You hang up the phone, immediately paging the trauma attending on call, and then finish up the chart you’re currently working on, signing off a patient as safe to go. One more person going home healthy because of your astounding work at the ER. Or so you tell yourself.

“Y/N? The patient on bed 3 needs an ortho consult.” Another 3rd year resident whose name you haven’t bothered to learn quips from the middle of the room, holding a chart so tightly you feel it’s going to snap.

“Page Dr. Torres, I don’t think she’s doing surgery at the moment.” She nods and turns to leave, but before she can get any further you mutter a weak ‘hey’ to catch her attention, which thankfully works. “Go have some lunch and take a nap, okay? I can handle the ER without you for a couple hours.”

“You sure? I know you took an extra shift here, I’m just kinda hungover.” You know she is.

In fact, you know half your co-workers are after the “last last big night out” at Joe’s nearly everybody attended last night. “Yeah, don’t worry. I’m fine.”

She smiles and walks away as fast as she can without running, probably trying to be as far away from you in case you change your mind at the last minute.

Dr. Hunt arrives at the ER just a second later, gesturing you to follow as he walks towards the entrance, one eager intern walking right behind you two. “Trauma room?” He asks while you’re already halfway out the door.

“Number 2 is available.” You quickly reply, taking the gloves and isolation gown that he’s handing you, putting them on as quickly as you can.

As if on cue, you hear the ambulance arriving to the site, that same good old rush of adrenaline pumping to your veins little by little, getting you prepared for whatever is about to arrive.

The ambulance comes to halt in front of you, one of the doors opening immediately. Hunt rushes to open the other one in order to help the paramedics exit the ambulance quicker.

“What do we got?” He asks loudly, already helping the paramedic closer to the gurney.

“46 year old male. Shortness of breath. Had a syncopal episode.”

The gurney rolls out from the ambulance with ease, and gets quickly pushed inside as Hunt gives orders to the intern on his service. You’re struggling to get the second glove on, so you decide to move out of the way and simply follow behind.

“Pulse is rapid and irregular. Let's take him to trauma room 2.” Hunt orders as he checks the vitals of the patient.

A man jumps out of the ambulance at the last moment, the noise of his feet landing on the ground so loud it makes you jump ever so slightly, you hadn’t noticed him inside the car. He walks through the door and into the emergency room following the gurney, but you manage to stand in front of him before he can go any further.

“Sir, you can’t go in there.”

“We— we were trying to fix his truck, and then he just fainted. I swear I— I didn’t think it would take a toll on him like this, I just wanted to cheer him up.” He’s rambling, his forehead covered in sweat and his hands dirty with grease and dirt, blue eyes filled with tears.

You decide to focus on him as you motion to Hunt to go on without you, knowing he’d rather have you calm down the patient’s company than leave him alone in a state like this. Hunt simply nods as he goes inside the room.

“Sir, sir… please, I need you to take a moment and a deep breath for me, okay?” You place both hands on his shoulders to make him look at you, hoping the contact will ground him.

He finally moves his focus from the trauma room his relative went into to you, deeply frowning and mouth quivering as he keeps himself from crying. His hands go up to lock around your wrists, and it takes him a long moment until he finally breathes heavily.

“Good, good.” You feel how his hands clench harder around your wrists, to then relax when he allows himself another deep breath, but he doesn’t let you go. “Sir, these things happen, it’s not your fault.” You mutter softly, not knowing exactly what happened but already somehow certain it really isn’t his fault.

“I know he’d been feeling under the weather and I still— it is my fucking fault.” Tears finally start rolling down his cheeks, as he gently pulls your arms away from him. “I’ll wait here, I’m not gonna— I promise I won’t try anything funny, just... please go help Frankie, ma’am.”

“Frankie?”

There’s a strange feeling at the pit of your stomach when you hear that name, your senses overwhelmed as your mind immediately thinks about the only Frankie you’ve met at the hospital. You turn around to look inside the trauma room through the large window, just as the cardio fellow on call walks inside the room, and it’s when you finally catch a glimpse of his face.

“Frankie Morales?” You ask out loud, once you remember to catch a breath yourself, already knowing but needing the verbal confirmation from the man in front of you.

“Yes,” he replies between soft and small sniffles. “He has a doctor here, it's, uh… his name is doctor Thomas?”

“Thomas, yes.” You nod frantically, your heartbeat suddenly drumming in your ears. “I've treated Fr— Mr. Morales before, so I’m gonna go page doctor Thomas and make sure the team treating him knows about his condition, okay?”

You're already taking long steps towards the trauma room, asking a nurse to help the man who came with Francisco.

“Somebody page 911 for Dr. Thomas!” You say as loud as you can without yelling, nearly sprinting to the room. “Dr. Hunt, this is Frank- Francisco Morales, he’s a patient of Dr. Thomas.” Hunt pauses what he’s doing, waiting on you to update him with what you know. “He’s on the top of the list for a heart transplant due to a dilated cardiomyopathy.”

You choose to stay away from Frankie, knowing the grease from where his friend held onto you can’t be safe for the sterile environment. The information flows out of your mouth with ease, but you’re suddenly at a loss for words when you finally take one good look at Frankie.

Unlike the last time you saw him like this, he doesn’t look like he’s sleeping. That warmth you remember is gone. There’s no hint of a smile or anything of the sort, and his face is void of any peacefulness. The room suddenly feels very hot, and crowded, you try to swallow a weird bulge that has lodged inside your throat which wasn’t previously there, but you can’t.

“Talk to me, Hunt.” The voice of your mentor entering the room as you stand still quickly brings you back from your trance, and you take advantage of that pull back to reality to get back in the headspace you’re supposed to be in right now.

“He has acute dysthymia and CHF. Vitals all over the place.”

You watch Thomas approach Francisco, quickly checking his heart with a stethoscope. “His heart rhythm is a mess,” he finally says when the noise in the room settles down for a moment, allowing him to listen properly. “He’s in heart failure.”

“What can I do?! What… what do we do?” You ask, removing the gloves and gown to make sure you’re clean.

“Best we can do now is get him up to CICU to wait and see if his heart will stabilize.” Thomas responds, focusing on Francisco’s vitals and nothing else.

“Ok, you heard Thomas. Call up to have a room prepped for him and let’s get going, come on.” Hunt gets the room moving, the few nurses and doctors in the room focusing on their personal tasks while you hurry to call the CICU.

Less than a minute later, a team is finally moving Francisco to the elevator, a nurse from the station handing his chart to Dr. Thomas as he takes over the case and Hunt stays behind along with you.

“Y/LN you can—” he starts to say, but you hurry to interrupt him without thinking twice about it.

“I’m gonna go update the man who came with him. I’ll be right back,” you tell him, your feet once again moving on their own.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey—” Hunt says softly, intending for only you to hear him and not catch anyone else’s attention. He reaches out to place his hand over your shoulder, carefully turning you around to look at him. “You okay?”

What does he even mean by it? Of course you're okay, you're fine. It's almost insulting that he asks, why wouldn't you be?

“Yes, thanks.” You have to bite your tongue to not answer too harshly, moving your shoulder away from his grasp as gently as you can, not allowing yourself to slow down on your way to the waiting room.

It doesn’t take long for you to find the person that came with Frankie. He’s sitting alone at the edge of this seat, his broad and large figure curled down in a ball while he holds his head on his large, dirty hands.

“Sir?” You call tentatively, not knowing his name and completely certain this isn’t Santiago. You remember him although it’s been 3 months since you last saw him with Frankie. “Mister… uh.”

He almost jumps out of his seat when he notices you mean him, standing perfectly still as you close the remaining appropriate distance to speak to him without anyone else hearing.

“Miller. My name is Ben Miller, my brother William is one of Frankie’s emergency contact numbers.” The man says clear and fast, as if he’d rehearsed it on your way there. “Is Frankie okay?”

The man starts fidgeting with his dirty hands, which you blatantly try to ignore while keeping your eyes locked with his. “Mr. Morales has been taken to the CICU by Dr. Thomas, he’s in a delicate condition and only there will he receive the best care we can offer.”

“Do you… have you figured out what’s wrong with him? Is it bad?”

“He’s in heart failure, but he’s holding on. In most similar cases like this it’s better to wait for his heart to stabilize on his own while Dr. Thomas figures the best course of action to help that happen.” The words leave your mouth in a single breath, knowing the moment his friend processes the ‘heart failure’ part of it all could cause him to react in a million ways.

He almost falls back on his chair when this happens, and you see how hard it suddenly is for him to take a breath. You’re afraid he’s going to pass out, given the sweat on his forehead and how his eyes unfocus as he blinks and turns to look all around him, as if taking everything in.

“Mr. Miller?” You say nervously, silently hoping there’s someone large enough to help you catch him if he falls, wondering if you should try to guide him back to his seat.

“He’s holding on. He’s holding on.” He mutters under his breath, each inhale and exhale heavy and ragged, but somehow timed and precise. “If.. if he’s in the CICU I guess I can’t see him till he’s out?”

The way he seems to put himself under control in less than a minute amazes you. His entire demeanor has been nothing but amusing to you from the moment you met him in the E.R., and you can’t help but wonder if maybe he also served with Frankie. You recall him and his friend being a veteran.

“Yes, I—... We can send someone over to keep you updated as often as you want. Even if there’s little to no change.” You know whoever is on the case now will hate you for offering if he says yes, but you don’t care, nothing about this case is your problem once this conversation is over.

“I would appreciate it, ma’am— doctor.” He nervously corrects himself, and it almost makes you smile. Now that you’ve been paying more attention to his face, you can see a boyish glint on his eye, dimmed by his almost palpable worry.

“Of course.” There’s no smile on your face as you say this, knowing this is not the moment for the warmth and hospitality you’re trained to give under any circumstance, your mind already set on walking back to the E.R.

“Wait, excuse me, doctor?” Mr. Miller is suddenly nearly stepping on your heels, dangerously close when you turn to ask what he needs. He steps back once you stop, his grime covered hands up in the air as a non-verbal apology. “May I ask… is doctor Y/LN available right now?”

The way your head tilts to the side at the perplexity of his question is inevitable, and it’s not until the nearby elevator dings a couple of seconds later that you finish processing what he just asked.

“Ye—, uh…” You blink once, and then twice, noticing how his brows raise in anticipation for your answer. “I’m doctor Y/LN.”

“Oh.” The man’s mouth hangs open for a moment while he stares at you, clearly trying his hardest to not look you up and down. “Oooh.”

You raise one brow at him, suddenly more defensive than confused, unable to stop narrowing your eyes at him, that distant feeling of waiting for him to say something stupid coming back like last time. Apparently, a shared trait between him and his friends.

“I need to make a call… nice meeting you, doctor.” With that he walks away, already fumbling with the device that he pulls out of his pocket and towards the direction of the nearest restrooms.

The way he says ‘doctor’ gets you. There’s a heat rushing up to your face that you can’t recognize feeling before.

Except you have. And it’s hard to pick what to feel next when the realization hits.

Francisco Morales, has been talking about you.

———————————

The eerie silence that reigns over the E.R. feels almost ominous, some of the beds are taken and there is movement in the room. Still, compared to other times it’s slow, but no one dares mention it.

You don’t mind that it is like this, but if it were you the room would be heaving with urgent surgeries, preferably all related to cardio. Not that you wish people were hurt, but maybe if you had anything to do that wasn’t sitting down to chart, you wouldn’t be thinking so much about why some patient you met months ago would even bother to mention you by name.

