a 💌

If you leave first, you don’t have to watch him weigh you in his hands like a triage call. You don’t have to watch his face go careful in that way that means he’s bracing to be kind about something that hurts.

Your shoes are half under the bench. You don’t sit down. Sitting down would mean stopping and if you stop, the whole thing might catch up to you, might flood you, might pin you.

You shove your feet in, not even bothering with the heels. The laces are useless decorations.

Your hands shake so hard you can hear the keys chime against each other like wind chimes.

Jack’s voice comes behind you, low and careful.

“Hey.”

It’s not sharp.

It’s not accusing.

It’s just… there. Like a hand held out without grabbing.

You ignore it.

You lunge for the deadbolt.

The metal is cold under your fingers. You twist.

Your breath is too shallow. Too fast. It catches at the back of your throat like something is stuck there.

“I need air,” you choke out. “I can’t— I can’t do this right now.”

“Okay,” Jack says immediately.

No argument.

No lecture.

The “okay” is so fast and so calm it almost makes you spin around in suspicion. Like maybe he’s relieved you’re leaving.

The lock clicks.

The door gives.

You pull it open an inch—

—and Jack is there.

Not slamming it. Not yanking it shut.

Just stepping into the narrow gap like a wall that breathes.

One hand braces on the doorframe above your head, palm flat. The other hangs at his side, open.

Still.

He doesn’t touch you.

He doesn’t crowd you.

But he’s close enough that you can feel him, warmth, presence, the quiet mass of him filling the space. Close enough that his aftershave and coffee and soap mix in your lungs and your body stutters like it doesn’t know whether it’s safe or trapped.

Your pulse jumps.

Your panic claws higher.

“Jack,” you warn, voice cracking. “Move.”

His eyes don’t flicker.

They don’t harden.

They just… hold you.

Like he’s seen this moment before in a different room with different stakes. Like he knows what happens when someone bolts while their brain is on fire and their hands don’t feel like hands anymore.

“I will,” he says, steady. “But not like this.”

You swallow. Your throat aches.

“I’m fine.”

Jack exhales through his nose, slow. Like he’s trying to teach your body what calm feels like by doing it himself.

“You’re not.”

The gentleness of it hits you like an insult.

Like pity.

Like you’re being handled.

You hate it.

You hate needing anything. You hate that you can’t swallow your own feelings like you always do. You hate that your eyes are wet and your chest is tight and your hands feel too small to hold you together.

“Don’t,” you whisper again, but this time it’s smaller. A plea you didn’t mean to make.

Jack’s gaze drops, not to your face, but to your fingers clenched around the keys so tight your knuckles are white.

“Put the keys down,” he says.

It’s not a command.

It’s a lifeline.

“I’m not—” Your voice breaks. “I’m not a patient.”

“I know.” He nods once, like that matters to him. Like he needs you to hear it. “You’re not.”

You blink hard, furious at the tears that keep spilling.

Your grip tightens again in spite of you.

“You can’t stop me.”

Jack doesn’t flinch.

He doesn’t get bigger.

He gets calmer.

“I’m not stopping you,” he says. “I’m asking you to stay.”

You laugh, sharp and wet.

“That’s the same thing.”

“It’s not.” His voice stays even. “Stopping you is about control. Asking you is about… me.”

The last two words scrape on the way out.

Like they cost him.

Your stomach drops.

Jack swallows. His jaw tightens, a muscle ticking once like he’s holding something back, something heavy and personal.

“I don’t want you driving like this,” he adds, quieter. “I don’t want you out there where you can’t feel your hands. I don’t want you disappearing because you’re scared I’m watching you fall apart.”

Your breath catches.

Because that’s exactly it.

Because he named it without you giving him the script.

Your chest caves in on itself.

You squeeze your eyes shut, furious at the tears slipping out anyway, at the way your lungs won’t fill properly.

“I can’t breathe,” you whisper. “I can’t— I can’t be here. I feel… embarrassing.”

Jack’s hand on the doorframe flexes, fingers curling once. Like he wants to reach for you and won’t without permission.

“Look at me,” he says.

You shake your head.

“Please,” he adds, softer. Not doctor. Not commanding. Just Jack, asking.

Your eyes open reluctantly.

His are steady. Dark. Tired in a way he rarely lets show.

He tips his chin down slightly, meeting you where you are instead of pulling you up to him.

“You are not embarrassing,” he says. “You’re overwhelmed.”

The word hits like a truth your body recognizes before your brain can argue. Overwhelmed. Not broken. Not defective. Not unlovable. Just… overloaded.

Your mouth trembles.

“I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“I’ve seen worse,” he says, and there’s a flicker of humor there, faint and dry, like a match in the dark. Then it fades and what’s left is pure sincerity. “But this? This is just you.”

That does it.

A sob tears loose, ugly and loud, and you try to swallow it but it keeps coming, your body shaking like it’s trying to rip something out of you. You press your free hand over your mouth, humiliated, your shoulders curling inward like you can make yourself smaller.

Jack doesn’t move.

He just stays.

Holds the doorway like he’s holding the world back.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “There it is.”

You choke on your own breath. “I hate this,” you whisper. “I hate that I’m like this.”

Jack’s eyes soften in a way that hurts.

“I know.”

You shake your head again, frantic now. “I don’t want to be hard. I don’t want to be… too much. I don’t want you to regret—”

“Stop,” he says, still gentle, but firm enough that your brain actually pauses.

He breathes in, slow. Then out.

“I don’t regret you.”

You stare at him like you don’t believe people can say that and mean it.

He looks like he’s choosing each word carefully, like it costs him to be this plain.

“I regret every time you learned you had to do this alone,” he says quietly. “But I don’t regret you.”

Something in your fingers loosens without your permission.

The keys clink softly.

Jack’s gaze drops again, just for a second, then returns to your face.

“Put them down,” he repeats. “On the table. Then come back.”

Your throat works.

“What if I can’t—”

“You can,” he says, sure. “One step.”

Your hand moves like it’s not yours.

You turn halfway, stumble to the entry table, and drop the keys.

The sound is small.

But it echoes like a choice.

When you turn back, Jack is still in the doorway.

Still braced on the frame.

Still not touching you.

Like he’s been holding his breath this whole time.

He eases backward an inch, giving you space.

“Thank you,” he says.

Your eyes sting. “For what?”

“For staying.”

That cracks something in you that wasn’t even fully healed.

Your legs wobble. You take one step toward him, and then you stop, hovering, not sure what you’re allowed to ask for. Not sure what you deserve.

Jack watches you like he’s reading the question you can’t say.

“Do you want me to hold you?” he asks.

There’s no assumption in it.

No expectation.

Just a door left open.

Your breath shudders.

You nod once, barely.

Jack moves like he’s approaching a frightened animal, not because you’re fragile, but because your nervous system is. Slow. Careful. His hands stay visible. He gives you time to change your mind.

He wraps one arm around you first, loose at your waist, giving you room to decide.

When you don’t pull away, when you sag into it like your bones finally give up, his other arm comes around your shoulders, and he pulls you in fully.

Not crushing.

Not possessive.

Just… secure.

He tucks your face against his chest, chin resting lightly on the top of your head, and you feel the steadiness of him like a metronome your body can borrow.

His heartbeat is even. Unbothered. Like he’s offering it to you.

You clutch his shirt with both hands, fingers curling tight, and the sob that comes out of you is ragged with relief. It tastes like salt and humiliation and something that might be hope if you let it.

Jack’s hand slides up and down your back once.

Then again.

A slow, consistent motion, like breathing coaching, but with touch.

His thumb rubs small circles at your shoulder blade, almost absentminded.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs.

You shake against him. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he says immediately. “No apologies.”

Your voice is small. “I was going to run.”

“I know.”

He doesn’t sound mad.

He sounds like he understands it intimately.

“I’ll let you leave,” he adds, voice low. “When you’re steady. When you’re safe. When you can feel your hands again.”

You press your forehead harder into his chest like you’re trying to climb inside the calm.

“And if I still want to go?” you whisper, because part of you is still terrified of staying in a room where you’ve come undone.

Jack’s arms tighten just a fraction, not to trap you, but to reassure you that he’s here.

“Then I’ll go with you,” he says. “Or I’ll call you a car. Or I’ll sit in the driveway and watch your taillights until you’re out of sight.”

You pull back just enough to look at him, eyes wrecked.

“You’d do that?”

Jack’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“Yeah,” he says simply. “Because you matter to me. And because I can’t do ‘disappearing’ when you’re hurting like this.”

The words sit between you like a steady thing. Not shiny. Not performative. Just… said. Like it’s been true for a while and he’s finally letting it exist in the open.

Your mouth trembles again.

You nod.

Jack exhales like he’s been waiting for that.

He kisses your temple, quick, careful, like a promise he won’t make loud.

Then his thumb brushes your shoulder once more, steadying.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “Couch. Water. We’re not solving your whole life tonight.”

A shaky laugh escapes you, half-sob.

Jack’s mouth twitches.

