his scrub top where it had folded under, casual as breathing.
Friend was the word you’d settled on. Jack was thinking about that when Shen dropped into step beside Jack with a cup of fresh Dunkin sweating in his hand.
“You know it’s not standard to let your girlfriend occupy the family room for three hours of your shift, right?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jack immediately clarified. It seemed more important to do now than it was earlier, when people only knew you when you came in as an emergency. Still, it felt wrong, like a key going in the wrong hole. “And you got a problem with it?”
Shen lifted the coffee in surrender, unbothered. “You know we’ve grown to her. She and I do the Wordle every midnight.” Then, he spread one hand. “Administratively, she’s not staff. She’s not a patient. She’s not family of a patient. Which leaves the category I’d have to call —” He tilted his head, faux thoughtfulness. “ — Abbot’s girlfriend, and I don’t think that’s in the handbook.”
“Try again,” Jack drawled, thumbing a form he wasn’t reading that didn’t need to be read. “She’s a nursing student getting hours of free tutoring off a board-certified attending. Put that in the handbook. Teaching hospital. I’m teaching.”
Shen shook his head, letting out a small laugh. “Alright. Alright. She’s not your girlfriend. Mind if I ask her out, then?”
Jack snorted. “If you could only be so lucky.”
“Clearly she has a type for attendings,” he pressed, grinning. “Or is it just the ones with gray hair?”
Jack looked at him sideways. “This is getting a bit weird, even for you.”
“I’m happy for you, man. Even if you’re gonna make us all watch you not do anything about it for the next six months.”
“Mind your own damn business.”
“Sure,” he turned, lifting a hand over his shoulder as he went. “Close the blinds anyway. There’s a window on that door. Everyone can see her making you dumb.”
Jack looked down the hall and set the form down before going there to close the blinds — telling himself it was for the window, for Shen’s real talk — and knowing, somewhere under that, that he was really just going to you.
He could see you through the window in the door before he reached it, which was, he supposed, exactly Shen’s point. You had a textbook open in your lap and you were chewing the end of your highlighter, brow pulled in, mouthing something to yourself, working a card over your head. You’d pulled the sleeves of one of his old sweatshirts down to your hands, the one you’d swiped from his locker two weeks ago and never given back and that he’d never once asked for, because he’d found he didn’t want it back, found he liked seeing it swallow you.
You gave him a smile when he walked in. He reached up and tipped the blinds shut on the window with two fingers, the floor outside tipping away.
“Why’d you close them?” you asked, slightly bored.
“Apparently the whole department’s been getting a show.”
You furrowed your brows then. “A show of what? Me failing?”
“Somethin’ like that.” He let it go at that, coming around and lowering himself onto the couch beside you, the cushion dipping and tipping you toward him a degree, what it always did that neither of you ever corrected. “How’s it going? Honest.”
“Honestly?” You blew out a breath, closing the highlighter. “I’d kill for a drink.”
“Oh?” Jack settled back against the couch, his arm coming up along the top of it behind you. “Telling that to the one man who’s seen what you look like at the bottom of the bottle.”
“Jaaaack,” you said, almost in a whine. “Let’s go to a bar.”
He snorted, dragging a hand down his face. “Now I’m wondering what’s pushing you toward the edge.”
He picked the flashcard you had set on the textbook, the one you’d been studying. He read the front of it without much intention — your handwriting was cramped and looping, a star drawn next to it — and turned over and checked the back. He did the same thing he always did, the story, the image; he’d done it a hundred times by now. He could do it half-asleep, and most nights he half was.
You thought about it for a second, your bottom lip tugged between your teeth, then walked yourself to the answer.
“Mhm. See. Good,” he murmured. He flipped the card to the back to check you, and you’d had it. Of course you’d had it, you’d had more of this than you ever gave yourself credit for. “Tell you what. Get the next three right, and I’ll get us a drink once your exams are done.”
Your brows narrowed. “Bribe?”
“It’s an incentive.” He held up the next card, eyes on you. “Don’t think. Just answer me.”
You did. One, then the next, then the one after. You were quicker now that there was something on the end of it, your lip caught between your teeth as you walked yourself there each time. He noticed you worked when there was something to earn. After all three, he hummed. “See. Good girl, there you go.”
He felt you go still beside him, and his eyes flickered up to you to see your eyes dropping to your textbook. He stayed silent a second, eyes raking over you, your thumb running the worn edge of a card back and forth.
Jack knew better than to point out how you being flustered was almost silly when he’d said the same words many times while taping you up or shining a penlight in your eyes. He let his arm stay where it was along the couch, hand not quite touching your shoulder, and watched the side of your face.
“You wanna do some more?” he said finally, voice coming out rougher. “Or are we done for the night?”
You held up a finger, as if telling him to wait.
“Okay, then,” he mumbled, leaning back further against the couch. “Take your time.”
After a second, he turned to say something dry to break the silence. You’d turned your head, too, and were closer than he initially realized, your eyes coming up off the card and finding his, near enough that whatever he had bubbling in his throat died there immediately.
Jack hummed involuntarily. You closed the sound by pressing your mouth to his, the feeling of the plushness so very featherlight, there and barely there, the softest press.
He went still as stone, every system in him locking at once. His hand was still along the back of the couch and his mouth hadn’t answered yours, not because he didn’t want to — God, he did — but because the entirety of him had gone still with the disbelief of it, with the you, here, choosing this — him — and the half-second of nothing stretched into a second, too damn long.
He’d seized on you, the fact you’d nearly walked, had stood in his kitchen finding the kindest way to disappear, and here you were, closing the last of the distance yourself.
You pulled back like you’d touched a stove, a gasp leaving your mouth, replacing where his own had been.
“Oh god.” Your hand flew up to your mouth, your eyes going wide before pinching shut completely. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, Jack. I read that so, so wrong. You’ve been so nice and I — fuck, I’m sorry.”
Jack made a pained sound that was lost somewhere in your ramble, at the sight of you snatching it back. Nothing had gone wrong. Jack knew you’d read nothing wrong, and that the only thing that had happened was that he’d been too slow, too stunned, too thirty-years-rusty to catch what had been handed to him in good reflex.
His hand came off the back of the couch and he caught your jaw, thumb on your chin as he pushed slightly against your skin. He was distantly aware that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so afraid about leaning in to kiss a woman, and went in to try and give you back the second he lost, mouth finding yours the exact way every bone in his body knew he should’ve the first time.
You made a startled sound against him before the entirety of you melted. His mouth worked against yours, thoroughly, making sure not to fumble it twice. His thumb stayed on your chin, tilting your face the half-degree he wanted it, and when your lips parted on half a breath, his entire upper body leaned in to follow it, deepening it.
It was you who moved first. Of course, it was you, always you. You followed it, the kiss pulling you up and forward, your knee coming over his thigh, and then you were settling over him. Jack let out the throatiest of a chuckle, still intent on keeping your mouth, as your hands slid from the front of his scrubs to his jaw.
Jack’s hands caught yours on instinct — one at your waist, one at your hip — steadying you down to him, your hips still slightly in the air like you weren’t sure you could close the last of the distance, your weight held in the suspended air in the ache of almost, thighs braced on either side of his.
Jack pulled back just enough to look at you, letting his head fall back against the back of the couch, dragging his eyes up the length of you poised over him. He blew out a short breath, the corners of his lips kicking up as his palm glided up and down on the side of your waist, catching onto your tank top on accident to show a sliver of skin at your lip — warm, soft, the band of your shorts sitting low — and he watched his own hand do it before he dragged his eyes back to your face.
“Nothing halfway with you, huh?” he said, the words practically coming out from his chest. His thumb rested against that bared sliver of you. “Climbing me at my work.”
You lowered your head, and your nose grazed against his. “You started it.”
“I did?”
“You closed the blinds.”
He let out a surprised laugh. “I can promise you I didn’t expect this when I did that.”
Your lips ghosted over his for a second, and his chest swelled at the sight of you trying to tamp down the sweetest smile. “Problem?”
“No.” The words came out immediately, because apparently somewhere in him, there was still something insatiable and teenage that had lurched up at the sight of you. “No. No problem.”
His hand spread flat and warm against the small of your back, fingers slipping under the hem of the top to your warm skin there, and he drew you down, finally, that last suspended inch collapsing as he settled your weight flush over him.
He had to pinch his eyes shut a second, then open them again to take in the whole sight of you. His hand came up to your jaw. The light caught the loose hair at your temple, the bare line of your shoulder where the strap had slipped. Your mouth was full and flushed from his, parted slightly, your breath coming. The skin under his hand at your back was hot to the touch, and he spread his fingers wider against it just to feel more of it.
You were trying not to smile. Your lip caught between your teeth, the corners pulling anyway.
His finger perched against your jaw moved to your lips, dragging slowly across the lower one, parting it under the pad of his thumb. He watched it give, your breath warm against his skin.
Your eyes flicked up to his as your lip closed around the first knuckle, your tongue hesitantly pressing flat against the pad, the wet heat of it catching him so completely off guard that the air went out of him in a rough exhale. His other hand fisted at the small of your back, turning over to gather the hem of your tank in his grip.
“Oh.” His eyes had dropped to your mouth and fixed there, his jaw slack as his head cocked to the side. “Pretty.”
His gaze was locked on the sight of his thumb disappearing past your lips, no hesitation in it, that same no-halfway boldness turned filthy and sweet all at once. The tired man in him went down all at once.
His thumb dragged free, catching on your bottom lip and tugging it down before it slipped loose. His chest heaved harder now under the warm weight of you.
“Where’d that come from?” he muttered gruffly, almost to himself, thumb pressing the slick of your own lip back against you. His palm moved to cradle your face, tapping your cheek softly once. “Can’t be doing things like that here, doll. I’m on call.”
“Then don’t make it so easy.” Your lips brushed his thumb, then you moved down to press your mouth to the line of his jaw, the stubble catching your lips, then lower to the warm of his throat.
“You callin’ me easy?” he said through a chuckle, letting his head tip back. You scraped your teeth over the cord of his neck and felt the whole of him go tight underneath you, his fingers flexing hard into the bare skin of your back.
“Alright.” His voice had dropped to stone. “You’ve had your fun.. No more of that,” he said, though made no move to stop you.
You peppered a line of pecks down his throat down to where his collar had started, your lips dragging over the jut of his collarbone through the thin cotton. He swallowed. One of your hands slid up to the back of your neck, fingers pushing into the soft gray at his nape, scratching light, and the other flattened over his chest, over the steady-then-not rhythm, fisting slow in the fabric just to feel him breathe wrong because of you.
You sat back an inch to look at him. His head was still tipped back against the couch, his throat bared where you’d left it momentarily pink and glossy, his eyes half-lidded. His hands had gone heavy and possessive at your hips, giving up pretending he wanted them anywhere else, you anywhere else.