“Hey.”

Your whole spine straightens and shoulders tense up when you hear his stupid voice, there’s a voice inside your head that says you could simply just ignore him. But your body’s reaction already gave away that you heard him, and you can tell by how he flops on the desk closer to you.

Still, you keep your eyes focused on the charts you’re working on, and your face completely blank hoping he’d get the hint that you don’t care what he’s here for.

“It’s kinda—”

“Don’t you dare say it,” one of the nurses chimes in before he can finish that thought, pointing an accusing finger at him. “And get your ass off my desk.”

The ghost of a smile paints your lips, and you make a note of buying her some coffee when he scrambles off from your side and awkwardly stands around instead.

He clears his throat when the nurse leaves, and leans just enough to try and get your attention once again. “What do you want, Thorton.” You finally snap, figuring the sooner he says something stupid, the easier you can weasel your way out of this conversation.

“I heard you took an extra shift in the E.R. so I thought I’d pass by and leave you a snack before I start mine for the afternoon.”

Out of the corner of your eye you can see his hand coming out of his lab coat holding some pastry from the vending machine, and you nearly hurl at the thought of eating whatever comes from that dreaded machine.

“Not hungry, thanks.” It’s all you say, pretending to be much more interested in the papers you’ve already finished filling, as if meticulously making sure you didn’t make any mistakes.

Which you know you didn’t.

“C’mon, Y/LN. How long are you gonna make me keep begging for a second date?” He chuckles, and you can’t help but wonder what’s so funny about him not getting that’s never gonna happen.

Second date.

For Christ sake, what about anything that happened between you weeks ago could be even considered a date at all?

You don’t remember how you got there, Jason’s tongue down your throat, his hands densely roaming your body, pressed against the back alley of the bar you’d gone to have some drinks, which you knew had been too many.

A shot of tequila everytime you thought about those brown eyes that’d been haunting you all night hadn’t been the brightest of your ideas.

Jason didn’t start it, of that you’re certain. You remember it was you. Being drunk didn’t help your judgement, and there was a feeling inside you that you wanted to forget, a feeling which you’d been convinced at the moment could be forgotten with sex.

It didn’t get that far though. Everytime his hands made contact with your bare skin under your shirt, you’d remember someone else’s. Cold, and large, and delicate. When your hands roamed up to grab his hair you were met with his buzz cut. No long, messy, curly locks that you were expecting for some damn reason.

There was no passion, no heat, no want. It was you trying to feel something, anything that would take your mind away from someone you’d met for just a couple hours.

“Thorton… Thorton, stop—”

“What… what you— you wanna take this to my place?”

You remember the look on his face. The stupid, dumbfuck look in his face that made you want to retch. Because it wasn’t what you wanted. There was no kindness in his eyes, no curiosity to know more about you. No light, no warmth.

“No, I’m going home.”

A firm shove was all it took to get him away from you, but nothing was able to get the sickly feeling in your chest to disappear. Even to this day.

You’re too lost in your own thoughts to notice he’s still standing waiting for your response… or the pager in your pocket vibrating and beeping on its loudest setting.

Shit.

“Shit!” You fumble to take the stupid device out of your pocket, to then struggle to turn in around in your hand until you’re finally to see the screen.

911 from Thomas.

Fuck.

“Fuck!” The pager rings again, and you’re already halfway through the ER and towards the nearest elevator. “Hunt!” You manage to catch him talking to a nurse near one of the trauma rooms, when you have one foot inside the elevator. “I got a 911 page from Thomas. I’ll be back!”

The trauma attending simply nods as he sees you frantically push the button to the cardio floor, a weird frown on his face is the last thing you catch before the doors close.

You roll your shoulders back to shake some tension off them, deciding to ignore the weird way Hunt has been treating you since Francisco was admitted. It makes you wonder if perhaps it was something you did, maybe the incident with the stupid glove you couldn’t put on in time. But it’s not likely, you’ve only been doing your job as you usually do.

This is annoying. The last thing you need is an attending worried about your performance when you’ve been doing everything right since the moment you got in the program. The thought spreads through your brain like a plague, and it hangs over you like deadweight, doing nothing to help how stressed you already feel.

Your pager beeps again, just as the elevator dings and the doors slide open, they’re barely halfway through when you slip between them, and rush to the front desk while scanning through the rooms for Thomas.

The machines from one of the rooms of the CICU are beeping rapidly, and you rush to walk inside without thinking twice if that’s where you’re supposed to be at all.

It’s Francisco’s room, and it once again takes you a moment to process how sickly he looks.

“We got his heart rate under control,” the nurse standing next to him says, moving to the side so you can walk up and look at everything you need to look.

“Push 300 of amiodarone now.” She nods and quickly starts filling up a syringe, while you check what has been happening with him since you last saw him in the ER. “Where’s Thomas?”

“He said to page you both if anything happened with this patient, I don’t—”

“Status?” The old man walks through the door as if on cue, his demeanor calm while his frown deepens once he looks at Francisco’s heart monitor.

“Atrial fibrillation,” you hurry to say, your mind going at a thousand miles per hour while you wait on him to decide what to do next. “His heart is beating too fast and if we can’t get it to slow down it’ll—”

“I know, Dr. Y/LN. Save the lesson for your interns.” The man says calmly, his familiar sarcastic nature making you relax for a moment. “Let’s try synchronized cardio-version. Push 5 of morphine.”

The nurse immediately follows through with Thomas’ order, you keep tabs on everything that’s going on by quickly writing it up on his patient chart, every detail of his vitals neatly typed in near perfect calligraphy so no one in charge of his case makes any mistakes.

Just being thorough with your job.

“Set up the defibrillator at 200,” you instruct the intern walking into the room with the machine, guessing someone else paged him. And simply watch the monitors as him and the nurse helping get Francisco ready for the shock.

She quickly uncovers his chest, and you glance just quickly enough to notice a very clear scar down the middle of his pectorals. You guess it’s been a while since his last surgery. “Clear,” her voice pulls you from wherever your mind wandered, and keep your sight on the monitors as the intern finally puts the paddles against his chest.

You feel yourself cringe at the way Francisco twitches from the corner of your eye, but decide to ignore the stupid feeling considering you’ve seen this happen more than a hundred times.

The way you can’t seem to emotionally detach from what’s going on in this moment is blamed on the fact you’ve been up and running for almost 12 hours. Damn you for playing nice and sending some rando on a two hour break.

“Charge to 300?” The intern asks, but Thomas is quick to interfere and tell him to hold it.

“Y/N…?”

Your breath catches in your throat when you hear him say your name, his voice weak and rough. You finally turn to look at him for the first time since you stepped into the room, his eyes are starting to slowly open, and he squints ever so slightly at the brightness of the artificial lighting of the room.

“Frankie.” The breath of relief you almost let out is inadequate, so you force it down while he seems to orient himself. “Mr. Morales— do you know where you are?”

“No… am I dead?” He asks groggily, and completely serious.

“No, Mr. Morales. The opposite, really… you’re a very lucky man.” Thomas says, managing to smile for a moment, as the monitors finally settle to a normal rhythm.

“I’ll say,” Francisco replies, eyes finally wide open and looking directly at you as he gives you the softest smile you’ve ever seen.

And with that, that feeling you get when he’s about to say something stupid is back.

———-—

You do. You like them a lot, but you never thought Adrian would wear a maid costume for you without any prompting. You’d shown him a couple tiktoks hoping to inspire, but Adrian has never been the best with subtle cues. He might be a bit more perceptive than you give him credit for at times.

The cheap fabric clings to his toned body, the stupid open collar accentuating his trapezius and shoulder muscles. You’re frozen in your towel, stuck between continuing to be mad at him and giving in. You know Adrian isn’t stupid – this is a well planned ploy to break down your walls and let him back in. Unlucky for him, you’re a little more stubborn than he thinks.

You’ve been ignoring him for a few days now, ever since your last mission. It’s a feat in and of itself, working and living with Adrian, to ignore him as effectively as you have. You know it isn’t the mature approach, but you haven’t really allowed yourself to care. If he can disregard your clear instructions on a mission then you can ignore him too. At least it isn’t life or death when you do it.

“I think I bought a size too small,” Adrian says, still looking down at where the skirt hits just above mid-thigh.

You don’t really want to offer the satisfaction of commenting, but you can hardly help yourself. He looks so stupidly good that you’re already wondering what you could get him to wear next. Maybe a Sailor Moon costume?

“I think it’s a perfect fit.”

Adrian’s head pops up, beaming at you. “You think so? I really had to guess. Sizing is a nightmare for women online, I don't know how you buy anything-”

He stops talking, eyes widening as you drop your towel. You don’t want to hear about his discovery of the eternal struggle of shopping as a woman right now. What you do want is him, on his knees, begging for you. It might convince you to forgive him. Maybe.

“Adrian,” you say, walking towards him. “Is that really what you want to be discussing right now?”

“No, fuck no. Although I really wouldn’t mind talking about it later because it was really confusing and I thought this would be a little bigger on me.”

You brush past Adrian, walking straight towards the bed behind him and positioning yourself on the edge. His eyes follow you, glued to your body as you throw some extra sway into your hips. He’s always staring at your tits or your ass and you’re looking to put on a show.

Adrian follows exactly as you expected, a smile on his face as he thinks he’s already won this game. He has no idea what you have in store for him.

He leans down, already going in for a kiss, when you turn your head to the side. His lips land awkwardly on your cheek and he recoils, obviously confused.

“Uh-uh. On your knees.”

Your tone of voice doesn’t leave any room for argument. Adrian sinks to his knees in front of you, his face now perfectly in line with your pussy. You spread your legs slightly, but don't allow him a proper look, tipping Adrian’s head up towards your face with a finger.

“Did you think it was going to be that easy? You dress up for me like a little slut and I forgive you?” you ask him. Adrian doesn’t answer, a slight glaze glossing over his eyes. You grab his jaw more firmly, refocusing him. “Good boys answer.”

“I- I was hoping that you would,” he stammers.

You pout at him, holding his jaw in your hand. “That’s sweet baby. Dumb, but sweet.”

You know that by now Adrian understands what he did wrong in the first place. Whether he figured it out on his own or someone else explained it to him you aren’t sure, but there wouldn’t be the obvious I’m sorry attempt of a maid costume if he didn’t.

A mission to infiltrate a building a few days ago is what caused all of this in the first place. As the team’s tactician, it’s your job to lead everyone on the field through the path of least resistance. Of course that doesn’t work when someone doesn’t listen to you and puts himself in direct and completely unnecessary danger. Whether he could have taken those goons on or not was never in question – whether he needed to without backup was. You can still feel the way your stomach dropped, listening to Adrian’s laugh and the pops of gunfire over the headset after expressly telling him to stay put and wait. You had half a mind to kill him yourself once he got back to the van.

You look down at him, on his knees before you, and card your fingers through his curls. It’s impossibly soft despite his religious use of Suave strawberry shampoo. “Tell me what you want, baby.”

Adrian has never been one to be shy before in the bedroom, but something about this overt shift in your dynamic has him stumbling over himself. “I want- want to taste you. I don’t want you to be mad at me anymore. You’re so-” You tug on his hair, making him lose his train of thought for a moment. He’s tripping over his words when his brain catches up. “Fuck- you’re so fucking sexy. I want to do anything you tell me to.”