“That’s tomorrow’s problem,” he says, guiding you gently away from the door. “Tonight, you just stay.”

—

The couch is the safe zone. It always has been.

It’s stupid how a piece of furniture can become a ritual, but it has. You curled at one end, Jack at the other, close enough to touch, far enough to breathe. Nights where the world has been too loud, nights where your chest feels like it’s packed with wet sand, nights where you can’t quite explain what’s wrong without feeling like you’re making it up.

Jack doesn’t turn on the overhead lights. He never does when you’re like this. He reaches for the lamp in the corner instead, the one that casts everything in warm amber.

He disappears into the kitchen without asking if you want him to stay.

He knows.

He knows you need him to move, to do something tangible, because his stillness can sometimes feel like abandonment even when he’s right there.

You hear the faucet run. A glass clinks. The fridge hums.

Your breathing is still uneven. Your hands still feel like they belong to someone else.

You stare at the rug like it might give you instructions.

‘What just happened?’ your brain asks, unhelpfully.

And then answers itself cruelly, ‘You happened. You ruined a perfectly normal night because you can’t be normal.’

Jack returns with a glass of water and a small towel he’s dampened with cold water, another ritual. He sets them on the coffee table in front of you, then sits down slowly at your side, not boxing you in, leaving you the end cushion and the open space to lean away if you need it.

“Drink,” he says.

Not demanding. Just grounded.

You wrap your fingers around the glass. The coolness helps. It reminds your body where it is.

You take a sip and almost choke because your throat is tight. Jack’s hand lifts, hovers near your back, then lowers again when you manage it.

“Good,” he murmurs anyway. Like you’re doing something brave.

You hate how tears threaten again just because he said good.

You wipe at your face angrily.

Jack doesn’t comment. He doesn’t hand you tissues like you’re delicate. He just picks up the towel and gently presses it into your palm.

“Here,” he says.

You hold it to your forehead like you’re trying to cool your brain down.

For a minute, neither of you speaks.

The silence is different now. It’s not space for your brain to hurt you. It’s space for your body to come back to itself.

Jack leans back into the couch, one arm stretched along the back cushion, not around you, not trapping you, but there if you want it.

You stare at his forearm. The veins under his skin. The faint marks from years of IV starts and blood draws and whatever else his life has demanded of him. It’s unfair that he looks so steady when you feel like a loose thread.

Your voice comes out smaller than you intended.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Jack’s gaze shifts to you, calm and focused, like he’s not afraid of the question.

“Okay,” he says. “Then we don’t label it yet.”

You swallow. “I feel… stupid.”

“I know.”

That catches you off guard. You look at him, frowning.

He doesn’t mean it like agreement.

He means it like:

‘I know you feel that way. I’m hearing you.’

He says, “You want to tell me what started it? Or you want me to guess and you correct me?”

A huff of breath escapes you. It’s almost a laugh, but it’s tired.

“You’d guess?”

“Mm.” His mouth twitches. “I’m good at patterns.”

You press the towel to your face. “Fine. Guess.”

Jack’s eyes track you the way they do in the ED when he’s assessing something he can’t see. Not invasive. Just… thorough.

“You were okay at dinner,” he says slowly. “Not great. But okay. Then you got quiet when we came home. You went straight to the door. You didn’t take your coat off.”

Your stomach tightens. “So?”

“So something flipped,” he says. “And your first instinct was escape.”

You look away.

Jack doesn’t push. He just keeps his voice steady, like laying down stepping stones.

“Earlier today,” he continues, “you said you were tired. But you weren’t just tired. You were… thin.”

“Thin?” you repeat, bitter.

He nods. “Like you’ve been stretched. Like everything touches you too hard.”

You blink again, because that’s exactly it. Like every sound and responsibility and expectation has been sandpaper.

Jack adds, quieter, “And when I asked if you wanted to talk, you said you were fine. That’s usually when you’re not fine.”

You swallow hard.

It would be easier if it was one clear thing. One event. One trigger. Something you could point to and say, This. This is why.

But it’s never one thing.

It’s accumulation. It’s the way you’ve been carrying your life like a stack of plates and the smallest tap makes the whole tower wobble.

You whisper, “I don’t want to be like this with you.”

Jack’s brows pull together slightly. “Why?”

“Because you deal with enough,” you say, voice rising. “You spend your whole life holding people together. You come home and you should get—” You gesture vaguely, angrily. “Peace. Normal. Not… this.”

Jack’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“Do you think I’m with you because you’re convenient?” he asks, blunt.

You flinch. “No.”

“Because you’re easy?”

“No.”

He nods once. “Then stop deciding what I ‘should’ get.”

Your throat tightens again.

Jack leans forward slightly, forearms on his knees, voice softer now.

“I don’t want peace that costs you your truth,” he says. “That’s not peace. That’s you disappearing in front of me.”

There it is again.

‘Disappearing.’

The word makes something in your chest ache.

You whisper, “I was going to disappear.”

“I know,” Jack says. “That’s why I got in the doorway.”

You stare at the towel in your hands. Your fingers are still faintly shaking.

“It felt… humiliating,” you admit. “Like you were watching me fall apart and I couldn’t stop it.”

Jack’s tone stays gentle, but there’s something fierce under it.

“I wasn’t watching you to judge you,” he says. “I was watching you so you didn’t do it alone.”

The tears come again, quieter this time. More like leaking than breaking.

Jack’s hand lifts and rests on the cushion near your thigh, not on you. Just close. A presence you can choose.

“Can I ask you something?” he says.

You nod, wary.

He says, “When you grabbed your keys, what were you hoping would happen out there that couldn’t happen in here?”

The question hits you in the soft part of your ribs.

You open your mouth, close it.

You look toward the dark window like the night might give you an answer.

Finally, you whisper, “If I leave, I can pretend it’s not real.”

Jack’s eyes soften.

“Real how?” he asks.

You swallow.

“Real that I’m—” Your voice wobbles. “Real that I’m not okay. Real that I’m… harder than people think. Real that I get…” You swallow again, throat burning. “That I get scared of myself sometimes.”

Jack’s entire posture stills. Not in alarm. In attention.

His voice goes low.

“Are you safe right now?” he asks.

You freeze.

Jack doesn’t move. Doesn’t make it bigger. His voice stays low, steady, like he’s holding the room in place so you don’t have to.

“Hey,” he says immediately. “I’m asking so I know how to help. Not because you’re in trouble.”

Your throat works like it’s forgotten how to be a throat.

You nod fast. “Yeah. I’m safe.”

“Okay.” His shoulders ease a fraction, like that answer matters in a way you can feel. “Thank you.”

He shifts back just enough to give you room, space to breathe, space to decide.

“We can stop talking anytime,” he adds, quieter. “You can just breathe.”

Something in you loosens at that, just a fraction, like your body believes him before your brain can argue.

“I didn’t mean—” you start, voice too thin.

“I know what you meant,” Jack cuts in gently. “And I’m glad you said it.”

You stare at him like he’s speaking a language you didn’t grow up with.

Most people, when you admit something like that, either freak out or try to fix it too fast. They scramble for solutions. They push you into cheerfulness. They make you responsible for their comfort.

Jack doesn’t do that.

He just sits with the truth like it’s allowed to exist.

He says, “When you’re scared of yourself, what does that look like?”

You swallow. You pick at the damp towel in your hands.

“It’s… thoughts,” you admit. “Spirals. Like my brain is running downhill and I can’t slow it. I start thinking I’m going to ruin everything. That you’re going to get tired. That you’ll wake up one day and realize…”

“That you’re too much,” Jack finishes, quietly.

You flinch. “Yeah.”

Jack leans back again, like he’s making space for you to breathe.

He says, “Okay. That’s not you being too much. That’s your nervous system throwing a tantrum because it’s overloaded.”

You huff a broken laugh. “That’s a nice way to put it.”

“It’s accurate,” he says.

You shake your head, miserably. “It doesn’t feel accurate.”

“I know,” he says. “Feelings aren’t always good at facts.”

A pause.

Jack’s eyes flick down to your hands again.

“Can you feel your fingers now?” he asks.

You flex them, surprised to notice you can. A little. Like they’re coming back online.

“Yeah,” you whisper.

“Good,” he says, and there’s that word again, soft praise like a hand on your back.

He reaches for the glass and nudges it closer to you.

“Two more sips,” he says.

You do it, because he asked like it matters.

Jack watches the way your throat works when you swallow, the way your shoulders rise with each breath. He’s monitoring you like you’re the most important patient he’s ever had, and somehow it doesn’t feel infantilizing. It feels… safe. Like your body doesn’t have to do this alone.

When you set the glass down, your fingers tremble again, but less.

Jack nods as if he’s tracking progress on a chart only he can see.

“Okay,” he says. “Tell me the thought you’re stuck on.”

You freeze.

Jack’s voice stays calm. “Not because I want to hear it. Because I want it out in the air where it can’t grow teeth.”

Your throat tightens.

You whisper, “That you’ll leave.”

