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The best part of that video is that the owner found the ORIGINAL plush later on the beach and took another video with it after their grandmother stitched it back up
Tags/warnings: Deran's friend!Reader, touch starved!Andrew (what's new), age gap (reader is mid 20s, Pope is almost 40), slow burn, friends to lovers, touchy reader, physical touch as a love language, injured!pope, a little angst cause it's Andrew, intox reader (she drinks and smokes at one of their parties and gets handsy [cute] with pope, he's a gentleman about it), Pope is just a big ol' simp, cuddling, unprotected piv sex, creampie, [inaccurate show dynamics, mostly cause I didn’t wanna deal with Cath (lover her though)]
Summary: Pope doesn't like to be touched...at least not until he met you.
a/n: my favorite touch starved boy <3
Disclaimer: YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO REPOST MY WRITING ANYWHERE ELSE WITHOUT MY CONSENT. REBLOGS ARE ENCOURAGED THOUGH. YOU MAY NOT FEED MY WORK TO ANY AI DATABASES OF ANY KIND, USE MY WORKS TO TRAIN AI OR USE AI TO TRANSLATE MY WORK. FUCK AI.
The first time it happens it's an accident.
There’s people in his house when there shouldn't be.
The music is too loud, the bodies too hot and sweaty.
He’s standing in the kitchen like a weirdo, even he can acknowledge it.
But he truly doesn’t know what to do. Where to go.
He’s been gone for three years. He doesn’t recognize anyone anymore. Where the fuck is he even supposed to start?
It’s your meek “excuse me” that breaks him out of the spell he’s under, gaze finally sharpening as he comes back down to the present moment.
Everything rushes back to him, overwhelmingly. He’s suddenly too aware of it all, especially your timid grip on his bicep as you try to move him out of the way.
The touch doesn’t linger. It’s fleeting, unlike the reality that Pope finds himself in.
You side step around his imposing frame, a shy smile on your lips, one that makes his head spin.
You shouldn’t be nice to him, hell, you shouldn’t be nice to any asshole you don’t know. Did no one teach you—
And then you turn on the kitchen sink, gently cleaning the glass you’ve been using unlike everyone’s disposable, plastic ones.
An air of familiarity courses through him. You’re…comfortable in his home. You’re taking care of the space that no one, not even his brothers, could give two fucks about.
He can’t help but stare, his thoughts rendering him unable to look the other way, to go back to being stoic and uninterested.
If you feel him glaring you don’t let him know it, your body language remaining relaxed all the way through wiping the glass dry and standing on your tip toes to place it back on the shelf above you.
That’s when he moves.
It’s instinctual. His mother’s voice clear in his ear, urging him to help a lady in need.
He steps up, crowds your personal space yet gives you room to escape if you feel uncomfortable.
You turn to him then, your bright eyes meeting his as your fingers barely touch. He instantly forces himself to look away, afraid that he’s going to let the glass fall if he loses himself in your gaze.
“Thanks,” you mumble, shooting him another smile as you settle back down on your feet, the movement shifting you closer against his chest.
It honestly makes Pope dizzy. Feeling your warmth, smelling the faint softness of your perfume.
You don’t turn to move for the millisecond it takes for him to finish pushing the glass into place, perfectly aligned with the others.
It’s only when he too settles back down that you turn to him expectantly.
“You’re welcome.”
Pope guesses that’s what you’re looking for and he’s proven correct instantly as you bless him with another blinding smile.
His stomach does another flip.
Who the fuck are you?
Before he can ask, what he believes to be your name is called because you instantly turn towards the sound.
He commits your name to memory, such a fitting one for such a—
“Angel! There you are!” Daren breaks through the crowd like a lifeline, one that you instantly take, stepping away from Pope and towards him like a magnet.
You settle against his side like you’re meant to be there, his arm leisurely draping over your shoulders in a familiarity that makes Pope’s blood boil with a flurry of emotions he simply cannot pinpoint.
“See you’ve met Pope,” Deran notes and you turn back to Pope with wide eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” you start, tone remorseful. “I had no idea you were Deran’s brother, I would’ve introduced myself.”
You genuinely mean it and it almost causes Pope to snap at you. You don’t owe him anything.
“’s okay,” Pope mumbles instead, his gaze piercing.
“Well it’s really nice to meet you,” you hold out your hand for him to take.
Pope’s jaw clenches. He makes no effort to move, to reciprocate your kind gesture. He can see the disappointment in your face, how it falls instantly. You’re not used to being denied, to being told no, and for a second Pope almost cracks.
But he can’t. He won’t let himself do it.
No, because he knows that the second you give him even an inch of familiarity he will devour you whole.
“Don’t take it personally, angel,” Deran practically glares daggers at him. “He’s not really into that.”
Your mouth curls into a silent oh and Pope shrugs in response.
It’s all he can do to not come across as a complete weirdo instantly upon meeting you, more than he already has.
You copy him, shrugging like you’re unbothered but he knows for a fact you aren’t as your hand instantly retracts back towards you, seeking Deran’s instead.
His fingers interlace with yours like it’s second nature, overly intimate. Pope’s brows scrunch in confusion, barely. Are the two of you…a couple?
“Anyway, I’ll see you around.”
Pope gives you one last grunt of acknowledgement before Deran is pulling you away, back towards the backyard where all the action is happening.
He obviously keeps his eyes trained on you as you leave, on how your jean shorts hug your ass, how your body is sun-kissed and a little burnt from the summer heat wave, how your hair flows effortlessly.
And then you turn to glance back at him for what feels like minutes, your eyes filled with nothing but curiosity.
His eyes force him to blink then and he loses you to the crowd.
Fuck.
The next time Pope sees you, you’re back at the house for a pool day with his family. It’s a small gathering this time around, just their inner circle which apparently now includes you too.
You’re in a striking blue bikini, the color contrasting beautifully against your skin. You’re sitting on one of the lounge chairs, your legs open so a hyper Lena can settle in between them.
You can barely contain your laughter as the young girl tells you a silly story from school, your fingers working overtime to braid her long hair in one of those fancy styles that Pope could never name so that it won’t get too tangled from the pool.
Your laughter hits him like a disorienting grenade. It’s like he's never heard anyone feel joy the way you do. It's infectious, making him wonder if he’s ever actually felt a real emotion in his life.
“There, all done,” you tie up Lena’s hair and give her back a little pat before the girl practically bolts from your embrace, yelling a swift thank you before cannonballing into the pool as everyone cheers.
Andrew’s about to move forward, to settle down beside you, a pull to be near you clouding his senses.
But then Craig has to go and ruin it.
“Me next,” the oaf practically towers over you, settling down between your legs like Lena had, taking advantage of how you haven't moved.
You roll your eyes playfully but don’t complain.
Pope watches as you take his hair out of the messy bun that he’s got it in, gently scratching his scalp. His younger brother moans, causing you to stop and smack the side of his head.
Pope’s lips quirk up into a smirk. Good, set his brother’s straight.
But Craig is not deterred, simply reaching back and squeezing your thigh cockily.
It takes everything in Pope not to lunge forward. He doesn’t understand it, how protectiveness practically flares up in his chest at the sight of someone else’s grubby hands on your soft flesh.
He honestly doesn’t know how Deran lets it happen. They both know his brother so why is he letting Craig be so chummy with you?
Unless…you’re not actually together, together.
Is it possible that you’re just like this with everyone?
You finish braiding his hair then, meanly tossing it over his shoulder so that the tail end of it smacks him on the face.
“There princess,” you tease. “All done.”
Craig flinches as the band hits him, bursting out into a fit of laughter as he stands up and follows Lena’s example, splashing into the pool so hard that he ends up soaking you completely.
Lena laughs as you gasp dramatically. “You meanie!”
“Payback’s a bitch—” Craig starts, quickly correcting himself as you glare at him. “Payback, angel.”
Deran snorts, taking a swig of his beer from his spot at the other side of the pool. A spark of something is set ablaze in your gaze, a playfulness that borders on mischief.
“Oh yeah?” It takes them a few seconds to process what you’re doing as you sprint towards them, throwing yourself in the pool as close to Deran as possible.
Pope audibly snickers as you drench his youngest brother.
The backyard is set ablaze with teasing soon after, every single member of his family sans him and his mother engaging in a water fight for the ages.
Pope settles on the lounge chair that you’ve vacated, your warmth still lingering on the fabric beneath him.
He’s transfixed by you. By the ease in which you can bring lightness to his family, as though you can lift the weight they all carry on their shoulders, even if it’s just for a little while.
Another thought crosses Pope’s mind then — is it possible that you could be like this with him too?
Laughter only turns even more boisterous as you enter the living room, a baking dish in hand.
“Angel!” Both Deran and Craig greet you, your smile beaming as you round the table to say hi to Smurf first. You know the rules of this house well by now, a genuine comfort to Pope who at least doesn’t have to worry about you with his family.
He watches intently as you chat with the older woman, handing her the dish, humble enough to tell her it’s not something as grandiose as the roast she has prepared but you didn’t want to show up empty handed.
His mother smiles at you, her ego fed enough as she stands up and goes to heat it up in the kitchen.
You don’t let her comments get to you, instead you go around the table, saying hello to everyone, your touch always lingering, always soft and playful.
Deran gives you a hug, Craig kisses your cheek affectionately, Baz only gives you a nod in acknowledgement and Pope can’t help but smirk satisfactorily against his beer. You ruffle J’s hair and give Nicky a kiss to her temple.
You’re comfortable, confident, secure in your place within their family. You don’t back down to his mother, you don’t shrink away to Baz’s hesitancy, you—
Your eyes catch him staring from across the room. He’s subconsciously backed away the second he saw you come in, practically hiding in the threshold.
You give him a shy wave over Nicky’s shoulder, a gesture he reciprocates with a grunt and a barely there head bob.
Fuck, he’s even worse than Baz.
But you don’t look at him with the same disdain as you do his half-brother. Instead, something else ignites in your eyes. A challenge, almost, to chip away at the ice around his heart. But little do you know that it’s already melting away, and neither of you can stop it.
You eagerly help Smurf bring the rest of the food out before the entire family sits down around the overflowing table.
You make it a point to sit next to him, to never once let him think that his presence is unwanted, even if he refuses to give you the type of relationship that you want, that you crave.
You fill up his plate without asking him and if you weren’t so damn adorable he’d be angry about it. But he simply cannot be. He just lets you, watching silently as you tell the room a story from a crazy class you had to experience the week before.
Your hands move in tandem with your voice, making it a point to not draw attention to what you’re doing, as if serving Pope food is somehow normal. And for a second he can let himself believe that it is, that you taking care of him is how things are meant to be.
It’s only when Deran whispers something to Craig that has the two snickering that Pope finally breaks free from your spell, mumbling a quick thank you under his breath before you settle down to eat as Lena tells the table what she got up to in school over the week now.
You hum in acknowledgement, listening to his niece intently, like you actually care about her babbling, because you do.
After lunch, the crowd disperses throughout the house, the kitchen settling into a comfortable silence where Pope can finally breathe again.
He’s always relegated to clean up duty, mostly because he likes it that way, it’s something he can control.
“Where do you want these?” You ask, causing him to turn to face you from his spot in front of the sink.
He stammers for a second, blinking away the brain fog that you always seem to bring with you every time you bless him with your undivided attention.
He crooks his head towards the left side of the sink and you move swiftly, placing the stack of plates you’ve gathered into the space.
You don’t linger this time, no, you make it a point to step away as soon as you can but not before Pope feels his body shifting towards you.
Oh, you definitely know what you’re doing.
He shakes his head as he returns to his task of dishwashing. You return periodically, bringing by glasses, cutlery, baking dishes and everything else his family could’ve thought to leave behind like the animals they are.
Once the entire table is cleared, you settle beside Pope, dish towel in hand and begin drying what he's just washed.
It’s…nice.
Pope’s not used to someone actually wanting to help him but he finds himself quickly falling into the rhythm of your comforting presence.
“I never really asked,” you start conversation after what feels like a small eternity, turning to face Pope curiously. “Do you prefer Pope or Andrew?”
You ask as if it’s not a loaded question. Well, to you it isn’t, there’s no way for you to know about the weight his name carries over him. To you it’s just about making sure you’re calling him by the name he wants to be called, nothing more, nothing less.
But to Pope it’s…euphoric.
He stays silent for a while, thinking, and you let him without an ounce of judgment. You return to your repetitive motions, to working side by side, in tandem, coordinated.
Meanwhile, a storm rages waste in his brain. He’s never allowed himself to want, to put himself first, and for the first time in his life, someone is allowing himself to do just that.
But is it real? Do you actually mean it?
It’s only when he’s finished washing the last plate, handing it over to you that he finally allows himself to look your way.
“Andrew,” he mumbles before he loses the courage to. “Call me Andrew.”
You turn to him, setting down the plate atop the mountain you’ve created, nodding your understanding.
“Andrew,” you repeat back to him. “It suits you more.”
He can’t help the blush that creeps up his neck and to his ears, the heat that blooms in his chest, the way his intense gaze falters like a lovesick teenager as his mouth devolves into a dopey smile.
You don’t make fun of him for it, don’t even acknowledge it. You just stay there with him, following through with your help and leaving the kitchen spotless.
A few hours later he finds himself protectively escorting you out to your car, much to the snickers and teasing of his brothers which, thankfully, you’re not privy to as you say your goodbye to Lena and Cath.
“Bye Andrew,” you call out to him, and like a moth to a flame, he can’t help but step towards you, almost expectantly.
You hugged everyone else in his family, maybe—
Your eyes sparkle with delight as his body leans towards your again, a reaction neither of you was expecting.
You close the distance without hesitation, getting back up on your tip toes to plant a soft kiss to his cheek.
It’s over as quickly as it started, no lingering, no invading his space more than needed.
He’s certain he stops breathing, his brain short circuiting as you settle into the driver’s seat and follow Baz out of the family compound.
You’re not special. He reminds himself. She’s like this with everyone.
And yet reason doesn’t quell the pounding of his heart, the way his breathing hitches as he finally wills himself to take in a deep breath, the need to see you again.
He doesn’t see you for a while, exam season taking over most of your time and planning a new job taking up most of his.
He’s just had a disagreement with his brothers, it’s the only reason why he finds himself out by the pier, supposedly clearing his head with a walk like normal people do, but instead the voices are just getting louder and louder.
“Uncle Pope!”
Lena’s voice cuts through the noise. His gaze sharpens towards it, his frame lowering, arms opening, making space for her.
She doesn’t shy away from him, embracing him lovingly because to her, he’s just her uncle, a little weird but never dangerous.
It’s only when she steps back that Pope notices you.
You walk towards them leisurely, not wanting to break apart the cute display happening before you.
“Hi,” it’s the only thing that flows from his lips.
“Hi yourself,” you reply, placing your hands on Lena’s shoulders to keep her close to the two of you. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a family meeting all afternoon.”
Pope blinks back the shock. How close are you to his family? How much do you know?
“Ended early.”
You nod, Lena squirming in your embrace, gasping as realization dawns on her.
“Can Uncle Pope get ice cream with us?”
You chuckle at her impatience, causing Pope to huff playfully at just how adorable his niece is being.
“That’s up to him, sweetie.”
And how is he supposed to say no when his niece looks up to him with the most adorable eyes ever. “Please Uncle Pope!”
He nods. “Okay.”
Lena practically jumps into him out of joy, her tiny hand wrapping around his as she drags him towards the boardwalk shops.
You laugh behind them, jogging to catch up as she pulls you towards them, wrapping her other hand in yours.