“Yeah? You think you can actually listen to me? Be a good boy?”

Adrian shakes his head vigorously, eager to show you how good of a boy he can be. You hum, acting like you’re debating on whether or not you’ll take him up on it. It serves to only make him more desperate, pushing himself against your leg, starting to beg. “Please? I’ll be so, so good for you, baby. Do anything you want.”

“Anything?” you ponder, reaching down to slip his silver frames off his face. You love the way they look on him, but you know they’ll only end up in your way.

“Please,” Adrian pleads with you.

You look down at him, enjoying the contrast of this to the Adrian you typically know. Despite the awkwardness of any missed social cues, Adrian is always confident and self-assured. He knows what he wants and what he's capable of, which is probably what led him to ignore you telling him to wait for backup in the first place. The Adrian before you now knows what he wants but he has no idea how to get it and it's throwing him off his game.

Slowly, his eyes searching your face, Adrian leans in and begins to kiss along your bare legs. You allow it, still running your fingers through his hair.

There are so many options available to you, it's hard to know what to take. You know your boyfriend well – what he likes and what really gets him going. The idea of a turn-off is nearly nonexistent with him but you've been cataloging what he's especially aroused by. You've nearly decided when he cinches the choice for you.

One of his hands ventures further to wind around your ass, pulling you closer, and you catch it with your own. Adrian is capable of being patient. You're going to see just how far you can push him.

You slide up the bed, leaving Adrian on the floor, skirt pooling in his lap. "Come on up here," you invite, crooking a finger his way, and he wastes no time.

He climbs over top of you, eagerly grinding down so that you can feel his hardening length through the thin skirt fabric. It takes a great deal of your willpower to not let him continue. You tut, reaching up underneath the dress and stilling his hips by digging your nails into them. "Did I say you could do that?"

Adrian shakes his head. "Words, Ade," you say, something you never thought you would need to remind him to use.

"No, but fuck you're so pretty. I want to make you feel good, let me make you feel good. Please? I know I can make you feel good," he rambles. It's so cute of him.

"Tell you what baby, you want to grind on me? You can have my thigh."

Adrian groans, clearly not thrilled with the turn of events but he seems to understand he should take what he can get right now. You flip the skirt of the costume up, palming him through his tight black briefs. His eyes fall closed at the pressure, pressing down into your hand. “Be a good boy for me and I’ll let you have more.”

You reach around, giving his ass a squeeze and pulling him onto your thigh. You’re thankful Adrian rarely overthinks things, completely unembarrassed to be humping your leg to get off. He looks perfect like this, his soft but strong muscles straining under the slightly too tight fabric. You still can’t quite believe he bought the costume just for you. No one you’ve ever been with before would have done something like this to get back in your good graces. Then again, you’ve never been with someone quite like Adrian.

“F-f-fuck, please I need more,” he whines desperately and you feel your resolve slip.

“Okay baby. Let’s get these off,” you say, pushing at the waistband of his briefs. The front of the fabric has been growing damp with precum, the barrier basically useless at this point. You’re aching for some relief of your own, guiding him to grind down against your pussy.

“Oh fuck, fuck, you feel so good. Please let me fuck you, please? You’re already so wet I want to make you feel good,” Adrian rambles, his forehead pressing against yours. His eyes are open wide, pleading but you know he can last longer than this.

“Keep going like you are. Being such a good boy for me.” You cut off his broken moan at the praise, capturing his lips in a filthy kiss. It’s mostly teeth and tongue, but after a few days of not doing so much as holding Adrian’s hand, you’re just as eager for this as he is.

His hips move faster, pantomiming what he’d actually like to be doing buried deep inside you. You can tell he’s getting close, the little noises he’s making and uneven strokes giving him away. This is what you’ve been waiting for – the ultimate test of his patience.

You dig your fingers into the globes of his ass, forcing him to stop moving completely. A pathetic whimper escapes him, his head dropping heavily into the pillow behind you. He’s pleading, a constant stream of please pouring from him as he tries to do his best and keep his hips still. It’s so hard to deny him like this, but you’re not done pushing him just yet.

“You’ll cum when I say you can,” you say, nipping at his earlobe. “You’ve been such a good boy for me though, I’ll let you have a reward.”

That catches Adrian’s attention, his head popping up from the pillow. His eyes are a little glossy, the green of his irises looking brighter than normal. “Yeah, yeah okay. I can- I can wait for you. Whatever you want.”

“It’s what you want, Ade. You said you wanted to taste me- go ahead.”

It takes him a second to pull himself together, but then Adrian is sliding down your body, the cheap polyester of his maid costume gliding against your skin. The skirt has remained flipped up, giving you the perfect view of his ass peeking over the swell of his shoulders. His mouth is hot and wet pressed against your skin, leaving open mouthed kisses along every inch wherever he hasn’t already left a compliment.

You love how vocal Adrian is in bed, never too self-conscious to say exactly what he’s thinking or to try and mask the noises you inspire him to make. Even as he goes down on you, he’s noisy, working you over with his mouth like you’ve served him up a five-star meal.

Your fingers thread through his curls, pulling him deeper into you. Adrian doesn’t seem to mind at all, fingers flexing happily on your hips. You feel wanton, unabashed in your wants as Adrian lets you use him however you see fit. He even manages to keep his own hips still against the bed when he could easily grind for some friction of his own – not that you’d let him get away with that right now.

“Good-good boy,” you gasp, smoothing a few curls away from his sweat slicked forehead. “Make me come and then I’ll let you fuck me.”

Encouraged, Adrian somehow doubles down, trying to speed you towards your orgasm. You can’t fault him after denying him for this long. It’s a bit surprising he’s held out like he has – not that Adrian doesn’t usually last, but you so rarely deny him anything that you didn’t know he could wait this long to get what he wants.

Looking down, you find Adrian staring up at you, focused on the reactions you’re having from his tongue alone. It’s enough to push you over the edge, legs trembling and flooding Adrian’s mouth with your release.

Before you can even come down from your high, Adrian is overtop of you and pushing himself into your slick cunt. Your clench around his cock, the sensation of him pressing into you prolonging your orgasm as he begins to slowly rock his hips.

“You’re so fucking hot, fuck, I love you telling me what to do. It’s like you’re a hot teacher or something but you’re my girlfriend and it’s so hot,” Adrian says, sucking marks into your neck. You don’t want to show up to work tomorrow with hickeys on display, but you’re too far gone to tell him to stop.

The flowy fabric of the skirt pools over your pubic bone, blocking you from watching as Adrian slides in and out. Your arms wrap around him as he braces himself over you on his elbows, careful to keep the majority of his weight off of you. He weighs more than someone might suspect, toned and compact muscle deceiving to the eyes. The fabric of the maid costume is too tight around his shoulders, giving you no purchase to grab onto. Frustrated with the inability to grab him how you want, you shift, using the element of surprise to flip Adrian onto his back.

“Holy shit that was so sexy-” He’s cut off from saying anything more as you ride him faster, hands braced against his chest.

“Such a good boy,” you pant, clit rubbing against the neatly trimmed hairs at the base of his cock. “So good listening to me, doing what I ask.”

Adrian nods his head vigorously, hands pressing little bruises into your hips that he’ll kiss better later. You’re both close, movements growing sloppy and uncoordinated. “Come for me, Ade. Come on good boy, fill me up.”

It doesn’t take much more than that, Adrian’s eyes rolling back in his head as he thrusts up into you. You reach down, fingers circling your clit, to bring yourself over the edge along with him. His cock twitches, painting your walls with his spend, and the feeling pushes you over with him, making your mind go cotton-soft as you clench down around him.

You slump over top of Adrian, covering his body with yours. He’s probably overheating in the cheap costume and with your body on his, but he makes no complaints or effort to move. His fingers gently run along your back, bringing you back down from your high.

You shift to get off of him and Adrian’s hands quickly land on your hips, keeping you firmly in place. “Stay please? You feel nice.”

How can you deny him after all of that? You nod, a bow on the costume pressed uncomfortably into your cheek but you can hardly bring yourself to care. “Ade?” you mumble.

“What’s up?” You have no idea how his voice sounds as clear as it does. You rode him within an inch of his life and you want to take a nap.

“You were such a good boy, listening to me. Getting all dressed up for me.” You can feel his cock twitch in you at the praise and you stow that information away for later. It seems like he responds to that more than just in the heat of the moment. “Thank you.”

Adrian brings your hand up to his lips, kissing it gently before holding it against his heart. “I’m really sorry for not listening during the mission this week. I know you were trying to keep me safe and I wanted to show you that I could totally take those guys.”

You chuckle, tilting your head to look up at him. Adrian always makes it easier to say things plainly, his own genuine brand of honesty inspiring your own. “I knew you could take them you goof. But I also knew you would be safer if you did it with backup. I don’t like seeing you get hurt.”

“Oh. So you knew I could take them out?”

“Of course. Vigilante is way better than some D-list goons. Could probably do it in your sleep.”

Adrian’s chest puffs at your compliment, squeezing you into a tight hug. “Can you help me buy a maid costume that actually fits? This one is really tight in my armpits and it feels really weird.”

“Of course babe. And maybe we can buy you some other costumes?” you ask, yawning.

“Yeah, can we get you some too? Now that I’ve said it I can’t stop thinking of you as a sexy teacher.”

“Sure, Ade. Wake me up in ten and we’ll look.”

You snuggle down into the crook of his neck, clenching around him once more just to tease, prompting Adrian to ask, “Can I wake you up with my dick?”

You snort and place a gentle kiss against his neck. “Yeah baby, go ahead.”

Reblogs and comments very much appreciated!

You feel ugly. Ballooned.

You hardly recognize the lumpy figure you catch sight of when you pass a mirror. Some months are harder than others— when the heating pad tucked behind your spine proves useless, when your acne rears itself to a pubescent head, when you’re cranky as shit. This week, to your dismay, is shaping out to take much of the same form. You’ve already plowed through your ration of dark chocolate, the cache of potato chips you had squirreled away reduced to humble crumbs— and you’re only three fucking days in.

There’s no fucking way he wants you like this.

“I know I don't have to,” Frankie croons, ambered and guttural, “but I want to— fuck baby, I want you so bad.”

Meagerly you paw at him, trying to get him to see some sort of reason - you just washed these sheets yesterday; we don’t even have a towel down - as he rappels his descent to settle between the steeple of your legs, pads of his hands spreading you agape, bearing his mass on his forearms.

He doesn’t listen to you— couldn’t possibly hear you even if he wanted to, what with the feral storm raging in his mind— all thoughts whirlwinded away and replaced by the pulse at your core, beating beating beating its heady drum— and he sinks his teeth into the meat of your thigh and breathes, gulped inhale filtered by the cotton of your underwear.

Citrus. Moss. Iron tang— you, all of it. All of this weeping arousal— all of it so unmistakably you, all of it so unquestionably his.

God, there is something about your fucking scent, your olfactory hallmark, that drives him wild. You always smell so damn good, divine even. Your cunt, a chalice fit for the kings - for the gods - as you drip your nectar freely into their gilded cup— not a drop squandered nor a sip gone to waste.

You’re always sickeningly gorgeous— factually, frustratingly—that’s nothing new. You consistently send Frankie buckling to his shins, a mere mortal desperate to worship you. Habitually, without fail, you make a sinner out of him— left pining for repentance, kneeling at the hollowed ground of your sex.