Jack doesn’t even blink.

He says, “Okay.”

The simple acceptance makes your eyes burn all over again.

You shake your head quickly. “It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Jack says, firm. “It makes sense.”

You stare at him. “How?”

Jack’s jaw shifts like he’s choosing how much of himself to hand you.

He says, quietly, “Because someone taught you love comes with conditions.”

The words land like a punch you didn’t see coming.

You look away fast, because if you look at him you’ll cry again, and you’re tired of crying. You’re tired of being the kind of person who leaks.

Jack doesn’t push for details. He doesn’t make you unpack your past like it’s homework.

He simply continues, voice low.

“And when things feel unstable,” he says, “your brain goes hunting. It looks for the sharpest edge. And it lands on me leaving because that’s the fear that hits the hardest, not because you’re incapable.”

Your chest tightens painfully.

You whisper, “I can survive it.”

Jack’s gaze turns sharp, not angry. Just precise.

“I know you can,” he says gently. “But you don’t have to make it smaller for my sake. Not tonight.”

You press the towel to your face again, mortified by the honesty in your own sob.

Jack shifts closer, still not touching, but nearer now, warmth at your side.

“Can I?” he asks, nodding slightly toward your hand.

It takes you a second to understand.

“Yeah,” you whisper.

Jack takes your hand like it’s fragile in the way all people are fragile, not just you. His grip is steady, warm. He doesn’t squeeze too hard. He simply holds.

You feel your body react to it immediately, like your nervous system recognizes the contact and starts to quiet.

Jack’s thumb brushes once over your knuckles.

A grounding touch. A counted touch.

You take a shaky breath.

Jack says, “What did you need in that doorway?”

You swallow. “For you not to be mad.”

Jack’s thumb stills. “I wasn’t.”

“I know,” you say, voice cracking. “But I was terrified you would be. That you’d think I was… manipulative. Dramatic. Like I was—”

“Trying to make me stay?” he finishes, gently.

You nod miserably.

Jack’s mouth tightens.

“Listen,” he says, low. “You trying to run isn’t manipulation. It’s survival. And it’s not a crime.”

You stare at him, stunned.

He continues, “But if you run every time it gets heavy, you teach your brain that the only way out is escape. That’s the part I don’t want.”

Your throat works. “So what do you want?”

Jack’s voice drops even softer.

“I want you to let me in earlier,” he says. “Before the keys. Before the bolt. Before you’re halfway out the door.”

You swallow hard.

“What if I don’t know I’m there until I’m there?” you whisper.

Jack nods once. “Then we build you a warning system.”

You let out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “A warning system?”

“Mm-hm.” His thumb rubs your knuckles again, slow. “Signs. Patterns. Things your body does before your brain catches up.”

You blink at him. “Like what?”

Jack’s gaze flicks over you. Not clinical. Familiar.

“You stop taking your coat off,” he says. “You stop sitting down. You stop eating. You start apologizing for nothing. You go quiet.”

You swallow. “That’s… weirdly accurate.”

He hums. “I’m observant.”

“And what happens when you notice?” you ask, quiet.

Jack’s eyes hold yours.

“I ask,” he says. “And you tell me the truth.”

You laugh, shaky. “That part sounds hard.”

“It is,” Jack says, blunt. Then softer, “But it’s easier than bolting.”

You stare at your joined hands. His thumb keeps moving like a metronome.

A minute passes. Two.

Your breathing slows, almost imperceptibly.

You can feel your body coming back to itself like a tide receding.

But now that the panic is easing, something else rushes in behind it, shame. Exhaustion. The crash.

You whisper, “I feel stupid.”

Jack’s jaw tightens.

He says, “You know what I feel?”

You look at him cautiously.

“Scared,” he says, and it’s so honest you almost miss it.

Your chest tightens. “Jack…”

He shakes his head once, cutting you off.

“Not because you’re ‘too much,’” he says, voice steady. “Because I watched you go for the door like you didn’t think you could stay in the same room with me while you were hurting.”

You swallow, guilt twisting.

Jack continues, quieter now. “And I can handle a lot. I handle blood and screaming and death and people trying to die in my hands. But watching you believe you have to be alone with this…”

His voice catches slightly, just for a second, and you feel it in your bones because Jack doesn’t let things catch. Not often.

He clears his throat.

“Yeah,” he finishes. “That scares me.”

Your eyes burn again. “I didn’t want to scare you.”

Jack’s gaze softens.

“I know,” he says. “But you did.”

You flinch like you’ve been slapped.

Jack immediately adjusts, thumb stroking once over your knuckles.

“I’m telling you this not as punishment,” he adds. “Just as reality. If we’re going to do this—if we’re going to be honest—then you get to know you’re not the only one affected.”

You swallow.

You whisper, “I hate feeling like I’m hurting you.”

Jack’s voice is gentle but firm. “You’re not hurting me by having feelings. You hurt me when you disappear.”

There’s that word again.

It lands like a bell.

You look down, voice cracking. “I didn’t realize I was doing it.”

Jack nods. “I know.”

He exhales.

Then he does something Jack-ish, something practical, grounded, almost comically simple.

“Okay. We’re going to do three things.”

You blink. “Three things?”

“Mm-hm.” His voice is the same tone he uses when he’s giving orders in the ED. Clear. Calm. Unarguable.

“First,” he says, “you’re going to drink the rest of that water.”

You stare at him.

He lifts a brow. “Don’t give me that look.”

A broken laugh escapes you, and it feels like a release valve.

You pick up the glass and drink. Not all at once. But enough.

Jack watches, approving in that quiet way.

“Second,” he says, “we’re going to get you out of these shoes you didn’t tie.”

You glance down. One lace trails like a surrender.

You huff. “I didn’t have time.”

“You had time,” Jack says, deadpan. “You had panic.”

You laugh again, a wet sound.

Jack’s mouth twitches.

He shifts down to one knee in front of you, not dramatically. Not like a proposal. Like a man who has done a thousand practical things and doesn’t make any of them romantic unless you insist.

“May I?” he asks, hand hovering near your ankle.

The consent makes your throat tighten again.

“Yeah,” you whisper.

Jack eases your shoe off carefully, like you’re tender in a way you shouldn’t have to be. Then the other.

Your feet hit the rug, and it’s ridiculous how much it helps to feel something soft under your toes.

Jack stands again with a small grunt, his body moving with that subtle economy he has, like he’s learned how not to waste motion.

He sits back down.

“Third,” he says, “you’re going to tell me what you need right now.”

You stare at him, overwhelmed again, not by panic, but by the simplicity of the question.

“I don’t know,” you whisper.

Jack nods once. “Okay. Options.”

You blink.

He says, “You can lean on me. You can sit here and not talk. You can cry. You can shower. You can go for a walk with me. You can go to bed with the light on. But you’re not leaving alone in the middle of this.”

Your chest aches.

You whisper, “You’re giving me choices?”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Because this is your body. Your brain. Your night. I’m not taking over. I’m just here.”

Something in your throat breaks again.

You lean forward abruptly, like you can’t help it, and press your forehead to his shoulder.

Jack freezes for half a second, like he’s checking if it’s okay, then wraps his arm around you, pulling you in.

His hand settles at the back of your neck, warm and steady.

You breathe him in, shaky.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Jack exhales. “No apologies.”

“I hate that you have to—”

“Stop,” he murmurs, voice close to your hair. “I don’t have to. I’m choosing.”

You pull back just enough to look at him.

His eyes are steady.

“You keep saying that,” you whisper.

Jack’s mouth tightens. “Because you don’t believe it yet.”

You swallow.

Jack continues, quieter. “If you’re waiting for me to get tired and leave… you’re going to be waiting a long time.”

Your eyes burn.

“Don’t promise things you can’t keep,” you whisper, because part of you is still braced for disappointment.

Jack’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“I’m not promising forever,” he says. “I’m promising tonight. I’m promising the doorway. I’m promising that when you tell me you’re scared, I don’t punish you for it.”

He pauses.

“That’s real.”

You stare at him like you’re trying to memorize the shape of that sentence.

“Okay,” you whisper, voice shaking. “Okay.”

Jack nods once, satisfied.

He shifts slightly, angling his body toward you. Open. Not looming.

“Tell me the first thought that hit,” he says. “The one that started the run.”

You swallow. Your palms are damp.

“It was stupid,” you whisper.

Jack’s brow lifts. A warning.

You sigh shakily.

“I thought…” You swallow again. “I thought you looked tired.”

Jack doesn’t interrupt.

“And my brain went—” You make a helpless gesture. “It went straight to: He’s tired of you. You’re the reason he’s tired.”

Jack’s jaw tightens.

You rush on, embarrassed. “I know you’re tired because you work insane hours and you carry the world and you have your own—”

“Hey,” Jack says softly.

You stop, breath hitching.

Jack’s voice stays calm. “That thought is a liar.”

You blink, stunned.

He continues, “I was tired because I watched a kid die tonight.”

The words drop into the room like a stone.