Lena’s a bubblegum flavor fiend, extra sprinkles and gummy bears. You’re classic, rich and decadent, chocolate in a cup. Pope almost feels bad for getting a simple vanilla scoop in a waffle cone.
“Tell them to dip it in chocolate,” you whisper to him. “Trust me.”
He doesn’t know how to answer, blinking at you in surprise.
Trust me. Such a simple concept and yet…there’s still something that doesn’t let him take that leap.
But what does he know about ice cream.
So he does, he tries something new.
You smile brightly as you turn to receive your sweet treats, making sure Lena’s sitting down on one of the benches before you go up to pay.
But Pope’s quicker, pulling out a bill from his pocket and taking care of it before you can even ask the cashier how much it’s gonna be.
You roll your eyes at him when she tells you you’re too late and he can’t help but smirk victoriously.
“Thank you Andrew,” you relent, accepting your cup from his outstretched hand, your fingers gently grazing as you do.
The spark of electricity that snaps down Pope’s body is life inducing.
“You’re welcome.”
You settle next to Lena who’s munching ecstatically at her sugary confection, pink already staining her shirt.
Pope takes a seat on the other side of his niece.
He settles into the simplicity of intimacy with ease again, the gentle waves crashing up ahead, the cool afternoon air filling his senses with the comfort of saltwater.
Existing has never felt as easy as this. As something pleasant and unhurried, not having to pretend to be anything other than who he is.
Pope can’t help watch the two of you in complete awe. How you dote on Lena and how she reciprocates the action, something he’s never seen her do in the months since he’s been back.
She feels free here, not like the little girl who’s quiet and reserved with her now estranged parents. No, she’s alert and alive, playful and aloof. It makes Pope’s heart soar as he watches the two of you so effortlessly blend together, his own ice cream melting and making a mess of him soon enough.
The house is uncharacteristically quiet.
He’s the only one there, he’s sure of it. Smurf left the second she got the call that the job had gone sour and they had to split up, rushing to Baz’s because she knows Pope is too spiteful to die on her. Meanwhile J has gotten really injured and Smurf’s new baby comes first now.
It doesn’t matter to Pope. At least he tells himself he doesn’t hate himself a little more the second he hears his mother’s heels retreat down the hall, her car soon only a phantom noise as she speeds off.
Alone in the house, the quiet gets to him quickly. The typically bright and spacious home constricting in on him as he struggles down the hall to his old room.
He tries not to think about how the rough concrete walls feel against his sensitive fingertips, how the familiar pain in his side hums with the pressure of painful memories, how he’s definitely not back in that tiny jail cell after he had another psychotic break in prison and got himself thrown in solitary for another week.
No, he definitely does not think about how he was left struggling with his sanity, floating aimlessly, stuck inside his own head trying to desperately find some comfort to cling to as he curled in on himself to find a position where it didn’t hurt him to breathe.
He swings the door to his room open without thinking twice about it.
It’s early in the morning, no one’s been home since the night before, and yet, the second he comes inside, he instantly notices the way the air smells different, sweeter.
He stills, his hand not clutched to his side slowly sliding to the back of his jeans to feel the comforting weight of his gun handle. Meanwhile his eyes rake over the room, the unmade bed, the clothes—his clothes—scattered on the floor.
“Andy?” Your sweet, sleepy voice calls to him from his ensuite bathroom and he turns to it like an idiot boy with a childlike crush, eyes wide and heart practically beating out of his chest as if he isn’t currently in such devastating pain but he doesn’t dare make you uncomfortable.
Fuck, why does he feel like such a creep?
A sharp inhale springs you into action, crossing into the unlit room to take him in, suddenly wide awake it seems.
He doesn’t have the heart to stop you as your soft hands come up to inspect the gash on his brow, the purpling under his eye. Timid fingertips trace a path down his chest, landing softly over the hand at his abdomen.
You don’t say anything, don’t lash out at him, don’t flinch back in fear as you slowly lift his palm, assessing the damage. He doesn’t know why he lets you, it doesn’t make any logical sense, and yet he just melts into your hands, lets you maneuver him however you desire as he finally lets the dam crack.
You remain silent as tears stain his cheeks, as you gently pull him into the bathroom and sit him down on the edge of the tub, as you wrap your hands on the hem of his shirt and pull it over his head.
He knows you feel the gun tucked into his pants but you don’t let the shock show on your face. Instead, when you turn to discard his shirt behind you, he simply pulls it out himself, placing it on top of the counter, safety on always.
You turn to assess him then. Luckily the switchblade didn’t do too much damage, just one long enough gash that has since stopped bleeding, deep enough to hurt but not deep enough to kill him.
You settle on your knees in front of him and he’s certain his heart skips a beat. You smile up at him, so unbelievably soft, like you’re trying to comfort him without touching him because you know just how uncomfortable it makes him.
And yet, he can’t help but crave your touch, like a reminder that he’s still alive, that he’s still here, with you.
He knows he can just ask. Knows he can put together a sentence, or not, just muster the courage and say please. But how can he? When not even his mother deigned him worthy of fussing over?
“You don’t have to—” another sob breaks through him and it takes everything in him not to curse and scream and scare you.
His body begins to shake, shame bubbling from his stomach across his body until he’s nothing but a quivering mess before you.
He wants to run, to hide away and never have you see him like this ever again. This was a mistake, staying here, letting you see him this vulnerable. He needs—
He’s turned to stone as you pull yourself up from sitting on your heels and lean up towards him, invading his personal space now, all the voices in his head suddenly quiet. Your hands come up to cup his face, thumbs dutifully wiping away the tears that fall.
He feels pathetic, disgusted with himself at the sight you’re beholden to. But then your sweet voice begins to shush him softly, to tell him that he’s okay, that you’ve got him, that he can let it all out, and for a second he allows himself to believe it.
Andrew Pope Cody allows himself to feel, to not hide behind what he’s been groomed to be all of his life. He breaks down and you patiently wait for him to finish so you can help him pick up all the pieces.
It’s only when you no longer feel the wetness drip against your flesh that you pull back enough to take him all in. He forces himself to make eye contact with you, to show you as much as he can that he’s alright, that he appreciates you.
You swiftly rummage through his bathroom cabinets, searching for the first aid kit you know he has. He watches you intently as you clean him up with a wet rag first, removing all the blood from his abdomen, his hands turning white as he holds onto the side of the tub for dear life.
Your tongue pokes out between your lips as you lose yourself to the task, using that glue Baz got them in Mexico to close his wound. He can’t help but smile softly at the sight, finally allowing himself to rake his gaze over your body.
For one, you’re clad in one of his old shirts, the ones that no longer fit him after prison hardened his body into a bigger size. Maybe he’s not special, but he’ll be damned if possessiveness doesn’t boil over at the mere sight of you in his clothes.
He’s already slowly losing his mind, desire threatening to make him take a leap over that invisible line he’s drawn between the two of you in his mind, and then you shift a little, showing off his boxers underneath, your bare things practically causing him to salivate.
The decision settles with him with ease, dragging him down into the depths comfortably, like a sailor that has accepted his fate because it means he’ll at least get to kiss the siren.
“There,” you hum, tracing the outline of the bandage with your fingertips before you turn to look up at him. “All done.”
“Thank you,” he manages to choke out.
“My pleasure, Andy.”
Letting you go is the hardest thing Pope has ever done. You’d insisted he needed to rest after the trauma that he’d experienced and, not wanting to be an annoying patient, he’d conceded, settling down where you had just been sleeping, the sheets still slightly warm and smelling of you.
For the first time in a long time, Pope actually slept and slept good. But the second he’d woken up, you were no longer in the house.
He thought about calling, about making sure he hadn’t scared you off, but part of him preferred it this way. He was scared of his feelings towards you, so he chose indifference.
His mood soured, however. Every little thing his brother did made him snap, every time they brought you up in conversation, every time your name entered his orbit but your body didn’t made him go crazy.
He’s aware that it’s all his fault for not checking in, for disappearing into radio silence. But in his defense, you’ve never texted before, you’ve never even given him your number for fuck’s sake! It would’ve been weird to contact you out of the blue right?
Summer is coming to an end when you finally deign him worthy of your presence again.
Deran and Craig are throwing a party. Big surprise.
The house is packed, hot and sweaty. Everyone is scantily clad, if covered up at all. Even Smurf has left the premises for the weekend so it’s just a cluster of debauchery and substance abuse.
He should’ve left, he thought about it many times. But he knows you’ll show, even if it’s just to say hello, see how quickly things are devolving, and leaving immediately.
His eyes have been trained on the entrance all night, impatiently waiting for you to walk in. It’s nearing eleven and his palms are starting to get itchy with anxiety. What if you don’t show? He hadn’t even thought about that possibility.
It’s been a few days since Deran’s mentioned you. Even longer since you’ve babysat Lena. Could something be wrong? Are you okay?
His entire body bursts with uncomfortable heat. He needs to find Deran right now, needs him to tell him your address so he can go check on you himself, needs—
A loud squeal catches his attention, swiftly turning towards the backyard to catch you swung over Craig’s shoulder, your tiny jean shorts riding further up your ass as he spins you around.
You giggle brightly, not attention seeking, just pulling everyone’s gaze towards you with the ease in which you feel joyful. He watches, entranced, as his younger brother puts you down.
Pope moves instinctively, stalking towards the living room to get a better line of sight on you. You’re at least wearing a shirt over your bikini, your beautiful skin covered from the hungry gazes of those around you. If you realize just how many men are salivating after you, you don’t let it show, not as Craig lights up a joint and passes it on to you instantly.
Something constricts against Pope’s heart as he watches you inhale deeply, a primal urge to burst through the doors, grab the joint from your hand and toss it away before bringing you into the house and hiding you away.
He settles for sitting down on the loveseat. He can keep you safe from in here, from far away, from a distance.
The house only becomes more crowded as the night goes on and he unfortunately loses track of you two hours in, only noticing the second that annoying couple in front of him moves out of the way, the warm summer air hitting him in contrast to the air conditioned interior.
He panics instantly, his eyes jumping through the hazy bodies outside as he desperately tries to find you again. He’s about to stand up, to finally make a move and search for you when your body plops down on his lap instead.
“Andy!” You shriek, an airy happiness enveloping you as you settle over this lap. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Pope swallows thickly, feeling everything all at once, his brain having trouble processing your hands over his chest, your core pressed against the bulge in his pants, your hot breath on his face.
He’s certain he’s blushing crimson but maybe you’re too intoxicated to notice.
“Were you hiding from me?”
He doesn’t answer right away, causing your pretty little mouth to get upturned into a pout.
“I knew it,” you whimper. “You do hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, angel,” the words spill out of his mouth instantly, unfiltered since his stupid brain isn’t working anymore.
Wide eyes stare at him adorably. “You don’t?”
He shakes his head.
“Then…” you huff, clearly exhausted from all the mental gymnastics you’ve been doing too. “Why didn’t you call?”
He opens his mouth to answer.
I didn’t have your number.
I didn’t know I had to.
Why didn’t you call?
But he knows it’s all lies. He knows he deliberately didn’t call.
Didn’t text.
Didn’t anything.
Your eyes flicker down to his open mouth, your own hanging open as you stare hungrily at him, your hips grinding down against him involuntarily.
He hisses at the contact, the sound so broken and foreign to him. His brows scrunch in desperation, his head angling without him noticing. And so you take the leap for him.
Your lips settle on his like a sip of water after wandering in the desert for an entire lifetime.
It takes everything in him not to kiss you back, not to run his hands over your back, not thrust his hips up into you.
He knows how high you are, knows your actions, while yours, aren’t sober ones. And he’d much rather kill himself than take advantage of you.
“Andy,” you whine into his mouth again, needy and desperate. “Please.”
He stiffens beneath you, once again gripping the chair handles like his life depends on it. You frown as the wood creaks, a wicked smile curling your lips as you realize just how much he’s holding back right now.
“You can touch me, Andy,” you whisper, your lips starting their descent from his own down to his jaw and neck.
He shakes his head softly, not cruel, not rejecting, simply stating.
If anything, it spurs you on, determined to prove him wrong, to provoke him.
He can tell as your lips lock into the base of his neck, teeth nipping meanly at his skin, desperate to leave a mark on him.
He should stop you, should pick you up and tuck you into bed. But he doesn’t. He can’t.
Instead, his eyes close in pleasure, his fists practically snapping the wood between his fingers.
You’re hungry, having been kept from touching him for so long. He’s given you an inch and you’ll be damned if you don’t steal a mile. And he honestly doesn’t care, can’t care, when the realization that you were looking for him finally catches up.
You want him.
Desperately.
Your hands roam down his arms in tandem with your hip movements, your lips trailing back up to his mouth, but instead of diving in, taking the plunge, you hover above them, your hot breath taunting him.
“You’re so pretty, Andy,” you whisper. “Need you—” you huff, frustrated. “to touch me, please.”
He shakes his head again, this time accidentally brushing his lips with yours, groaning at the fleeting contact.
“‘M not gonna take advantage of you, angel,” he presses his forehead to your cheek, almost reverent.
You let out a sigh, deep and weirdly understanding, stopping your mindless torture as his words sink in. He stares at you, his heart finally pumping blood to the rest of his body normally as it sinks with your own, the raging storm calming into a consistent thundering.
“‘M sorry,” you mumble against his chest, settling down to rest your head against the crook on his neck. “I just…” you sigh, melancholic, the words not coming to you.
“I know,” he finally lets his hands break free from his self-imposed restraints, sliding them up your legs, taking his time feeling the warmth of your exposed thighs, the comforting weight of your clothes against your skin. You hum contently, like a cat finally being given attention, practically purring against him.
He settles his touch around your body, pressing you tightly against him as you slowly doze in and out of consciousness.
“Is this good enough, angel?” He’s never felt this soft with anyone before, his jagged edges usually too sharp, drawing blood instantly. But it’s as though you’ve smoothed him down, made him into someone that’s worthy of you.
You nod against him, fingers curling into his soft shirt, most definitely wrinkling the perfectly ironed fabric and he could not give two shits about it.
He’s acutely aware of how the two of you ended up asleep together.
All he wanted was to tuck you into bed, kiss your temple and then sit across from the bed, watching you sleep all night, like a messed up version of a guardian angel.
But you’d whined oh so loudly when he tried to peel away from you, your arms wrapping around his neck, your legs tightening around his waist. He couldn’t even get his shoes off, being forced down onto the soft mattress as you rolled over on top of him.
You settled down easy after that, your even breath soothing against his neck, the patterns he kept tracing over your back lulling you even further into the depths of rest.
He’s never fallen asleep this easily before, definitely not after the peak of adrenaline you’d just put him through.
But after exactly one thousand and sixty five seconds of watching your calm face, feeling your chest rising and falling steadily, something pulled him under, his eyelids becoming so heavy he could barely register as he stopped blinking altogether.
Your squirming wakes him up the next morning.
You’ve crawled on top of him, a comforting weight over his body. That is until you started to move, seeking something to put you out of your miserable restlessness.
“What’s wrong, angel?” His voice is deep with sleep.
You lift yourself onto a sitting position, straddling his hips once more, rubbing against the growing tent in his pants.
Part of him snaps awake at the mere inkling that you’re horny, now sober and wanting to torture him for denying you yesterday. But as his eyes focus on you, he finds an even deeper feeling he simply cannot name brewing in your pretty little head.
You scratch at your shirt, the fabric constrictive, your neediness for him overwhelming.
“’s too much,” you whine and he, for some divine reason, understands what you need.
He sits up, causing you to gasp as his erection thrusts up against you.
“Meanie,” you tease, pushing him to action.