You dragged your thumb over his bottom lip, watched it give, the same way he did to you.
“Can I ask you something?” you asked, quietly, your hips settling more firmly into his lap.
“Mm.” His hands spread wide, settling you down harder against him. “My social security number is — ”
You laughed.
“Two-two-six — ”
“Jack — ” You swatted at his chest, the seriousness dissolving into something giddier. “I’m being serious. Stop.”
“Okay, okay.” The corners of his mouth lifted up, and his hands squeezed slightly at your hips. He pulled his head up off the couch to meet your eyes properly. “Shoot. Doubt I could stop you.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
He let the question sit, humming. His thumbs moved idly at your hips, head tilting against the couch like the question required any real thought. “There’s a few women,” he said, lowering his voice as he looked at you, like he was letting you in on a secret. “There’s a nice lady who brings me fruit baskets.”
Your hand, on the flat of his chest, slid up slow to his throat and he kept talking like he didn’t notice.
“ — there’s this nurse on days who keeps leaving me her number at the station — ”
You leaned in and closed your teeth slightly on his earlobe. He let out a short laugh, one that was dragged out of him, his head tipped to give more of it to you without permission.
“Alright. Okay,” he said as your nose dragged the line of his jaw. “Stop doin’ that. I don’t wanna explain teeth marks to the whole floor.”
Your hips set firmer into his lap. “Jack,” you warned. “I can’t do this if you’re seeing fifty other women.”
He sobered a degree, his thumb going still at your waist, his eyes coming up to actually hold yours. The joke drained out of his face as he realised the edge of seriousness you tried to tamp down, and he momentarily short-circuited at how it was even possible for you to wonder.
“Hey.” His hand came up off your hip, pushed the hair back from your face and stayed there, cradling. “Until five minutes ago, there were zero women. Forget fifty.”
Your only response to that was a smile and your cheek leaning further against his palm. He let his thumb move once across his cheekbone, watching the way your cheek turned into his hand. Your eyes drifted half-shut. There was a speck of dried highlighter ink on the side of your finger where it curled against his throat. The strap of your top had slid off your shoulder again; he looked at all of you and stopped bothering to pretend, even to himself, that he was looking at anything other than the only thing in the room he wanted.
“What about you? You seein’ anyone?” His thumb stayed where it was, but his voice had gone quieter. “‘Cause I’ve seen people bring you in. And I never liked one of ‘em.”
You huffed a small laugh, your nose grazing his. “Jealous, Doctor?”
“Yeah.” He watched the laugh stall on your face at how easy he gave it up. “If there is, he should be worried. I’d like to take you on a nice date to change that.”
“Ohhhh,” you drawled through a laugh. “There’s no one, but I won’t say no to the date.”
“Then you’ve got yourself one, doll.” He kissed you on it — short, sure, his hand still cradling your face — sealing the thing as the corner of his mouth caught yours before he pulled back. He let his forehead rest against yours for a second and breathed you in.
Then, with a short groan, he tipped his head back off of yours.
“I gotta get back out there.” His thumb was still moving at your jaw, clearly working against the very thing he was saying. “My work ethic’s going wrong and my residents might actually report me.”
Then, his hands found your waist and he lifted you off, setting you off his lap and onto the cushion beside him where the entire thing had started. You landed with a small affronted sound, your hand fisting in his collar a beat longer before he had to let it go.
You flopped back into the cushion where he’d deposited you, one hand pressed flat to your chest, the picture of wounded. “I guess it’s true what they say about old men. They use you. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”
He stood up and scrubbed his palm down his face like he could wipe the last ten minutes off it before he had to walk out and be a doctor again. He could still feel the heat sitting at the back of his neck and even though he’d tried to scrub your gloss off, he was sure there was a remnant somewhere the worst possible person would notice.
“Yup, got exactly what I wanted. Thank you, ma’am.” His hand came down to rest at the top of your head and gave it a slow, condescending pat, ruffling the wreck of your hair worse than it already was. “I’m a terrible man. You’re welcome to stay here while I go be one somewhere else.”
He made himself step back and snagged his pen off the table, the badge, the small armor of the job clipping back into place piece-by-piece. The whole time his eyes kept catching on you, sprawled and rumpled where he’d set you down, looking up at him like the night had gone exactly where it was supposed to. He’d seen this room a thousand nights. He’d never once not wanted to leave it.
“Mm. Gotta go home. S’almost three,” you mumbled. “And you get off at seven.”
“I do.”
“So.” You pushed yourself off the cushion, slow, gathering your hair back off your face and pushing up your strap, putting yourself back together piece by piece the same way he was, the night closing in on both ends. “I’ll go and let you be a doctor. You’ve been very neglectful.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He watched you reach for your textbook, your highlighter, the flashcards, and sweep it all back into your bag, feeling the small stupid pull of not wanting the room to empty out.
He stepped in before you finished, catching your jaw, tilting your face up to kiss you once more. You went still under it, the bag forgotten halfway zipped, your hand coming up to rest light on his chest. He pulled back an inch to look at you.
“Text me when you get home,” he said, thumb dragging along your jaw.
You chuckled, brows pulling in. “It’s a ten minute drive.”
“Text me. Humor an old man, since I’m so terrible to you already.”
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frat!sukuna has a massive crush on his shy tutor ! ⟡ : college au : flirting : sukuna has a soft spot for reader : pining : teasing . . more as updated
dc: @ tsumiinum ◞ ac: @ winterrbluess
࣪ ۫𓂅 join taglist: 0/50 ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡
𖾕𖾝꙼ᩚ𛲕𖾟 . . . fluff﹕ ❤︎ ◞ smut﹕ ✦ ◞ angst﹕ ×
# ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ title ⠀ ⠀ category
001 𓂃 frat!kuna likes to fluster his tutor ! ❤︎
002 𓂃 frat!kuna finds reasons to talk to his tutor outside of sessions ! ❤︎
??? 𓂃 frat!kuna wants to hear your pretty noises ✦
tba 𓂃 shopping for stationary supplies w frat!kuna ❤︎
Being a calm, gentle, non-reactive person is really hard work, which is probably why many people are none of these things. Personally I think it’s worth it but sometimes one does want to just roll around on the floor wailing at the top of one’s lungs
People in my notes who think I’m repressed or dissociating: you will feel better when you learn emotions are not a binary of Not Feeling It vs Being Overwhelmed By It
ა ˙˖ summary → there’s no one you hate more than satoru gojo. he’s arrogant and entirely too full of himself. when you agree to be strictly enemies with benefits, gojo takes this as the perfect opportunity to finally make you his.
ა ˙˖ content: 12.3k wc, accurate portrayal of fraternities so the boys are jerks srry, hazing, rough sex, spit play, overstimulation, spanking, choking, desperate gojo, you really hate him so not much fluff this chapter! probably more I can't name rn. it's a lot.
frat!jo 𝓍 fem!reader
When you first got your acceptance letter to your dream school three years ago, you never thought it would end up with you in this position. The side of your face pressed into the cold wooden desk by the hand of your enemy, your shorts and panties dropped to your ankles, his cock slamming into you so hard that your research papers and pens go flying to the library floor.
The sound of the legs creaking fill the study room room, his pace ruthless, long fingers digging into your cheek to keep you down as you bit your lip to stop yourself from crying out his name and begging him to go harder.
One might wonder how you, the notorious frat hater, ended up letting a playboy like Gojo Satoru get into your pants not once, not twice, but eight times in the last two weeks after swearing he was your number one enemy.
It all started the first day of uni when you let your roommate Shoko convince you into going to a sorority party after a long day of classes and reading syllabuses.
You had been minding your own business, laying on your too small bed with your headphones blaring music as you scrolled through Instagram and pretended like your mom hadn’t been trying to call you for the past twenty minutes.
She was probably calling to check in since she thought you were just getting out of practice, given that you lied about making the gymnastics team to get her off your back. You never even signed up, never had interest in it but had been forced into it as a child. Your mother always told you that one day you’d make it to the olympics and while you were good at it, you had no plans on doing such a thing.
So when her name pops up again, you hit the red button and put your phone on dnd. It was nine, you would just tell her you were asleep.
When you went to play your music again, your roommate walks in and immediately locks eyes with you, a grin spreading on her face that has you squinting suspiciously.
You really liked Shoko. You officially met two weeks ago when you were finally allowed to start moving your stuff in and you had both bonded surprisingly quick over the short period of time, spending almost every day together exploring the campus and surrounding city. Which means you were starting to differentiate between her smiles and the one she wore now told you she wanted to ask you something.
“Thank god you’re still up!” She practically skips into the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
You sigh and sit up, removing an earbud. You pull your rising shorts down and cross your arms with a raised brow. She moved to stand in front of your bed, biting her bottom lip and failing to contain her excitement.
“Spit it out already.”
“There’s a sorority party in an hour and I got invited which means by extension you’re invited and puhleasee, don’t make me go by myself!”
You tried everything to get out of going, from feigning illness to lying that you had to be up early tomorrow for class even though you both basically had the same schedule and your morning was lecture free.
You weren’t a boring person, you partied a lot in high school but this was college and even though you had no clue what you wanted to major in yet, this was where you truly needed to lock in and focus on getting good grades.
Unfortunately for you, Shoko wasn’t having any of it. For every excuse you came up with, she had an argument against it. You don’t wanna be hungover? Fine, just don’t drink! You’re tired? You’re only nineteen, you can rest when you’re dead!
“When your kids ask what you were like in college, are you gonna tell them that you were a loser who sat in her dorm all day or that you were young, hot, and knew how to have fun?”
She had a point. It was just one party, what harm was there in enjoying yourself for a night? If you didn’t like it, you would simply leave. Plus it was at a sorority. You could manage that, though you couldn’t say the same for frats.
You’d die before being caught in one of those.
Fraternities were the embodiment of hell, nothing good ever happened at any of them based on the horror stories your older sister told you while helping you pack for uni. Sweaty, packed rooms, obnoxious men that only wanted to get in your pants, stale beer and hazing were far from your kind of parties.
Fate, as it would turn out, had different plans in store for you.
You had begrudgingly squeezed into a tight dress, letting Shoko fix your hair and makeup before she was dragging you out the door and into her car.
When you guys pulled up outside of the sorority house, the scene before you was far from what a typical party looked like. The lights were mostly off except for a few rooms that were still lit and it was eerily quiet outside, no loud music or drunk college students dancing around the lawn.
Shoko had assured you that it wouldn’t be as hectic as a frat party would but you hadn't expected it to be deader than your social life. You turn and glare at your friend in the driver's seat who looks just as confused as you do.
What the fuck was this? You could have been in bed, doom scrolling through TikTok and here you were, dressed up for a party that apparently wasn’t even happening.