Your chest tightens.

Jack doesn’t say it for drama. He says it because it’s true. Because he trusts you with the truth instead of letting your brain invent one.

You whisper, “Jack…”

He shakes his head slightly. “Don’t. You’re allowed to know. You’re my partner.”

Your throat aches.

Jack’s gaze is far away for a second, somewhere in fluorescent light and alarms, then it returns to you, present.

“I came home and I wanted to see you,” he says, quiet. “I wanted… normal. Your voice. Your stupid show. You stealing the blanket.”

A laugh escapes you through tears. “I don’t steal it.”

“You absolutely steal it,” Jack says, deadpan.

The humor is soft, but it anchors you.

Jack continues, voice even. “And when you didn’t take your coat off and you went for the door, my brain did its own thing.”

You blink. “Your brain?”

Jack’s mouth tightens slightly.

“Yeah,” he admits. “I had about ten seconds where I wanted to control the situation. To take the keys. To lock the door. To… make it stop.”

Your stomach twists.

Jack holds your gaze. “I didn’t. Because that’s not love. That’s fear dressed up as protection.”

You stare at him, shaken by the honesty.

He adds, quieter, “I just… got in the doorway. So you’d have to look at me.”

Your throat tightens. “That felt—”

“Like a wall,” Jack supplies, gently.

You nod.

Jack’s thumb brushes your knuckles. “I know.”

He pauses. “Did it feel scary?”

Your breath catches.

You hesitate, then whisper, “At first.”

Jack nods, like he expected it.

He says, “Thank you for saying that.”

You blink. “Why are you thanking me?”

“Because it helps me do better,” Jack says simply.

Your chest aches so sharply you almost fold.

You whisper, “No one says that.”

Jack’s gaze softens. “They should.”

Silence settles again.

Outside, a car passes on the wet street, tires hissing. Somewhere far off, you hear a siren. The city doing what it always does. Moving on.

Your breathing is steadier now. Your hands feel like hands. Your skin feels like skin.

But the vulnerability is still there, raw and exposed.

You whisper, “I don’t know how to let you see me like that.”

Jack’s eyes stay on you. “Like what?”

“Like I’m not…” You swallow. “Together.”

Jack’s mouth twitches, humorless. “You think I’m together?”

You blink.

Jack gestures vaguely at himself. “I am a collection of coping mechanisms in a trench coat.”

A startled laugh bursts out of you, and it’s real enough to surprise you.

Jack’s mouth curves slightly. “There it is.”

You shake your head, laughing and crying at the same time. “That was—”

“Accurate,” Jack says, deadpan.

You wipe your face with the towel, calmer now, and then, because your brain hates letting you rest, you whisper, “What if you wake up one day and decide you can’t do this?”

Jack’s expression goes still.

He doesn’t answer fast. He sits with it.

Then he says, quietly, “Then we’ll talk about it.”

Your chest tightens. That’s not the reassurance you wanted. It’s worse. It’s honest.

Jack continues, “But that’s not tonight. Tonight, I’m here. Tonight, you’re safe. Tonight, you don’t have to be impressive.”

Your throat burns.

You whisper, “I don’t feel safe inside my own head.”

Jack nods once. “Okay. Then borrow mine.”

You stare at him, stunned.

He says it like it’s the simplest solution in the world.

“Is that… allowed?” you whisper.

Jack’s gaze is steady, warm. “Yeah.”

You swallow hard, eyes wet again.

Jack’s voice softens further. “You can be a mess. You can be scared. You can be tired. You can be angry. Just don’t disappear. Not without telling me.”

Your chest aches.

You whisper, “Okay.”

Jack’s thumb rubs your knuckles again.

“And if you need air,” he adds, “we’ll get air together.”

You take a shaky breath.

You whisper, “I tried to run because I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

Jack’s eyes hold yours.

“I saw you,” he says quietly. “And I’m still here.”

The simplicity wrecks you.

You lean into him again, and this time Jack doesn’t hesitate. His arms come around you like muscle memory. Like he’s been waiting for you to let him.

His hand moves in slow circles over your back.

Your tears soak into his shirt.

He doesn’t care.

He just holds you through it like he meant it when he said he had you.

Minutes pass.

Your body calms in increments.

The sobs fade into hiccups. Into sighs. Into the shaky quiet after a storm.

When you finally pull back, your face feels swollen and your eyes feel raw and your chest feels bruised in that way only crying can bruise you.

Jack studies you for a second, then reaches out and brushes a damp strand of hair off your cheek, one careful touch, like a question.

You don’t flinch.

Jack’s thumb lingers at your jaw for a heartbeat.

Then he drops his hand like he’s reminding himself to keep it gentle.

“Do you want to go to bed?” he asks.

You nod slowly. “But… can we leave the lamp on?”

“Yeah,” Jack says instantly. “Lamp stays on.”

You swallow. “And… can you…” Your voice cracks. “Can you stay close?”

Jack’s gaze softens.

“Yeah,” he says again. “Close.”

He stands carefully, offering his hand.

You take it.

He doesn’t pull. He just steadies.

You walk to the bedroom together, slow like you’re both carrying something fragile.

Jack pauses at the doorway, flicks on the bedside lamp, leaves the overhead light off. The room becomes warm, dim, manageable.

You crawl onto the bed and sit there for a second like you don’t remember how to exist in a body that has been through something.

Jack moves with quiet efficiency, kicks off his shoes, pulls back the comforter, adjusts the pillows.

Then he stops and looks at you.

“Do you want me in bed with you?” he asks. “Or do you want me in the chair?”

Your throat tightens again.

You whisper, “Bed.”

Jack nods once. No triumph. No relief shown too loudly. Just acceptance.

He climbs in carefully and settles beside you, angled so you have space. One arm behind your head on the pillow, not around you yet.

He waits.

You shift closer on your own.

Jack’s arm comes around you then, slow and sure, pulling you into his chest.

His hand rests on your upper arm, thumb rubbing a small, steady line back and forth like he’s drawing you back into your skin.

You sigh, exhausted.

Jack’s voice is low near your hair. “Tell me your name.”

You blink, confused.

“My name?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Grounding. It helps.”

You swallow. You say it.

Jack says, “Where are you?”

“In bed,” you whisper.

“What day is it?”

You answer.

“What’s one thing you can feel?”

You focus. “Your hand.”

Jack hums. “Good.”

His thumb keeps moving.

Your breathing slows again, syncing to his.

You whisper, “I’m sorry you had a bad night.”

Jack exhales. “It was a bad night.”

You swallow. “You don’t have to carry it alone either.”

Jack’s hold tightens just a fraction, like that lands somewhere deep.

He murmurs, “I know.”

A pause.

Then, quieter, “Thank you.”

You close your eyes, surprised by how much that word still affects you. How much you want to earn it. How much you’re trying to unlearn that instinct.

Your voice is barely there. “Will you… talk to me until I fall asleep?”

Jack’s chin rests lightly on the top of your head.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “About what?”

You think for a second, tired.

“Tell me something stupid,” you whisper.

Jack huffs a quiet laugh.

“Okay,” he says. “Stupid facts.”

You smile weakly into his shirt.

Jack’s voice stays low and steady, like a lullaby built out of dry humor.

“Did you know,” he begins, “that your ‘I’m fine’ face is terrible? Like… clinically terrible. I could teach a class on it.”

A laugh shakes out of you, small but real.

Jack continues, “And did you know that you always try to leave your shoes untied when you’re overwhelmed? That’s apparently a thing now. We’re going to have to address it.”

You murmur, “Stop.”

Jack’s thumb rubs your arm again.

“I’m serious,” he says, playful. “It’s a fall risk.”

You laugh softly, your body loosening another inch.

Jack’s voice shifts, quieter again.

“And did you know,” he murmurs, “that you don’t have to be good to be loved?”

Your breath catches.

You don’t answer. You can’t.

Jack doesn’t force you to.

He just holds you, steady as a wall that isn’t a cage.

His thumb keeps moving, slow and consistent, like counting you back into the world.

Outside, the city hums.

Inside, the lamp glows.

• 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬

• 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐞

^@delreystars

• 𝐅𝐖𝐁 @222col

• 𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐬 @bunnyhoney111

• 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 @cruisebuckley

• (𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐅𝐢𝐜𝐬) @the-drift-journal

• 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 @thirstystarkey

• 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 @pittsick

• 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 @bithewayellie

• 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐔𝐩 @pintrestgrl

OTHERS:

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-> 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥*

-> 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞*

"Do you think I could be a good father?"

It's an unexpected question, one that sounds stabbing and treacherous as it curls around his tongue. He feels it's a thought he shouldn't be allowed to have—not with the life he's given himself, not with the genetics he has and the great possibility of passing them on. It's a selfish thing to envision.

He's imagined something small, a wooden crib, a stuffed giraffe in the corner, a soft lamp that is easy on the eyes. He's imagined tiny curls and their mother's nose, their mother's everything, really. Chubby fingers and tiny clothes, late nights and hard nights and nights brimming with love. That image in particular makes his chest burn.