He smirks as his hands gently trail over your exposed tummy. His hands grab the hem of your shirt and pull it over your head in one swift movement, quickly untying your bathing suit top and tossing the offending fabric to the floor. He doesn’t give himself the time to stare, not when you’re so desperate and time is of the essence, he’ll have time to properly worship you later.
Your nipples do harden as the cold air hits them, and he cannot fight the urge to take one into his mouth, rolling his tongue over the bud before he detaches so he can pull his own shirt off.
Your breathing gets caught in your throat as you watch him, brain already shutting off at the sight of his bare body. So much more real estate for you to touch, he thinks.
And touch you do, eager hands trailing the hardness of his chest and stomach all the way down to his pants. You make quick work of the button and his zipper and he lifts his hips so he can pull them off, hesitating with his boxers—
“All of it.” You answer for him.
“Yeah?”
“Mhmm,” you whine. “Please.”
And who is he to deny you now?
In one quick movement, he’s complete bare beneath you. But you’re still not content, no, you won’t be until you’re right there with him.
He takes care of your remaining clothes then, urging you up with two quick taps to your outer thigh and just as quickly hooking his thumbs underneath your bikini bottoms.
Your heat is so close to his face, so puffy and needy, he simply must lean forward and place a kiss over your hip bone. You hum contently, body buzzing with excitement as you practically tackle him back down on the bed and return to your earlier position.
At first you don’t want anything other than to feel him, your cheek pressed over his beating heart, legs spread over his lower abdomen, practically purring as his own hands wisp over your back.
You lay like that for a while, enjoying the gentle sounds of crashing waves and birds singing outside his window. But then you turn to look at him with those round, puppy eyes that he’ll be damned to cave to for the rest of his life.
“Andy,” you plead. “Need to be closer to you.”
He knows what you mean without you having to explain yourself.
There’s just one more thing to do.
So he does, grabbing a hold of his rock hard cock and slowly sinking himself into your entrance. You wince at the stretch, eyes quickly becoming watery as he settles inside of you. He shushes you gently, shifting you slightly so he can reach your lips, crashing them with his in a sloppy, wet kiss that has you instantly melting into him further.
It’s only when he’s sheathed within you completely that you finally relax. But while you’ve found euphoria with such a simple action, Pope is anything but.
He lasts fifty three seconds before his hips begin shifting involuntarily. Your brow scrunches in confusion, pleasure shooting up your body when all you really wanted to feel was peace.
He coos at you softly. “I need to move, angel.”
You sigh, dramatically so, and he can’t help but smile brightly at your theatrics.
“May I move?”
You bury your face in the side of his neck, going limp over him. “I guess.”
He rolls his eyes playfully, wrapping his arms around you before he lifts his hips off the bed and begins to piston in and out of you.
You’re so wet it’s absurdly easy, the room quickly devolving into a choir of wet, slapping sounds and his moans harmonizing with your little whimpers. You hold onto him for dear life, relishing in the closeness that he’s affording you, and he…he’s certain that you’ve just unlocked something he’d buried deep in his psyche long ago.
A desire to long for someone.
An allowance to feel.
A chance to love again.
“An—dy fuck,” you choke. “‘M so close.”
He turns his head to press his cheek against your temple, tightening his hold on your body, possessive and claiming.
“Come for me angel,” he urges. “Let me make you feel good, please.”
You moan loudly, your body responding diligently to his plea. He can feel your body convulse above him, your walls tightening around him as a jolt of electricity snaps and you’re coming undone.
You cry against his shoulder, panting feverishly as he continues to pound into you, seeking his own release while also extending you own.
“In me please, Andy, need you—”
He doesn’t need to be told twice, burying himself as deep as he can inside of you before he’s spilling, locking you tightly against him and enjoying the feeling of joy that washes over his entire body.
He can’t stop kissing your cheek, his lips lapping up the wetness that has streaked like a devout man worshiping a gift from the heavens.
You stay like this until both your heartbeats return to their normal, synced rhythm, your nails scratching deliciously at his scalp while his own return to their soothing patterns against your back.
“Was that okay?” You ask him, finally returning to your senses it seems.
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just watched jurassic park and from a meta perspective im thinking sadly about how the behavior the carnivores display is way more indicative (at least to me) of wanting to play and lacking stimulation in their lives than actually wanting to eat the human characters. and they got so so demonized for it
JP dinosaur behavior analysis with a healthy dose of headcanon included from someone who doesnt know much about behavioral science. for funsies
ok so first of all lets start with the t rex. her very first moment is the goat leg ending up on the car, but we can see in the next shot that she is very capable of swallowing the goat whole. so how did that leg get there? given evidence that t. rexes were likely social creatures, i like to imagine that the leg on the car was more “here you go have part of my meal because you’re small” for the humans
next is her communication. i want to look at one specific thing, which was actually the thing that prompted the post
to me, that certainly looks like eye pinning. eye pinning is a behavior in birds that signals high stimulation. here’s what it looks like in a bird
it can be positive or negative, but in this case it’s probably not negative, because there’s nothing forcing the rex to stay there. if she wanted to leave the situation she could hit the bricks
the continual roaring also sort of suggests play behavior to me. there’s not really any sense in making a shitload of noise at your prey (unless you’re trying to scare them out of cover, but we know she doesn’t need to do that because we see she’s strong enough to just break into the car) so, especially because they keep screaming, that reads way more like “im making noises and they’re making noises back ^w^” then it does as trying to intimidate prey for some reason
play behavior also makes sense because we know, canonically, she’s crazy understimulated. alan grant says as much when he mentions that they aren’t feeding her in a way that promotes hunting behavior. the way she noses at the jeep and spins it really just looks more like curious interaction than anything, as well as all the chasing people she does
next, the raptors. their really famous scene is the kitchen, but first let’s establish some facts about them. we know from muldoon and what we’re shown that:
- they’re smart enough to use one of their own as a distraction for flanking maneuvers
- they’re good at problem solving enough to wait until the electric fences are turned off to systematically test them for vulnerabilities
- they’re absurdly fast. “60 mph on open ground” fast
- they are absolutely not in a big enough enclosure
- they’re not fed in a way that promotes hunting behavior either
so when you put all this information together and then look at the kitchen scene, i don’t believe for even one second that the “hide behind the counter” routine is fooling those two raptors for any time at all. that entire sequence of loudly scrambling around the kitchen while something that can keep pace with a cheetah pretends it can’t catch you? yeah that makes WAY more sense as play behavior than it does hunting, especially since we see numerous times that there are many things on the island easier to catch and eat than a bunch of skinny humans (this goes for the rex, too!)
the bit with the noises is also true here. more true, if anything. muldoon tells us the raptors are ambush predators, so why on earth would they get into a hunting ground and then risk scaring their prey off with the loud barking calls? “hi we’re here come out and play” is a much more sensible use of a call loud enough to hurt a human’s ears from across a room in that situation
in conclusion: damnit john your girls are bored as fuck. give them a horse ball or a frozen pumpkin stuffed with meat or something
Funnily enough, I’m not 100% joking. While many animals have paw pads, the particular kind of soft, squishy beans found on housecats are an adaptation for stealth. Squishy beans mean you’re looking at an ambush predator.
it's actually sick you get tired of eating the same food over and over when some animals they just eat grass all day mind you. just another pointless challenge mechanic added in by big universe to get you to go to the grocery store
Was literally thinking about this when I gave the rabbits their breakfast, the same dry pellets they get twice a day every day, and they were so hyped for it, as they always are. Why can't I have that where are my pellets #mypellets
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SUMMARY: A trip to the ED, a retirement meal, and a phone call with Robby. One leaves you up close and personal with your neighbor, one has Phoebe spilling secrets like it's an Olympic sport, and another has Jack realizing he's got a fucking crush on the single mom in apartment seventeen.
WARNINGS: medical inaccuracies (IUD removal and replacement), a very awkward encounter, Phoebe being a blabber mouth, some very inappropriate and unprofessional thoughts, small amount of alcohol consumption, everyone thirsting over Jack, talks of Robby and his sabbatical (aka his mental health crisis), swearing and flirting!!!!
A/N: I had the best time writing this chapter!! It is another long one but I promise every word and encounter is necessary. First person to spot the hidden reference wins a big old smooth from me <3 Also, next chapter is Phoebe's birthday party so be prepared for a whole lot of chaotic toddlers and a bunch of moms thirsting over Jack.
PAIRING: Jack Abbot x Single Mom!Reader
WORD COUNT: 7.1k
PREV. PART — SERIES MASTERLIST
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You’ve been trying to ignore the pain for the last two hours.
Bubble baths, heat packs, even yoga as a last-ditch effort to try to relieve the intense ache and stabbing in your lower abdomen. But the pain has grown exponentially, almost crippling you into a fetal position in the middle of your bed.
In hindsight, you know you should’ve taken yourself to the ER hours ago, had them check you over to make sure it’s nothing serious. But you assumed it was just a heavy period making its appearance for the first time in three years. Now, you have a sneaky suspicion that your IUD has either shifted or embedded itself into your uterine walls.
Not ideal. A bit scary, to be quite frank.
And of course, it’s something that has to happen on one of the only real nights you get off to yourself. Not a night where you expect a call or text because Phoebe wants to come home. A night where, if anything, Phoebe has most likely begged your mom to just move in with her.
You have to laugh at the thought, but the movement and contractions of your stomach only heightens the pain. You’ve bled through two pads and pairs of pyjamas, soiled your sheets well enough that you’ve had to throw them out.
Perhaps it’s dramatic to call an ambulance to get you to the ER, but you’re unsure you’ll be able to stomach getting up, let alone driving yourself the short ten minute trek to PTMC. You consider leaving it, just ride it out for as long as you can. But the thought of Phoebe coming home tomorrow afternoon to a crippled and possibly bleeding out mother…
A pathetic groan follows your movements as you force yourself to sit up on the bed, allow yourself a moment for composure and a silent prayer to the Universe to just make it stop.
Much like all other times, the Universe doesn’t listen. And the moment you stand, you’re met with that horrifying sensation of blood pooling between your legs and soaking into three pads you’ve stacked in your underwear.
What should take you fifteen minutes to get ready and arrive at PTMC actually ends up taking you almost an hour. The only reprieve you are offered is a slightly quiet waiting room. Twenty to thirty people at most occupy the chairs, all too exhausted or pain-ridden to offer up much conversation between each other.
You don’t look much better than them. Pyjamas, messy hair, face bare of anything other than a grimace. Every step toward the check-in desk takes you back to when you first had Phoebe. When, for two weeks, you could only just shuffle your feet across the floor to get around after the emergency surgery.
You’re clutching your abdomen when you finally reach the desk. An older woman sits on the opposite side of the protective screen, dark hair pulled back into a bun, kind eyes that assess you and a soft voice that asks for your name and what’s brought you in.
“I think my IUD has moved or embedded.” You manage to get out through gritted teeth, hunching slightly over the tall ledge as you take in her name badge.
Lupe’s head tilts sympathetically to the side. “Can you describe your symptoms and pain for me? When did it start?”
“Uh, about four hours ago. Very heavy bleeding, the pain is both an ache and a stabbing sensation. Feels kind of like someone’s got a chainsaw on my uterus.” You try to laugh through the pain, but when your stomach tenses you’re met with a blinding sensation of agony that you struggle to blink away.
Lupe types on the keyboard of her computer, side-glancing you as if checking you’re not about to pass out and smack your head on the ledge or marble floor. “Any nausea or dizziness, hon?”
You nod, swallowing on a dry throat. “I think that’s only due to the pain, though.”
Lupe finishes typing before the printer beside her begins to rumble and she’s slipping you a write-up through the small gap beneath the safety screen. “There’s free sanitary products in the restroom. Take a seat, hon. Someone should be with you shortly.”
You offer a weak smile in thanks and she returns one with understanding.
It’s painful to sit but even more so to stand. After ten minutes, you’re slouching in the most uncomfortable chair you’ve ever had the displeasure of using. Another ten minutes and you’re shuffling to the public restroom before you can leak through yet another article of clothing.
It’s only twenty minutes later, when you’re trying to remember labor breathing techniques that the door opens and a gentle voice is calling your name. It takes you a moment to reach her but she waits patiently, an understanding look on her face through pursed lips.
She introduces herself as Dr. McKay as she slowly guides you to a curtained off section in triage. It’s not until she’s helping you onto the bed with steady hands that you take notice of two other doctors standing behind her.
Dr. McKay follows your line of sight. “We’re typically a teaching hospital, if you’re okay with two of our students observing tonight?”
You wave her off. “I’m a mom, I lost my dignity a while ago. The more the merrier.” You manage to joke but when a laugh slips from your lips, your face scrunches in pain and your body curls involuntarily.
Dr. McKay grins through a sympathetic look, sitting at the stool to the side of you. “Trust me, I know all about that,” she reassures, turning back to the students at the foot of the bed.
“This is Kwon and Ogilvie. They’re in their third and fourth year as med students and getting a little taste of the night shift. We’ve read through your patient intake report, but do you mind explaining again what’s going on? You think your IUD has moved or embedded?”
You nod on a sigh. “Yeah, the pain and bleeding started around four hours ago. I’ve leaked through pads and clothes maybe three times since it started.”
McKay hums, snapping on a pair of gloves and lifting your pyjama shirt to expose your abdomen. “Copper or hormonal IUD?”
“Hormonal. I only got it about three and a half years ago. A few months after I had my daughter.”
She hums. “Any dizziness or nausea?”
Your head bobs, a wince slipping from you when she pushes slightly lower on your mid-section. “A little dizziness, a lot of nausea. I think it’s just because of the pain, though.”
Kwon moves to your side, as she slips her hands into a pair of blue gloves and reaches for the thermometer. It beeps, flashes green. “Temp is steady at 98.96.”
McKay moves back, discards her gloves into the trash and slides back over to you. “Are pain and bleeding usual for you?”
You shake your head before she can finish her question. “No, my cramps and monthly periods stopped a month after I got it inserted.”
She nods, a distant look growing in her eyes for barely a moment. “Alright, we’ll do a pelvic exam to check if we can identify the device to rule out any embedding. If it has shifted, we’ll get you ready for an ultrasound to find out what’s going on before attempting removal.”
You nod with a wince when Dr. McKay stands, reaching over for a robe that she hands to you with a sympathetic smile. “We’ll step out for a moment while you change and get comfortable and then we’ll be back shortly.”
You hear her speak with the students as they pull the curtain closed behind them, questioning something about initial assessments but you zone out when the pain begins to grow. It’s five minutes later when you're situated in a gown on the bed when the three of them return.
“Our student doctor Kwon is going to conduct your pelvic if you’re okay with that?”
You hum at McKay’s words, not really caring who is going to be all up in your vaginal canal so long as the issue is resolved. You weren’t lying when you said your dignity left when you fell pregnant almost five years ago.
Joy Kwon doesn't offer any pleasantries as she slides her hands into a pair of gloves and positions herself on the stool between your legs at the foot of the bed.
Ogilvie stands behind her, looking anywhere but at your parting thighs. You move silently, without guidance. Knees up, dropping them to your sides, heels together. McKay grins at the sight when you fist your hands and shove them beneath your back, in line with your coccyx.
You catch her amused look and offer an exhausted grin in return. “I know my way around these exams.”
Kwon cocks a brow as you meet her gaze again, a flicker of amusement washing across her eyes. It’s fleeting, but you catch it nonetheless. She reaches for the speculum, applying the translucent lubricant to the equipment.
Your eyes are closed, an overwhelming wave of pain washing over and you crippling any sense of peace you had begun to find. It’s so intense that you miss the voices from outside the curtain, only just catching McKay informing you that an attending is going to observe Kwon’s exam.