“I’ll go check, give me a minute.” Shoko mummers, hitting her vape before jogging up to the front door.
Your leg anxiously bounces up and down while you wait, watching as she knocks and someone with purple hair opens the door a few seconds later. You can’t hear anything but the conversation seems heated and brief before your roommate is stomping back to the car, annoyance evident on her face.
“The party is canceled. Someone got the flu and the entire sorority is sick.”
You fight to hide your smile, not wanting to rub it in Shoko's face since she was already upset. As much as it sucks that someone was sick, you couldn’t deny that you were happy. You didn’t want to go out in the first place and now you could-
“Buut.” Shoko sings, eyes twinkling as she looks at you with that same smile from earlier.
“There is another party happening like ten minutes away.”
“Great.”
It was far from fucking great when you pulled up in front of what was obviously a fraternity. The white house was big enough that it was basically a mansion, it had a flag with greek letters flying and the amount of people out front alone made you sick, the music loud enough that you heard it from the opposite side of the street.
You hadn’t signed up for this, you wanted no parts in it.
“Absouletly not. Take me back.”
“Stop.” Shoko’s eyes were pleading, her bottom lip poking out. “We’re already here and you promised you’d be my wingman. Wingwoman. Whatever.”
“I didn't promise shit. You said we’d be going to a sorority party, not a frat!” Your cheeks heated in irrational anger, even though you knew it wasn’t her fault.
She had no idea how much you despised fraternities but it didn’t mean you’d be going to one just because she was putting on her best puppy face, big brown eyes shining and silently begging for you to say yes.
“One hour. If you still hate it, we leave. But you’re already here, might as well give it a chance.”
You look back toward the house, your stomach twisting and heart racing a little faster. You weighed the pros and cons. If you did agree to go, you'd probably end up drinking more than you should and wake up with a nasty hangover. You’d also be breaking your promise to yourself and your sister to never step foot in a fraternity.
Maybe it was unfair that you let a handful of horror stories shape your perception of them but it wasn’t as if they came from nowhere. You had watched the news, seen the headlines. Hazing. Alcohol poisoning. Freshmen being pressured into doing things they probably never wanted to do.
Your older sister had made sure you knew exactly what kind of places to avoid when you left for college, and frat houses had been at the very top of her list.
But then again, you had waited for this moment since you got your acceptance letter. To meet new people, make new memories outside of your shitty hometown and to truly experience college life.
You were nineteen. What was the harm in going to one party? You’d appease Shoko, confirm your thoughts that frats were terrible and never step foot in one again.
One night couldn’t ruin your entire college experience. Right?
You sighed and let Shoko pull your hand until you were walking through the front door and the smell of stale booze, and musky body heat hit you, the music rattling the speakers. The living room had been stripped of anything breakable and replaced with white folding tables sticky with spilled drinks and red solo cups.
A group of guys were playing beer pong, shouting as the ball flew too far and rolled under a couch. Further into the house, a girl was setting up a karaoke machine and slurring the lyrics to the Pitbull song that was playing, almost tumbling off the table.
The scene made you itch, your feet already hurting from the heels you’d been forced to wear. You let Shoko guide you through the crowd anyways, scowling at the way a few shirtless guys eyed you like you were nothing more than a piece of candy. She led you toward the kitchen, hand wrapped tight around yours, where a group had gathered around the island counter.
A tall guy with long black hair tied back noticed you first, grinning at Shoko and holy fuck he was hot.
“Shoko, I didn’t expect to see you here!” He raises his red solo cup in the air. “And you bought a friend.”
“This is my roommate, (name).” Shoko tugs you forward until you’re standing by her side. “Be nice to her, will you? She’s already planning my funeral for bringing her here.”
He nods at you, tossing back the rest of his drink and your knees go weak because he had to be one of the hottest guys you’d ever seen in your life.
“Geto Suguru but you can call me Suguru. Any friend of Shoko’s is a friend of mine.” He sticks his hand out and you wipe yours on your dress before reaching over the island and taking his into yours.
“Nice to meet you.” You force a shaky smile, pulling your hand back.
When you ask how they know each other, Suguru explains that they went to high school together but Shoko had decided to take a gap year and travel the country.
Shoko introduces you to the rest of her friend group. There was Choso, a guy with two ponytails and a scar across his nose. His girlfriend, Yuki, was nice enough even though you were sure she was flirting with you. Nanami, who seemed entirely too sweet to be there and next to him was the human incarnation of a golden retriever, Haibara.
After introductions were over, they pulled you into a game of flip cup and you were surprisingly good at it. The satisfaction of slamming your cup down before Choso was enough to make you forget where you were, cheap booze loosening you up and allowing you to truly enjoy yourself. Even if some asshole kept bumping into your ass and forgetting to apologize.
You even let Shoko and Yuki drag you to do karaoke, stupidly singing Promiscuous and moving your hips in circles, hair loose and falling into your flushed face. You hadn’t noticed the way Suguru watched you with a smirk, arms crossed while someone whispered something in his ear.
It only took an hour for you to be reminded that frats were in fact the root of all evil, your short lived fantasy that maybe you were wrong crashing down when he decided to show up.
You felt him before you saw him, your skin tingling as you sat on the couch and nursed a headache while actively fighting the urge to throw up, half listening to the group's conversation. You had just been about to tap Shoko and invoke your one-hour rule when the energy in the room shifted. The sea of people were parting to make way for someone, a few petrified freshmen scrambling to get out of the way.
When enough people cleared, two of the most unique looking men you’d ever seen came into view.
Now let’s get one thing straight: you were far from a pick me, never had been and you never would be. However, even you weren’t immune to the rare moment of being so mesmerized by the beauty of a man that you just stare with your mouth slightly agape.
One of them had pink hair and tattoos covering his face and massive arms. He was kind of scary looking but in the hottest way possible. It was a shame he already had someone on his arm. Then there was the guy next to him, with a backwards hat that white hair slipped out of and eyes so blue they looked fake.
Your brain short-circuited for exactly half a second. Fuck. He was in fact the hottest man you’d ever seen, forget what you said earlier. Objectively. Scientifically, whatever. It wasn’t even a matter of opinion, just facts.
He was lean and tall with the face of a god, a pointy nose and full lips and you had to squeeze your thighs together when he looked in your direction, though his eyes weren’t on you.
Shoko notices you staring and smirks. “Oh right. I forgot you haven’t met Gojo yet!”
“What?” You finally blink, glaring at your friend. “I wasn’t-”
“Satoru!” Shoko waved him over. “Come here, I want you to meet someone.”
Gojo locked eyes with her and smiled, leaning to whisper something to the man he had walked in with and handing him the case of beer he was carrying before moving toward the couch you were currently gripping.
He was even more handsome up close, the smell of his cinnamon cologne cutting through the stench of sweaty bodies and alcohol. It was too bad he had to open his mouth and ruin everything.
“Shoko.” His voice vibrates through you more than the music does, and it makes you feel pathetic. Since when have you ever let a man affect you like this? “Making new friends already?”
“This is my roommate,” Shoko says, gesturing toward you and tells him your name. “Play nice.”
When he turned those big blue eyes on you, your breath got caught in your throat, his smile widening as he held out his hand. “Well hello there. I’m Satoru, sophomore and president of this fine establishment.”
Sophomore and president of an entire frat? You didn’t want to think of what kind of douchebag he had to have been to pull that off. You reluctantly shake his hand and pull it away faster than you did Suguru’s, your mouth growing sour.
“You’re a quiet one.” He plops down on the couch between you and Shoko and you feel your irritation growing, your headache picking back up, mood completely ruined just from a few words. “It’s the hair, right? Or the eyes? Most people say the eyes. I get it, I’m a lot to process.”
He throws an arm on the couch behind you, leaning back and spreading his legs just wide enough to piss you the fuck off. Fuck this guy!
“Wow,” You say flatly, moving from under his arm and turning to face him. “Do you practice being insufferable, or does it just come naturally?”
Shoko snorts into her cup while Suguru who had been sitting next to her lets out a “oh shit” under his breath. This was his and Satoru’s second year here and he had never heard anyone snap at his friend.
Gojo’s smile didn’t falter. If anything, it grew as he leaned into your space. “Naturally. It’s a gift, but I’m sensing some hostility, sweetheart. Are you not enjoying yourself? I’m sure I can show you a better time upstairs.”
You wanted to throttle him. So this is what your sister was trying to warn you about? What a fucking idiot you were to doubt her for even a second.
“I’d rather eat glass then let you touch me.”
He simply laughs at that, moving a little closer and forcing you to awkwardly lean back, heat creeping up your neck and to your ears. He was close enough to kiss you and you were about to smack him until he smiled and moved to stand up.
“Nice to meet you, freshman. Maybe I’ll see you around, yeah?”
He disappears into the crowd and you want the floor to swallow you whole. You try to stay for the sake of your friend but each passing minute proves why you’d never show your face at these parties again.
People were passing out from how drunk they were, someone had almost thrown up on your shoes and to top it all off, loud cheers were sounding from the backyard. You were about to tell Shoko it was time to go when she started running toward the back door to see what was going on and you reluctantly followed.
The sight made your blood boil. Standing side by side was Gojo and the pink haired guy from earlier who you’d learn was Sukuna. There was a third guy with them, tall with broad shoulders, dark messy hair and a scar on his lip.
A line of freshmen boys stood at the edge of the pool, each looking paler than the last. Sukuna was barking out orders and you watched in horror as they began to take off their shirts and then their shoes and pants.
People were laughing, clapping and yelling for them to take off their underwear. You glared at the guy who said that, but he just shrugged and turned back to the show. Several phones appeared in the air despite Gojo’s threats that anyone caught recording would have them smashed.
This was so fucking sick.
The poor guys looked like they wanted the ground to swallow them whole and just when you moved to put an end to this, an arm reached out to stop you. You snapped your head up, ready to lay into the person until a familiar set of dark eyes stared down at you.
Suguru.
“Get off of me.” You say through gritted teeth, pure anger making your heart beat faster and your blood pump harder.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” He warns you and you suddenly hate him as much as his prick of a friend, snatching away from him and turning back to the scene unfolding.
Without an ounce of sympathy, Gojo clapped his hands together and nodded to the freshmen, his shorts hanging loose on his hips.
"No need to be nervous. We've all got the same equipment!”
"If you're too embarrassed to strip," The scarred lip dude shouts over the cheering crowd. "you're probably too soft to wear our letters anyway."
A little motivating glare from Sukuna who looked even less interested in preserving anyone's dignity and they were stripping off the remainder of their clothes. You stared in absolute disbelief as the first pledge squeezed his eyes shut, signaled something that looked like a prayer and canonballed into the pool completely naked.