He doesn't let you answer—he has more to say, and, honestly, he's a little bit terrified. "Did you know that 80% of parents agree or strongly agree that they are a good parent? Do you believe that? I don't; I think it's ridiculous. And did you know that almost half of parents say that they try to parent as their parents parented them?" He's frustrated, his throat closing and working against him. He shouldn't get so angry, so defeated by thinking about parenthood—but he does, often.

You don't interrupt, letting him string out the last of what he has to say. It's a conversation that hasn't ever come up between you two, children. It's always seemed something quite a bit out of reach, like a concept that was never written in the books for you.

"I'm not surprised by that, I don't think. Most people grow into some version of their parents."

He thinks about your words. He doesn't want to live the way his dad brought him up to, and if Spencer did have a child, he wouldn't want to raise them that way either—by absence. He loves his mother, but he doesn't suppose he would want to raise his child like her, either. He wants to be there, in every way, by choice. What a horribly unattainable thing.

He should leave the conversation at that. He's torturing himself, expanding these ideas that will only work to make an alternate universe further away.

But, he can't.

"I think you would make a wonderful father, Spence."

You say it truly, like you dragged it straight from your heart through your mouth, and, god, he's a child himself, left to weep at the feet of the woman he loves.

"Children who were raised with an absent parent are far more likely to be bad parents themselves. Not to mention schizophrenia running through my family, and my history of substance abuse. Statistically, I would not make a good father."

The words are cruel and bitter, and he detects something he hasn't felt since he started sobriety: unnecessary, unaccounted for vexation with the world.

But in just under a second, it evaporates when you look at him, all understanding and warmth and life. "Have you seen yourself with Henry? He adores you, Spencer. I mean, he dressed up as you for Halloween." You watch as he swallows and looks down, and you think not only would he be a fine parent, but he would be extraordinary. You take his face in your hands, and he's ruined by you, by the life you've given him, by the pleasure he has because of your name forever etched into the four chambers of his heart. "You are so good, and giving, and lovable, Spencer."

You don't expect the bite you feel, the poignant sting that arises under your ribcage and behind your eyes. He senses it, because of course he does, because he is so lovely in every way. "Don't cry, why are you crying?"

You laugh, and it's not sunshine—it's fragmented and worn at the edges. "I'm not crying." You are, but it's okay. He won't correct you. "Do you hear me when I say that that child, your child, will be the luckiest kid on the planet?"

He's slightly stunned, and it's not an abnormal thing to happen to him. Did you mean to say "will"? Was that on purpose? Every word you say, every movement of your mind you present to him, affects him twice as hard as anything else.

"I—I don't—"

"Do you hear me, Spencer?"

"Yes. I hear you." Your voice rings in his ears when you're miles away. He always hears you.

It's quiet for a long time. You know you have to let it sink into him—the affection—or else it will bounce right off. The inability to accept kindness is something that stays with him even throughout adulthood, and maybe that's why he believes he fits so well into a team that's glued together by disaster. It's difficult to get rid of rot when it's already settled in, stated its claim on a vulnerable host.

Maybe there is something rotten inside of him. He's seen blood more times than he can count, and he can list off the anatomical structure of a human being without a second thought; but he's always quietly suspected that his insides are green and dirty, that instead of veins there are vines, and if you were to go too far down his throat, you'd run into thorn bushes that regularly leave him inable to speak conherently and prick people who get close enough. They aren't healthy thoughts to have—that's definite—but he's always been a bit self-destructive, hasn't he?

"Do you want to be a father? Is that why you're asking?"

Yes. No. Yes, in the way it's primal for a human to want to reproduce. Yes, in the way he wants to have another chair in the dining room occupied, so it doesn't constantly collect dust. Yes, in the way he wants to fill the world with more of you. Yes, in the way he wants to be a role model like his mother was for him, and be a steady, loving figure like his father wasn't. Yes, in the way he wants to give more of his heart. Yes. Yes, he wants to be a father.

"I don't know. Maybe? I haven't really been able to think about it. I think it might be nice with you. To share that with you. Not now, of course. Not for a while." He takes a breath, and he can't look at you, but he can feel you. "Would you—Would you ever want to be a mother?"

The question spins something into knots. You have always been avoidant in that way. "That's a really tough question, Spence."

"I'm sorry. I don't expect anything from you."

The truth is that you really can't answer that right now. You would like nothing more than to tell him yes, yes, you want to be a parent with him, you want to create something out of love with him. And you do, but it is so much more than that.

"I know you don't expect anything, it's okay. All I know is that I want to be with you. I don't really know what I'll want when the time comes."

He nods, and that's enough, that's more than enough. "I understand."

You stop, and you think. You can't help it: you see a toddler, all legs, all brains, running throughout the kitchen with big, beautiful brown eyes and a hunger for some part of the world. You aren't ready now, and you might never be. It's a sweet daydream to have. You hope you will be ready one day. "Do you think—if we were to have a child—they'd be a baby genius? Take from their dad?"

It's such a shift, such a wonderful, bright thought, he can't help but laugh. He will never get over the weightlessness. "Maybe?"

"I think the chances are pretty good, don't you?"

"50-80%. I wouldn't care if they were a genius or not, though. As long as they can appreciate Nietzsche and be able to read War and Peace in the original Russian by five."

You slap his arm, and he's oh so smitten, and thank whatever divine power brought you to him and gave him enough brain cells to make you laugh. "I'm kidding. It would be unfortunate, though, if he had an interest in sports. I would not be able to help him with that."

"'Him'?"

"Or her. I don't care about that, either. But, really, I don't know how to play baseball. Or football, or basketball, or soccer, or hockey—"

"Spencer, that's what Morgan is for."

He hums, and you're smiling, and he's happy thinking about this, about you with him, about the possibility of a family. And even if you don't want that in the future, that would be okay.

In this very moment, you're all that he wants, you're all that he wants in his space and heart and mind, and maybe one morning he'll wake up knowing he has more of himself to give—but that morning is not now. It's everything to him that he doesn't know what lies in the future. He's always thought he knew how he would end: forgotten, drifting through abandoned, unreachable rivers of knowledge that would be more than useless at that point.

He'll live as someone who loves to the very death of himself, who loves, despite improbability or impossibility.

That's probably who he's always been.

You’re halfway through a rerun of M.A.S.H., sucking the soul out of a cherry popsicle. You’re braless. The house is quiet. Peaceful, if a little tragic. Exactly the way Fridays are meant to be.

Until the knocking starts.

Correction: pounding.

Panicked, frenzied, FBI-doesn’t-need-a-warrant kind of pounding.

You groan and peel yourself off the couch, popsicle stick still dangling from your lips. You are not emotionally equipped to accept salvation or Thin Mints right now.

But when you open the door, it’s not a solicitor.

It’s Robin.

Robin Buckley, looking like she just got shot out of a chimney. Her cheek’s streaked with soot and something red that is very much not Kool-Aid.  

You blink. Yank the popsicle out of your mouth with a wet plop.

“Don’t freak out,” she blurts, before you even ask.

Which is Robin Buckley-speak for: Start freaking out immediately. Shit is on fire, metaphorically or otherwise.

The last time she said that, you ended up faking an asthma attack so you could ditch pep band and hit up Denny’s for the $1.99 Grand Slam. The time before that, you drove through three counties to rescue her cousin’s “emotional support ferret” from a petting zoo in Muncie.

This time? She’s brought a car with her.

A sleek maroon BMW, purring at the curb, passenger door flung wide open.

Inside: Limbs. Denim. Blood.

A boy.

Slumped sideways in the front seat, head tilted back at an angle that screams whiplash or maybe already dead. 

You squint.

“Who the fuck is that?” … Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington is bleeding out in your driveway.

You don’t know him. Not really.

Knew of him, sure. Back in high school, he was all Farrah Fawcett volume and varsity swagger. Heir to the Hawkins High hierarchy, ruling keggers and hallways alike. He had rich parents and a bimmer he didn’t pay for. Threw parties like they were some kind of divine rite.

But then? Senior year hit him like a metaphorical truck. Or maybe a literal one. Hard to say.

Because somewhere between the scorched-earth gossip of graduation and the literal scorched-earth of the mall burning down, Steve Harrington dropped off the map.

Poof. King Steve: dethroned.

Burned out, like the very mall he used to work in.

You missed that whole implosion. Spent that summer in Chicago drowning in vending machine coffee and disaster drills, chasing your EMT cert while trying not to puke during ride-alongs.

You came home to find that Hawkins had gained a mall, lost a mall, and started blaming everything weird on “gas leaks” again.

And Robin Buckley had Steve.     

Her little sidekick from the ice cream wars. Who, allegedly, once confronted a creeper in the food court for harassing her. Ruined his pretty face doing it, too. Walked around with a purple shiner for weeks after that summer ended.

He now stocks tapes with her at Family Video, where helping customers ranks somewhere between abusing the label maker and arguing over who gets to abuse the label maker. 