“Yeah, no worries. Let’s call it a party.” The words are rushed on a pained laugh from your lips before McKay is slipping outside before returning with another.
When your eyes flicker open and a shaky exhale leaves your lungs, the air gets suddenly stuck in your throat at the sight before you.
“This is Dr. Abbot.”
Jack stares at you with wide eyes and raised brows, his gaze involuntarily trailing down to your parted knees before snapping his eyes to the wall on the other side of the room. Your cheeks feel hot, your heart is thumping against your ribs and you feel like you can’t fucking breathe.
There is no fucking way this is happening right now. Jack is barely able to meet your gaze again as he tries his hardest to offer the most professional nod and tight-lipped smile you’ve ever seen.
“Fancy seeing you here, neighbor.” You can’t help it. The words fall from your lips before you can think twice, the tension in the room that the others are only now privy of is too much to remain silent under.
McKay’s eyes dart from you to Jack, lashes hitting her brows in shock. “Neighbor?”
Jack clears his throat, scratching at the nape of his neck in a nervous tick you’ve never seen before. He blinks at you, lips parting and closing again. You never imagined him to be anything other than confident and composed.
Bored with the conversation, Kwon moves closer and lines the speculum with your entrance, a hiss falling from your lips at the cool contact of the lubricant.
“Take a deep breath, you’ll feel some pressure.” She advises, a bit dully. Like she’d rather be anywhere but here. You feel the fucking same.
Ogilvie frowns at the speculum, eyes darting from the tool to between your legs. Like he’s assessing the physics of the exam. “Is that going to fit?”
“I can get Shen, instead.” Jack offers abruptly, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. Perhaps he’s trying to find a way out for himself, maybe he’s the one that’s uncomfortable with the situation he’s accidentally walked into. But the thought of yet another doctor staring between your legs is the last thing you want right now. Your eyes squeeze shut in pure mortification.
Your hot, widowed neighbor has just seen you in the most unappealing way you could ever imagine.
“Nope. Four doctors getting an eyeful is enough. I don’t need a fifth.” You keep your eyes closed, unable to bear the thought of meeting Jack’s gaze right now and a wince passes through your teeth when Kwon slowly pushes the instrument into your vaginal canal.
You blink up at the ceiling through quick breaths, discomfort turning into pain as you struggle to stretch around it. Kwon peeks up between your parted knees, noting the discomfort in your expression, can feel the resistance of the instrument and casts a quick glance to McKay.
“Did you have a vaginal birth?” she asks you softly.
You laugh through gritted teeth. “Emergency caesarean, baby.”
Kwon sighs, slowly retracting the speculum and placing it back on the tray. You don’t need to look at it to know it’s covered in blood. “I thought it felt a bit tight.” She comments.
Your eyes bulge open at that with another mortified laugh. But when your gaze snags on the tool she originally tried to use, you blink rapidly. It’s bigger than anything you’ve ever had inside of you before. Including any and all speculums you’ve had the displeasure of being examined with. “You thought that was going to fit!?”
“I didn’t think it would. I’m happy to try instead with a Pederson.” Ogilvie offers with a wide smile and you’re far too quick to shake your head for someone who was, at the beginning, happy for students to observe and conduct the exam.
“No! That’s okay, Dr. McKay—”
“Dr. McKay, there’s a phone call for you. An officer from the PPD.”
“Are you fucking kidding me!?” She doesn’t excuse herself. Just tears off her gloves and stomps through the curtain. Leaving you with two student doctors and Jack fucking Abbot.
Wearily, your gaze meets his again; your cheeks aflame and a stillness in his shoulders that makes you slightly more uncomfortable than the idea of Ogilvie spreading you open. Ultimately, you know Jack is your best option out of the three.
More experience, kind and compassionate. Familiar, but maybe that’s not a pro in this situation. No. Definitely not a pro to have your fucking neighbor inspect your cervix. Yet you don’t look away from him. You don’t mean for your gaze to be pleading, don’t mean to ask the silent question that you do but Jack hears it anyway, answers it with a subtle dip of his head and he’s slipping into a pair of blue gloves and clearing his throat before taking Kwon’s position.
“Asking the patient what birth they had should always be asked before conducting a pelvic exam.” Jack notes, eyes flickering to Kwon in a brief moment of silent scolding before he reaches for the other, much thinner probe.
You don’t miss the way Kwon shoots a glare at Ogilvie with slightly threatening eyes. He has the right to look sheepish and a little scared before slowly stepping on foot closer to the foot of the bed.
“That would be my fault, Dr. Abbot,” he admits nervously. “She said she was a mom, so I assumed the birth was vaginal and the largest speculum would be most appropriate.”
You don’t mean to scoff when you laugh, but you do. Partly in offence for all women across the fucking world that this guy assumes all moms to have loose vaginas. The other part because if he had been watching Dr. McKay when she was checking your abdomen, he would’ve seen the small but visible scar just above your pubic bone.
Jack blinks as he unwraps the sterile tool and smears a small amount of lubricant over it. “In that case, I highly recommend you brush up on your knowledge of a woman’s anatomy.”
Ogilvie takes the hint. He tears off his gloves and slips past the curtain to do exactly what Jack has said. A wave of guilt begins to ride over you but it’s also quite quickly replaced with a bigger wave of relief.
Kwon turns to you with a thin grin, like she’s pleased with his lack of presence. “Sorry about him. I don’t think he’s seen a vagina since he came out of one.”
You almost choke on your laugh at that, wincing quickly after as your body locks up with another crippling cramp of pain. Jack’s gaze flicks up to your face, assessing the furrow in your brow, the flush to your clammy skin.
“You doing okay, neighbor?” His voice lacks its usual flirty tone; gravelly now and laced with a thickness he can’t quite shift. But you can hear the lightness he tries to offer, the reassurance he doesn't speak that this is okay and you are okay and you don’t need to be embarrassed that he’s seeing you like this.
“Oh, just peachy.” You snip back through gritted teeth, fisting the thin cotton sheets beneath you.
Jack blinks his way to go between your thighs, jaw clenched and having to remind himself to separate any personal sensations right now from his professional responsibility. It’s one thing to think about you being laid in the position, but it’s a completely other thing to have you like it for an entirely different reason.
Jack tries to block out the actual sight of you. Because in truth, there isn’t anything erotic about this, not even in the slightest. You’re in pain and bloody and hurting, and you’re trusting him to fix the issue. He feels sick with himself for how much he’s internally struggling at the situation.
“I’ve done this plenty of times, promise you’re in good hands.” He clears his throat, lines the speculum with the entrance of your vaginal canal and very slowly eases it between your walls.
There’s no pain this time, only a slight hint of discomfort but that’s mostly at the cold gel. You can’t help the cock of your brow at Jack’s words. “You examine a lot of your neighbor’s cervixes?”
He laughs at that, breathily enough that you can feel it ghost the side of your thigh. You swallow, blink up at the ceiling. His laughter helps ease this fucking awkwardness and embarrassment of having to dig around in his neighbors vagina. Doesn’t do enough to stop it from haunting you moving forward.
“No, you would be my first.” Jack promises, and you’re foolish enough to let yourself believe that comment has a double meaning to it.
“I’m honored.” You mutter it sarcastically and brave the thought of looking down to the foot of the bed.
You’re met with the sight of Jack peering between your legs, eyes slightly squinted as he works. Kwon looks just as invested as Jack does, handing him another tool when he silently opens his palm toward her.
“You said you bled through clothes and menstrual pads?” Kwon asks.
You nod, trying to remember not to tense or hold your breath. “Yeah, why? I’m not haemorrhaging or something am I?”
“No.” Jack assures you with a firm tone, catching the lick of anxiety growing in your voice. He doesn’t move his head but his eyes flick up to meet yours and your entire stomach turns molten at the sight.
You can’t look away and despite your best efforts, you do find yourself holding your breath.
“You’re not haemorrhaging and it’s definitely not embedded, which is good. Looks like it’s just shifted slightly which has caused the pain and the bleeding. Did it start tonight?”
You nod, watching Jack slip into a fresh pair of gloves and reach across the room for a small machine. “Well, I’ve felt a little uncomfortable for a couple days. Just light cramps that I usually get when I should be due on my cycle. But the bleeding and pain started tonight, yeah.”
Jack nods as he approaches your side, a look of reassurance on his face as he turns on the ultrasound screen and reaches for the gel. Kwon moves silently, offering you a large sheet and gesturing to cover your lower part and pull up the hem of the hospital robe to reveal your abdomen.
“I’m just gonna check everything is okay internally and then Kwon should be able to do a quick removal and replacement.”
You nod, loosing a breath as you try to relax yourself as Jack presses the transducer to your lower abdomen. He moves it slowly, tenderly with his touch; not using too much pressure or pushing on your bladder like the midwives did when you were pregnant.
He keeps his eyes on the screen and you realize you definitely have a thing for doctors. Or more specifically, this doctor.
“You bring Pheebs with you?” He asks softly, offering a brief glance to your face before returning his attention to the screen again.
“No, she’s having a sleepover with my parents tonight.” You say softly and you don’t miss the fond grin that spreads across his lips. It warms your heart so much that you can’t help but subtly mirror it.
“How’s her tummy now?”
A laugh bubbles up your throat. The irony of him being the one to check you over when only a week ago he was checking your daughter. “Yeah, good. Back to shitting like a pro again.”
Jack huffs in laughter, taking one more moment to assess the ultrasound before removing the probe from your skin and cleaning it off.
“Your uterine walls are thicker than usual. They're shedding, which is why you're bleeding the way you are. Totally normal. Other than that, ultrasound is clear,” he concludes with a smile that you can finally meet.
That awkwardness and tension has finally begun to ease and disappear. Right now, you’re not neighbors. He is your doctor and you are his patient.
“So, everything looks okay?” You ask. Jack nods, eyes on you again with that intensity you’ve started to grow used to.
“Yeah, you look perfect.” It’s slightly raspy when he speaks, both the tone and his words causing a flush to burn across your entire body.
It feels like air has trapped itself in your lungs and Jack’s shoulders stiffen as if he’s just realized the words he’s used and the tone he’s spoken them in.
From the foot of your bed, Kwon’s slightly uncomfortable eyes flicker between you and Jack, blinking as if that’ll clear the air as to what the fuck she’s witnessing right now. Before she can open her mouth with a remark, before Jack can splutter an apology or a distraction, the curtain moves and McKay is slipping back into the area.
Jack steps away from the bed, lips pursed into a firm line and he’s tugging off the gloves and moving toward the curtain. “She’s all cleared for removal and replacement.” He tells McKay, voice slightly strained.
You can’t help the amusement that starts to curl within your lower belly, a grin stretching across your face and Jack meets your gaze, mirroring it a bit bashfully before slipping past the curtain. Leaving you with your legs spread, heart thumping, and delusional thoughts in your mind that he found this procedure just as eye-opening as you did.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
It’s late Sunday morning by the time Jack’s done with his shift, exhausted and almost limping with how sore his leg is. He stayed late. Again. And his knee is protesting at the idea of potentially having to do it once more on his next shift.
It’s been a slight struggle now that Robby is on sabbatical. Jack’s left with the responsibility of staying later or starting earlier to aid Al-Hashimi with the influx of patience as the weather has gotten hotter. The sun comes out and people grow stupid. And Jack has to work through the pain of his prosthetic growing sweaty and unstable.
On top of that, he’s been riddled with something he can only compare to high-school level anxiety. Every time he’s walked through the main doors of the apartment complex for the past week, Jack’s been fucking nervous. Anxious that he may stumble into an awkward encounter with you after performing your pelvic exam.
It’s stupid, he knows. You’re both adults and Jack’s a professional, for fuck’s sake. He offered to get you another attending, and you declined. You had smiled—grinned—at him when he left you in McKay’s capable hands. And yet he had not heard from you since.
No text, no collisions in the hall. Not that you owe him anything, he knows that. And it’s not even like you texted religiously before your night in the Pitt. But Jack can feel something strained between you. Perhaps you’re embarrassed by the situation. That your neighbor had pried you open to check for an embedded IUD. Or maybe he had made you uncomfortable with that stupid fucking slip he made when he said you looked perfect.
What the fuck is wrong with him?
Jack takes the elevator to the third floor, his leg far too achy to brave the stairs after being on his feet for the past nineteen hours. When he makes it inside his apartment, he’s not sure what’s worse. The deafening loneliness or Robby’s contact popping up as an incoming call on his phone.
He answers before he even closes his apartment door.
“You’re alive, then.”
Robby scoffs a breathy laugh down the line at the greeting, something Jack can’t help but smirk at. He makes his way straight to the couch and falls into it, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear while he works to remove his prosthetic.
“Yeah, well… who would’ve thought nature could be so refreshing.”
Jack hums, half listening with a grunt until he slips the metal from his knee and exhales a breath of relief. “You doin’ okay, though? Haven’t heard from you for two weeks.”
“What? Miss me already?” Robby snides.
It pulls at the corners of Jack’s mouth in the form of a gentle smile. This is good. He’s cracking jokes, his voice doesn’t sound strangled and pained. He sounds better than he did when he left two weeks ago, but Jack is not a fool. He’s all too familiar with what Robby is experiencing, he’s danced toward the line one too many times himself.
“What are you even doing with yourself out there?” Jack says instead.
He can almost hear Robby shrugging through the line. He’s quiet for a few moments, likely contemplating, deciding how much or how little he wants to share. “How’s the hospital?”
Jack scoffs, shakes his head and leans back into the couch, allowing his eyes to close for a moment. “Work is not your concern until you’re back from sabbatical. Not a day sooner.”
Robby grows quiet again and they stay like that for a little while. No words spoken, just breaths shared down the line; both basking in the quiet comfortability of one another. Calming, familiar. Like moments shared on the roof after a particularly long shift.
“Spoke to McKay yesterday.” It’s Robby that breaks that silence. “Said you performed a pelvic exam on your neighbor.”
Jack can hear his smirk, the teasing churn in his voice. He takes a deep breath and then a laugh is spluttering from his chest; exasperated and exhausted.
“Brother, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.” Jack admits roughly.
Robby doesn’t push, gives him a chance to add more if he wants to. He doesn’t. So Robby approaches carefully.
“You like her?”
The question makes Jack pulse skip. “Barely know her.”
“Not what I asked.”
Jack hesitates. It’s a lie, really. He does know you. Perhaps not in the most stereotypical way, but he does. He knows your love lost, your hatred for the way your ex treats your daughter, how your mind works when you create the excellence that you do.
Deeper than that, he knows your heart beats solely for your daughter. He knows Phoebe. Her chaos and easy charm, knows how you’ve bled your personality into her unintentionally.
Jack swallows. Robby waits.
“I don’t know what it is. There’s just—there’s something there. Something about her…”
“It’s not just her, though, Jack. She has a daughter. Package deal. Big deal.”
Jack hums, an involuntary smile curling on the corners of his lips. “She’s the coolest kid I’ve ever met, man. She makes her mom sing her AC/DC as a lullaby.”
Had they been on the roof, Jack would see the softness that smoothes the worry on Robby’s face. He’d see the quiet understanding in his eyes as he listens to every word, as he understands why there’s a certain dullness in Jack’s voice. A reservation.
Robby takes a heavy breath. “You don’t have to feel guilty about that, Jack.”
It makes Jack wince. Because he does feel guilty. Whenever his mind wanders to the thought of you, he’s crushed with an immense wave of guilt. Like he’s betraying his wife, like he’s losing sight of her in the fogginess of his memory.