One by one the others followed and you started to push through the crowd of students, ignoring Shoko yelling your name and evading Suguru’s attempt to grab you again.
Any microscopic chance you'd had of warming up to fraternities evaporated on the spot. These people were insane, fucking psychopaths and deserved a taste of their own medicine.
By the time you reached the pool, the pledges were climbing out of the water, shivering and red-faced as older fraternity members tossed towels in their direction. They looked humiliated, their smiles not fooling you for a second.
“Hey asshole!” You shout toward the white haired douchebag, storming up to him and gaining the attention of the crowd who started to quiet down to listen to the spectacle you were creating.
Good. Let them watch!
Gojo, who had been in the middle of laughing at something Sukuna said, looked at you and the grin spreading across his face only further annoyed you. He was so fucking hot but his personality sucked!
“Couch girl!”
You ignore him, walking until you were close enough to stick your arm out and push his chest. He hardly moved but it was enough to knock that stupid smug smirk off his face for a split second before the corner of his mouth was lifting again.
"What kind of pathetic excuse for leadership is this?" You gestured toward the soaking pledges who did their best to cover themselves with their small towels as they exchanged nervous glances. "Making them strip in front of half the campus because you think it's funny?"
“It was voluntary.” Sukuna spat, folding his arms and scowling at you, but you kept your eyes on Gojo who steps a little close to you.
“Oh please. Do you really expect me to believe a bunch of freshmen are gonna tell the people deciding if they get into this fraternity or not, ‘no’?”
When someone in the crowd yelled that you had a point, Sukuna shot them a glare from the deepest pits of hell that had them shutting up and cowering back into the crowd.
Meanwhile Gojo looked thoroughly entertained, that bastard. Not a hint of embarrassment on his face as he reaches forward and twirls a piece of your hair around his finger. His carefree attitude catches you off guard and you’re dumb founded, losing yourself in his big blue eyes before snapping out of it and pushing him away again.
“You’ve known me for what..” He pulls his hand away and looks at the imaginary watch on his wrist. “Two hours and you’re already lecturing me? We're basically an old married couple already.”
Your eye twitches. You hadn’t really thought of how he would react but amusement was the furthest thing you’d expect from someone getting scolded like an insolent child.
You take a step back, not missing the way he eyes your body and your skin crawls.
“Fuck you dude! I wouldn’t let someone like you touch me with a ten foot pole, let alone let you marry me.”
He tilts his head as the crowd snickers and you grow impossibly hotter. You can feel Shoko pulling your arm but your feet are glued to the ground. It would take an act of god to get you to move before you were done saying what you had to say.
“Aww don’t be shy now. You’re making me feel self conscious too.”
The words get under your skin more than you should have let them and the look on his face, the slight glint in his eyes tells you that he knows it. Before you can rip into him, the scarred lip dude butts in, pushing between the two of you.
“Cute." He rolls his eyes. "Now either kiss or kill each other somewhere else. We've got pledges to traumatize."
You glare over his shoulder at Gojo one more time, seething at the way he winks at you, clearly finding this entire thing entertaining, before letting Shoko pull you away this time. If you saw him fifty years down the line it would still be too soon!
You had to get an uber since you and Shoko were both too tipsy to drive and you outright declined Suguru’s offer to drop you off, having had your fix of frat boys for the next century.
You rested your temple against the cool glass of the car window, nursing the dull ache forming behind your eyes while your stomach churned from the cheap vodka and lingering irritation.
Gojo Satoru.
Just thinking of his name made your jaw tighten.
He wasn't the first arrogant person you’d met. You’d known plenty in high school, cocky guys who were captains of some team or were blessed with a nice jawline and thought the world revolved around them.
Gojo surpassed all of them.
He wasn’t just cocky, but the kind of person that took everything as a joke, constantly performing and acting as if everyone around him was just a part of one big act. And the worst part about it, the part you refused to let yourself think of for more than a second because fuck that, was that he had no business looking the way he did.
It was almost offensive that someone as infuriating as him had a face that made you want to forget every sin he committed.
You would just have to try your best to stay far away from him, steer clear of frat houses, frat parties, and anywhere someone like him might possibly show up.
Later that night you and Shoko are both wide awake, laying in the dark listening to the faint sounds of the occasional car or ambulance flying by. You’re still fuming, your earlier encounter making it hard for you to find sleep.
“Hey Sho?”
“Yes?”
“If you ever invite me to anything that asshole is at again, I’ll kill you both.”
“Noted.”
That was the day you grew to hate Satoru Gojo and the day he fell in love with you.
Now here you were. Your junior year came faster than you thought it would.
In the time since you started at Jujutsu University, you joined the cheer team, made the dean’s list multiple times and built a tight knit friend group that consisted of you, Shoko, Utahime, Yuki and occasionally Suguru.
Best of all, you had mostly stuck to your promise and kept away from Gojo, with the exception of a few incidents during your sophomore year when he had decided that you would be his new target of interest. It didn’t matter that you made your disdain for him clear, he never really gave up on his desperate attempts to win you over.
One of the most memorable times was when you picked up Shoko from an invite only party and he answered the door. He was grinning, telling you that he knew you couldn’t resist him and lifting his black shades to his head, blue eyes flashing.
"This is my favorite plot twist so far."
You bit your tongue and rolled your eyes, telling him you were here for Shoko only but nothing you said would get through that massive inflated head of his.
“You were invited by the way. Why didn't you come?” He actually frowns and you fight the urge to pinch yourself because he genuinely looks like a kicked puppy and you hate the way it tugs on your heart for a split second before you remember who you’re talking to.
“Because your last party fucking sucked.”
His ticking jaw and flared nostrils were your only signs that you had finally gotten to him before he was covering it up, licking his lips and looking down at your glossed ones with a grin.
“Oh so you’re one of those girls.” He clicks his tongue, giving a dramatic shake of his head.
“Excuse me?” You cross your arms, chest already growing tight with irritation. This was supposed to be a quick pick up and somehow you ended up stuck talking to the one person you wanted to avoid.
“You know.. a judgmental stuck up bitch.”
You had smiled, pride swelling in your chest because yes.. that’s exactly what you were and you hoped that now he’d take a fucking hint and leave you alone. If you were a little meaner maybe you’d scare him away for good.
“That’s one way to put it.”
“You’re so evil.” He leans against the door frame, lowering his shades back to his face. “It’s hot, you’re just my type of girl, sweets.”
The first week of your junior year had gone great, you hadn’t seen Gojo once which was a blessing in disguise since as you would later find out, you were both majoring in psychology. Your first day of cheer practice was coming up, you and Shoko were still sharing a dorm in your third year, your professors were all amazing and you managed to score an interview for a research internship next summer.
Everything had been going in your favor.
It felt like you were on top of the world until the white haired devil himself walked into the lecture hall, dressed in a snapback, faded jeans and a football jersey. He looked out of place. Suguru was by his side as they looked for a seat and your heart was pounding as you snapped your head forward so fast it was painful, not wanting him to feel you staring.
You sunk into your seat and dipped your head.
No, no, no! What the fuck was he doing here? Did he get lost? There was no way someone like Satoru Gojo would actually be taking a psychology class without being forced into it. Suguru, maybe. Satoru? He belonged in someone's business class, maybe engineering.
There was simply no universe in which he voluntarily enrolled in social psychology.
But it didn’t matter what you thought, because he was here and you could hear him getting closer to you, his voice sending sparks down your spine. Just when you thought you were going to get lucky, the sound of a chair scraping beside you made your stomach flip.
Painfully, you turned your head just as Gojo plopped down onto the seat to your right, his cologne invading your senses. Suguru apologized as he squeezed into the thin space to slip past you, taking the seat to your left.
What a genius you were, picking a spot with two free seats on either side of you.
Fantastic. Now you were trapped and Gojo only nodded at you when you glared at him, clearly fighting a smile as he leaned back in his seat as if he’d won a battle in this silent war you’d been in for two years.
This was fine. You’d just ignore him like you always did. He thrived off of attention, so you would simply deprive him of it.
Easy enough right? That’s what you thought until he opened his mouth and you remembered just how easily he got under your skin. How good he was at provoking a reaction out of you and it didn’t help that he looked hot as fuck with his skin slightly tanned from summer break, arms and chest a little bigger.
“Would you look at that? Looks like we’re classmates now, princess.”
You tried to ignore him, really you did but whenever he was around you simply lost all sense of rationality, ten brain cells dying with every word that came out of his mouth.
“Don’t call me that.” You keep your eyes forward, trying to listen to the professor who was going over what you’d be covering this week.
“Noted, princess.”
Surprisingly, you make it through most of class without Gojo bothering you. He only looks your way once but quickly turns his head when you catch him eyeing your exposed legs and pull your skirt down, his cheek dusted a light pink.
You ignore the way you feel your ears burning from the attention, a desperate ache growing between your legs.
"Before anyone gets too comfortable, I should let you know this course revolves around a semester-long research project."
A collective groan ripples through the lecture hall but your professor smiles anyways.
"You'll be working in pairs. By the end of the semester, you'll present a research-backed analysis of interpersonal attraction and the psychological mechanisms that influence it. This isn't a project you can throw together the night before. You'll be meeting with your partner regularly throughout the term."
Partners? Fuck!
You were a smart girl, always had been but working in groups had never been your strong suit. You were hyper independent and hated relying on others to carry their weight, especially when they hardly ever did. You either ended up doing all the work yourself or none of it, there was no in between.
"To avoid everyone choosing their friends, I've paired you using a wheel spinner."
A projector illuminated the screen behind her and names began appearing in two neat columns. You leaned forward, quickly scanning for your name and when you found it, you read it again.
And again, and again until you were shaking your head no and clenching your fists.
Gojo, Satoru — [Full Name]
"...You've got to be kidding me." The words come out louder than you meant for them to, your professor looking at you with a raised brow.
“I’m afraid there will be no changes. If anyone is unsatisfied with their partner you’re welcome to make your case after class but I'm afraid my decision is final unless you are at risk of being harmed.”
Did your emotional well being count? This was disastrous, a catastrophic fuck up and you would in fact take her up on her offer and be having a word with your professor once everyone left. You’d get on your knees and beg if you had to.
Gojo’s lightly laughed beside you and you snap your head toward him with the meanest glare you can muster, eyes burning with fury.
“What could possibly be funny?”
He shrugs, biting his bottom lip and staring at your strawberry gloss covered one, not giving a fuck that you could see him checking you out. You squeeze your thighs, annoyed at the way your body was reacting to his attention, betraying you in a way that was unforgivable.
“Guess fate ships us.”
Cheer practice hadn’t gone any better. As it turned out, Gojo had joined the football team and watching him run around all sweaty with his hair sticking to his head, kicking a ball in his blue uniform, was bad for someone trying to nail down their newest routine.