You ran into him once, alone, in the cereal aisle of Melvald’s.

Dark rings under his eyes. Hair still doing that gravity-defying thing.

He smiled. You didn’t smile back.

You didn’t care.  

It’s the age-old fall from grace: high school royalty faceplants into reality, and the Burger King crown starts hanging heavy. (Well, sailor hat, in his case.)

But now, he’s here.

Dying on your lawn.

Ruining your Friday. … Up close, he looks worse.

Biblically bad.

Like, plague-of-locusts, hail-from-the-heavens, Lamb-of-God-who? kind of bad.

His jeans are shredded, shirt gone entirely. Bright red ligature marks around his throat like someone tried to strangle him with a piano wire. There’s ash in his hair, and something black smeared across his jaw that you’re really, really hoping is just dirt.

His eyes flutter.

Then, absurdly, he smiles.

“H-hey. Heard you know first aid?”

You stare at him for a beat. Then toss your popsicle stick into the grass.

“Yeah. Try not to bleed out on my porch, Harrington.”

He snorts. Gives you a weak thumbs-up.

Then promptly goes limp. … “It’s called compensated shock,” you grunt, dragging six-feet-too-much of unconscious prom royalty into your living room. “He looked okay ‘cause his body was pumping him full of adrenaline. Now it’s wearing off.”

Robin’s on the other end, doing her best to help, which mostly means not helping.

“Oh my god, yeah,” she babbles, smacking his sneakers into the doorframe. “—shit. He got all woozy at Skull Rock earlier.”

You pause mid-haul. “Skull Rock? Like, the makeout spot?”

Robin makes a face. “Yeah, but not for us, gross. That’d be like making out with my brother. Anyway, Steve invented Skull Rock! Took Heather C. there in tenth grade. Remember her? The girl with, like, thirty scrunchies and that creepy obsession with Mr. Connor’s—”

“Robin.”

“Right! Sorry! Panic talking!”

Steve groans from where you’ve deposited him on the couch, more pained by Robin’s volume than the probable internal bleeding.

You ignore him. “Why were you actually at Skull Rock?”

“Uhh walking? You know... trees. Friendship.”

You level her with a look.

She claps her hands. “Anyway! You can fix him, right? You’re, like, certified!”

You glance down at Steve.

His lips are blue at the corners, breath hitching in those tight, silent gulps that mean pain and refusal to show it.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Maybe.” … You do fix him.

Because you’re a sucker. Because you trained for this. Because your hands know what to do even when your brain is screaming. 

And maybe, just maybe, because Steve Harrington keeps making these soft, miserable, apologetic noises every time he flinches.

Like he’s sorry.

Sorry for bleeding. For being in pain. For existing.

You hate that.

You also kind of hate how he looks like this—hot, in that tragic, beaten, dog-left-out-in-the-rain kind of way that hits your brain like a chemical imbalance.

You strip off his vest first (Dio patch on the back, which, huh, maybe he has changed) and find a makeshift bandage beneath it, half-dried and crusted with old blood. You peel it off. It comes away with a wet schlorp like opening a bottle of dollar store wine.

And something inside you goes still. 

These are... bite marks.

Not scrapes. Not scratches.

Bites.

His flesh looks shredded, like a rottweiler got bored of chew toys and decided to sample teenage boy instead.

Except: you’ve treated dog bites. This is not a dog bite.

“Jesus christ,” you whisper.

You look up at the boy collapsed on your couch: sweaty, shirtless, and—oh, now he’s got a belt in his mouth.

Robin jams it there. “For the pain,” she says, helpful as ever.

Steve groans around the leather, eyes fluttering. Looks like he wants to die. 

You’re still staring at the worst bite, wondering if it’s actually moving, when you ask, voice low:

“Someone want to tell me what the fuck did this?”

Robin freezes. Eyes the belt like she’d rather choke on it herself than answer.

“Uh… bats?” She offers weakly.  

You blink. “Bats.”

“Like. Big ones? Really big?”

You stare at her. Then at Steve.  

You don’t believe her.

But also… you kind of do.    

Because whatever this thing was, it didn’t just attack.

It fed. … “Okay, but like—” Robin’s pacing like she’s trying to wear a hole in your rug. “He was fine earlier. Like, maybe not fine fine, but, you know, Steve-fine. And then we got out of the Up—uh—the woods, and I was driving him back and he just…”

She makes a dramatic fainting motion. Nearly brains herself on the coffee table.

“So, it could be rabies? Or tetanus? Or maybe one of those parasite things that lay eggs in your stomach? Or—”

“Robin?” you cut in, sharp as the pair of shears in your hand. “There’s towels and vodka in the kitchen. Go.”

“Right. On it.”

She skitters away like a gremlin set on fire, the thud of cabinet doors punctuating her panic.

You turn back to Steve.

His pulse is thin, fluttering weakly under your fingertips, but it’s there.

“Harrington. You with me?”

His hand twitches once, thumb up. … He doesn’t scream.

You wish he would.

Because you know this hurts. You know that when you pour antiseptic into wounds this deep, it’s supposed to rip sound out of a person. A yell. A curse. A sob. Something.

But Steve just… takes it.

His jaw’s locked tight enough to bend steel—no belt, miracle he doesn’t shatter a molar—and his throat works once, twice, swallowing back whatever wants out. His whole body trembles, shoulders twitching, knuckles bone-white, yet his voice stays sealed inside him like it’s chained there.

You kind of hate him for it.

Because you know this type.

Boys who bleed quiet. The beautiful, tragic kind who carry pain like it’s a penance.

You’ve seen them before, at crash sites, in the backs of ambulances.

It’s not bravery. It’s habit.

A mask. 

And Steve Harrington? He’s been wearing his so long, it’s practically fused to the bone.

Still, Robin squeezes his hand like she’s coaching him through labor. Eyes locked on the ceiling, because she’s still pretending she’s never seen boobs or blood or the inside of a human person.

You press gauze to the worst of the bites, just under his ribs, angry and wet and oozing something thick. You have to lean your weight into it.

Steve jolts—full-body, every muscle locking under your palms. His hand lashes out, fast and blind, gripping the leg of your jeans until his knuckles go pale.  

Then, just as quickly, he lets go. Eyes squeezed shut. Shame radiating off him like heat.

“Shit. S-sorry.”

You don’t answer.

You can’t. … It takes two hours.

Three full rolls of gauze. One regrettable vodka break, just to keep your hands from shaking.

It's not pretty. Not even close. But it's enough to keep him breathing, which, all things considered, feels like a decent win for a Friday night.

Now, he’s bandaged. Shirtless under your ex’s old hoodie, the one with the weird bleach stain and the hole in the sleeve, but Steve fills it out like it was made for him.

Of course he does.

In the kitchen, Robin’s hunched over your tiny sink, scrubbing dried blood and whatever else is staining her forearms that awful color.  

As soon as she’s done, you grab her by the sleeve and tug her into the hallway.

“Talk.”

Robin sighs, long and loud. Tries to stall by running a hand through her hair, only to grimace when it sticks up with dried sweat.

“…Demobats.” She mutters.

 “I’m sorry?”

“Demobats,” she repeats, like that’s a word people just know. “From this place called the… Upside Down.”

You wait. There’s no punchline.

“…You’re serious.”

She nods.

And then it all spills out.

Demobats. Some guy named Vecna. Russians. Underground government labs. Scoops Ahoy, for christ’s sake.

You lose the thread somewhere around “telepathic hive mind overlord.”

But you don’t interrupt. Because Robin may be a lot of things—loud, chaotic, deathly allergic to social cues—but she’s not a liar.

And there’s a half-dead boy on your couch with holes the size of teacups to prove it.

“So,” you say slowly, “that job at the mall…”

“Yeah. Secret Russian lab.”

“And you were tortured?”

 “I mean, mostly Steve?” She winces. “But, uh. Yeah.”

“Jesus christ, Robin.”

“I know,” she groans, dragging both hands down her face. “I know it sounds crazy. I didn’t want to drag you into this, okay? But I thought—he looked bad. Worse than before. And I couldn’t exactly walk into the ER and say ‘Hi, my best friend got eaten by mutant bats from another dimension, please ignore the blood trail.’”

She huffs, blowing hair from her eyes, and squints at you. “You don’t believe me.”

You snort. “No. I do. And I think you should’ve called me sooner.”

“Well, I thought he was fine. He was fine. Until we got in the car and he started slurring his words and, like… blinking wrong. Then I panicked.”

You glance back toward the living room. At the boy who didn’t scream. Curled on your couch, twitching in his sleep like he’s stuck in a loop he can’t wake from.

Robin follows your gaze, voice softening. “Look, I know he’s not exactly your favorite person, but… thank you. Really.”

You roll your eyes. “He was bleeding out, Robs.”

She gives you a look. The kind that says she knows you better than you want her to.

You scowl.

“Go. Shower. You smell like a burnt tire.” A beat. “…You want something to eat?”