Maybe that’s what scares him so much. He’s been with people since. One night stand, casual flings to keep the loneliness and demons of the night away. Physically invested and emotionally detached. It’s different this time. With you. Because there’s no physicality there, just this undeniable pull he feels whenever he looks at you, thinks of you.
It’s deeper than a surface level attraction. It fucking terrfies him because he hardly knows you. Not truly, not in the ways he wants to.
“You’re allowed to find happiness somewhere else. With someone else.”
The phone slips to rest on Jack's shoulder as his gaze falls down to the hands resting in his lap, the silver band that still wraps around his ring finger.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Time just lets you grow around them.
Jack changes the subject fairly quickly. They spend the next ten minutes talking about nothing much before Jack forces Robby to promise he won’t leave it two weeks to reach out again. He showers, changes, takes some time to tend to the ache in his knee before brewing a coffee and making some eggs and taking them out to the balcony.
He hears it the second the door opens.
Music. Singing. Laughter. Loud and carefree and happy.
It pulls a smile to his face immediately as he sits at the table and watches across the gap between your balconies. Jack sips on his coffee, admires the sound he’s blessed enough to hear, the fleeting catches he gets of you and Phoebe running around or dancing on the kitchen island.
The sun is warm on his skin, the breeze soothing the ache of his tight skin where a limb once was and he feels himself slowly beginning to relax.
“Morning neighbor!”
His eyes peek open, a palm out above his eyes to cover the blinding sun. Jack blinks and you’re there. Standing on your balcony, one hand on the railing and the other is waving above your head. Calling out to him, like that night last week didn’t happen.
So you’re not embarrassed and he hasn’t made you uncomfortable. He can’t see you properly, too far a distance but he can make out the wide grin you offer.
Jack throws a hand up to reciprocate your wave and you jab a thumb over your shoulder. “What do you think!?” You call back, and it takes Jack a moment to realize you’re asking about the music.
His hand drops from the air and moves to cup the side of his mouth. “I love The Smiths!” He calls back.
You lean closer, he’s sure he can see your brows pinching as you call out to him again. “What!?”
Jack huffs a laugh, leaning forward in his seat and sitting up straighter. He cups both hands around his mouth now and bellows across the space. “I said I love The Smiths!”
He watches you throw your head back in laughter and suddenly wishes Robby never called. Because then he wouldn’t be so aware of the feeling in his chest whenever he looks at you. He wouldn’t have had to acknowledge and verbalize the turmoil that’s been brewing in his head from the moment he first laid eyes on you and Phoebe.
You don’t say anything else. He watches you retreat back inside and you don’t come back out. The balcony door is closed sometime ten minutes later. And within thirty minutes, the music stops completely and Jack’s left in that horrible, aching silence again.
After his eggs and coffee, he too is returning inside, leaving the dishes in the sink. He only allows himself a quick shower when the coffee begins to perk him up and decides it’s probably best to run some errands and grab some groceries before he inevitably crashes and sleeps for the rest of the day.
He dresses in a black t-shirt and a pair of beige chino shorts. It’s not something he’ll ever really admit outloud, but Jack hates the summer. He hasn’t always, but in more recent years, especially since losing his leg, he does. There’s a choice he has to make every time the heat begins to pick up in Pittsburg.
Wear trousers and ignore the sweat and swelling on the tight skin of his knee, or wear shorts and ignore the lingering stares of the general public. He should be used to it by now, it’s been well over a fucking decade since he lost his leg. But in recent years, without his wife’s reassurance that they’re curious glances and not judgmental stares, Jack can’t seem to decipher a difference between the two anymore.
Still, he knows he has to take care of himself. And with the ache still settling deep in his bones from his earlier shift, he’s aware that shorts are his best bet. It’s just after he clips his prosthetic back on again that there’s an uncoordinated knocking at the door.
The short relief of letting his leg breath allows Jack to move a bit more fluidly now, limp barely noticeable as he makes his way to the front door and slowly eases it open. He’s not offered much of a chance to check who his visitors are before a small body is barrelling into limbs.
Jack only just manages to catch himself by gripping a hand on the doorframe as he blinks down at a small head of curls of a three-year-old who is blinking in wonder at his prosthetic. He faintly hears your voice, soft but firm and scolding Phoebe for barrelling into him.
The child beams up at him, excitement laced in her chubby features as she points to his leg. “I like your leg.”
It makes Jack blink, pulls him back to the present where a throb begins to form around his knee and he grins at her, reaching down to readjust the prosthetic that the kid has somehow almost displaced.
He misses the way your brows raise as you look at him. You’d never realized he had a prosthetic and you can't help the way your head tilts at the sight of his arms straining when he readjusts the straps.
“SWAT?” you ask, voice thick as his veins pop and muscles flex beneath freckled skin.
Jack huffs out a laugh, pretends he can’t hear his heart in his ears and the fact that you’ve seen his fucking leg and you’re not being awkward about it. “Military.”
Phoebe watches him intently as surprise flickers across your face. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises, Dr. Abbot. Thank you for your service.”
He rises to his full height at the flirty tone of your voice, letting his eyes rove over your body from the painted toes to the hair on your head. A beautiful sage green summer dress kisses your skin. Cinched at your waist, short but puffy sleeves, a neckline that teases the swell of your breasts and the hem stops just mid-calf.
Jack swallows, admires your face. Hair pinned back in a flaw clip, messy and yet presentable. Your lashes look fuller and darker, a brightness to your face with makeup that doesn’t hide but accentuates your natural features. It momentarily knocks him breathless.
He’s never seen you like this before.
“I could say the same about you.” Jack’s voice is low and raspy when he speaks. It prickles your skin in buzzes of excitement, spreads a warmth beneath the flesh that charges your blood.
Of course, Jack notices. The way your lashes flutter, how your lips part. How, despite the warmth, goosebumps prickle your skin. A smirk kicks at the corner of his mouth and he looks away, back down to Phoebe.
She wears something similar, a blue summer dress that stops below the knee. Her hair is twirled up into a bun, little white sandals on her feet. It’s the most presentable he’s ever seen the kid look. And from the way she pulls at the dress and rolls her shoulders, he can tell immediately that it was a fight getting her to wear it.
The fondness in that crevice of his heart aches at the thought.
“Where are you two off to, in your pretty dresses?” He directs the question at Phoebe, who offers a twirl despite her hatred for the clothing.
“Grandma is dying.” She chirps.
Jack’s brows shoot to his hairline at the same time as you whipping your head down to your daughter. “What? No. Grandma is retiring, baby. We’re going for brunch with her company.” You correct her quickly, blinking profusely and both you and Jack are confused as to how she got those two words, of all things, mixed up.
You clear your throat, taking a step closer to the threshold that Phoebe has occupied. Jack notices the movement from his peripheral and sets his burning gaze on you again. You smile at him, a bit sheepishly and push your arms out to offer him the tray of cupcakes he had missed.
They’re decorated with multiple colors of messy frosting, some smothered in sprinkles and others decorated with some diced fruit. Jack blinks at you.
“We made cupcakes for Phoebe’s birthday tomorrow, and we made you some as a thank you. You know, for helping her tummy and then… well—mine.” You finish on a nervous laugh, one that Jack reciprocates.
But he takes the dish from your open palms, a revert thank you falling from his tongue and he lets his finger tips brush against yours as he does. So this was a peace offering of sorts, a way to clear the air. He offers a glance to Phoebe. “It’s your birthday?”
Phoebe nods. “In the morning, and I’m having a birthday party at my house, Jack! Will you come?”
His eyes widen slightly at the request, casting a quick glance to you. You shrug a shoulder, pursing your lips to hide a smile and when he looks back down at Phoebe, she’s got her palms together in a prayer-like position with far too convincing pleading eyes.
Jack breathes through his nose, smiles fondly at the young girl. “Absolutely, I wouldn’t want to spend my day off doing anything else.” he promises.
You smile at the sight, at how Phoebe brushes a sprinkle off Jack’s prosthetic that fell from the tray. He watches her just as intently, but when she returns her attention to the chipped polish on her nails, it’s like he loosens a breath.
“Everyone’s coming by at like 5 ish. But come whenever.”
Jack nods, allows his gaze to drift over you again. “You both look beautiful.”
There’s a reverence in his tone, like it’s a physical need that you believe him when he says it. All you can do is smile; soft and shy. You reach for Phoebe, tell her to say goodbye and slowly guide her away from Jack’s door and down the hall.
Of course, he watches you both go. Phoebe’s hand in yours, your slow steps and her quick skips. He’s about to go back inside when Phoebe halts abruptly, tears her hand from yours and turns to race back to Jack, giggling his name like she needs to tell him something exciting.
She stops by his feet again, he watches as you wait for her with a sigh at the other end of the hall.
“Jack! I told Mommy I want to be a doctor when I grow up, just like you!”
He blinks down at her, feels his throat constrict as she admits something that causes so much turmoil within him. “Yeah?” he rasps, clears his throat and bends slightly at the waist. “I think you’ll make a fantastic doctor, Pheebs.”
Her toothy smile is wide and excitable, it’s almost impossible for Jack not to mirror it.
“Before, I wanted to be a pop star so I could marry Harry Styles. But now, I wanna be a doctor.” She states it so matter-of-factly, like she’s discussing something as simple as the weather.
It makes Jack chuckle. “You don’t wanna marry Harry Styles anymore?”
Phoebe shrugs, makes a small noise of contemplation. “Mommy said she’d fight me for him!” She giggles.
Jack cocks a brow, dares a glance down the hall to you where you’re texting someone on your phone as you wait. “Oh, so Mommy wants to marry Harry too?”
Phoebe steps closer, looks a bit conspiratorial as she whispers her next words. “She said Harry will be a silver fox when I’m old enough to marry him… What is a silver fox?”
He blinks at that, unsure as to how they’ve crept into this territory and why the kid even knows the saying of a silver fox. He blubbers momentarily. “Um… it’s someone who’s old but….pretty.”
Phoebe grins, chin tucked to her chest with wide eyes and raised brows. The conspiratorial look has morphed into something far too mischievous for Jack’s liking. This kid is going to be so much fucking trouble when she’s older.
“Mommy said you’re a silver fox.” There’s a slyness to her tone, like she knows what she’s doing. That she absolutely should not be repeating whatever it is she’s heard you say.
Little shit.
Jack stills, lips parted into a soft O shape and he blinks at Phoebe. An amused huff of hair slips past his lips “Oh, I don't think Mommy meant for me to know that.”
“Why not? She told my Aunt Bella so. It's a compromise.”
Jack’s brow raises again, though this time in amusement. “You mean complement?”
Phoebe nods at that, moving even closer now. She reaches on her tip toes and cups her small hands around Jack’s ear. “My mommy is a silver fox.”
He laughs harder at that, pulls away to get a look at her face and he shakes his head, rubs at his eye. “Your mommy isn’t old, kid.”
“But she is pretty.” It’s a statement, not a question. And she looks about ready to fight if Jack even dares to argue otherwise.
Not that he would. He couldn’t ever. He lets his eyes drift across the hall again, finding you standing in the same place. Jack feels his heart rate pick up, feels his skin grow warm and a rush of pure adoration and fondness overwhelms him.
“Yeah, Diva. Your mommy is very pretty.”
It makes him realize something very, very sobering.
Jack’s got a fucking crush on you.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
SERIES MASTERLIST — NEXT PART
Tag list for this series has grown way too big for me to keep up with so it’s unfortunately CLOSED. You can however follow the #apt.17 tag instead for updates on the series!
Ahhh okay, the flirting is beginning, Robby is trying to knock a lil bit of sense into him and Pheebs is just well... she's doing her thing LMAO. This is where things start to get super juicy and I promise you the next chapter will have lots and lots more of flirty playfulness. I would love to know your thoughts so far!! <3
Thank you very much for reading! Feedback really means a lot so I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for where you think this will go!! Reblogs helps to boost stuff for more people to reach so if you enjoyed it please consider reblogging!!
only soft for you brendon park who plants his fingers through your hair and massages your scalp in the staircase when he sees how overwhelmed you are from the day you’ve had. big brick built body hunched over you, cooing to you in a little voice while you hold his forearms, staring up at him like he’s the world.
“you run yourself a bath when you get home. i won’t be there immediately, but you just text me what you want to eat and use my card for it. you’re ok, you’re gonna be ok. hectic day, yeah? fuckin tell me about it.” he gets you to let out a little giggle through glossy eyes, which makes him smile small.
NO ONE in the ed would ever imagine the piece of shit could be so sweet to you. complete 180 in mood when he walks out after you
The path to redemption sure ain't a straight one. :)
Still got Gargoyles on the brain, and what better way to scratch that itch than to draw a human and her supernatural situationship with her ex's ex?
But to be real, I am making tentative progress on that Gargoyles AU! Got myself the start of an outline at least and some ideas for scenes. Basic synopsis of it for anyone new or needing a reminder: it explores the idea of Demona successfully redeeming herself and giving up her 1000 year old grudge against... well. The world basically.
One of the things I'd like to play with in the AU is how Demona and Elisa's relationship changes over the course of the redemption. In the midst of that gradual change, she and Elisa end up finding common ground. Enough to where they begin to see their once tremulous truce hurtle toward a trajectory neither expected.
TLDR they're fuckin gay baby.
BUT YE! I think I'm about ready for the concept art stage, so there's probably gonna be a few sketches of the crew comin' along soon enough and some notes on the AU as I bang my head against that wall. Until then I hope ya like the art! uwu
HELLO????? ONLY JUST NOW I'M SEEING THIS?????????? NEW FANFICTION OF MONALISA?????????????
Bruh holy shit I need this injected directly into my veins, that'd be great thank you. Seriously though, loved the fic, I really enjoy your writing style and if you ever write anymore I'm 10000000 times down to give it my peepers! 👁️👁️
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(Average Metropolis reader after investigative reporter C. Kent's 452nd article on yet another case of landlords/business owners/factories' continued use of lead pipes/paint/gas/glass knowingly exposing the public to dangerously toxic lead levels) what the fuck happened to this guy
One day Bruce Wayne mentions in an interview that heroes like Superman are overrated, as the most effective way to reduce crime is to provide public resources and improve local infrastructure, then cites how neighboring city Metropolis has effectively lowered their violent crime by 13% after addressing their outdated water system and investing low income housing. the reporter conducting the interview suddenly starts looking a little uncomfortable
"Who, Clark Kent? Yeah, we're pretty sure he's a Meta. Is he a superhero? Like what, "Lead-detector guy"? "Captain pipes?" Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and it's a handy trick, but it's lead detection, not laser vision. He's not about to go running around in tights any time soon."
everyone assumes that kent is so squirrely around superheros because he’s just desperately hoping not to be conscripted to the JLA to fix their plumbing
it wasn’t supposed to be anything more than sex. you barely even liked each other as friends. frank uses you, and you use him. but somewhere along the way, the lines got blurred.
warnings/tags: mdni, smut and implied smut, themes of addiction and recovery, emotional constipation from reader, vague references to prior relationships and trauma, coworkers with benefits to lovers, some angst and some fluff, oblivious idiots in love, frank is divorced, reader has a niece, takes place sometime after season 2, pov switches, reader is afab, resident reader, no use of y/n
author’s note: i needed to torture frank langdon, just a little bit, but i promise it’s a happy ending. also as always shoutout to my girl @fru1t4fr0gs for letting me virtually yap her ear off about this
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Frank’s therapist had cautioned him about replacing one addiction with another.
He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He’s never been a smoker, but if he were, would that really be worse than being addicted to benzos? It’s not like American Spirits or cotton candy flavored vapes would drive him to steal from his job.