The cheer gym was delayed on its remodeling and the auxiliary gym had been in use so the only free space was the football field, hence your current situation.
It was hot, and you kept fucking up your stunts, eyes lazer focused on the field, instantly finding a set of white hair whenever you got tossed in the air. He hadn’t been looking at you, instead focusing on winning the mock game between teammates.
Yet he was still a nuisance even when he wasn’t trying to be and it didn’t help that you were still fired up from your conversation with your professor from earlier. When you begged to swap places with someone else, she had told you that ‘i don’t get along with fratboys’ wasn’t a legitimate reason to switch partners and that the project was worth fifty percent of your grade so you’d better find common ground fast.
Another thing nagging at you? You had only gotten laid a handful of times in the last year. Discovering you had an abnormally high libido after losing your virginity at the end of freshman year had been rough. Every guy you tried to build something with either couldn’t last more than two rounds before tapping out or wanted something more.
You weren’t looking for a relationship, just someone to help you get off once or twice a day. Your vibrators could only do so much. You craved the real thing, but struggled to find someone who could meet your needs.
"Focus!" Your captain's voice snapped you back to reality.
You blinked, realizing you had been staring at Gojo as he power kicked the ball into the net from halfway across the field, kicking dirt up. It was hot as fuck and irritated you at the same time.
“Sorry.”
You shake your head, stepping into position and letting your bases lock their grips around your ankles before they launch you upward. The familiar rush of adrenaline hits as soon as your body lifts into the air, muscle memory taking over as you balance yourself.
You should have been focused on your counts, on the people responsible for catching you if something went wrong. What did you do instead? You let your eyes wander until they found him again, heart lurching when you saw that he was already staring at you.
He waved and even from a distance you could tell he was smirking at you, ball in his hand as he pointed at the net and lowered it back to the ground. He moved his head from side to side, looking at you one last time before kicking the ball so hard that it almost took the goalie out, slamming into the back of the net.
Your cheeks burned, the ache from earlier returning.
You were completely unaware that you were one second away from falling because your brain apparently thought watching him was more important than not breaking your neck. Stupid girl.
“Eyes up!” Your captain's voice rang through the air and you forced your gaze down, correcting your posture before your bases caught you as you landed safely.
When your feet hit the ground you exhale sharply, slightly stumbling. Gojo had gone back to playing, as if he hadn’t almost killed you by distracting you.
“Are you alright? You’ve been out of it this entire time-”
“I’m fine! Let’s go again.”
You weren’t fine. You had just discovered that your brain was your biggest enemy, betraying you with a sudden attraction to your nemesis. That psychology degree was going to be very useful, now that you needed to diagnose why Satoru had become your biggest distraction.
Remember when I said, one might wonder how you of all people ended up with Gojo between your legs? Well here’s the straw that broke your back.
With the way your day had been going, you weren’t really surprised when your shift had gone to shit within the first thirty minutes. You hadn’t even changed out of your cheer uniform and were grateful your manager was nice about it and only made you put on an apron.
You were a baker at a small shop, and while you usually only iced pastries and baked bread, the cashier had called out so you were forced to cover both positions.
After ringing up the nastiest group of teenagers, you accidentally burned an entire rack of focaccia bread and your finger in the process. Your manager was understanding and thankfully had been able to find someone to cover your shift. You weren’t happy about missing out on money but at least you could lay in your bed and relax after the shit day you had. Right?
Wrong!
Usually when Shoko has company, she texts you beforehand to let you know, so imagine your surprise when you walk into your dorm and you’re scarred for life with the sight of a random’s man ass as he fucks your friend into the mattress.
The worst part is that they don’t even notice you! No one jumps up in shock and rushes to cover themselves. They continue to fuck like animals, as if you weren’t standing in the hall in shock.
After a few seconds you realize you should probably leave, jealousy coursing through you as you slam the door and storm from the building. Even Shoko, who never showed romantic or sexual interest in anyone, was getting laid while you were barely getting by with your toys.
Fine. If you weren't going to get some rest, you could at least be productive.
The library was the perfect place to study, especially at this time of night. Most people were partying, working or if they were Shoko, getting fucked in their dorms. Libraries didn't contain drunk assholes, frat presidents trying to flirt with you or rude customers screaming at you over something you couldn’t control. It was calm. Quiet.
And closed..
You stared at the locked doors, legs aching from the walk you just took to get here, thumb still hurting from earlier. You slowly walk to the locked doors, shrugging your cheer bag over your shoulder and checking the sign posted on the front door.
CLOSED DUE TO SHORT STAFFING
The universe was working against you, repaying you for some sin you committed in a past life and deciding you weren’t even allowed one small win today. And to make matters worse, you were still in your cheer uniform and it was getting chilly out.
You blamed Gojo. All of your issues started the moment he walked into that fucking lecture hall and decided to sit next to you. You were completely distracted after that which led to a shit cheer practice, a thirty minute shift and a burnt finger, and walking in on your best friend getting fucked.
You could kill him right now and not feel an ounce of remorse, even if you logically knew it wasn’t really his fault. You had to blame someone.
You read the sign again, as if it would magically change and the library would open. It was closed and you were fucked. Simple.
Based on the rare times Shoko did bring someone to your room, it lasted a few hours but you were always at work so it had never been a problem until today.
"Unbelievable." You dropped your head back with a groan, tightening your grip on your bag and staring into the dark sky. Of course the one night you needed somewhere quiet to hide, the universe decided to laugh in your face.
You kick lightly at the pavement, annoyed at yourself more than anyone else. If you hadn’t cut off the last guy you had been sleeping with just because he tried to invite you to a frat party, maybe you’d also be getting fucked right now.
It was your own fault really. You were too stubborn for your own good, your mother would tell you. “No one will want to put up with your high demands.” as if you hadn’t gotten that trait from her. That was fine. You didn’t need anything more from a man than sex, but no one had been able to match your high drive.
“I just need…” You look at the door again, tugging the handle just in case someone had forgotten to take down the sign.
Locked.
“God dammit!”
A laugh sounded from behind you and you froze, knowing exactly who it was without even turning around. Apparently the universe hadn't finished ruining your night yet. Yay, you.
“Rough night?”
You ball your fists and take a deep breath, counting to three and fighting back tears of frustration. When you turned around, you took in a sharp breath at the sight in front of you.
Gojo was holding a textbook under his arm and wearing a brown cardigan with a blue shirt underneath, light beige pants and were those..
He was wearing glasses. Not shades but bulky glasses that made him look kinda nerdy and the sight had the hair on your arms standings and your pupils expanding. He looked like a completely different person but you could tell it was him from the signature smirk he wore.
He stares at you with a titled head and you swallow the spit forming in your mouth. You weren’t seriously thirsty over Gojo right now, right? I mean, you knew you were sex deprived but he was everything you stood against so why were you staring at him like he was the best thing to walk the earth since Jesus himself?
“What are you doing here?”
“Came to study. Crazy concept, right?”
Your hand tightens around the handle of your bag, eyes drifting back to the textbook he was holding, though that was far from what you were staring at. Since when did Gojo have such huge hands and why were you attracted to his veins protruding as he grips the book?
“For you, yeah.”
“Ouch.” He laughs, soft and gentle and the sound has your pussy clenching against nothing. No fucking way was your body betraying you right now. You had never in your life clenched at a laugh, nor grown wet at the sight of someone and yet it was happening no matter how hard you tried to ignore it.
Gojo hadn’t even touched you, nor made any kind of sexual joke like he typically would and yet you were acting like a cat in heat.
“You really think so little of me? I’m kind of heartbroken.”
Yes. But you don’t say it, just look back at the dark building in defeat. Gojo notices and looks over your shoulder, his own sagging as he mumbles something you can’t understand.
“That’s unfortunate. You need somewhere to study, sweets? We can go to my place.”
You’re turning to him so fast your head spins, shoulders stiff as you prepare to lay into him but he beats you before you can even open your mouth, hands come up defensively.
“Not at the frat, I only live there part time. I have an apartment off campus, and a desk we can use.”
He waits for you to say something before giving up and sighing in exhaustion. You could tell he was annoyed but you didn’t care. If he was going to try to get you back to his place, he’d have to try a little harder than whatever this was.
“We should probably study together anyways right? You know, since we’re partners now..”
You should have said no, told him to fuck off but he did have a point. The library was closed, your roommate was otherwise occupied, and the faster you and Gojo finished your project, the sooner you’d never have to see each other again.
"One hour."
His grin appeared immediately as he held his free hand out to you. "Knew you couldn't resist me."
You scuff and move past him, getting into the passenger seat and making sure you glared out the window the entire ride there.
Gojo didn’t live far, no more than twenty minutes away from campus and you were grateful. Being in an enclosed space with him was hard enough, especially since the entire thing smelled of that cinnamon cologne that drove you crazy.
He tried to talk to you. About football practice, the assignment, the terrible song on the radio, anything to hear your voice but you were dead set on ignoring him, answering in low grunts and one word responses.
“The uniform is hot by the way. Had no idea you were a cheerleader, but I can’t say I mind watching you while I practice. The next time you want my attention though, just ask. No need to risk cracking your head open just to look at me.”
You’re insulted, face burning but you won’t feed into this petty spat he clearly wants to have. In the two years you’ve known him and the times you had to suffer his presence, you came to learn that everything he said was to get a reaction out of you.
Not this time.
“Gojo?”
“Yes, princess?”
“Shut up.”
Gojo’s apartment smelled like expensive air freshener and a faint trace of weed he swore he didn’t smoke anymore and it was from Sukuna and Suguru who had been over earlier. You ignored him, dropping your bag on the living room floor and looking around.
It was nice. Not spotless but cleaner than you thought it would be. Most of the furniture, you noticed, was black. His couch, the tables and chairs, even the curtains.
A stack of textbooks sat on his coffee table alongside a half-empty sports drink and what looked like a few polaroids. You move to get a better look but before you can really see anything, Gojo brushes past you and snatches them.
“Tsk, nosey girl.” He clicks his tongue and moves toward the kitchen. “Do you want anything?”
An hour later, you’re full off the takeout food Gojo got delivered and knee deep in your studies. You try to ignore the fact that the desk you’re sitting at is in his fucking bedroom but if he wasn’t overreacting to it then you weren’t going to either.
The last thing you needed right now was for Gojo to get distracted. He had actually been focusing on the project, refraining from making any crude comments or staring at your breast though you’d caught him looking at your bare legs once.
"Interpersonal attraction refers to the positive feeling one person forms toward another,'" You were sitting together at his desk as he read aloud from the textbook while you took notes. "'Researchers generally agree attraction develops through a combination of biological, cognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors.'"
You typed the definition into your outline while he skimmed farther down.