Robin doesn’t answer. Just throws her arms around you in the tightest, sweatiest, most Robin hug imaginable. All elbows and bones and bloodstained sleeves.

You stiffen. Then sigh.

“Love you,” she mumbles into your shoulder.

You hold her tight for a second. Then let go.

“You owe me, Buckley. Big time.” …   Robin crashes in your bed, dead to the world in ten seconds flat.

You stay on the couch next to Steve.

Not close. Just close enough. So if he does something stupid like stop breathing, you’ll notice.

You keep a cool cloth on his forehead. Check his pulse every half hour. Whisper a soft “motherfucker” every time he twitches, because if he wakes up and asks if you were worried, you want to be able to say no with a straight face.

You stay up.

Because someone has to. … It’s almost 3 a.m. when he stirs.

Your head snaps up, heart launching into your throat like a flare. Your hand goes automatically to the bucket, the cloth, the mental checklist of emergency procedures you’ve memorized so well they’re practically sewn into your DNA.

But then his lips part.

Just a cracked breath through the dryness, small and quiet and impossibly fragile.

“Don’t… don’t let ‘em go back.”

It’s barely a whisper. It slams into you like a freight train.

You don’t know who ‘they’ are, but you know exactly what he means.

You’ve seen this kind of thing before, too. In the shaking hands of people who left something behind where no one could follow. This is what happens when the body survives, but the rest doesn’t.

And goddammit.

Goddammit, you didn’t want this.

Didn’t want some pretty, broken boy bleeding all over your couch. Didn’t want this guilt. This terrifying protectiveness. The quiet, suffocating weight of whatever this is clamping around your ribs like a trap you walked into willingly. 

Didn’t want Steve fucking Harrington, of all people, to break your heart without saying a single word.

But he looks so young like this. Pale cheeks, sweat-damp hair sticking to his forehead. He’s curled in on himself like he’s bracing for another hit, one hand fisted in your throw pillow.  

Without thinking, you lean forward.

Brush his hair back. Cool his skin with your fingers.

“Steve,” you whisper.

No answer. Just a tiny, broken noise. Almost a whimper, almost nothing.

Your throat tightens.

You reach down, and carefully, gently, pry his fingers free from the cushion. Thread yours through the empty spaces.

His grip grows impossibly tight, fingertips paling where they press between your knuckles.

“You’re okay. You’re safe.”

And slowly—like thawing ice, like a held breath finally let go—he stops shaking.

You stay like that, hand in his, until the sun starts bleeding through the curtains. … Robin once told you that you get off on fixing people. She meant hearts. You meant bones. You’re starting to think maybe she was right. … You wake to yelling.

Not normal yelling—whisper-yelling. The kind of frantic, hushed bickering that’s somehow louder than regular voices.

“…can’t just walk out, Steve!”

“It’s not that bad, just—give me a second—”

There’s the unmistakable rustle of struggling. A pained grunt. The telltale shuffle of someone stumbling sideways, seconds away from faceplanting.

“Oh my god, what is wrong with you?!”

“I’m fine,” Steve grits out, in the exact tone people use right before they pass out on you.

“And where exactly are you gonna go, huh? Enlighten me.”

“Just—I’ll go back and change, and then we’ll—”

“Nope. Absolutely not. You can’t even see straight, Harrington.”

“Yes, I can.”

“Really? Okay. How many fingers?”

“Why do you always do that?”

“Because it works!”

You groan loudly, dragging an arm over your face.

“Do I need to put you two in a time-out? Because I swear to god, I will.”

Instant silence.

When you peel your arm back, Steve’s frozen mid‑escape, one shoe on, looking like a kid caught stealing from the cookie jar. He glances your way, sheepish.

“Hey,” he says, like he didn’t just almost eat your tile. “You’re up.”

“Unfortunately.”

Robin flaps a dramatic hand at him. “Please, please talk some sense into this idiot before I duct tape him to the wall.”

You sit up, and immediately regret every decision you’ve ever made. Your spine crackles like bubble wrap. Your skull is pounding. The entire living room looks like a crime scene: blood-crusted towels, empty gauze packets, that one lonely vodka bottle rolling under the coffee table like a sad tumbleweed.

You squint at Steve. “Sit down.”

“I’m good.”

“You’re not.”

“I just need to—”

“Now, Harrington.”

You don’t raise your voice. You don’t have to. It’s the tone you’ve used on half-conscious college boys insisting they can “totally drive, man.”

Steve blinks. Then sighs, slowly lowering himself onto a kitchen chair.

Robin hovers like a human seatbelt, and he bats her away with a feeble flap of his wrist. Still, he grips the edge of the counter like it’s the only thing keeping him vertical.

You scrub a hand over your face. “Coffee? Or are we all just committing to bad decisions today?” … The coffee is yesterday’s.

Bitter, burnt, practically an oil slick in a mug.

You pour three cups anyway.

Steve drinks it black, which tracks. You clock the way his hands tremble as he brings it to his lips and file it away without comment.

Robin’s already rattling off the story again, filling in details she left out the night before. You get more names now. Places. Dates. Vines that slither like snakes. The gate under Lover’s Lake. You get the part where Steve dove in, headfirst, no hesitation.

Well, you already got that part last night, but Robin’s repeating it, and you’re starting to think maybe it’s not for you this time.

Steve just listens, quiet. Winces at certain beats—jaw tic here, hard blink there—but doesn’t interrupt.

You lean against the counter, sip your bitter sludge, and ask, casual as you can:

“So, you just jumped in. No plan? No backup?”

He shrugs, eyes on his mug. “Didn’t really have time to think about it.”

“Clearly.”     

He looks up at you then. Runs a hand through his still-matted hair, blood-sticky at the roots, and releases a quiet breath.

“Thank you. For last night.”

You raise a brow. “Didn’t really have a choice, Harrington. It was either that or explain to the cops why there’s a dead body on my couch.” 

He huffs a weak laugh.

“By the way,” you add, sipping again, “do your parents know about all this monster-hunting extracurricular bullshit?”

Robin makes a sound like a choked squirrel.

“Oh fuck! My parents! Shitshitshit.”

She’s already halfway out of her chair, tripping over her shoes while she scrambles for her jacket.

“Can you—?” she gasps, eyes wide.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll cover.”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” She barrels over, grabbing your face and planting a comically loud kiss on your forehead. Then she turns and grabs Steve in the same breath.

Gives his face a little shake.

“If I come back and find out you even thought about sneaking out, I will tell everyone you still sleep with a nightlight. Got it?”

You snort into your mug. Steve glares at her. “Robin—"

“Got it?”

He scrubs a hand through his hair, rolling his eyes. “Whatever.”

She releases him, then points at you. “You’re in charge. Don’t let him do anything heroic.”

“Oh no,” you deadpan. “However shall I bear the weight of such responsibility?”

Robin snorts, slaps your shoulder, then bolts, keys jingling like cowbells as she shoots out the door.

“Wait—” Steve squints after her. “Are you—Robin! You can’t just take my car! You’re not even—”

Slam!

“—licensed.”

You both sit in the silence she leaves behind. Steve stares out the window, listening to the screech of his precious bimmer as it peels down the street.

Then he turns back, eyes flicking to the trauma floor that used to be your living room.  

He clears his throat. “Sorry about your, uh… couch. And the carpet.”

You follow his gaze. The stains are bad, probably permanent. It stings a little, looking at them.

It hurts worse looking at him.

Steve Harrington, bruised and bandaged and slouched in your chair like he’s trying to disappear into the seams. His stupidly wide, puppy-dog eyes look like they’re about to apologizing for breathing your air.

You blink.

Then slowly, slowly, lean forward across the island.

“Harrington.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop apologizing for almost dying. It’s weird.”  

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Lands on a sheepish smile instead.

You hate how it softens his face, how it creases the corners of his eyes.

“And for the record,” you mutter, lips concealed behind the rim of your cup, “you’re not the worst thing to stain that couch, so. You’re fine.”  

He blinks, brow furrowing. “What’s… that supposed to mean?”

You shrug. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

It takes him a second to process it. Then he snorts quietly, eyes flicking to the side.

You take another sip, watching the pink rise in his cheeks as the sun filters in through the window.

And if you’re smiling too—well, he doesn’t have to know. … You try to make pancakes.

Try being the operative word.

There’s flour in your hair, batter on the counter. Somewhere, the smoke alarm is just giggling with anticipation.

Steve’s still in his spot behind the island, watching you glare down a lumpy pile of batter.

It’s distracting.

It’s fucking annoying, is what it is.

Pancakes aren’t hard. Whisking is not rocket science. And yet, it feels impossible with him sitting there, doing that thing with his eyes. All soft and brown and bruised, like you saved his life and now he doesn’t know how to deal with it.   

“How’s it going?” he asks, voice pitched deliberately neutral.

You don’t turn around. “Fine.”

A beat.

“You sure?”

You slam the next pancake into the pan. It looks like something you'd peel off a sidewalk after a hot summer day. You stare at it, furious.

Behind you, there’s the scrape of a chair.