Yeah, yeah. Cancer. Lung cancer, esophageal cancer, all the cancers. Gum disease and tooth decay. He is still a doctor, even if it took him a long time to start feeling like one again. He knows the risks. And that is exactly why he hasn’t tried filling the void with nicotine.
He works out just enough to be able to say that he does and it not be a complete lie, but he’s never understood how people can get addicted to exercising. He understands the science behind it, but every time he steps on a treadmill, it just feels like an opportunity to think too much about every mistake he’s made in the last few years.
Video games have never really been his thing. He’s still paying off his stint in rehab, so betting and gambling are off the table. Alcohol, of course, is out of the question for obvious reasons.
When he hit one hundred days of sobriety, he really thought he was in the fucking clear. He let himself breathe a little for the first time in a long time, thinking he had finally learned his lesson.
Never did it cross his mind that he could become addicted to a person. Least of all one that he isn’t even supposed to like.
Least of all you.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
“This is a really fucking bad idea.”
Frank grunts, bottoming out as he fills you so full of him that it takes your breath away.
He stills, looking down at you in the glow of your living room television. His hands were on you the second your apartment door clicked shut - the two of you didn’t even make it down the hallway to your bedroom before you were pulling him onto the couch by the collar of his scrubs, his lips chasing yours with a degree of desperation that you might have found laughable if it weren’t for the fact that you had to bite back a moan the second that his tongue slipped between your lips.
He huffs a half breathless laugh. “We can stop if you want to, but I’m already inside you, so it’s a little late to realize this is a bad idea.”
You wiggle your hips, grinding down where his body meets yours. His eyes roll shut at the sensation, his muscles tensing beneath where your fingers grip his biceps.
“Didn’t say that I wanna stop,” you breathe. “Just said this is a bad idea. It’s called an observation.”
Frank snorts, retaliating by hiking one of your legs over his hip to deepen the angle. You hiss, your walls clenching around him. “You didn’t seem to think it was a bad idea when you were drenching my face a few seconds ago.”
You aren’t surprised in the least that his argumentative nature carries over into sex, but the dirty mouth on him does take you by surprise.
“So, what?” You hum, part challenge and part genuine curiosity. “You don’t think this is a bad idea?”
He shakes his head. He snakes a hand between your bodies, his thumb finding the sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of your folds. “It’s definitely a bad idea. I’m just finding it really hard to give a shit right now.”
You whimper at it all - the rough timbre of his voice, the the soft pad of his thumb brushing over your clit, the way he somehow still smells like musk and allspice even after working a full twelve hours in the emergency department and how his kiss-swollen lips glisten from his time spent between your thighs.
Come morning, you’ll regret this. Twelve hours from now, when you can’t concentrate on a routine intubation because you’re having flashbacks of pretty cerulean eyes peeking up at you as he brought you to climax with only his tongue, you’ll regret this. When you can’t take two steps tomorrow without the ache between your thighs reminding you where he’d been, you’ll regret this.
Probably should’ve thought about that before deciding that the best way to cope with stress of an exceptionally shitty day was by kissing him in the empty parking garage and inviting him back to your place, but you’ll deal with the aftermath of that when he’s no longer buried half a foot inside you.
You take his chin in your hand, stilling his face in front of yours. “Just so we are clear, this is a one time thing.”
Frank looks like he’s fighting the urge to laugh, a familiar, cocky smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You know you’re the one who kissed me and practically ripped my clothes off, right?”
Your hands ghost over the planes of his shoulders and up his neck before settling at the base of his skull where your fingers thread through the short locks of his hair. “Don’t let it get to your head. You were the closest conventionally attractive man I could find after that shitshow of a shift. Don’t confuse convenience with desire.”
He cocks a brow. “What I’m hearing is that you think I’m attractive.”
You roll your eyes, pulling your hands away from his hair and playfully shoving his shoulders. You don’t bother denying it, though. He is attractive. Annoyingly, irritatingly, frustratingly attractive.
“I’m serious. One time, Langdon.”
He doesn’t verbally respond right away. Instead, he leans down, closing the space between your lips and his. You taste yourself on him, sweet and salty with a hint of the gum he had been chewing when you first kissed him in the parking garage. It’s slower than the first time, and the second, and the third, making heat bloom where he’s hard inside you.
He pulls back just enough to murmur the words against your lips.
“One time.”
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Two months ago, Frank Langdon kissed you and swore that he was only going to fuck you one time.
Two months ago, he lied through his teeth.
The good news is that you’re as big of a liar as he is.
Because one time turned to two, and two to three, and now the Pittsburgh winter has turned to spring and he’s forgotten all about that broken promise.
He knew before the words had fully left his lips that they were bullshit. How could he mean them when your kiss tasted like watermelon lip gloss and being bare inside you made him feel the best he’s felt since he got sober?
But still, he tried. For a whopping seven days, he tried his hardest.
One week. That’s all it took for him to feel like he was going to lose his fucking mind if he didn’t touch and taste you again.
Then, in a moment of weakness - the kids were at Abby’s, he’d spent his day off cleaning his entire apartment in an attempt to keep himself busy, he’d already gone to an NA meeting earlier that afternoon, and he couldn’t get this one specific sound you had made when he nipped at the column of your throat out of his head - he did something he’s never done before.
He texted you.
Are you off work yet?
Short and vague, but you’re far from being dumb. He was confident that you could read between the lines without him having to spell it out for you.
Much to his relief, you replied before he could overthink the simple text message.
Keeping track of my work schedule now?
He scoffed to himself, smirking down at his phone. As if you haven’t worked the same set schedule the entire time he’s known you. At least, that was his excuse for knowing you’d be leaving work at approximately that time.
You replied fast. I take it that you are off?
He stared down at the screen as you typed, grateful that technology doesn’t allow you to see him waiting for your response in real time.
Leaving now. But if you’re about to say what I think you’re going to say, then you should know that I have been both puked and peed on today.
That should have deterred him, but it didn’t. In fact, it only further encouraged him, because you didn’t immediately tell him to fuck off like he halfway expected you to.
I happen to have a shower.
Then, before you can type a rebuttal, he sends a second text with his address.
You didn’t even reply, but twenty-three minutes later you knocked on his front door.
(It goes without saying that yes, you insisted on showering, and yes, he insisted on joining you, and yes, he ate you out until your legs turned to jelly and he had to help hold you up).
After both of you were thoroughly spent, he expected you to say something similar to the first time - when he had you pinned to your couch, balls deep inside you, and you told him that it would be a one time thing. He expected you to insist that what just happened would not be happening again, that it was a mistake for you to come over, and that he should lose your number entirely.
So it took him by surprise when you got out of his bed, put your clothes back on, and said, “it goes without saying that this stays between us, right? If this is going to be a thing, the last thing I want is Perlah and Princess spreading it all over the hospital.”
“Please,” Frank had scoffed, pulling his own t-shirt over his head. “Like I want the entire emergency department making a bunch of ridiculous bets about us. Trust me, this stays between us.”
And that was that. There was no further discussion of what exactly this is, but Frank knows.
He knows what it is, and he knows what it isn’t. For two months now, you’ve been on the same page. He comes to your place, or occasionally, you’ll go to his. One time, you even rode him in the backseat of his dad mobile, as you had referred to the midsize SUV.
But work is off limits. You have made that abundantly clear by acting indifferent to his existence anytime a coworker or patient is within ten feet of you, which happens to be damn near always. When the two of you are at work, he pretends like he doesn’t know that you clench around him every time he tells you how well you’re taking him or where your birthmark is located.
As soon as he walks out of those hospital doors, though, all the pretending comes to a stop.
It most often happens after long shifts, when one or both of you needs to decompress and not think of whatever horrors had been witnessed that day. But every now and then, like that day you and Frank both broke the initial agreement of this being a one time thing, he’ll find himself alone with thoughts of you that are a little too loud and unrelenting.
So instead of only thinking about the way your breathy, fucked out voice sounds saying his name when you’re on the verge of coming apart, he calls and hopes that you answer.
And, for some reason that Frank refuses to let himself dwell on, you always do. He knows that there will inevitably come a day that you don’t.
But he doesn’t let himself dwell on that, either.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
“Meet me in the empty on-call room in fifteen minutes.”
The words are murmured low enough for only him to hear. He glances up from his charting, utter disbelief on his face. He opens his mouth to question you, but you’re already walking away.
You’re weak. Spineless as a damn jellyfish, really.
And it’s all Frank Langdon’s fault.
If he didn’t kiss you like you’re the air he needs to breathe, go down on you like you’re the last thing he’s ever going to taste, and fuck you like he’s trying to ruin all other men for you, then it wouldn’t be so embarrassingly easy for you to go back on your word.
But here you are. Going back on your word. Again.
The first time it happened - when he texted you his address a little over two months ago and you wasted no time driving to his apartment even after telling him and yourself that you would not be hooking up with him again - you forgave yourself. You allowed yourself the small comfort of knowing it was him that reached out. It was him who caved first, even if you had thought about doing so every day since you first slept together.
But this time? Telling him to meet you in an empty on-call room in the middle of the day at work? Where any of your coworkers could potentially catch you? This boundary being crossed is all on you.
You must have a competence kink. That’s the only logical explanation for why you’re willing to let this happen right here, right now.
Your watch reads 2:17. He’s two minutes late.
Two more minutes. If he isn’t here in two minutes, then you’re leaving this room and forgetting that you ever even considered doing this.
The door creaks open and he slips in with only twenty seconds to spare.
“Wasn’t sure if you were actually going to come,” you hum from where you’re perched on the edge of the mattress.
Frank locks the door behind him. He still looks as confused as he did when you first told him to meet you here, but there’s now a hint of amusement on his features, too.
“Sorry,” he huffs a laugh, slowly walking towards you with his hands shoved in his scrub pockets. “I came as quickly as I could. My patient in Central 14 pulled up WebMD on his phone to try to argue about his diagnosis so I got a little tied up with that.”
You snort. “Don’t you love when they do that?”
“So…” he drawls, eyes glancing around the small room, empty save for the two of you. He comes to a stop directly in front of where you sit on the bed. “You gonna tell me what we’re doing in here right now?”
You look up at him from beneath your lashes. “What do you think?” Then, before he can answer, your hands go to the waistband of his pants. You don’t look away from his face, blue eyes dilating and pretty lips parted in surprise.
“Seriously?” He breathes, looking around the room again as if there’s anyone around to catch you in the act. “Here?”
You shrug, tugging his pants down just enough to expose the soft patch of dark curls below the waistband. “What can I say? Watching you perform that closed cervical reduction really did something to me.”
He blushes. Even with the curtains closed and only a small bedside table lamp illuminating the room, you can see pink bloom across the apples of his cheeks.
“That’s all it takes to make you stop avoiding me like the plague while we’re here?” He scoffs low. “A closed cervical reduction?”
You hum a laugh. “Sorry, does it hurt your feelings that I don’t spend my shifts fawning over you like every early-to-mid twenties female that walks into this place?”
Frank chuckles lowly. “Not quite.” He cups your face in his hands, thumbs brushing against your cheekbones as he leans down far enough that his lips hover just above yours. “You might not fawn over me, but you’re the one who got me alone just so you can give me head.”
Under normal circumstances, you’d keep going until you get the last word. But right now, you have a list of patients who need tending to and a boss who has already been on your ass about patient satisfaction scores today.
And as much as it physically pains you to admit, he isn’t wrong.
“Mm-hm,” you hum in agreement. “I did. Now are you going to let me or not?”
With your fingers still hooked into the waistband of his pants and boxers, you pause. It’s not like he’s ever said no to receiving head from you before - and the unmistakable bulge behind the fabric of his scrubs would normally be enough of an answer - but he is just now finding his way back into Robby’s good graces, so the risks here may outweigh the reward.
He exhales a shaky laugh, his nose brushing against yours as he nods slightly. “If I ever say no to that, page neurology, because something is very wrong with me.”
You roll your eyes, pretending you aren’t slightly charmed by the dorky remark. “Sit down, then.”
The two of you trade places. He lowers himself onto the edge of the mattress, and with help from you, his scrubs and boxers fall to a puddle at his feet. You spread his thighs gently with your palms, nestling yourself between them. You take his hard length in your hand, giving a few languid strokes as you look up at him.
“I mean it, you know,” you murmur, voice uncharacteristically earnest. For a moment, you drop the sarcastic facade. “The closed cervical reduction was very impressive. You were incredible.”
He swallows thickly, his cock twitching in your hand as he stares down at you in the dim lighting. Despite the truth to your words, you expect him to brush the compliment off with a cocky grin and smartass retort that undercuts the rare instance of genuinity between you.
Instead, he leans forward without a word, takes your face in his hands, and crushes his lips against yours. He tilts your head slightly, sweeping his tongue across your bottom lip to encourage you to open up for him. You can’t help but lose yourself in the effortless familiarity of his kiss that you’ve grown to crave more than you ever thought possible.
When he pulls back, he doesn’t release the careful hold on your face. “Thank you,” he murmurs, his breath warm against your lips. “Means a lot coming from you.”
For one impossibly long second, the two of you stare at each other until the sincerity of the moment starts to feel suffocating.
And because you don’t know what the hell you’re supposed to do with that, you swallow it down and do what you came here for.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Frank sees you before he finishes parking his car next to the ball fields.
At first, he thinks he’s seeing things. It must be someone who looks like you - someone with the same hair color and skin tone as you, who just so happens to be roughly the same height - because it couldn’t possibly actually be you.
Why the hell would you be at a Pee Wee soccer game bright and early on a Saturday morning?
He knows exactly why he’s here - it’s one of Penny’s last games of the season and between a pain in the ass custody arrangement and an even bigger pain in the ass work schedule, Frank has only been able to attend a few of his daughter’s soccer games this spring season. He would have missed today’s game, too, if Robby hadn’t agreed to him switching a couple shifts around and Abby hadn’t been willing to let him take Penny for the day during her week with the kids.
You don’t have children, though. He’s sure enough of that. There’s no way you wouldn’t have said something about having a kid at some point during your time spent together these last few months. He’s been over to your place enough times to have noticed toys scattered around the living room or sippy cups in the sink or tiny clothes left lying on the bathroom floor.
But as Penny sprints ahead to join the rest of her teammates and Frank crosses the field to where all of the player’s families sit in lawn chairs, he realizes that his eyes are not playing tricks on him.
Even from behind, he knows it’s you. He’s spent enough collective hours memorizing the curves of your body to recognize you anywhere - even wearing something so different than what he normally sees you in: scrubs or nothing.
He comes to a stop a couple feet behind you to take you in. It’s an unseasonably warm day, with temperatures already in the mid 70s before nine o’clock in the morning, and you’re dressed to match the weather. His gaze trails from your polished toes that peek out of your sandals and up the expanse of your legs before settling on the sun-kissed skin of your shoulders.
You’ve yet to notice his presence as you wave to a kid in the distance as all of the players start to take their positions on the field. “Good luck, Holly!”
He smirks, his eyes darting back and forth between you and the little girl with curly pigtails.
“Who’s Holly?”
You jump as if you had been electrocuted, your head snapping to look in his direction. He can’t see your eyes well because of your sunglasses, but he can clearly picture the look of surprise on your face.
“Jesus, Frank. What are you doing here?”
He snorts, coming to stand beside you, as he brushes off the fact that you called him Frank instead of Langdon. “My daughter is playing. What are you doing here?”
“My niece is playing.”
He looks back out to the field - your niece, Holly, you had called her - is standing right beside Penny. They’re wearing matching jerseys. Same team.
“Huh. I didn’t know that you have a niece.”