"'Repeated exposure to an individual tends to increase positive feelings toward them, even in the absence of meaningful interaction.'"
You don’t miss the way he lets his shoulder bump into yours, body moving an inch closer to yours. You have to squeeze your legs and bite back the moan creeping up your throat. He was still wearing the glasses, claiming his contacts were drying his eyes and that you would have known he wore them if you spent more than five minutes around him without ripping his head off.
You clear your throat and lean your body the opposite way. "The mere exposure effect."
"Mhmm. Which basically means people annoy each other until they fall in love."
Your fingers paused over the keyboard, slightly shaking as you look over at him. He was already staring, having moved closer to you again. The desk was big enough to hold both your laptops but small enough that you still invaded each other's space, his trick of turning his chair to face you doing nothing now that his knees brushed against the side of your thigh.
He was reaching a hand out to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear and you didn’t stop him, didn’t yell at him to fuck off. You just sat there, breathless, mind trying to process what was happening as he frowned at your lip tucked between your teeth.
"That’s not what it says." You whisper and he leans in closer, the corner of his mouth tugging in a small smile, eyes soft behind his glasses.
Gojo had been a thorn in your side since freshman year. He was everything you hated: arrogant, a fratboy, rich nepo baby, and a massive fuckboy that played with girls' hearts like they were toys meant for his entertainment.
But he was also infuriatingly smart when he bothered to try, and right now, he was watching you with an intensity that made your skin prickle and your pussy grow wet.
“Sure, whatever my princess says.” His voice is sultry and low as he reaches a hand out again to rubs his thumb on your lower lip, pulling it out before letting go.
You swallow hard, butterflies fluttering in your belly. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re tense.” He lets his hand travel to your shoulder, slow enough so that you could pull away, and when you don’t, he continues tracing your exposed collarbone, toying with the v-neck of your top.
“You’ve hated me for three years. That takes a lot of passion, ever wonder why you care so much?”
You opened your mouth to yell at him, to defend yourself against what he was implying because you had plenty of reasons to hate him but couldn’t think of any at this moment. Your brain was short circuiting and it was humiliating.
“I don’t care.” You manage to spit out.
Gojo’s eyes darkened, his grin fading. “Liar.”
His other hand slid up your thigh, creeping under your skirt and still, you didn't move away. Instead you decided to embarrass yourself even further and spread your legs to give him easier access.
“The chapter says physical attraction can override rational judgment. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. You claim I'm an asshole but you’re still sitting in my room, letting me touch you.”
“I’m-, oh!” You cry when he hovers over your clothed cunt, barely touching it and you’re bucking against him for more. So pathetic, so stupid. “I’m merely analyzing the s-subject matter.”
“Yeah, princess? Let’s put that theory to the test. I’ll keep touching you..” He turns your chair toward him, ignoring the way you gasp and glare at him for the loss of contact. He pulls it closer, the legs scrapping against the floorboard.
“And we’ll see if your rational judgment kicks in.”
He taps your thigh and you lift your hips as he pulls your panties down and tosses them over his shoulder. He’s spreading your legs again, further this time and he doesn’t waste a moment. His fingers are rubbing against your slit and you toss your head onto the back of the chair, hips shaking as you whine into his hand.
Gojo moved to kneel in front of you, his middle finger slipping between your folds and nudging at your entrance. When you looked down at him, entire body on fire, he was staring up at you as if looking for your approval.
Obviously grinding against him like a desperate whore wasn’t enough. No, Gojo wanted to hear you, to humiliate you and mock you for all the shit you had given him just to let him finger you when you should have been working on your project.
“Use your words or I'll stop.” He goes to pull his fingers away and your heart lurches.
The last thing you wanted was to beg him of all people but you were too far gone to not get something out of this. So you swallow your pride and nod.
“Keep going, you fucking jerk.”
He chuckles and grabs your thighs, placing them both over his shoulders. “I’m about to eat your pussy and you still can’t be nice to me.”
You don’t respond and he’s pushing his middle and index fingers through your neglected hole, not giving you any time to adjust before leaning down and taking your clit in his mouth.
“Satoru!” You cry out his name and the sound of coming from your lips has him groaning against you and closing his eyes to savor it.
You reach a hang out to grab his hair, looking down and clenching around his fingers because the way he has his head under your skirt is so fucking hot you think you might cum on the spot. He was so hungry for you that he didn’t even properly undress you, greedy man that he was.
His fingers curl inside of you, pumping a little faster as he licks up and down your slit, stopping to suck on your clit each time he passes it. When you try to close your legs, he grabs your thigh with his free hand and pulls it further open.
“Mmff, shtay righ' there.” He mumbles against your pussy, wrapping his lips back around your clit and sucking hard, using his teeth to lightly nibble and you’re leaking so much you can feel it dripping down your thighs.
This wasn’t the kind of research you had been expecting to do but you would accept it just this once, for the sake of your grade of course. This is also the longest he’s ever been quiet in your presence and if you had known that he was such a good pussy eater you would have put his mouth to use long ago.
‘Haaah, go deeper, I- oh god, nggghh I need more!” You grind against his face harder, gripping his hair and pulling him closer.
He just moans encouragingly, burying his fingers knuckles deep and fucking you dumb with them. Your squishy walls contracted around his fingers and with the next curl of them, you were wrapping your legs around his head and cumming so hard that your vision turned white, orgasm stealing your sight while you buck wildly against his face.
You were making a huge mess but Gojo didn’t seem to mind, licking you through it and only slowing his fingers when your legs dropped. He placed a kiss on your pussy before pulling from under your skirt and sucking on his fingers, looking right up at you.
His glasses were crooked, face glistening with your release and his cheeks were flushed red. Your chest heaved up and down dramatically as you fought to breathe properly again.
You couldn't remember the last time you came that hard and irritated you, made you crave more but you could never let him touch you again. This was a mistake, a serious lapse of judgement and yet you still needed more, your pussy already coming back to life.
You quickly stand and pull your skirt down, legs weak as you move around Gojo to find your panties, mortified at your own feelings right now. You just let a frat president go down on you and now you were thinking of how he would fuck you?
Clearly you weren’t in the right state of mind.
“You’re not tired of running away from me yet?” Gojo snaps, all sense of playfulness gone.
He was annoyed, you could hear it in his voice. Not that you cared but he was your ride here so you might as well appease him a little, right?
“I’m not running!” You yell, fingers digging into your palms. You were so beyond angry with yourself, disappointed that you got this far without falling into his den and now here you were. “I got what I wanted, the theory was correct but I think this study session has lasted longer than it should have.”
He looks at you in disbelief, taking his glasses off with a sigh and setting them on the desk before walking over to you, running his hand through his messy hair.
You were frozen. Every rational part of your brain screamed at you to shove him away and walk out. But your body was humming, and the way he looked at you made you want more.
He hovered over you, grabbing your chin and titling your head back so he can look you in the eyes, his other hand on your hip and playing with the waistband of your skirt.
“I can tell you haven’t been touched properly in a long time. Why do you insist on pretending like you don’t feel this pull between us, even if we hate each other?”
“You hate me?” Your lip twitches. While you can confidently say you despised him, he never gave the impression that he felt the same unless he had some sick way of showing it.
Gojo frowns and you hate how beautiful he looks. “No, never. I do want to fuck you though, so maybe we can help each other out.”
He pulls your skirt down just a little, fingers rubbing at the skin on your hip and sending a shiver through your body.
“Kind of like.. an arrangement. You can keep on hating me in public but in this room, I get to fuck you for as long as I want. Call it research for our project. Deal?”
You take a minute to think about it.
You were still seething at yourself for letting him touch. This meant nothing, you still hated him but even you had needs that needed to be met and if Gojo made you cum that hard from his fingers and tongue, you had to know what his cock could do.
“Fine, but I should warn you that I have a really high libido that most men can’t keep up with. If it’s too much I’ll just find-”
He cuts you off with a laugh, grabbing your hips and pulling you close enough that you feel his rock hard cock twitching against your stomach. He grabs the back on your neck and squeezes until you’re looking up at him again.
“You just haven’t been with a real man yet, princess. But don’t worry, I'll take real good care of you. Now take off your fucking clothes.”
You bite your tongue, resisting the urge to ask who he was talking to and at the same time, kicking yourself because you kind of liked it.
“Safe word?” He asked, unbuttoning his pants and stepping out them, his bulge huge against his white boxers, a small wet spot sitting on the front of them.
You roll your eyes and lift your shirt off, then your skirt. “We’re not children. Our safe words are stop and no.”
He nods and pulls his cardigan off and then the shirt underneath. Holy fucking sleeper build. Gojo was ripped but you’d never be able to tell under the clothes he wears. You’re taken aback by just how attractive he was, remembering the day you first saw him and how he was ten times hotter now.
Still a fratboy, still a prick but even you couldn't deny that he was one of the most stunning humans out there. Kind of otherworldly if you thought about it long enough.
“How about kissing? You cool with that, orrr?” He asks while pulling his boxers down and stepping out of them, his cock hitting his stomach and it was definitely the biggest one you’d ever seen. Thick and pulsing, pre leaking from the mushroom tip.
“Off limits. We’re strictly enemies with benefits, nothing more.”
There was no need to make this more difficult than it already was. You were beating yourself up for even being attracted to him, then to add kissing on top of that? You needed to save a shred of your dignity so you would be keeping your kisses.
“Fine, and we always use condoms. Not trying to be a dad in college like Toji. And no whining.”
You nod in agreement even though you were on birth control, snapping your bra off and tossing it, letting Gojo admire you and relishing in the way he looks like a lovestruck fool, hearts basically bursting in his eyes.
You don’t give him long, moving to climb on his bed and lay on your back. Your body was tight with need and you hadn’t even realized what you were doing, spreading your legs and playing with your pussy.
Gojo stands by the side of the bed and watches you as he reaches into the nightstand for a condom, using his teeth to rip it open and stroking it on.
You feel the bed dip first, his body climbing between yours, using his legs to nudge yours further open and then the heat of his cock pressing against your thigh.
“Fuck, you look so perfect.”
You open your eyes and if you didn’t hate him you’d say the same thing. His white hair messy on his head, the longer pieces falling into his bright blue eyes. His body was perfect, his shoulders not too broad but muscular, his waist thinner.
“Whatever, just fuck me.” You huff and in a blink he’s smacking his cock on your pussy then lining himself up with your entrance.
His heat engulfs you when he lays over your body, tapping your thigh so you wrap your leg around his waist.
He places his forehead on yours and smiles as sweetly as possible, one hand digging into the bed above your head to hold him up, the other placed on your hip.
“Ready?” He nudges your nose, gripping the sheets to stop himself from kissing you.
You bit your lip and nod, before stopping and pushing at his chest when he starts to nudge the tip in. “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll ruin your life.”