That's the standard. That's every goddamn day.

But it is when you are like this—this messy, aching thing—fuck, it gnarls him into something nearly unrecognizable—perverts him into a fucking animal. Half beast, half man.

Your body is a temple, a church for the devout, and Francisco, serpentine and gluttonous—

Francisco is urged to ruin it.

He muffles himself over your clothed mound, burying his face into your underwear and you squirm— pelvis fidgeting against the depraved intimacy of it all, before he clamps an authoritative palm down over your hip, rooting you still.

He moans. Frankie takes another swig of your sharpened aroma and has the audacity to moan, the sound thrumming against your center. He soothes his thumb into your skin—hushing you, assuring you. Begging you.

Let me do this. Lemme have this—please just let me have you, pretty baby.

And when you mewl an airy little noise, flighty and buoyant, he knows he has you.

Rucking the crotch of your panties to the side, the insecurity that once claimed you stupors to a hazy yen at his first swipe through your seam.

You gasp, lungs punched breathless. Fuck. Fuck.

Felined, he licks at you, curling his tongue over and over and over, lapping at you with the hunger of a man wandering a sun scorched desert. Your wrist comes up to drape wanton over your eyes, nuzzling into the pit of your elbow.

This should feel wrong. You should feel wrong— you should feel some sort of ill with the depravity of this—but such concerns evaporate as he tears your bottoms down the slope of your calves— tossing them by the foot of the bed— and drinks from you. Insatiable, thirsted, he tugs at your folds, vibrating his tongue against your clit in disarming, eager flicks, pulling you apart as he fucks you clever and hard with his damp muscle.

Like a disciple— an acolyte, a believer— does he eat from you. Your throbbing cunt, his last fucking supper.

The digits he glides into you knuckle deep - one, then two, then three, easily - notch against your walls like a dream. He crooks his fingers, hooking them at just the exact angle— nudging into that spongy patch that suffers spasms through your frame. You’re all but riding his chin— grinding away feverishly, embarrassment long since abandoned in place of your release presented there - just there - before you.

Ultimately, as they always do— your personally tailored Achilles heel—it is his eyes that push you over the edge. You’re weak, fightless to those heaven-help-me chestnut orbs that have since waxed to god-forgive-us obsidian tar— and he’s staring at you over your mound with them. Blinkless, devilish, he bores into you as he disassembles your stained middle, swiveling tight circles into that bundle of nerves pearled at your apex and fuck— fuck, oh fuck, oh Christ—

Your whole chest heaves off the mattress, spine bowing, abdominals tensing as you writhe; legs locked around the mop of brown hair bobbing and lapping and groaning, Frankie—a hound latched to your scent—ebblessly continues to suck you dry.

You've cum. You've cum all over him, your juices gushing to seep into his cross-hatched beard in the aftershock of it. A palette of mixed shades, viscous and blood-thick, dribbles out your fluttering hole, and he is all too keen to attend to them, swirling your essence into his mouth. Collecting them. Savoring.

Waste not, want not.

You yelp, too sensitive, too raw— and it is only after you rile and flinch does Frankie finally relent his ministrations—swapping the diligence of his tongue in favor of a reverent kiss to your cleft, peppering you with affection, with golden adoration. He maneuvers a northern path, tracing nibbles and nips up your body before sealing his lips over yours, fervent and wanting.

You can taste yourself thickening the bristle of his mustache—your lunar heat, that tannin musk— and you moan against his lips— laving your womanhood clean from his mouth.

He breaks away from the kiss to nose along your cheekbone and into the skewed strands of your hair— grazing the shell of your ear, rumbled words purring lowly.

“Your pussy tastes so damn good like this, sweetheart.”

Turning a floral shade, you battle the desire to fold into the stack of pillows you’re propped upon, to invert and collapse ever-inward. Somehow, even after all that, you’ve managed to go shy again— girlish and bashful at the husked praise, his voice made raspy by the slick of your cunt.

“So soft, so fucking wet.”

His thumb finds your clit, playing with you lazy and gentle— and God, he was right. You’re wet—you’re so fucking wet you can hear it— the lewd noises he’s coaxing out of you as his fingers dance. You're well past overstimulated, basking in the haloed glow of your first climax, and it doesn't take long for you to feel that familiar sensation, building building - fuck, he is too fucking good at this - building buildi—

You pout a huffed whine as Frankie abandons your pussy, robbing you of your impending orgasm. Painting glossed fingertips over the slope of your belly— a shiny, rouged line streaking up your torso in its wake—to settle there on the swell of your breast, where he twists your nipple until it's pert.

Despite the cool evening breeze whispering in through the window, the bedroom is sweltering. You’re overheated; it’s all too lurid and too hot to ingest with a level head, and the whimper that rattles loose from your throat betrays you. For it’s not shame pumping you full, but something far more insidious lacing your veins. Like a snake undulating through overgrown weeds in a gateless garden, now you aim to sow lust—now you aim to unravel him. Unmake him just as he has unmade you.

Threading your fingers through his curled locks, nails dragging over his scalp, you usher him back to your lips. His cock hangs heavy beneath his sweats, and you feel its urgent weight pressing into your inner thigh, twitching erratic with each pass of your tongue over his.

You part from him, breathy—cadence syruped and slurred. “Fuck me, Frankie. I wanna make you feel good too— so fucking good.” You roll your sex up to him, smearing yourself on his bulge, marking him. “Don’t you want to cum inside me?”

Frankie moans appreciatively, humming against your jaw, before sinking lower, lower—planting a trail of open mouthed blossoms down your neck, the valley parting your breasts, the span of your stomach and the flesh drawn taut over your hip.

“I will, baby girl— you know I will, I just—” he’s murmuring, whispers fanning over your wine dark cunt.

“I just want one more taste.”

/

tags:

He gestures towards the glove compartment, which Eddie pops open. Sure enough, among the cassettes crammed in with the BMW’s instruction manual and Steve’s registration info, Queen’s The Works is nestled between a copy of Born in the U.S.A and Abbey Road.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Eddie says, not missing a beat. A sharkish grin spreads across his face. “The King isn’t as much of a square as I assumed.” 

“Don’t call me that. Anyway, do we have to listen to this whole song if we know that I like it already?”

“Bossy,” Eddie mutters. 

He presses the skip button. The next song begins with a drum beat and guitar. Steve bobs his head along. 

“Oh, I know this one too.” 

Eddie stares. “How.”

“Jonathan, I think. He likes this album.”

“Jonathan listens to punk, Steve. This is metal. He doesn’t listen to metal.”

Steve raises an eyebrow and looks over at Eddie in the passenger seat. “Have you ever considered that other people don’t follow the same arbitrary social rules you do? Some people listen to punk and metal. You can like both.”

Eddie stares a little harder.

Steve shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. Jonathan’s a complex guy. He’s got layers.”

“Layers.”

“Yeah. Anyway, what’s next?”

Steve doesn’t think he imagines Eddie grumbling to himself as he pushes skip again. The next track Steve knows before they even get two seconds in. 

“C’mon, man. Everybody knows this song.”

“They do not!”

“It starts with bells, you moron! Everybody fucking knows this is ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls.’ Didn’t it break the top ten or something?”

“Top twenty, and only on the rock charts.”

“Oh, sorry. Top twenty on the rock charts. So underground.”

Eddie crosses his arms and shuffles down in the passenger seat. “Fuck you, Harrington,” he grumbles.

“C’mon, man. Don’t be like that. Just… I dunno, play the next song or whatever.” 

The next song plays. Eddie watches Steve out of the corner of his eye with his arms still crossed over his chest, sulking like a little kid. 

“Oh, I—” 

“If you say you know this song, I’m gonna flip shit.”

“Dude, it’s Dio.”

“How the fuck do you know Dio?” 

Steve pulls the car into the quarry parking lot and puts it in park. He looks Eddie dead-on. “Did I or did I not wear your Dio vest into literal hell last spring? It's seared into my memory.”

“That doesn’t mean you listen to them!” 

Embarrassingly, Steve feels his face start to flush. He mutters something, which prompts Eddie to shift closer.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said, maybe I did listen to it. Maybe I wanted to know what all the hype was about.”

“You listened to Dio just ‘cause I have their patch on my vest?” Eddie asks. He doesn’t sound irritated—he sounds genuinely amazed.

“No. Kind of. Maybe. I mean, not really, I also like how it sounds.”

For a long moment, Eddie doesn’t speak. He just stares at Steve, his brown eyes wide, looking confused and a little awestruck.

“Shut up, man,” Steve says. Now that they’re parked, he doesn’t have any excuse not to look at Eddie, and Eddie is just staring at him. It’s making him flustered. “Just play the next song.”

The next song Steve doesn’t know, but he likes it once the chorus kicks in. Then song after that he does know, mostly because Billy Hargrove always played it loud as fuck in the parking lot before school, and he makes Eddie skip it because, you know, bad memories and trauma and all that. The rest of the tape is a mix of songs Steve already knows, songs he’s heard his friends listen to, or songs he doesn’t know yet but likes once he hears them. By the end of it, Eddie looks like he’s not sure if he should be pissed or impressed. The final song spins into silence and Eddie pops the cassette out of the stereo. 

“I’ll be damned.” 

“What, shocked that King Steve has layers?” Steve challenges.

When Steve glances at Eddie, he looks a little sheepish. He fishes a pen out of his backpack and sticks it through one of the holes in the plastic case. 

“I dunno,” Eddie admits, focusing intently on rewinding the tape. “Yeah, maybe. I dunno what I thought.”

“I like your music, man. I mean, not all of it, but a lot of it. I like everything.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

Despite the fact that it feels like there’s another layer to this conversation that Steve is missing, he shrugs. “Yeah,” he says, ignoring the flush he can feel creeping up from his collar to his face. 

Eddie keeps twisting the pen and looking at Steve like he’s seeing a new person he’s never met before. It’s a little gratifying to have caught Eddie off-guard. He treats every conversation like a sparring match in which he always comes out on top; Steve likes having surprised Eddie for once. Plus, it’s nice to be acknowledged as more than one thing. Yeah, Steve likes the Top 40 as much as anyone (and who doesn’t? pop music is literally designed so people will like it), but he likes other things too. He has actual interests, despite what Dustin and Mike might say about him only caring about sports and girls and his car. 

It feels nice to know that Eddie can’t fit him in that same box. At least, not anymore. He feels seen. Weirdly, that’s not as scary as it once might have been. 

Eddie puts the cassette in Steve’s glove compartment and clicks it shut. “Does that mean I can pick the music now?”

Steve laughs, bright and loud. 

“Yeah, no. Absolutely not.”

“Yeah, I figured. It was worth a shot though.” 

♫

A/N: for those curious, the songs they listen to are (in order):

“Hammer To Fall” - Queen

“Living After Midnight” - Judas Priest

“For Whom The Bell Tolls” - Metallica

“Rainbow in the Dark” - Dio

“We're Not Gonna Take It” - Twisted Sister

As young as you were, no one could forget the bold, block letters of the Gotham Gazette from early that September. THOMAS AND MARTHA WAYNE DEAD. The editor didn't even attempt to give it any flair. It was shocking enough on its own.

Your father had been devastated, a large supporter of Thomas Wayne's mayoral campaign. Your mother had regarded Martha as a style icon, in shambles over losing her favorite inspiration. You remember reading the byline about young Bruce surviving the ordeal, trying to comprehend what it would mean to suddenly no longer have parents.