Now it’s your turn to snort. You cross your arms over your chest with a shrug. “We don’t exactly spend very much time talking about our personal lives, do we?” You glance around, seemingly looking for something - or someone. “Where’s Abby?”
“Oh,” Frank clears his throat, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants just so he has something to do with them. “It’s Abby’s week with the kids, but she let me take Penny for the day. She’s uh…she’s not here. She’s spending some quality time with Tanner today.”
You nod, your posture relaxing slightly. He isn’t sure if he’s just imagining things, but he can’t help but think you look a little relieved to hear that his ex wife isn’t here.
Not that he’d blame you for not wanting to see the ex wife of the man you’ve been casually fucking on a regular basis for months now. He definitely wouldn’t want that, either, and feels extremely relieved himself that Abby isn’t here to witness this interaction.
“That was very nice of her,” you say after a beat of silence with a small smile. “I’m sure Penny is happy that you’re here with her.”
Frank glances around now. You had been standing alone when he approached you, and you don’t seem to be here with anyone else. “So, is Holly your sister’s…or brother’s…kid?”
He mentally curses how fucking awkward he sounds. He knows what the most intimate parts of you taste like, knows what you sound like when you come for a third time in a row because of him, but he doesn’t know how to ask you a straight forward question about your personal life.
But he wants to. He shouldn’t, but he does. He wants to know if you have siblings, and how many, and if you have other nieces or possibly nephews. He wants to learn things about you because he asks and you answer or because you volunteer the information freely.
He wants to know what you do after a hard day at work, when you aren’t doing him after a hard day at work. He wants to know things because you want him to know things. Not just the shit that he observes at work (like how you take your coffee) or during the ten minutes that he lays in your bed after finishing inside you (like that you have a white noise machine that is basically always on).
“She’s my brother’s,” you answer, looking away from him to watch as Holly, Penny, and a few other girls all sprint after the soccer ball. For a second, he thinks you’re going to leave it at that, but then you continue. “He and Holly’s mom are going through a pretty nasty breakup. He only has Holly on weekends right now, and he works a lot, so…I’m just trying to help him out a little.”
“Ah,” Frank hums, surprised by the answer for more reasons than one. “Yeah, that’s tough. I know firsthand how…messy that kind of thing can get.”
“Yeah,” you agree with a sigh. “It sucks. But it’s probably for the best. They weren’t good together. I’m just hoping they can learn to co-parent for Holly’s sake.” You pause, eyes cutting back to him. “Seems like you and Abby do a pretty decent job with that.”
He has to refrain from laughing at that. He exhales slowly through his nose, gaze drifting back to the field. There’s a lot he could say in response to that - about lawyers and custody hearings and the same arguments that he doesn’t know if he and Abby will ever stop having - but if he starts then he might not stop, and he highly doubts you care to hear all of that. You’re here to watch your niece play soccer. Not listen to your fuck buddy trauma dump about his divorce.
“We try,” he settles on instead. “It’s still a work in progress, but we’re figuring it out.” Then, so you don’t feel pressured to respond in any particular way, he glances down at the lawn chair that he brought, still folded and tucked between his arm and side. “You uh - you want to sit? I brought a chair.”
He unfolds the chair, not giving you the opportunity to object as he takes a seat on the still slightly dewy grass right next to the chair.
The rest of the game continues with the two of you sitting side by side, watching the girls in an unfamiliar but not uncomfortable kind of companionship. He cheers for Holly, and you cheer for his daughter just as much.
You even introduce herself to her when Penny runs over to where Frank sits for a sip of water. As his coworker, of course. Because that’s what you are, even if the relationship title rubs him the wrong way for reasons he won’t let him think about for long enough to have to be honest with himself.
Still. It’s nice. Much different than how time with you is normally spent - working together to save someone from a pulmonary embolism, or naked between bedsheets - but this doesn’t feel wrong. It’s unexpected but pleasant, Frank thinks.
He tries not to think about how you feel about it, instead focusing on Penny chasing and kicking the soccer ball (sometimes in the wrong direction, but she’s four, so it’s cute).
When the final whistle blows, the swarm of four and five year olds erupts into excited shrieks. Penny and Holly spot the two of you at the same time and sprint over - Penny with her white tube socks stained green with grass and Holly with hair falling out of her pigtails.
Holly reaches you first, practically launching herself into your lap. “We won! We won! Did you see how far the ball went when I kicked it?”
“Of course I did,” you answer cheerfully. “You were amazing. I’m so proud of you. You did so great too, Penny.”
Before he has a chance to recover from the way the softness in your voice made his chest tighten, Penny starts jumping up and down, chanting daddy, daddy, daddy.
“Daddy, can Holly go with us to get ice cream?”
Oh. That’s right. He had promised his daughter ice cream after the game.
“Uh—” Frank hesitates, just for a second, glancing over at you. With your sunglasses now resting on the top of your head, he can see your wide, slightly panicked eyes. “We…we don’t know if Holly and her aunt already have plans, sweetie,” he says gently, not wanting to disappoint her but also giving you the out that he’s almost certain you’ll take.
But Holly is already looking up at you with pleading eyes. “Please, please, please can we go get ice cream?”
You let out a small laugh, eyes darting between Holly and Frank. He offers a small smile of his own, shrugging as if to say the ball’s in your court.
“Why not?” You sigh. “Sure. Ice cream sounds good to me.”
Frank might not show it in the same way that the girls do - with wild cheers and shrieks of laughter - but he’s just as pleased that you said yes.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
More and more often, you find yourself wishing that you met Frank Langdon when you were younger.
Not because you wish you met him before he got married or before he had children or before he fell into addiction. None of that deters you, actually.
Maybe it should. It probably should. But it doesn’t.
No, you wish you met him when you were still an optimist. When you still welcomed love with open arms and wore your heart on your sleeve and believed that everyone you met had as good of intentions as you do.
You wish you met him before your past tainted the mere idea of relationships and romance and trust.
You know it’s irrational. Things are the way that they are for a reason. If you had met him in med school, you probably would’ve thought he’s such a douche that you never would have even entertained the idea of kissing him.
But sometimes you still can’t help but wonder…
If you had met him at a different time, would there be more days like today? Early morning sunshine and soccer games and ice cream instead of late night booty calls that turn into mornings where you still wake up all alone, breathing in the scent he leaves behind on your pillow?
It’s fun to imagine that things could be different.
Then you remember the hurt and the heartbreak that comes with loving, and you shut those thoughts down. Back to sporadic, unplanned hook-ups and the illusion of control that they give you.
You suppose you can still allow yourself to sniff the scent of him that lingers after he leaves your bed, though.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
There’s a gradual shift in your and Frank’s dynamic over the weeks following Holly and Penny’s soccer game and the subsequent ice cream date that somehow ended in you and Frank sharing a chocolate soft serve.
It’s so subtle that at first, the changes don’t register as out of the ordinary.
You’re a little more reluctant to put your clothes back on and leave his place after sex. You stop ignoring each other at work, even exchanging jokes at the nurse’s station. He compliments you openly when you do something impressive with a case, not caring who might overhear the praise. When it’s his day off, you’ll randomly text him to tell him about something crazy that he missed at work. He starts opening up more - about his recovery, about his divorce, about his children. Not all at once. Just little pieces of his life bit by bit that you weren’t privy to before.
And you open up to him, too. Without realizing it. Without even meaning to.
It slips out by accident. You can’t even recall exactly what you’d been talking about at the time, but you tell him that he’s the first person you’ve slept with since your ex.
Your ex that you broke up with nearly two years ago.
He’d looked surprised when you revealed that. But he didn’t laugh, or say anything to tease you. He just turned to lie on his side, propped his head in his hand, looked down at you lying beside him, and asked you the same question that you’ve asked yourself on more than one question but have never answered.
“Why me, then? If you waited that long to…be with someone again. What made you kiss me in the parking garage that night?”
You stare up at him for a moment before answering, your fingers teasing his chest hair. “I’m not really sure,” you answer honestly. “Maybe I thought you were having as shitty of a day as I was, and that you looked like you needed someone as badly as I did. Maybe I thought it would be a good thing for both of us.” You pause. “Or maybe I just thought you looked like you’d be good in bed.”
He exhales a shaky laugh. One hand rests on your hip, fingers drawing lazy circles across your skin. It’s too dark to tell with only the moonlight from your open curtains illuminating the room, but if you had to guess, you would say that he’s blushing. It takes practically nothing to make him blush, a fact that you often take full advantage of because you think he looks pretty when he blushes.
“And were you right?”
“About which part?” You murmur, your hand stilling against his chest.
He gives a half shrug, hesitating just long enough for you to know exactly what he’s asking without him saying it. “The part about me being good in bed,” he says instead, with no trace of his normal humor in his voice.
“Frank.” You cup his face in your hand, swallowing down the answer to the question he won’t ask. “You know you are.”
It wasn’t a lie. He’s more than good. He’s the best you’ve ever had, and that’s exactly why you’re blind to the most damning way the lines begin to blur.
What started as stress relief, as a coping mechanism for a shit day, turned into something that started to feel less like an escape from reality and more like something that feels terrifyingly like love.
Just coworkers with benefits turned friends with benefits don’t stare into each other’s eyes during sex like they’re trying to see into each other’s souls. They don’t touch you, hold you, and kiss you like you’re their lifeline. Like you’re the air they need to breathe.
They definitely don’t call you baby when they’re telling you to come for them.
But then Frank goes and does just that.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Frank’s hips slam into yours, repeatedly hitting that sweet spot deep inside you that makes you croon his name against the sweat-slicked skin of his throat.
You weren’t supposed to come over tonight. He had come to your place last night, and the two of you have never hooked up two nights in a row before.
You’ve also never hooked up when his children are sleeping in their bedrooms just down the hallway.
But he called you, right as you were leaving the hospital, and told you that he wants to see you. That he misses you. He even said please in a low, sleepy voice that made heat bloom down your spine.
And you pictured him - skin flushed and dewy from his shower and dark gray sweats hanging low on his hips - and then next thing you knew, you were driving the route to his apartment that has become as familiar as the route to your own.
He noticed you were tired as soon as you walked in. Laid you down in his bed, undressed you, and kissed down your body until stopping between your thighs, where he spent even more time than he usually does - so much time, in fact, that your legs were shaking around his head when you pulled him up to you by the tops of his arms and all but begged him to fuck you.
And he did. Is.
Sounds of flesh on flesh and his bed frame creaking fill the room as your nails scrape down the skin of his back and his teeth dig into the meat of your shoulder, the familiar fiery coil in your core dangerously close to snapping again.
“Frank,” you breathe, voice unrecognizable. “Fuck, I’m close. I need - I’m gonna—”
He gently shushes your incoherent babbling, slanting his lips over yours with a sloppy, open mouth kiss that makes you cry into his mouth.
“I know,” he grunts low and breathless when he pulls away. Skilled, slender fingers find the swollen bundle between your folds, coaxing you to climax. “I can feel it. Squeezing me so fuckin’ tight. You’re so close, just let go for me, baby.”
The foreign pet name falls from his lips so effortlessly that it sends you over the edge - warms you from head to toe, white-hot pleasure coursing through you as he fucks you through your orgasm and his own.
Baby, baby, baby.
You barely register the fact that he pulls out and collapses beside you on his mattress, his thigh brushing against yours.
Every nerve in your body vibrates with the typical post-coital blend of oxytocin and serotonin but the bliss is background noise to the word he’d murmured so pretty against your skin.
It flashes in your mind like a neon sign. Baby.
Suddenly, everything leading up to this moment begins to play like a highlight reel.
The touches that linger for a split-second too long, the random texts throughout the day, the just because kisses that don’t necessarily lead to sex, your favorite vending machine snack randomly appearing on your desk at work when you’re having a hard day, how you know his go-to take-out order by heart, baby, baby, baby—
You bolt upright, cutting Frank off in the middle of a sentence that you hadn’t registered a single syllable of. You throw your legs over the side of the bed, reaching down to pick your underwear and scrubs up off the floor.
“Uh—” He lets out a soft, confused laugh. “You okay?”
You pull your shirt over your head, unable to bring yourself to look at him. “Yeah,” you say, your voice unnaturally high. “It’s just late. I’ve got work in the morning, so I should get going.”
“O…kay,” he draws the word out, obviously unconvinced. “You sure that’s all it is?”
You jump up, yanking your pants into place. “Yep. Just tired.”
He’s silent for a moment, as if trying to gauge the sudden shift in your demeanor. Then, he clears his throat. “I mean, if you’re tired, you can sleep here. Probably shouldn’t drive—”
“What the hell are we doing, Frank?”
He pushes himself up on one elbow, eyebrows knitting together. “What are we doing?” He repeats. “Same thing we’ve been doing for the last few months, I thought.”
You’re shaking your head before he can finish the sentence.
“It’s not the same. It’s not the same and you know it.”
He sits up straighter, blue eyes boring into you like he’s trying to read your mind. It feels like an eternity before he speaks again, and when he does, his voice is low and restrained. “Where is this coming from?”
You make a vague, exasperated gesture with your hands. “It’s coming from…all of it. You call two nights in a row and I come running. People at work are starting to talk because we barely even try to hide it. Your kids are sleeping right down the hall and you’re offering to let me spend the night—”
“Okay, okay,” he interrupts gently. He exhales slowly, dragging a hand through his hair. “Okay. You’re right,” he admits. “Things aren’t exactly the same. Haven’t been for a while now.” He pauses, the intensity of his stare keeping you glued to the spot where you stand next to his bed. “I just don’t see why that’s a bad thing.”
Your chest constricts at the way he doesn’t try to argue. Doesn’t get defensive, just wants to understand.
“Because it was never supposed to be…this.” Your gaze drops to the floor. “It was supposed to be casual. No strings attached. No feelings. But now?” You look back up to find him still staring at you, jaw clenched. You mentally will your voice to stay level, but emotion still slips through. “Cuddling all night then having breakfast with your children in the morning? Calling me baby like I’m yours? That’s not casual, Frank. That’s—”
He cuts you off with an incredulous laugh. “That’s what this is about?” He pushes the covers off of him, grabbing his underwear as he jumps out of bed to yank them on. “Me calling you baby?”
You’re silent as he walks over to you, stopping when his still bare chest is just inches from yours. He looks at you, unblinking, as he waits for you to answer.
You stare up at him, offering a small shrug. “Tell me it didn’t mean anything. Tell me it just slipped out and meant nothing and I’ll let this go.”
He lets out a breathy, humorless laugh and shakes his head. “I’m not going to lie so you can stay in your comfort zone,” he says, voice dangerously low. “It wasn’t just a slip. I called you baby because that’s what you are to me. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but at least be honest with yourself about why it upsets you.”
His words hit you square in the chest, knocking the air from your lungs and causing you to take a small, involuntary step back. “And why exactly do you think it upsets me?”
He leans in slightly, his eyes darkening. “Let me ask you this. Are you really that pissed off that I called you baby? Or are you upset that me calling you baby made you come harder than I’ve ever felt you come?”
You laugh at that. Cackle, really. Louder than you probably should at this hour when his children are sleeping with only walls in between you.
“Wow,” you exhale. “Okay.” You nod. “You’re a dick, and I am leaving.”
You don’t wait for a response before you’re grabbing your tennis shoes and bag off of his floor, not even bothering to put the shoes on your feet before storming out of the bedroom and making a beeline for the front door.
You’re aware of footsteps trailing after you, of Frank calling your name in a desperate whisper-shout, but you don’t stop. You aren’t thinking, you aren’t processing what just transpired, you just want to go back to your place, scream into a pillow, and hope that when you wake up in the morning, your heart is no longer doing gymnastics in your fucking ribcage.