He rolls his eyes, swallowing the words ‘you already have’. “Sure, now can I fuck you?”
When he pushes the first few inches in, you gasp from the sting and before you can stop him he’s leaning down and pressing his soft lips against yours to quiet you.
He squeezes your hip and with one more brutal thrust, he was inside you, filling you to the hilt in one go. You cried into his mouth and he swallowed it, your back arching off the bed as he bottomed out, his balls pressing against your ass. He was almost too big, stretching you in ways that should’ve been painful but wasn’t.
He was the perfect fit, just what you had been looking for, the tip of his cock pressing deliciously against your cervix.
“Fuck, you take me so well,” he groaned, pulling back to look at you before slamming into you again. And again, his hips pistoned against yours, each snap of his pelvis driving him deeper and grinding onto your clit, your toes curling from the intense pleasure.
“Satoru! Huuuh, yes, fuck me just like that!” You tighten your legs around his waist, moving your hips up to meet his.
You clawed at his back, your nails leaving red marks as he fucked you like he hated you. Like he wanted to ruin you and punish you for making him wait years to do this. And god, did you love it.
“Harder,” you gasped.
He laughed darkly, gripping your throat just enough to make your vision swim. “You want it rough, baby? S-shit! You want me to fuck you like the enemy that you are?”
“Yes Satoru! P-please.”
In a flash he was flipping you over, placing you on your hands and knees and slamming back into you before you could catch your breath. Your ass was in the air and he pushed your head down until it was flat on the mattress, his hands tight on your waist as he pounded into you, his hips snapping against yours with a bruising force.
Thank god he had his own place because each thrust had the bed rocking and sent a jolt of hot pleasure through you, your pussy clench around him and making obscene wet squelching noises that only fueled his hunger for you.
Gojo picked up his pace, veiny cock rubbing against your walls and he wished he could feel your raw pussy, wanted to stuff you full of his cum but he knew better so he ignored his instinct and focused on fucking you.
The cries you let slip out are music to his ears, a song he wanted to hear every fucking day but he would settle for tonight, for now. He leans forward and fucks into you harder, hand squeezing your boob and twisting your nipples, pinching and pulling until you’re whimpering, tears pooling down your face.
“Didn’t I say no whining? Be a good girl, princess.”
You don’t hear what he’s saying, too drunk on his cock as he fucks you stupid, drool spilling from your mouth and onto the sheet. The sight has Gojo groaning, his balls tightening as he splits you open on his cock and fucks you stupid.
“Shit, look at you. All fucked out. Fucking take it baby. Take my cock like a good cum slut.”
His words have you shaking violently with your second orgasm, eyes rolled back as he fucked you through it, squirting heavy on his cock and making a beautiful mess.
“Never letting anyone fuck you again.” He pushes you further onto the bed, your stomach flat against the mattress as he grinds deep into you, completely dominating you, his hands gripping the sheets above you. “This is mine, say it’s my pussy, baby. Tell me you belong to me-fuck-haaah.”
You don’t answer but the way you’re crying for more is enough to satisfy Gojo and he’s filling the condom with white hot cum, gasping as wave after wave of pleasure rocks him, his hips twitching as he empties himself into the latex.
He gives sloppy, lazy thrusts as he rides it out, pushing deep into you one last time before pulling out and falling onto his back next to you. While you come back down to earth, he’s ripping the condom off, tying it and tossing it into the trash before reaching for another one.
Before you know it, he’s rolling it and pulling you onto his lap, lining himself up and pulling you down onto his cock while pushing up into you, fingers digging into your hips.
“Ready for round two?” He smirks when you start to move despite still trying to remember how to breathe properly.
He doesn’t stop after that, keeps fucking you until you’re on the verge of passing out, body weak and shaking but still wanting more.
“What number are we at now, four? Come on, princess. Gimme another one, I know you can do it. Gotta get to five, it’s my favorite number.”
Holy shit.. Gojo was everything you had been looking for in a sexual partner. You had been fucking for two hours now and yet he still has the energy of a man running on spite and arrogance.
It was almost comical. You were a fucking goddess, you could get anyone you wanted, any man would be lucky to have you. Yet the only one who seemed to know how to satisfy you was the one guy you couldn’t stand.
Not that any of that mattered when he had you riding his cock, again, your pussy swollen from how hard he’d been fucking you without tiring. Your clit was overstimulated but he kept rubbing it anyway, your back arching as you felt the pressure building in your belly again.
“C-can’t Toru’” You slurred, drooling dripping down your chin, your face completely wet with tears, makeup long ruined.
“I believe in you, baby.” He smacks your ass hard and then does it again just to watch the way you jump. “Look at you, taking me so well. S’proud of you babe.”
You ignore the pet name, ass on fire and too close to cumming for the fifth time to argue with him over it.His hands grip your hips, pulling you up and down on his cock. You twirled your hips, spelling your name out as you fucked him back, body aching from the intense fuck session.
It wasn’t long before you were grinding harder against Gojo’s pelvis and squirting on him again, fingers pressing into his shoulders as he fell over the edge with you. Pushing himself up and throwing his head back with a roar, legs stretching out as he pumped a thick load of cum into condom.
You move up and down as much as you can, helping him finish his orgasm before collapsing against his chest. Gojo wraps his long arms around you, cock still seated inside you as you both fight to breathe, sweaty bodies sticking together, eyes droopy with exhaustion.
What a fucking night.
You would one hundred percent be fucking him again, even if it was just until you found someone you could tolerate outside of the bedroom. As for now, Gojo was the only one that could tame the fire inside of you and fuck did you hate to admit that.
You can feel his heart beating against your own, his hand rubbing up and down spine, lips kissing the side of your head. As reality comes back to you, you freeze before pushing yourself off him and laying next to him on the bed.
You ignore the hurt look on his face.
“Wanna shower with me?” Gojo asks, sitting up and pushing his hair from his forehead, looking at you over his shoulder with cloudy eyes.
“Seperate.” You don’t even look at him. Way to flip the script on him, he was usually the one ignoring girls after getting what he wanted.
He nods and goes through his drawer before finding a pair of sweatpants to put on, the obvious bulge of his still hard cock making your pulse jump.
He goes into the bathroom connected to his room and you hear the shower turn on before he comes back out and tosses you a towel. You can tell he’s upset but you ignore it. He wasn’t your man, it wasn't your problem.
After you wash your body and your hair, you find that he’s left you a pair of shorts and a shirt on the bed. When he comes back in the room and sees you dressed in his clothes, the size of it swallowing you, his heart damn near stops and you see the way he swallows the lump in his throat.
He clears his throat and smiles at you, slowly walking toward you and your body goes cold when he places his hand on your cheek and leans down to kiss your forehead.
That was the second time he broke your rule and the second time you didn’t correct him.
“Stay. I’ll bring you home in the morning, I can take the couch.”
You nod your head ok, lost for words and he simply nods and moves past you to take his shower.
Later that night you toss and turn before giving up and laying on your back, staring at the ceiling in the nearly dark room, drumming your fingers on your stomach. You sometimes had nights where you just couldn’t sleep no matter what you did and it seems tonight was one of those nights.
You’re still sore between your legs, a reminder that you went back on your word and let Gojo fuck you. You didn’t regret, even had plans on doing it again but that didn’t mean you weren’t angry with yourself. More so because you smelled just like him after using his soap.
He just knew all the right places to touch you, all the best ways to make you cum harder than you did the time before, his cock fitting so perfectly inside of you. It was a shame he had the personality of a walnut.
When you finally turn on your side to go to sleep, eyes burning from exhaustion, you feel the bed dip behind you and strong arms wrap around you.
You try to squirm out of Gojo’s grip but he tightens his arms around you, pulling you until your ass is flush against his hard cock, his chin tucked atop your head.
“Gojo.. we need to sleep, we have class tomorrow.”
“So I’m only Satoru when I fuck you? Wicked girl.” He leans down to kiss your neck and you let him, again, feeling your clit grow erect and that ache return.
“That’s your name isn’t it?” You huff out, moving your hips back against him.
He ignores you, hand going to your hip you pull you close as he grinds into you, slipping yours and his pants down. He quickly puts on a condom before pushing into you, bottoming out in one thrust, hand covering your mouth to keep you quiet.
“Gonna fuck you until you only know Satoru.. You know, my favorite number is actually six.”
You may have bitten off more than you could chew.
❦ lisa's note: sorry about the pledge scene 🥲 I wanted to show how frats are and needed you to truly hate them. promise I'll make up for it!
sex with bkg is 30 mins to 1 hr of pussy eating turning to pussy eating and fingering -> making out while he grinds his palm against your cunt while you come all wet and sticky against him -> soft and slow missionary with intense eye contact and a lot of very dirty grinding -> rinse and repeat
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𑣲⋆ choso finally realises he’s doing more harm than good by fighting his feelings for you—now he just needs to figure out if you’ll still have him…
cw: explicit sexual content. plug!choso x popular fem!reader. highkey angst, p in v, raw, riding, lowkey fem!dom/degrading.
song: “i didn’t see you before, but i see you now” [yearning final boss]
{𝜗ৎ part one / part two / part three 𝜗ৎ}
choso watched you from across the cafeteria. he bit at his blunt thumbnail while his knee bounced insistently beneath the table.
it had been weeks, and you hadn’t so much as looked in his direction since you hooked up that night, after bumping into each other at one of his friends’ parties. he stayed at your place, and as soon as morning came, you were ushering him out of your apartment.
“i really can’t do this anymore, cho,” you’d said. “out of respect for myself.”
he frowned. “y’think i don’t respect you, y/n?”
you’d smiled softly, and sadly, and the sight had made his heart warm and ache at once.
“i know you do.” you sighed out a breath. “you hold me at an unrealistically high regard, choso. that’s why this has to end. and for my own sanity.”
he didn’t have a clue what you were talking about at the time. but given the three weeks he had to reflect on it, he understood: you felt like he didn’t see you as an equal. a human. he saw you as some sort of unreachable celestial being, far above himself.
and you were entirely right.
the idea that someone like you could have feelings for someone like him was an unfathomable concept. and yet, you did. you told him, and he brushed it off like it was nothing. like he could just make it go away.
well it didn’t, and that’s why he’d been watching you from afar for the better part of two months rather than being at your side like he wished he could.
“earth to kamo.”
he dragged his gaze away from your bright smile now, focused it across the table at sukuna.
his friend made a face. “fucking hell, just go talk to her.”
“why would i do that?” choso mumbled, picking up his drink and bringing it to his lips.