It was news that rocked the entire city and the very next day it's all your classmates could talk about. Robbie Carter said his grandpa thought it was all a conspiracy, Monica Gibbs told you her dad was one of the first officers on the scene and that blood had been everywhere, and Avery Parker told everyone to shut up. You were glad Avery did, as the discussion had been making you start to feel queasy.

A few months later though, when your pen pal was assigned, the name Bruce didn't really click. After all, why would Bruce Wayne of all children be writing to someone in the Gotham Public School system?

Blissfully unaware of your pen pal's true identity, you wrote to him like you would have any other kid your age. You introduced yourself, telling him the important details like your favorite ice cream flavor and what you wanted to be when you were older. He was kind enough to not point out that an astronaut chef was an unlikely job.

His responses were a bit muted in comparison, but you didn't mind. It was clear Bruce was intelligent early on with his large vocabulary and varied topics. More than once you had to look up words in the dictionary or pull a reference to understand what he was talking about. Having to look things up sometimes was far better than a boring pen pal – like Andrew Clark who had a pal that only wanted to talk about a specific species of shark.

At the end of the school year with a parent's permission you could send your home address to your pen pal to keep the correspondence going. It took three days to get your mom to grant her approval and worth every extra chore you agreed to. Even more thrilling was that Bruce wanted to keep writing to you too.

Somewhere early fifth grade you figured out Bruce's real identity, not that he'd ever truly been hiding it. The pieces had been clicking together for a while but the clear mention of his bedroom in the Tower cinched it. There's only one capital T Tower in Gotham and everyone knows it belongs to the Wayne family.

You chose to not acknowledge it. Looking back on it you don't know why – it just didn't seem to make a difference. Bruce was Bruce, Wayne name attached or not.

You both kept writing consistently all the way through middle school. Considering the attention span of kids, especially pre-teens, it was a remarkable feat. From what you knew, you were the only one to keep in touch with your pen pal for so long.

For whatever reason your parents never chose to look over your letters and without a teacher's watchful eye, you could say anything. No topic was off limits. There was no judgment between you two. The bond was sacred, sharing every last thought and feeling. You normally made up for where he lacked in the feelings discussion, where Bruce had plenty of thoughts for the both of you.

High school was where things started to slip. You were caught up in keeping your grades high, extra curriculars, and the drama of who’s dating who. You’re not really sure what Bruce got caught up in – as far as you knew he didn’t even attend the posh boarding school for Gotham's elites. 

Needless to say, the established schedule fell apart a little. It certainly wasn’t once a week anymore but you did your best. Even when you didn’t get a reply for a while, you kept sending your letters. Someone had to be clearing out the PO box because none of them were ever returned.

Bruce’s letters came to a complete stop soon after graduation. It coincided with his widely-reported disappearance from Gotham, so you weren’t surprised, but it felt wrong to give up on your correspondence. A pen pal for this long shouldn’t end without a proper goodbye. 

You kept at it – the frequency of your post varying with the ups and downs of life. College brought exciting times but also a fair amount of strife. You kept Bruce up to date about everything. New friends, new partners, new addresses when you moved, celebrations of passing exams, excitement over what was on the horizon, grief at the untimely loss of your father, the burden of bills and low wages. 

While there weren’t any letters being sent in return, Bruce would find a way to pop up in your life from time to time. You’re not sure what he was up to in his world, but it was enough to know he was reading your letters. A surprise delivery of baked goods at your doorstep filled with your favorite confectionaries, a large anonymous bouquet at your father’s wake, a mystery deposit in your bank account when your bills became a bit too tight. 

You'd offer a brief thank you in your next letter, nothing that would embarrass him, but enough that it was acknowledged. After all this time you had a good idea of how to properly toe that line. 

Part of you wished for a real response. Even a short missive emblazoned on impersonal Wayne letterhead. You weren't ungrateful for his little gestures, but you missed his voice, his mind. Bruce had the most interesting way of looking at the world. You missed being privy to it – you hoped one day he would let you back in.

—

It's late when you get home. Clean-up at the volunteer shelter took longer than you expected, meaning your trip home was more nerve wracking than usual. Your apartment isn’t in the Narrows, but that isn’t saying much. Gotham isn’t the kind of city to have a truly “safe” neighborhood – the promise of violence just varies from borough to borough. You’d say yours provides an even 50/50 shot.

The mostly-empty subway cars are uninviting despite being the fastest and safest option. With less bodies crammed inside the tubes it means your chances of being targeted go up. Every squeak of the train track seems louder, every rattle a little more threatening. You keep a tight hold on your bag. The streets themselves aren’t much better. Moonlight barely reaches the street, blocked by the thick clouds, and streetlights are inconsistent at best.

You breathe a sigh of relief when you see your apartment door. Six stories up with two locked doors between you and Gotham's nighttime streets means you can finally relax. It's not really paranoia, more so staying vigilant in a dangerous city.

You flick on your small table lamp and fall into the couch. There's an attempt to fling your bag onto the coffee table, but it hits the side and it slumps onto the floor. Not a big deal. You'll grab it tomorrow. The comfort of home settles in, nearly tempting you to close your eyes right there on the couch when your stomach growls. Food, eating, important. Right.

Rolling off the cushions, you catch a small whiff of yourself. You don’t smell bad, but you’re not sure it can be said that you smell good. Your priorities quickly become apparent. Food, shower, then sleep. Anything else is tomorrow’s problem. 

Deciding what to eat is easy when there isn’t much in your kitchen to start with. Grocery shopping was supposed to happen yesterday, but with how busy your week has been there’s been no time. Luckily, there’s still enough to scrape together a serviceable sandwich. You eat it over the sink, not wanting to deal with a dirty plate and trying to keep the crumbs contained.

By the time you finish your sandwich, your eyes are half-open. Skipping the shower until tomorrow morning is incredibly tempting, but the idea of slipping into your sheets squeaky clean just barely beats it out. 

It takes a little time for your water to heat properly, the result of aging infrastructure and a half-caring landlord. In an effort to keep yourself awake, you pull out a pen and paper and begin to scrawl a new letter to Bruce. 

It's been nearly two weeks since your last one. You've gotten through the simpler details when the water has finally heated, abandoning the letter on the kitchen counter. 

The choice to shower was the correct one. There's immediate relief standing underneath the warm spray, the stress of your day-to-day melting away. The city's grime sloughs off of you, collecting in the tub. It eventually makes its way down the drain – a clogged pipe that you can do nothing about always leads to an inch of water for you to stand in.

You're nearing the end of your shower when a noise catches your ear outside the bathroom door. You quickly write it off. With an apartment six floors up it would take a worthless amount of dedication to find a way into your place. Any smart thief wouldn't enter the apartment with a light on either. It's nothing.

Rinsing your hair, there's another louder noise accompanied by a heavy grunt. There's no mistaking that. Someone has found their way into your apartment.

Panicked, you quickly grab a towel and wrap it around yourself. If someone is going to break into your place they aren't going to catch you completely naked. Looking around the bathroom, you quickly settle on the plunger for a weapon. It's not much but definitely better than nothing. The thought of the baseball bat perfectly nestled under the edge of your bed taunts you.

The shower is still running, but your water bill is the least of your concern at the moment. If you die in the next ten minutes you won't have to pay it anyway.

Inching towards the door, you mentally walk through your gameplan. Throw open the door, plunger raised, run at the intruder yelling, and rain fury down upon them. Hopefully they'll be so shocked by your deranged appearance that they'll immediately frighten and leave.

You only manage to execute the first two steps of the plan – the shock of what you find stopping you dead in your tracks.

There's a man standing there, but it's not some random drophead like you thought. There's no mistaking that silhouette. It's him in your living room. The Batman.

Before you can really process the insanity of the situation he stumbles, landing hard on one knee. You rush over, terrified that the masked vigilante of Gotham is going to die here on your secondhand rug.

He's heavy. With more than half his dead weight falling onto you, it's a shock you don't completely buckle underneath him. 

"Come on, at least get to the couch before collapsing," you grunt, leading him over. 

His eyes are partially closed, clearly struggling to keep them open. He's breathing heavily with his suit half blown to hell. You have no idea what to do.

The most intense medical experience you have is shooting someone full of narcan to help prevent an overdose at the volunteer shelter – an experience you're not exactly eager to repeat. You weren't built for stitching up wounds and preventing infection. Clutching your towel, the realization that there is nothing you can do for him is crushing.

Water is becoming a puddle on the floor beneath you, your breaths becoming more ragged to match his with every passing moment. Something about your fear seems to awaken something in him.

"Front– pocket. Auto– injector. Thigh." Every word is a labor. It takes you a few moments too long for his words to click.

"Now."

The force of his words snaps you into action. You launch forward, frantically flipping through all his pockets to find the right one. Front pocket, honestly. He couldn't have been more vague. Eventually, your fingers wrap around something that looks similar to an epipen.

"Twist. Then–" he breathes in sharply, struggling for the next word. "inject."

You can do that you think. His armor is thick, but the fabric on his inner thigh thins a bit. With his sprawled position, it's easy to access. 

You twist the injector, watching the liquid turn royal blue before stabbing it into his thigh. He cries out slightly, his body tensing, before collapsing back into the cushions.

"Good job."

His eyes slide shut. His chest continues to rise and fall at a slow but steady pace. The mania of the last few moments washes over you, panic transforming into shock and confusion. How did Batman manage to choose your apartment out of millions? What the fuck.

You stand there looking down at him, suddenly realizing you're only in a towel and the shower is still running. A flush of embarrassment courses through you as realization crashes. There's only the barest hope you didn't flash him in all the commotion.

Drying off and changing as quickly as you can, you bring a clean rag and some warm water over to him. You're guessing whatever he asked you to inject him with is some kind of super-serum but you can't imagine being so filthy is doing any favors. The absurdity of this isn't lost on you. You're really about to clean up Batman's wounds.

It's a slow process. You take your time, periodically switching out the water. At some point you grab a different rag to clean up the torn edges of his armor as well, trying to keep everything as sterile as you can. You do your best – you're not exactly an expert at this.

Even as you clean him up it's difficult to come to terms with the fact that this is really happening. Following the aftermath of the Riddler a couple years ago, Batman went from freakish rumor to celebrated hero overnight. He still seemed more myth than real to you, but there's no question now. He is very real and seemingly very human. You hadn't been sure if the bat motif went deeper before.

You finish up and are left with the conundrum of what to do next. You're more exhausted than ever, but leaving him here just seems wrong. In the end you settle on dragging over your moon chair and grabbing a book. This isn't weird right? You're just making sure he doesn't die or convulse or something.

It was foolish of you to think you could stay awake. Between your preexisting fatigue and the adrenaline come-down, you don't make it through a paragraph before falling asleep.

—

The first few rays of sunlight streaming in your windows are what wakes you. There’s a moment of panic before registering that you’re just in your living room, safe and sound. You stretch and rub at the tight spot in your neck. Falling asleep curled up like that is never a good idea. 

Your eyes drift over to the couch and you freeze. He isn’t there. Had you imagined it all? Was last night actually some incredibly vivid dream or hallucination brought on by exhaustion? 

That’s the final straw. No more doubles that roll into volunteer shelter shifts. Your body can’t handle that toll anymore. You give another big stretch, your spine popping, and let out a small yelp when you turn to the kitchen and see Batman standing there. 