“Please,” he breathes, his hand blanketing yours over the doorknob when you go to turn it. “Hear me out for just a second, okay?”
You don’t look up. His palm feels like wildfire against your skin and your brain is screaming at you to yank your hand away but you’re frozen in place.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” he starts, voice a notch above a whisper. “If you want to leave, you can leave. But I can’t let you walk out of here thinking that this is still just sex to me. It was at first. I don’t know exactly when that changed for me, but it did. And I think it did for you, too.”
You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. All of the words that you know you should probably say pile up in your throat.
I can’t be what you want me to be. I don’t know how.
I’m scared of hurting you. I’m scared of getting hurt.
It’s easier for me to shut down than to admit how I really feel.
I don’t remember how to let someone in. I wish I could.
For you, I wish I could.
You swallow them all down.
But you don’t tell him he’s wrong, either.
“I’ll see you at work, Frank.”
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Though the cravings have yet to subside, Frank is now a month sober from the exact thing his therapist had warned him about in the earliest days of his recovery.
Unlike when he got clean from benzos, this specific brand of newfound sobriety isn’t his choice. It’s yours.
He would never choose this for himself.
But still, he has surprised himself. Hasn’t reached out, no matter how much he has wanted to. Hasn’t texted you, no matter how many drafts he’s typed and deleted. Hasn’t called, even though it has killed him inside to watch your name get lower and lower in his call history. He’s given you space at work and has only talked to you when it pertains directly to a case.
He’s hated every fucking second of it, but he can officially say that he is thirty days clean. If the past thirty days have taught him anything, though, it’s this: he’d happily fall back into old habits, if only you’d give him the chance.
Because it isn’t the sex that he misses most. The sex doesn’t even crack the top ten things he thinks about when he’s trying to fall asleep at night.
It’s the way you’d occasionally forget a hair clip or chapstick on his bedside table and he’d find little pieces of you when you weren’t around and smile. It’s the way he’d get a text from you when he least expected it. It’s the way you’d ask about his children, and make a point to celebrate his recovery milestones even when he didn’t.
And now he’s here, thirty days without you, and one thing has become abundantly clear to him: he didn’t fall back into addiction, he fell in love.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
The news comes on a random Tuesday.
Temple University Hospital. Philadelphia. An internal medicine based fellowship you had impulsively applied for the night after you slept with Frank for the last time.
You had already made peace with the fact you weren’t going to get it. Didn’t think you even stood a chance, really, and you were okay with that. You had already been offered a pediatrics fellowship here in Pittsburgh, anyway.
Then the email appears in your inbox on a random Tuesday morning while you’re at work.
Suddenly, you have what most doctors approaching the end of their residencies don’t have: options.
And because you can’t talk to the one person you most (selfishly) want to talk to about it all, you talk to Cassie, instead.
“Wait. Temple?” She exclaims. “As in Philadelphia? I didn’t even know you had applied! What happened to pediatrics here in Pittsburgh?”
You sigh, taking a seat on the concrete curb in the ambulance bay. “It was really last minute. I didn’t say anything because I really didn’t think I’d get it. And as for the peds fellowship…” You shrug. “I don’t know what I’ll do now.”
“Oh my god,” she laughs, sitting down beside you. “That’s amazing. Do you know how hard it is to get into that program? They’re crazy selective.”
You force a smile. “I know.”
Cassie’s smile falters into concern. “Why does it seem like you aren’t thrilled about this?”
“I am,” you answer way too quickly, hugging your knees. “I’m just…surprised, that’s all. It’s big news.”
She stares at you as if you’re a patient who’s lying to her about how much pain they’re in. “You sure that’s all?”
Before you can bullshit a response, the automatic doors to the hospital slide open, and the very reason that you find it impossible to jump for joy right now steps outside.
He’s saying something to an EMS worker, completely oblivious to you watching him from across the bay, but the mere sight of him makes your heartbeat stutter and palms go clammy.
“I’m sure,” you force out, your eyes still glued to Frank. “It’s just…”
“Just…?” Cassie prompts, then follows your gaze. A few seconds of heavy silence pass between you before the pieces click into place. “Oh.”
You nod slowly, your throat tightening. “Yeah. Oh.”
She clicks her tongue. “So that’s why you submitted a last minute application for a fellowship in Philly.”
You can’t deny it. Not when you know she’s right. Not when you’re staring right at him with every feeling you’ve been trying to bury since the very first time you kissed him bubbling to the surface.
“I really fucked things up, Cass.”
You finally look away from him, your eyes burning with the threat of all of the unshed tears that you’ve refused to let spill for the last month.
“Between you and Langdon?” She asks gently.
You let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. I completely shut down the second things started to get real. He told me how he felt and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I feel the same. I just ran like I always do and…”
“And now you’re thinking about running to Philadelphia.”
Again, you can’t even deny it. Not in any way that would be halfway convincing.
“Temple would be a great opportunity,” you mumble instead, looking down at your shoe.
Cassie purses her lips. “It would be,” she agrees. “But moving five hours away isn’t going to magically erase your feelings. You have great opportunities here, too. And I don’t just mean peds.”
She nods in Frank’s direction. You glance back over to where he still stands chatting with the EMS worker. At the same moment, he looks up and his blue eyes meet yours.
You exhale, hoping that he doesn’t have a hidden talent for reading lips. “I don’t know if he even wants to talk to me at this point.”
She snorts. “Please. If the way he’s been moping around like a dejected puppy for the last month means anything, then you have nothing to worry about.” She pauses. “Look, if you really want to go to Philly, then I’ll help you pack. But if you’re gonna go, go for the right reasons. Not because facing your feelings scares you more than the thought of moving three hundred miles away.”
You hate that she’s right. But not as much as you hate the fact that you know she’s right, and still might take the easy way out, anyway.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
What hurts Frank more than anything is that he doesn’t hear the news directly from you.
He isn’t supposed to hear it at all, actually. He only finds out because he happens to be standing a few feet away at the nurse’s station, and Victoria’s voice carries.
“I heard about your fellowship offer from Temple,” Victoria practically sings. “That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you. Internal medicine, right?”
Frank doesn’t even look up from his tablet at first. He isn’t sure who Victoria is talking to, but he has no reason to believe it’s you. You didn’t apply to any fellowships in internal medicine. You’ve always been interested in going into emergency pediatrics—
“Oh—” Your nervous laugh causes Frank’s eyes to shoot up. Your back is to him, so he can’t see your facial expression. “Yeah, thanks,” you tell Victoria, your voice an octave higher than it typically is.
He doesn’t register the rest of the conversation because of a shrill ringing in his ears that makes him bolt to the restroom.
It’s been one month since his last legitimate conversation with you, and now you’re moving to Philadelphia? For a fellowship in internal medicine, which you’ve never expressed interest in during all the years you’ve worked together or months you slept together?
And you didn’t even tell him yourself. He heard it from Victoria talking so loudly that patients in fucking triage probably heard the news.
Not that you owe him anything. Of course you don’t have to run your life decisions by him. He was just blindsided is all.
Blindsided, and more devastated than he probably has any right to be.
He wishes he could be as happy for you as Victoria is. But no matter how much Frank works on himself, no matter how much time he spends in therapy or how many self-help books he reads, he’s always been a selfish man when he’s in love.
But you aren’t his to be selfish over. He knows this. He’s painfully aware of it every time he sees you at work and every time he feels your absence when he’s alone at night.
So when he sees you walking to your car in the parking garage after work that night, he tries to do the right thing even though it feels wrong.
“So, Philly?”
You come to a halt beside your car, slowly turning around to face him. You purse your lips in the way that Frank knows that you normally do when you’re nervous, adjusting your bag over your shoulder.
“You heard about that, huh?”
Frank stops a couple feet away from you, one hand on the strap of his backpack and one crammed in his pants pocket. “Yeah, Javadi doesn’t exactly whisper.”
“Ah,” you breathe. Then, with a small laugh, “No, I suppose she doesn’t.”
An awkward beat of silence passes between you as it dawns on Frank that this is damn near exactly where he stood months ago when you first kissed him. The realization makes his gaze flash to your lips.
God, what the hell is he doing?
He clears his throat and starts to take a step back. “Well, I just wanted to say congratulations. Temple will be really lucky to have you—”
“I haven’t decided anything yet,” you interject quickly, the words nearly running together. “I just found out yesterday so I…I don’t really know what I’m going to do yet.”
Frank hopes that his face doesn’t show the sudden relief he feels to hear of your indecision.
“But I’m sorry you found out that way,” you add in a smaller voice, not meeting his eye. “I was going to tell you, once I made a decision.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he says softly. “You don’t owe me anything. I just want you to be happy. Even if it’s not here.” He pauses and adds the words that taste like bile when they leave his mouth. “Even if it’s not with me.”
But goddamn, do I wish it was, he thinks.
A storm of different emotions flicker across your face in the span of about two seconds. For one of them, Frank thinks you might step toward him.
But it’s just wishful thinking, or maybe the shitty parking garage lighting.
“Thank you, Frank.”
Anything else he could possibly say would be solely for his own benefit, so he nods.
And he doesn’t want to risk ruining the moment, knowing there’s a chance that he may not have many more with you.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
The words on the screens in front of you bleed together.
The email you received yesterday morning from Temple University Hospital is open on your laptop screen. The iPad in your hands displays UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s website.
You’ve scanned and scrolled as if the answer you’re searching for will appear in bold letters across one of the screens, but since you got home from work a few hours ago, the only decision you’ve succeeded in making is chamomile over peppermint tea.
You thought taking a hot shower might help you clear your mind. All that resulted in was remembering all of the times that you ended up at Frank’s or he ended up at yours after work and you’d shower together, washing off the long day with your hands and lips on each other the entire time.
After cutting your shower short, you figured eating something other than a protein bar would help you gain at least a little mental clarity - but then you opened your fridge to see leftover takeout from the Italian place down the road that you know Frank likes, and completely lost your appetite.
The following hours weren’t much different.
Put on body lotion - remembered how much Frank loved the smell of it. Turned on music - the first fucking song that played on shuffle was by an artist that Frank introduced you to. Searched through a pile of laundry for a cardigan - found a t-shirt Frank accidentally left at your place over a month ago that you can’t bring yourself to give back to him.
He’s still everywhere. It’s been a month and he’s still occupying spaces that he hasn’t been in weeks. In your apartment and in your brain and in your heart.
And to top it all off, the words that he had said to you in the parking garage tonight won’t stop replaying in your head.
I just want you to be happy. Even if it’s not here. Even if it’s not with me.
But what if it is? What if it is here? What if it is with him?
You sigh, rubbing your eyes, but it does little to improve the quality of the words on the screens in front of you. Maybe, if you put on your reading glasses, everything will become clear to—
Your hand freezes on a piece of paper in your bedside table drawer as you’re searching for your glasses.
A bright blue, wrinkled sticky note. You don’t even have to flip it over to remember what it says but you do, anyway.
Stop overthinking. You made the right call. You always do.
Also, stop scowling.
Frank’s handwriting. He’d scribbled the words, crumpled the paper up, and flicked it at you across your desks while charting after a particularly brutal trauma that he knew you were beating yourself up over.
It had been the first thing to make you smile that whole day. It was a reminder that you desperately needed at that moment. And it was from Frank. Of course you kept it.
And now here it is. At the exact moment you so desperately need that reminder once again.
Stop overthinking.
So that’s exactly what you do. You stop overthinking, and do what you should have done a long time ago.
He’s probably already asleep, but you put on your shoes.
There’s a voice in the back of your mind telling you that you’re probably too late, but you grab your car keys and make the short drive to his place.
And there’s a tight ball of anxiety in the pit of your stomach that begs you to turn around, but you raise your hand and knock on his front door.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Frank is convinced that he must be dreaming.
He didn’t actually hear a knock and open his front door to you standing outside at midnight.
There’s no way this isn’t his subconscious playing some cruel joke on him. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve appeared in his dreams, but it is by far the most realistic he’s had. He can feel the chill of the night wind as it blows the familiar scent of your body lotion in his direction and it is all so, so lifelike.
It doesn’t register that he is very much awake and you are very much here until you speak.
“Shit.”
It’s the first word out of your mouth.
“I’m sorry,” you huff. “Are the kids here right now? I hope I didn’t wake them up. I didn’t really think this through. I just got in my car and drove here before I could chicken out because I’m tired of chickening out and—”
“Hey, hey,” he soothes, stepping over the threshold of his doorway. He almost reaches out and touches you, but stops himself at the last second.
You’re here. You’re actually fucking here right now. It’s the middle of the night and you’re in your pajamas and slippers and he has no idea what you’re talking about, but you’re here.
“What’s going on?” He asks gently, unable to keep obvious concern from his tone. “It’s…after midnight. Is everything okay?”
You nod. “Everything is fine. I’m sorry to freak you out. I just…I told you that I was going to tell you whenever I came to a decision.”
Frank stares at you, his mouth slightly agape. You did say that…approximately five hours ago.
The shock and the hope he had initially felt upon realizing that you’re standing on his front porch is quickly replaced with dread at what you might say next.
He swallows, his voice rough. “So…you made a decision, then? About Philadelphia?”
Another nod, followed by a smile that he can’t quite read. “Philly sounds great. I mean…the Eagles, the Liberty Bell…cheesesteaks.” Your shoulders lift in a small shrug. “And the internal medicine program at Temple would be a really great opportunity.”
Frank drops your gaze, bracing for what surely comes next.
“But Philadelphia does not have the guy that I love.”
His eyes shoot back up. You’re staring at him, eyes wide and closer to tears than he thinks he’s ever seen from you. Before he can speak, you take a step closer and he forgets how to breathe.
“It doesn’t have you.”
Frank knows it defies all science and logic, but he swears the entire city freezes around you two right then and there.
“I’m sorry,” you blurt before his brain has a chance to catch up. “Frank, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have walked out on you like I did. I shouldn’t have shut you out, I shouldn’t have taken this long to get my head out of my ass—”
“Hey—” he tries gently, but you’re on a roll now.
“—and I should have told you that you were right. It wasn’t just sex to me, either. I don’t think it ever really was. And I get it if I’m too late. I get it if you can’t give me another chance. But I’m not going anywhere, I’m done running away from what I feel, and if I have to prove every day that I love—”
That’s it. He won’t listen to another word.
Not that he doesn’t love the sound of them coming from your lips because goddamn, he does. Every word, every apology, every promise you’re willing to give, Frank will take.
But he can’t just stand here and watch the way your hands are starting to shake and listen to your voice begin to tremble when every part of him that has missed you for the last month screams at him to pull you close, so that’s exactly what he does.
It only takes a fraction of a second for you to process that his lips are moving against yours.
Your hands fly to his hair, his own dropping from your face to your waist to pull you flush against him. You gasp into his mouth, a pretty noise that Frank is happy to swallow down. It takes no time at all for the kiss to turn fervent, a clash of tongue and teeth that makes him grateful that it’s the dead of night and all of his neighbors are asleep.
“—you,” you finish when you reluctantly break apart, your breath warm against his lips. “I love you.”
The three words are everything he’s been waiting to hear since the first night you kissed him. He just didn’t know it at the time.
“I love you, too, baby,” he murmurs low. A smirk forms on his kiss-swollen lips. “It is okay that I call you that now, right?”
You let out a sound that is half laugh, half sob at the words. You grab his face in your hands and pull him down again for one more kiss, this one shorter but just as sweet.
“Please,” you sigh, smiling up at him. “Because you weren’t wrong about the effect it has on me.”
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
thank you so much for reading. if you comment/reblog i love you forever n ever 💗💗💗
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