“you’ve been moping around for months, brother.” sukuna snatched the cup from his hand before the straw reached cho’s mouth, added, “this is mine. you’re so out of it, it’s quite frankly pathetic.”
he looked to his left, hated that sukuna was right, because his drink was there completely untouched. choso rolled his eyes, folded his arms over his chest. tried to look anywhere but back to the south pole that he was constantly being drawn to. his own personal punishment.
he sucked in a deep breath and let his eyes fall shut.
that was earlier. currently, choso was sat in his mustang outside of an apartment building. a building that he didn’t live in.
was it creepy that he sometimes parked outside of your house in the hopes that he’d catch even a glimpse of you?
maybe.
was it possible for him to just go about his life as if you’d ever met, and without ever checking up on you?
absolutely not.
so this was the compromise. he’d absolutely fucked it with you, and now he’d resorted to becoming a… well, a… stalker.
he shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the thought. so lost in his own mind, that he doesn’t even notice the person approaching his car until he hears the soft rap on his window.
you look down at him as he rolls it open, hands folded over your chest. he hasn’t been this close to you in weeks. the sweet sent of your perfume immediately washes over him; your face, impossibly more beautiful up close than he remembers. he swallows.
“this is the second time your car has been outside my building this week,” is the first thing you say to him in far too long. “it’s tuesday.”
your voice washes over him—his eyes flutter, and he visibly shivers.
“yeah i… work with someone nearby,” he fumbles.
“nearby.” you raise a brow. “so you are outside my building because?”
choso presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek. takes a moment to decide on an answer that will piss you off the least.
“because i miss you,” is what he comes up with.
“oh fuck off, choso,” you scoff, already turning on your heels.
he shoves open the car door, barely remembering to push it shut in his haste to keep you close.
“i’m sorry, y/n,” he calls, voice desperate as he walks after you. “i’m sorry baby—”
“ughhh.” you push a hand through your hair as you swing the door to your building open. “don’t ‘baby’ me.”
his heart drops with every inch of space you put between you and him after so long being apart. the sight of you walking away causes an uncomfortable sensation of dread in his chest.
“i know you don’t want to see me,” he tells you as he pulls open the door to the stairwell, holds it open and allows you to pass under.
“under-fucking-statement of the century,” you mutter.
“i just… please talk to me.” he internally cringes at his sudden inability to recall the english language.
you don’t break your stride, just throw, “since when have we ever done that?” over your shoulder.
“y/n, please—” choso cuts off with a barely contained, choked noise.
it’s so foreign, such a pitiful sound to leave his mouth—he notices you glance over your shoulder, a slight furrow between your brows.
“just give me five minutes,” he says quietly as you reach the top of the stairs, nearing your apartment entirely too quickly. “fuck, i only need one.”
you roll your eyes and turn back around to swing the stairwell door open. your apartment door is right opposite.
you push the key in and twist, and it swings inwards. “so it has to be on your terms for us to talk?” you ask, holding the door open for him to pass by. “what about when i wanted to talk, choso?”
he pushes his hand through the front of his hair, squeezes his eyes shut—it means that he doesn’t see how hard you roll yours as you drag his other arm and usher him in.
it’s the click of the door behind you that snaps him out of whatever desperation riddled trance he was in. his eyes blink open. he takes in the fact that he’s standing in your apartment. when he turns to you, you’re already moving for your bedroom door.
he reaches out instinctively to stop you in your tracks. “where are you going?”
you look at him like that was the most stupid question you’ve ever heard. nod your head to your bedroom door.
it makes choso’s heart ache.
“i’m not here to fuck, baby,” he tells you softly, wanting nothing more than to reach out and hold your face in his hands if he knew you’d receive it well.
you raise a brow. “you’re not?” you ask, with mock confusion that might just be real. “but that’s all this is, is it not?”
choso shakes his head, hand still gripping your wrist, now leading you away from your bedroom and into the living room area.
“it’s not,” he tells you.
you snatch your arm away as if you’ve only just remembered that his touch is supposed to be unwanted. cross them over your chest.
“really?” you tilt your head. “but we’re oil and water, choso. or am i mistaken? did i misread that very clear statement?”
“i’m sorry,” he repeats firmly. he needs you to understand it, not just hear it.
you sigh. “so i’ve heard.”
“i disregarded your feelings, and i’m sorry,” he says again, making sure every word is clear as day. “i pushed you away. you didn’t want it, and i definitely didn’t want it.”
you look him in the eye for what feels like the first time in months. he thinks he notices you chewing on the inside of your lip, a nervous habit. but he can’t be sure.
“choso.” you close your eyes. push a hand through the front of you hair and mussing it so prettily in the process. “i really can’t do this right now.”
“i know, bab— y/n.” he lifts his hands in surrender. “tell me i’m a selfish asshole. tell me i don’t deserve you. call me a dickhead. call me anything.”
if your fury was all he could have, he would take it a million times over if it meant he could be near you.
“you still don’t understand, cho,” you say, strained. “and you’re so in your head about being unworthy of me that you don’t hear a word i’m saying.” your lower lip wobbles, and it kills him knowing he’s the reason. “but you won’t fucking let me get over you. why?”
choso shakes his head. his throat tightens.
“do you want me to be miserable?” you ask. “is that it? you can’t have me, so nobody else can?”
“that’s not—”
“you could walk away from me and have anyone else—”
“i don’t want—”
“but instead you keep. coming. back.” you make a choked sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “you keep fucking with my mind, with my heart, over, and over—”
“tell me how i’m supposed to leave you alone when you’re all i ever think about, y/n,” choso snaps.
it takes you, and him, by surprise, but he can’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth.
“tell me how i’m supposed to see you every day and not be reminded of your eyes looking up at me. tell me how i’m supposed to stop loving you. tell me, and i swear to god i’ll listen.”
for a painfully silent moment, you just stare at each other. choso’s chest heaving with adrenaline. your body completely still.
when you take a step towards him, he isn’t sure what to expect. definitely not for you to push him backwards. lightly at first. the second time, you shove him harder, both hands against his chest. he lets himself fall back onto the couch.
he watches you as you quietly drop your head to your hands. stay like that for a moment, before you lift it again. his heart shatters when he sees the dark makeup staining the skin beneath your eyes.
you don’t say anything, even as you climb onto the sofa, straddling a leg over both of his. or when you begin to work the button on his jeans. he breathes your name, feels his cock twitch despite everything, and you look up at him—such a devastating sight, as you pull him out of his pants.
“is that supposed to make me feel better,” you say. he knows it isn’t a question for him to answer. “you hating that you love me?”
he quickly shakes his head regardless, attention flicking between your face and your thumb tracing the tip of his rapidly hardening cock. you spit in your palm. twist your wrist as you slide it down his length the way you know he likes it.
“you can’t have me, so now you suddenly love me?”
“loved you from the start,” he blurts. “maybe even before.”
your grip tightens around his shaft and he sucks in a breath.
“you’re the biggest asshole i’ve ever met, choso kamo,” you breathe, eyes flicking between his, dropping down to his parted lips. “and i have met some real fucking assholes.”
“i know baby,” he murmurs. when you focus your attention on his tip, his head lolls back, a moan climbing his throat. “i’m sorry.”
he watches you with heavy lidded eyes as you sit up on your knees. you pull your shorts to the side, not bothering to take them off. he reaches up to hold them in place for you while you line his cock up with your hole.
he whines as you drag it between your folds. “i really didn’t come here to do this, y/n. i want to—”
“you can come up with some more bullshit later,” you tell him, voice breathy. “when i can muster up enough fucks to give.”
his other hand moves to your ass as you sink down onto the first couple inches of his erection. his jaw drops entirely, eyes glued to the place where you’re connected, hand gripping your flesh. when you drop your head to his shoulder, he moves it to the back of your head, stroking it down your hair.
“oh my god,” you say, lips brushing against the skin of his neck.
you clench around him, and the moan that leaves his mouth can only be described as agonised.
“squeezing me so good, baby,” he whispers, more air than words. “fuck, you feel so good.”
you cup the back of his neck. mumble, “stop talking,” between kisses against his throat whilst you grind down against his cock.
he opens his mouth to do the opposite, but when you lift your hips and slam them back down again, his words are lost to a whimper.
“you’re always so noisy when i fuck you like this,” you say, fingers gripping the shorter hair at his nape, lips brushing the spot beneath your ear. “so confident when it comes to anything else, but can hardly take pussy.”
it’s when you’re like this, that gets choso going the fastest. mean. ruthless. he wasn’t sure what liking the way you degraded him said about his character. all he knew was that it turned him the fuck on.
when you pulls back so that you can look him in the eye, he feels his hips jerk up instinctively. your hand slides from his hair to grip his chin, watching the way his eyes flutter and his brows turn up. the way his mouth gapes open while you bounce on his cock, while he rolls his hips to meet yours.
when he feels his tip brush against that soft spot that melts you completely, you moan, despite what he knows is your best efforts. your forehead falls to his, and now you’re pressed against each other, breathing the same air as he stretches you over and over again.
“you’re so stupid,” you say against his lips.
“i know baby,” he murmurs. “fuckkk, i know i am.”
“i’m not gonna forgive, fuck, i’m not gonna forgive you jughh—just because you suddenly realised you can’t live without me,” you tell him.
“i could never live without you,” he says. “not after knowing what it feels like to have you.”
“i hate you, cho,” you moan as your hips begin to lose their momentum. he grips your ass, picking up the slack and thrusting his hips up so that his cock drives into you again and again.
“i know you do,” he breathes. “i love you too, y/n.”
you lean forward and push your tongue into his mouth as he feels your walls tighten around him. as your hand in his hair pulls painfully taught, and a broken moan transfers from your mouth to his whilst you fall apart on his cock.
choso cums so hard that it’s nearly painful, whimpering quietly into your mouth, licking at your tongue, spilling into you until it overflows and dribbles back down his length.
when he blinks his eyes back open again, you’re regarding him.
“go home,” you tell him.
just two words, and his heart sinks so abruptly that it causes his eyes to well up, almost immediate.
“when you come back tomorrow, i expect something far better than a desperate, heat-of-the-moment confession of love,” you finish, lifting yourself off his still hard cock and standing up.
he huffs out a breath of relief. maybe a bit of disbelief. watches you, awestruck, as you walk over to the bathroom door.
you turn, hand on the doorknob, to look over him. raise your brows and jerk your thumb in the direction of the front door—it makes a laugh jump out of him. maybe his first in weeks.
“yes ma’am,” he responds, tucking himself into his pants.
you’ve disappeared into the shower without even a goodbye.
it’s still more than choso could’ve ever wished for.
a/n: guys i’m sorry i’m late i passed tf out last night!!!! i know i wrote ten reps of bullshit but this slump has me in a chokehold and not an enjoyable one. plug!cho complete though 🥺 i’ll write another fic where he’s actually more plug i just get so lost in my own sauce that i be forgetting the original plot. forgive me. love and miss you all xxxxxx