If last night seemed ridiculous then you don’t even know what to call this. What is there to say or think when the city’s masked vigilante is standing in your kitchen like he belongs there? And how the hell is he even standing after the condition he was in?

He doesn’t say anything. You’re not sure what you expected. You don’t know what to say either. It doesn’t even feel like he’s trying to psych you out or anything, he’s simply… quiet. His eyes return to your letter that he’s holding. 

“Hey! That’s private!”

You rush into the kitchen, pulling the letter out from his hands. Gotham’s protector or not, he doesn’t have the right to start reading your private correspondence. 

He doesn’t seem all that bothered by your anger. "Sorry, I probably shouldn’t read ahead."

You stare at him in slight confusion and wonder as the pieces click together. Holy shit. How did you not put it together before? It seems so obvious now – like you’re in the fifth grade again realizing your pen pal Bruce is Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne is Batman.

Bruce Wayne is Batman.

His letters stopped years ago, but you would still venture to say you know Bruce Wayne better than anyone else and it all fits. More wealth than he knows what to do with, a desire to continue his father's legacy to improve Gotham, and a deep, dark scar left on his heart all too young. 

You always imagined he would start doing some serious philanthropy work, but you suppose this is in line with that. It's not all that shocking that he wants to do it with his own bare hands. Bruce has always wanted to do things himself.

In the eighth grade he told you about a computer he was working on, going into great detail to explain its complexities. It was going to be one of the most advanced systems ever designed once he was through with it. He also mentioned offhand how he nearly blew himself up with it. Becoming Batman seems right on target with that.

What doesn't make sense is why now? Why tell you at all, this many years in? He's let Batman remain a mystery to you for nearly five years. You didn't do anything new to gain his trust.

“I um, I think I need to sit down.”

You stumble back against your countertop looking for stability. From him showing up unannounced in your apartment to this, it’s all a bit much to take in. You’re grateful Bru-Batm-Bruce doesn’t immediately intrude on your personal space, giving you room to breathe. There’s a good chance you would have fully freaked out on him if he did.

You take measured breaths, careful to not let yourself spiral. Although, if there was ever an appropriate time to do so, this would be it. This is a lot to put on anyone, especially so abruptly. The answer to why Bruce couldn’t use his incredible intellect to plan this better will evade you forever.

Once you can trust yourself to not start panicking again, you look back over at him. You have no idea what comes next. This is not how you ever imagined meeting Bruce. You thought maybe one day he would begin to write back again, leading to the decision to meet for a coffee or dinner. It seemed realistic – a bit more adult. This feels like something out of a dream.

You close your eyes again, trying to take it all in. He’s still there when you crack them back open. To be sure, you give yourself a little pinch on your arm. If Bruce finds that odd, he doesn’t say anything about it. 

Needing to do something before addressing the elephant – or rather bat – in the room, you grab a glass down and pour yourself some water. It feels strange to ignore him, so you offer you uninvited guest water as well, to which he shakes his head no. It at least feels like a semi-normal moment in all of this.

From there, you wander back to your living room, taking up an end of the couch. Bruce follows, politely letting you lead the way. You wonder if he’s told many others or if he just knows this is best for you. You have absolutely no idea of where to begin.

“Um, hi I guess,” you venture.

You’re by no means an expert in the expressions of Bruce Wayne, but you’re willing to bet that’s the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Hello,” Bruce says.

“So you uh, you’re the Batman then? I feel like I should have been able to put that together sooner.”

“I would have been surprised if you did.” You’re not certain on how to respond to that. Your shock must come across clearly on your face, because Bruce is quick to clarify. “I’ve worked hard to keep people from putting the pieces together.”

Not many must know his true identity then. You can’t say it’s surprising, given Bruce’s usual habits about divulging personal information. 

You’re not too proud to admit that sitting across from him in his full suit, even as beat up as it is, is incredibly intimidating. The reason for the bat motif evades you, but looking at him helps you to understand more. He looks large in the suit, an imposing figure by anyone’s standard. His eyes stand out against all the black in stark contrast, the icy blue pinning you in place. It makes it a bit hard to think straight.

“Would you mind um, taking off the–?” You hope you’re not overstepping. He’s trusted you with his identity, but you’re not sure if that also means trusting you with his face.

Your breath hitches as his hands move. The cowl comes off in one fluid motion. 

You’ve seen photos of him of course, even recently, but being face to face is something else altogether. The tabloids have at least one thing right. He’s gorgeous.

His hair is long and in severe need of a brush after a night under the helmet, and yet it works. There’s black makeup hastily smudged all around his eyes, maintaining the contrast of his eyes. Stubble dusts his sharp jawline, drawing your attention to his plush lower lip. You’re not sure if this has calmed your nerves or made them worse. He looks like he was just dragged out of a gutter, which for all you know he might have been, and it’s as though he stepped off the cover of a magazine.

You suddenly realize you should say something more instead of continuing to stare. “I guess I can’t pretend it wasn’t really you after all this,” you half-heartedly joke. You’re not sure if it lands.

Bruce readjusts slightly on the couch, drawing your eyes back to his injuries. Whatever serum he had you pump him full of clearly did its job. The exposed skin still looks angry, but cuts are already stitching back together and there's no longer any active bleeding.

The state of his suit is something else. It looks like he was chewed up and spit back out only to be chewed up again. Massive holes are torn clean through, numerous singe marks across his chest. He's lucky to have not lost the pocket where he was keeping that emergency vial. 

“Are you okay?” you ask, “I was a little worried you’d die on me in the middle of the night.” 

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” You think that was meant to be comforting.

Once again, you’re not really sure where to go from here. It feels like your life has now been turned upside down from when he first stumbled into your apartment last night. Simply patching up Batman would have been plenty to deal with and process, but now you know his identity too? Calling this whole thing strange is underselling it.

It peaks your curiosity though. 

“Why now?” you ask.

Bruce's eyebrows twitch upward for just a moment. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, why tell me now? You've been Batman for a while and I can hardly remember the last time you wrote to me," you explain. "There's essentially no point in telling me so why? How can you even trust me?"

You wish Bruce wasn't so hard to read. It's nerve-wracking, unable to tell what he's thinking or feeling. It's also entirely unfair, knowing that your heart is on your sleeve.

"How long have we been writing to each other?" Bruce asks. You're sure the non-sequitur has a point, so you let it slide.

"Since we were nine. Although I'm not sure the past few years count as actual correspondence." 

"It counts," Bruce asserts, “Trusting you is the easy part. I’m sure my childhood secrets would have fetched a fair price to the right reporter."

Bruce’s mention of selling his letters off is the first time the thought has ever crossed your mind. It makes sense, you suppose. There were definitely times where that extra cash would have come in handy, yet it was never something you considered. You didn't ask for Bruce Wayne as your pen pal and he didn't ask for you – who are you to betray that sacred childhood bond?

“Still doesn’t explain why you’re choosing now to tell me,” you say.

“Your address was the only one I could remember last night.”

You've never been more touched and more concerned at the same time. You caution moving slightly closer to him on the couch.

"You still didn't have to tell me," you say. Bruce looks confused, so you press on. "You woke up first. You could have easily left and told me sometime later."

"Would you have preferred that?"

You think on it for a moment. "Well I guess not but-"

"You deserved to know," he interrupts. "I came here and you cared for me having no idea who I was. The explanation was warranted."

He's not really wrong. The explanation does and doesn't make sense, but what seems to matter most is that Bruce is so certain of it. There's not a single trace of doubt – you're not sure what to do with so much confidence in yourself.

You think back to all the years of silence from him. So many years where you filled him in on nearly everything in your life while learning none about his. Any sane person probably would have stopped writing. Any sane person probably would have changed his PO box and yet, neither of you did.

Sitting across from him now on your well worn couch, you suppose you have an answer for all his unsent letters. You know what he was doing. Sure, the details are missing, but you know and for now that's plenty.

Something more significant than childhood letters are shared between you now. Neither of you are unaware of the shift.

"I need to get back," Bruce tells you. "Alfred is probably worried."

You remember the name of his childhood butler from his letters. It warms your heart to know he's still a large presence in Bruce's life. He always seemed to have the young heir's best interests at heart. 

"Will I see you again?" you ask. You desperately hope this meeting isn't bound for more years of silence from his end.

Bruce slips his cowl back on. "I'll be in touch."

You nod, watching him walk across your small apartment back towards the window. The ever-present clouds in the Gotham sky should provide enough shadow for him to sneak away undetected. He's certainly had enough practice.

Bruce is half out the window when he turns back to you and asks, "Why did you keep writing?"

You don't have to think hard about your answer and give it almost immediately. "I didn't want you to be lonely."

His mask obscures most of his face. You hope that he's touched and not offended – the thought of growing up alone in that Tower just always struck you as empty.

Bruce gives you an almost imperceptible nod and then he's gone. You hope he won't be a stranger.

A week later, there's a letter in your mailbox.

Comments & reblogs are always appreciated 💕

She’s landed on something hard and cold, and moves her head just a bit, only to have a splinter of wood pierce her cheek. The slight discomfort causes her to snap her eyes wide open, but it still takes a moment for her sight to adjust to the lack of lightning. 

Pushing herself off the floor, she stands as quietly as possible, but the creaking wood under her feet ruins her attempt at being stealthy. Two throbbing pains almost send her back on her knees; one of them a headache and the other one on her ankle. Of course she’s sprained it, because things can never be convenient for her even once. 

With one quick palming over her thighs she’s relieved to notice at least she still has her blade and guns tightly strapped to her body. She takes a deep breath to calm herself down, finding whatever thread of sanity is left inside her body and clinging onto it, trying her best to ignore the pain, clenching her teeth until she feels her jaw lock in place. 

“Jack…” His name comes out of her lips barely above a whisper, allowing her to notice how out of breath she is. She inhales deeply once again, this time trying to take in as much oxygen as humanly possible, but it’s hard. The air feels heavy, and her lungs burn even when she manages to suck enough air in, it isn’t helping much. 

She walks as much as the ankle allows, trying to get accustomed to the limping before venturing anywhere else, her nerves on the verge of collapsing as a million possibilities and scenarios drill her head, hand in hand with the migraine and an overwhelming confusion. It’s impossible to tell where she is, the only ones that have any idea of how the other universe looks being Sam and Dean. 

The only thing she can be certain about, as she followed the only hall that seemed to lead somewhere, is that she’s inside of some abandoned place. 

“Sam? Dean?” She tries to be a little loud, hoping by some miracle that either of them have landed close by. It feels silly, and perhaps it’s a better idea to peek around without making much sound considering she has no idea who, or what, could be around.

As she makes her way through the hallway, blade in hand, she notices holes in the ceiling, a mixture of dust and light seeping through the cracks, somewhat illuminating the floor she’s stepping on, the wooden tiles beneath her are as worn out as the ones above. 

One of the pieces above is missing a whole half, and when she stands beneath it, she isn’t able to see the sun through it. Thick, gray clouds cover the sky in its entirety.

“Jack? Dean? Sam?” She calls for any of the boys, glancing inside the only room she’s encountered so far.

If this is the other world they’re looking for, what is she supposed to do if the four of them landed on opposite sides of the country? What if she’s the only one that can’t find the rest? What if this isn’t the universe they’d intended crossing to at all?

Panic begins to make its way through her once again, the possibilities that the situation is much worse than she imagined are greater than those where everything turns out to be alright.

It’s just the way her life has always been; the mere concept of things going right do not exist anymore in her psyche.

Sure, there was a time when she dreamed. Dreamed about going to college, working 9 to 5 in an office, getting married, having kids, watching her grandkids play in the grass as she sat on the porch next to the love of her life. 

But those dreams are long gone, dead and buried. Because all she’s managed with her life so far is no education past a GED, a job forced into her hands with a certain death rate of at least  90%, dead parents, dead friends, dead relatives.

Oh, and a dead soulmate.

But it isn’t the time to think about that. It’s time to focus on finding either the boys, or her way out of there, knowing a decaying building isn’t the safest choice for a shelter. Plus there will be more than plenty of time to sulk about her misfortunate life when Mary and the four of them are back home, at the bunker. 

“I’m here to save you,” a familiar voice comes from a room she almost chooses to ignore. 

“Jack,” she almost screams, the pace of her heart increasing as soon as she recognizes his voice.

The pain in her ankle no longer matters as she hurries to where the voice seems to come from. It doesn’t take long for her to notice that it seems to be the core of the building. She enters as silently as she can, noticing a cross hanging from an almost completely destroyed wall, and a cage holding Mary Winchester up in the air just right behind it.

They’re inside a church, which adds an entire extra layer of uneasiness to the entire scenario.

“Oh my God…” She almost drops her blade at the mere sight of it, Mary standing still inside the artifact, unable to stop her mind from wondering how long she's been up there.

“(Y/N)!” Jack almost sprints towards her, wasting no time to pull her into a hug, inevitably squeezing all the hot air from her lungs. “You’re safe, are you alright?” He asks once they’re apart, looking her over with deeply concerned eyes.

“Yes, you? Where are Sam and Dean? We need to get Mary down from there, we just --” She’s stumbling with her own words, struggling to focus on a single thought, her eyes unable to focus everywhere else but the stupid cage and the entrance of the room, a sense of paranoia nagging her insides. 

“I don’t know, I don’t even know if they crossed with us,” Jack answers, rubbing his temples as he shuts his eyes tightly. “My head hurts.”

Somewhere along their rushed whispes, Mary begins calling her name. “(Y/N), (Y/N) listen to me, please!” She begs, her urgency for her to listen causing her to rattle the cage she’s in. A grunt of pain comes from her as the cage swings and her body inevitably presses against the spikes of metal peeking through the bars, but neither of them know what to do to stop it without hurting her further. 

“Mary, please stop moving. I’m here, I’m listening.” Jack is right by her side, noticing her slight limp, and how she won’t rest her weight on her both feet.

“You’re hurt,” he notes, not moving his gaze from her ankle. 

He tries to hold her, make her rest her weight on him. The woman doesn't think twice to push him away, playing tough as if nothing has actually happened. It is then that she notices guilt faltering his features. 

Jack blames himself for her injury. 

“You need to get out of here, take the kid and run, please. You don’t know who’s out there, you don’t know who’s coming!” Mary cries, interrupting her train of thought once more, the anxiousness in her tone immediately affecting the two of them.

“No, we are not leaving without you,” Jack retortes, trying to look for a way to free her from the cage. 

“Jack is right, Mary we won’t leave you behind.” 

“You need to leave!” She insists, moving too harshly and causing the pricks from the cage to hurt her again. Jack begins to panic, there isn’t anything around that can help. She feels herself about to heave for no reason, when a loud thunder resonates through the building, making it quake and rattle, dust and debris sprinkling over them. “He’s coming.”

Her words are ominous, sending a violent shiver down her spine, the thunder means something. “Who’s coming?” 

The doors of the room burst open and crash against the walls, nearly breaking at the impact. She and the boy turn to find at least five men standing in front of them. “Jack, behind me,” she orders him, reaching for her gun and aiming at all of the guys. “Take one step and I’ll shoot!” 

“(Y/N), they’re angels,” Mary says behind them.

The one standing in the middle steps closer, his stance menacing, his presence alarming. A bright blue light shines in his eyes. Something tightens inside her chest, at first she doesn’t know what it is, but as he comes closer and glares at her in complete silence, she knows.

She’s terrified of him. 

His head tilts as he studies her; his deep, penetrating gaze freezing her in the spot. For a second, she thinks she can see a hint of confusion in his expression, leaving as quick as it came.

The man turns to grab one of the other angels and drags him close. “Kill her, I don’t want her anywhere near here,” he mutters between gritted teeth, loud enough for her to hear.

Less than a second after, two of the angels walk directly towards her. “I said step away!” The crack in her voice at the end of her sentence makes them grin, while they keep coming closer without blinking or speaking. “Jack leave!” She screams without turning back.

But it’s too late.

-

“It’s time to wake up,” he purrs in her ear. The warmth of his breath sends a shiver down her spine, which he feels as he holds her back against him. 

“No.”

He chuckles at her tone, and buries his face on the crook of her soft neck, placing a soft kiss while he’s there. The arm he has around her waist tightens, pulling her even closer to him. She can smell the faint honeysuckle scent of his golden hair. 

“Come on, sugar. I made you breakfast,” he tries to bribe her, letting his other hand slither under her pajama shirt, the tips of his fingers tracing intricate swirls on her skin. 

“I think you have better things to offer than some eggs and bacon,” she teases, not bothering to open her eyes to know he’s most likely smiling already.

“Are you implying I should offer you my body?” 

A pout and a shrug is her only response, causing him to finally laugh. “Excuse me, how easy do you think I am? I deserve some respect.” Despite the seriousness of his tone, his hands keep roaming all over her skin, softly caressing and groping her every now and then.

“I didn’t say anything,” she counters, letting herself melt under his touch, cuddling even closer to him, if possible.

He huffs, allowing a comfortable silence to make its way between them. After a moment, however, he speaks up: “I suppose I could offer you this piece of fine ass, under one condition.” 

She smiles to herself, knowing he never wastes much time playing hard to get when the possibility of having sex is on the table. “I’m listening.”

“We’re gonna be as loud as humanly, and archangely, possible to make the Douchechesters pay for giving me the room farther away from yours.”

His preposition makes her frown, as she dreaded, they’re in her room in the bunker. 

She swallows hard, rolling on her back just enough to properly look at the whiskey-eyed archangel laying next to her in bed. Gabriel has never been at the bunker, he was killed years before the guys found out there even was a bunker.

While giving the stranger the most authentic smile she can pull off, one of her hands travels under her pillow, where she hides her angel blade.

A strong punch across the face fades away the fabricated dream inside her brain. The burning pain and blood dripping from her mouth pulls her back to reality, immediately reminding her where she actually is. 

She isn’t sure how much time has passed since they took her, the last thing she remembers is who seemed to be the one in charge ordering them to kill her, but they haven't. They just keep playing with her, and her mind. 

One of them is particularly good at morphing reality and dreams. He has dug inside her brain, taken the most precious memories she has, and turned them into nightmares. Mostly the ones she has with Gabriel. They somehow know those hurt the most.

“Just fucking kill me already,” she spats, feeling one of her teeth loosen up after the punch he’s just given her. 

No one says anything, they just laugh; it’s all they ever do. She’s far beyond physical pain, and they know, which is why they have moved into her brain. At first, it was torturous, but by now, it’s simply exhausting. 

Maybe they are actively keeping her from dying, because of some ulterior motive that she can’t figure out what it is. If the man who asked for her death is their leader, why are they disobeying?

Maybe this world is simply sicker than anything she expected.

After what she thinks is another day, she can finally feel how life begins to slip from her body. If she keeps her resilient façade up, maybe she will die without them noticing. A sense of relief washes over her senses, but so does guilt, knowing she’s essentially giving up.

She just hopes the boys won’t figure out she did, and that Mary and Jack have been more lucky than she was.

With a soft breath in she tries to focus on anything else that isn’t dying, in case they catch that thought in her head. What she can’t help is her mind drifting towards Gabriel, and the possibility that when she dies he won’t be waiting wherever she’s going.

“Incoming!” A loud yell from one of the angels startles her, the blood in her eyes making her unable to see what’s going on. 

“Fin --” Whatever the other one was going to say, is interrupted by the sound of snapping fingers, and immediately replaced by screams of pain.

The screams come from the three angels she’s grown accustomed to, she recognizes the tone of their voices very vaguely from their laughter. Whoever, or whatever, has arrived is wasting no time getting rid of them. Panic starts flowing through her veins once she feels the presence starting to approach her.

She tries her best to free herself from the tree she’s tied to, presumably looking pathetic at how little she can manage to move her body at that point, suddenly unwilling to go without one last fight. “Help me! Please!” She begs with a mouthful of blood and saliva, hoping, by some strange twist of fate, that someone good happens to be around.

A second snap is heard, the screaming coming from the angels is silenced, which only makes her panic further. 

A third snap, she falls on her knees, the rope holding her disappearing.

“Somebody hel --”

“Shhh,” the stranger hushes, taking her by the arm and dragging her with him. 

She tries to scream again, only to realize she can’t anymore. The stranger is strong, not seeming to have a hard time pulling her as she tries to resist. Then again, she has a couple of broken ribs, broken arm, and a twisted ankle. Not to mention the many bruises and lacerations all over her body. 

The ground beneath her momentarily disappears after a couple missteps on her part, the earth spins far too hard, and then she’s standing again. She recognizes that sensation from when she did it with Cas or Crowley; the stranger has teleported, this time however, it’s the first she felt the need to throw up.

Slowly, she opens her eyes, noticing they’re no longer swollen or burning. The pain has faded, and she feels energized, fresh, like she’s just woken up from a good night's sleep and had the healthiest meal of her life. Looking down at her body, she notices all the blood and injuries are gone, even the sprained ankle, as well as the dirt and sweat covering her body.

The stranger has saved her. She feels them tower over her, and turns to see the face of her savior. 

It takes everything in her not to faint, but the nausea from the teleportation intensifies and causes her to finally empty the contents of her stomach all over the ground.

Even with old, grim looking clothes, disheveled hair, and a full beard. Even when everything was supposed to be different, even when more than 8 years have passed… she can recognize those eyes anywhere. 

She’s landed on something hard and cold, and moves her head just a bit, only to have a splinter of wood pierce her cheek. The slight discomfort causes her to snap her eyes wide open, but it still takes a moment for her sight to adjust to the lack of lightning. 

Pushing herself off the floor, she stands as quietly as possible, but the creaking wood under her feet ruins her attempt at being stealthy. Two throbbing pains almost send her back on her knees; one of them a headache and the other one on her ankle. Of course she’s sprained it, because things can never be convenient for her even once. 

With one quick palming over her thighs she’s relieved to notice at least she still has her blade and guns tightly strapped to her body. She takes a deep breath to calm herself down, finding whatever thread of sanity is left inside her body and clinging onto it, trying her best to ignore the pain, clenching her teeth until she feels her jaw lock in place. 

“Jack…” His name comes out of her lips barely above a whisper, allowing her to notice how out of breath she is. She inhales deeply once again, this time trying to take in as much oxygen as humanly possible, but it’s hard. The air feels heavy, and her lungs burn even when she manages to suck enough air in, it isn’t helping much. 

She walks as much as the ankle allows, trying to get accustomed to the limping before venturing anywhere else, her nerves on the verge of collapsing as a million possibilities and scenarios drill her head, hand in hand with the migraine and an overwhelming confusion. It’s impossible to tell where she is, the only ones that have any idea of how the other universe looks being Sam and Dean. 

The only thing she can be certain about, as she followed the only hall that seemed to lead somewhere, is that she’s inside of some abandoned place. 

“Sam? Dean?” She tries to be a little loud, hoping by some miracle that either of them have landed close by. It feels silly, and perhaps it’s a better idea to peek around without making much sound considering she has no idea who, or what, could be around.

As she makes her way through the hallway, blade in hand, she notices holes in the ceiling, a mixture of dust and light seeping through the cracks, somewhat illuminating the floor she’s stepping on, the wooden tiles beneath her are as worn out as the ones above. 

One of the pieces above is missing a whole half, and when she stands beneath it, she isn’t able to see the sun through it. Thick, gray clouds cover the sky in its entirety.

“Jack? Dean? Sam?” She calls for any of the boys, glancing inside the only room she’s encountered so far.

If this is the other world they’re looking for, what is she supposed to do if the four of them landed on opposite sides of the country? What if she’s the only one that can’t find the rest? What if this isn’t the universe they’d intended crossing to at all?

Panic begins to make its way through her once again, the possibilities that the situation is much worse than she imagined are greater than those where everything turns out to be alright.

It’s just the way her life has always been; the mere concept of things going right do not exist anymore in her psyche.

Sure, there was a time when she dreamed. Dreamed about going to college, working 9 to 5 in an office, getting married, having kids, watching her grandkids play in the grass as she sat on the porch next to the love of her life. 

But those dreams are long gone, dead and buried. Because all she’s managed with her life so far is no education past a GED, a job forced into her hands with a certain death rate of at least  90%, dead parents, dead friends, dead relatives.

Oh, and a dead soulmate.

But it isn’t the time to think about that. It’s time to focus on finding either the boys, or her way out of there, knowing a decaying building isn’t the safest choice for a shelter. Plus there will be more than plenty of time to sulk about her misfortunate life when Mary and the four of them are back home, at the bunker. 

“I’m here to save you,” a familiar voice comes from a room she almost chooses to ignore. 

“Jack,” she almost screams, the pace of her heart increasing as soon as she recognizes his voice.

The pain in her ankle no longer matters as she hurries to where the voice seems to come from. It doesn’t take long for her to notice that it seems to be the core of the building. She enters as silently as she can, noticing a cross hanging from an almost completely destroyed wall, and a cage holding Mary Winchester up in the air just right behind it.

They’re inside a church, which adds an entire extra layer of uneasiness to the entire scenario.

“Oh my God…” She almost drops her blade at the mere sight of it, Mary standing still inside the artifact, unable to stop her mind from wondering how long she's been up there.

“(Y/N)!” Jack almost sprints towards her, wasting no time to pull her into a hug, inevitably squeezing all the hot air from her lungs. “You’re safe, are you alright?” He asks once they’re apart, looking her over with deeply concerned eyes.

“Yes, you? Where are Sam and Dean? We need to get Mary down from there, we just --” She’s stumbling with her own words, struggling to focus on a single thought, her eyes unable to focus everywhere else but the stupid cage and the entrance of the room, a sense of paranoia nagging her insides. 

“I don’t know, I don’t even know if they crossed with us,” Jack answers, rubbing his temples as he shuts his eyes tightly. “My head hurts.”

Somewhere along their rushed whispes, Mary begins calling her name. “(Y/N), (Y/N) listen to me, please!” She begs, her urgency for her to listen causing her to rattle the cage she’s in. A grunt of pain comes from her as the cage swings and her body inevitably presses against the spikes of metal peeking through the bars, but neither of them know what to do to stop it without hurting her further. 

“Mary, please stop moving. I’m here, I’m listening.” Jack is right by her side, noticing her slight limp, and how she won’t rest her weight on her both feet.

“You’re hurt,” he notes, not moving his gaze from her ankle. 

He tries to hold her, make her rest her weight on him. The woman doesn't think twice to push him away, playing tough as if nothing has actually happened. It is then that she notices guilt faltering his features. 

Jack blames himself for her injury. 

“You need to get out of here, take the kid and run, please. You don’t know who’s out there, you don’t know who’s coming!” Mary cries, interrupting her train of thought once more, the anxiousness in her tone immediately affecting the two of them.

“No, we are not leaving without you,” Jack retortes, trying to look for a way to free her from the cage. 

“Jack is right, Mary we won’t leave you behind.” 

“You need to leave!” She insists, moving too harshly and causing the pricks from the cage to hurt her again. Jack begins to panic, there isn’t anything around that can help. She feels herself about to heave for no reason, when a loud thunder resonates through the building, making it quake and rattle, dust and debris sprinkling over them. “He’s coming.”

Her words are ominous, sending a violent shiver down her spine, the thunder means something. “Who’s coming?” 

The doors of the room burst open and crash against the walls, nearly breaking at the impact. She and the boy turn to find at least five men standing in front of them. “Jack, behind me,” she orders him, reaching for her gun and aiming at all of the guys. “Take one step and I’ll shoot!” 

“(Y/N), they’re angels,” Mary says behind them.

The one standing in the middle steps closer, his stance menacing, his presence alarming. A bright blue light shines in his eyes. Something tightens inside her chest, at first she doesn’t know what it is, but as he comes closer and glares at her in complete silence, she knows.

She’s terrified of him. 

His head tilts as he studies her; his deep, penetrating gaze freezing her in the spot. For a second, she thinks she can see a hint of confusion in his expression, leaving as quick as it came.

The man turns to grab one of the other angels and drags him close. “Kill her, I don’t want her anywhere near here,” he mutters between gritted teeth, loud enough for her to hear.

Less than a second after, two of the angels walk directly towards her. “I said step away!” The crack in her voice at the end of her sentence makes them grin, while they keep coming closer without blinking or speaking. “Jack leave!” She screams without turning back.

But it’s too late.

-

“It’s time to wake up,” he purrs in her ear. The warmth of his breath sends a shiver down her spine, which he feels as he holds her back against him. 

“No.”

He chuckles at her tone, and buries his face on the crook of her soft neck, placing a soft kiss while he’s there. The arm he has around her waist tightens, pulling her even closer to him. She can smell the faint honeysuckle scent of his golden hair. 

“Come on, sugar. I made you breakfast,” he tries to bribe her, letting his other hand slither under her pajama shirt, the tips of his fingers tracing intricate swirls on her skin. 

“I think you have better things to offer than some eggs and bacon,” she teases, not bothering to open her eyes to know he’s most likely smiling already.

“Are you implying I should offer you my body?” 

A pout and a shrug is her only response, causing him to finally laugh. “Excuse me, how easy do you think I am? I deserve some respect.” Despite the seriousness of his tone, his hands keep roaming all over her skin, softly caressing and groping her every now and then.

“I didn’t say anything,” she counters, letting herself melt under his touch, cuddling even closer to him, if possible.

He huffs, allowing a comfortable silence to make its way between them. After a moment, however, he speaks up: “I suppose I could offer you this piece of fine ass, under one condition.” 

She smiles to herself, knowing he never wastes much time playing hard to get when the possibility of having sex is on the table. “I’m listening.”

“We’re gonna be as loud as humanly, and archangely, possible to make the Douchechesters pay for giving me the room farther away from yours.”

His preposition makes her frown, as she dreaded, they’re in her room in the bunker. 

She swallows hard, rolling on her back just enough to properly look at the whiskey-eyed archangel laying next to her in bed. Gabriel has never been at the bunker, he was killed years before the guys found out there even was a bunker.

While giving the stranger the most authentic smile she can pull off, one of her hands travels under her pillow, where she hides her angel blade.

A strong punch across the face fades away the fabricated dream inside her brain. The burning pain and blood dripping from her mouth pulls her back to reality, immediately reminding her where she actually is. 

She isn’t sure how much time has passed since they took her, the last thing she remembers is who seemed to be the one in charge ordering them to kill her, but they haven't. They just keep playing with her, and her mind. 

One of them is particularly good at morphing reality and dreams. He has dug inside her brain, taken the most precious memories she has, and turned them into nightmares. Mostly the ones she has with Gabriel. They somehow know those hurt the most.

“Just fucking kill me already,” she spats, feeling one of her teeth loosen up after the punch he’s just given her. 

No one says anything, they just laugh; it’s all they ever do. She’s far beyond physical pain, and they know, which is why they have moved into her brain. At first, it was torturous, but by now, it’s simply exhausting. 

Maybe they are actively keeping her from dying, because of some ulterior motive that she can’t figure out what it is. If the man who asked for her death is their leader, why are they disobeying?

Maybe this world is simply sicker than anything she expected.

After what she thinks is another day, she can finally feel how life begins to slip from her body. If she keeps her resilient façade up, maybe she will die without them noticing. A sense of relief washes over her senses, but so does guilt, knowing she’s essentially giving up.

She just hopes the boys won’t figure out she did, and that Mary and Jack have been more lucky than she was.

With a soft breath in she tries to focus on anything else that isn’t dying, in case they catch that thought in her head. What she can’t help is her mind drifting towards Gabriel, and the possibility that when she dies he won’t be waiting wherever she’s going.

“Incoming!” A loud yell from one of the angels startles her, the blood in her eyes making her unable to see what’s going on. 

“Fin --” Whatever the other one was going to say, is interrupted by the sound of snapping fingers, and immediately replaced by screams of pain.

The screams come from the three angels she’s grown accustomed to, she recognizes the tone of their voices very vaguely from their laughter. Whoever, or whatever, has arrived is wasting no time getting rid of them. Panic starts flowing through her veins once she feels the presence starting to approach her.

She tries her best to free herself from the tree she’s tied to, presumably looking pathetic at how little she can manage to move her body at that point, suddenly unwilling to go without one last fight. “Help me! Please!” She begs with a mouthful of blood and saliva, hoping, by some strange twist of fate, that someone good happens to be around.

A second snap is heard, the screaming coming from the angels is silenced, which only makes her panic further. 

A third snap, she falls on her knees, the rope holding her disappearing.

“Somebody hel --”

“Shhh,” the stranger hushes, taking her by the arm and dragging her with him. 

She tries to scream again, only to realize she can’t anymore. The stranger is strong, not seeming to have a hard time pulling her as she tries to resist. Then again, she has a couple of broken ribs, broken arm, and a twisted ankle. Not to mention the many bruises and lacerations all over her body. 

The ground beneath her momentarily disappears after a couple missteps on her part, the earth spins far too hard, and then she’s standing again. She recognizes that sensation from when she did it with Cas or Crowley; the stranger has teleported, this time however, it’s the first she felt the need to throw up.

Slowly, she opens her eyes, noticing they’re no longer swollen or burning. The pain has faded, and she feels energized, fresh, like she’s just woken up from a good night's sleep and had the healthiest meal of her life. Looking down at her body, she notices all the blood and injuries are gone, even the sprained ankle, as well as the dirt and sweat covering her body.

The stranger has saved her. She feels them tower over her, and turns to see the face of her savior. 

It takes everything in her not to faint, but the nausea from the teleportation intensifies and causes her to finally empty the contents of her stomach all over the ground.

Even with old, grim looking clothes, disheveled hair, and a full beard. Even when everything was supposed to be different, even when more than 8 years have passed… she can recognize those eyes anywhere.