“I said I’m fine,” you warn.

He ignores that.

Limps over to you instead, his gaze finding you like a physical thing. Warm. Curious. You catch him in your periphery as he stops beside you, close enough that the heat from the stove mixes with the heat of his skin. Suddenly, the kitchen feels about fifteen degrees hotter.

“Here,” he murmurs.

Before you can object, his fingers wrap around yours, gentle and coaxing as he eases the spatula from your grip.

Then: flip.

One smooth flick of his wrist. The pancake lands perfect. All golden and fluffy.

You blink at it, betrayed.

“I was handling it.”

“Sure,” he says, lips twitching. “Looked like it.”

He flips another. Doesn’t even look this time.

You narrow your eyes. “Okay. How are you doing that?” 

He shrugs, adjusting the burner dial like he’s lived here his whole life. “Cook for myself a lot.”

You pause. There’s something in the way he says it—off-hand, casual, but quiet enough to leave an echo.

You file that away, too.

“Of course you’re good at pancakes,” you mutter. “Probably make soufflés and like, caviar waffles or some shit.”

“Caviar waffles? That’s a thing?”

“I don’t know. You tell me, rich boy.”

He just snorts quietly at that, eyeing you sideways. “Well, my French toast is pretty solid. Could show you next time, if you want.”

You glance over, arching a brow. “Wow. Is that line always so subtle?”

He meets your gaze, smirk tugging at his split lip.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

And fuck, it lands.

It lands hard, right in the soft space under your ribs. That warm, twisting feeling that makes your breath hitch and your stomach go stupid.

You turn away before your face can betray you, yanking open a drawer for a fork.

And then, as if the universe decided to throw you a bone, the kitchen landline starts to shriek like it’s being murdered.

You lunge for it like a lifeline.

It’s probably Mrs. Buckley, confirming her daughter crashed at your place, again.

“Hello? …You WHAT?”

Robin groans on the other end. “Yeah. Possibly until college.”

“Robin, you can’t—” You lower your voice, turning away from Steve and cupping the receiver like he’s not standing two feet away. “—you can’t be fucking grounded right now.”

“I know! But my mom saw the blood on my jeans and I totally panicked. I told her it was ketchup. Ketchup, dude. Now she’s got Toby posted outside my room. He’s just sitting there with his Legos, but he will scream if I so much as leave to go to the bathroom. So... yeah. It’s gonna be a while before I can sneak out. Are you… are you okay to stay with him for a bit? He’s trying to pretend he’s fine, but he’s definitely not.”   

You glance back.

Steve’s standing at the stove, peering at his stomach while waiting for the next pancake to bubble. His hand drifts down and starts poking at one of the bandages under his hoodie. Slow and gentle, like it won’t count as touching if he’s polite about it.    

You stretch the phone cord and smack his hand away.

He startles. Blinks at you like, Seriously?

You raise your brows like, Try me.

You sigh into the receiver: “Yeah. I got him.”

“Ugh, you’re the best. Just don’t let him—ohh, crap, I gotta g—"

Click.

Steve doesn’t turn when you pad back into the kitchen.

“She grounded?”

“Yep. Possibly until retirement.” You pause. “You don’t need to call your folks?”

He hesitates, just for a second. Then shakes his head. “They’re out of town.”

Then, with a one-handed spin of the spatula, he flips the pancake onto a plate.

You glance at the growing stack. They look obscene. You’d punch someone for a bite.

In your head, you run through the math.

Ten days. Minimum.

Ten days before the stitches can come out. Before he can walk out of here without ripping something open. Longer if he keeps poking at his bandages like that.

God help you. It’s gonna be a long week. … Breakfast is awkward.

No other word for it.

Steve eats like he’s on a timer. You eat like you’re trying not to notice.

Trying not to notice the way he keeps sneaking glances at you. Little flicks of his eyes over his plate, always quick, always subtle, never quite fast enough.

Trying not to notice the way he winces. Quiet flashes of pain, there and gone, just long enough for that crease to cut across his brow before he smooths it away.

When both your plates are emptied, he clears his throat.

“Hey, do you… you mind if I use your bathroom?” He gestures vaguely to his face. “Just need to clean up a bit.”  

His hair is still matted. There’s soot smeared along his jaw, a faint line of red where the blood’s dried and half-wiped away.

You nod, mid-sip. “Sure. First door on the left. Just don’t get the bandages wet.”

“Got it,” he nods, starts to rise—then stops halfway, jaw flexing tight.

“Actually, uh…” His hand slides to the back of his neck. His eyes shut briefly. “Can you give me a hand with this? I can’t really…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t need to.

The white-knuckle grip on the hem of his hoodie tells you enough.

You blink, setting your mug down, and push your chair back without a word.   

He doesn’t meet your eyes as you reach for the bottom of the hoodie.

The fabric peels up inch by inch, sticking to where the gauze bled through, catching where raw skin clings to cotton. He winces, raising his arms awkwardly, the stitches along his sides clearly pulling. So you move gently, painstakingly slow.

Your knuckles graze his stomach, and—

Jesus.

He’s warm. Muscle corded tight under skin that flushes easily, even with all the bruises blooming across his ribs like bad watercolors.

You get the hoodie off.

His chest is bare.

And now you’re standing close. Way, way too close.

His breath brushes your cheek when he exhales. You glance up, just on pure instinct, and find his eyes already on you.

You both freeze.

There’s a beat where everything narrows. Where sound drops out.  

Your hands hover midair, still clutching the fabric, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin.

Close enough to trace the moles scattered across his chest.   

You don’t.

You look away so fast it nearly gives you whiplash.

“Towels are under the sink," you mumble. "I’ll get you some new clothes.”

Then you take a quick step back. Like distance will save you from whatever the hell that was.

Steve blinks. Once. Twice. Then nods, eyes flicking away. “Thanks.”

He disappears down the hall, barefoot and bruised.

You stand in the silence with his hoodie clenched in your fists, your pulse trying to beat its way out of your throat. … There’s an old joke your friends like to make.

That you’re a sadist.

That you chose the EMT life because you enjoy it. The blood, the pain. The broken bones and the chaos. Things normal people flinch away from.

But in truth, they’ve got it backwards.

You’re not a sadist.

No. What you are is a fucking masochist.

Because there’s no other explanation for why you keep doing this to yourself. Why you let yourself get this close to people you shouldn’t. Why you torture yourself, again and again, with things you know better than to want.

Why you’re standing outside your bathroom door right now, ears tilted, listening to someone who shouldn’t mean anything to you rinse the blood off his skin.

You told yourself you were just finishing the dishes. That the stovetop needed wiping down. That there were chores to do, reasons to move around.

But your feet kept wandering. Back to the hallway. Back to him.

Back to this spot in the hallway, where you can feel the warmth bleeding under the door. Where you can hear the faucet running in short, irregular bursts—on, off, on again.

You picture him hunched over the basin. One hand braced against the counter, the other shaking under the strain of movement. Jaw clenched. Shoulders bowed.

Something twists low in your stomach.

You roll your eyes at yourself—because god, you’re pathetic—and raise a fist.

A light knock.

“You good?”

A pause, then:

“Uh, yeah. Just… hang on.”

There’s a clatter, a quiet shit. Then the door creaks open.

And Steve—

Well.

He’s wet.

And shirtless. And pink.

Flushed from the steam, maybe from embarrassment. Because his hair—The Hair—is half-lathered and sticking up in foamy tufts, like a soggy cat caught mid-bath. A single drop of water slides slow down the hollow of his throat.

Your gaze follows it.

The sweatpants you gave him ride low. Damp at the waistband, pulled snug across his hips in a way you’re absolutely not thinking about.

He gestures toward the sink, sheepish.

“I, uh… can’t really bend right now. Tried to rinse it out, but—” He winces, fingers grazing his sides. “The stitches are kind of a hard no.” 

Your eyes drop, unbidden, to the bruises blooming purple-black across his ribs. The way his chest lifts a little faster when you step closer.

You should walk away. Turn around. Go wipe down the goddamn stove like you told yourself you would.

Instead, you say:

“Sit.” 

He blinks. “…What?”

“On the floor. Back against the tub.”

There’s a pause. His brows draw together like he’s trying to figure out the punchline.  

You don’t blink.

He exhales sharply, jaw flexing. “No, it’s okay, I can—”

“Steve.”

It lands heavy. The weight of it surprises even you.

His first name, in your voice. 

You’ve only said it once before, when he was unconscious, twitching under bloodstained gauze, fists clenched against a nightmare you couldn’t reach.

But now, he hears it. And something inside him goes quiet.

He studies you for a second longer, then sighs, shoulders dropping.

Wordlessly, he lowers himself to the tile.

One hand braced on the edge of the tub, the other on the floor, every movement stiff. His back hits the porcelain with a soft thud.  

You kneel beside him and roll up your sleeves.

“Lean your head back.”

He shifts, uneasy. “Seriously, you don’t have to—”

“I know.” You pick up the cup beside the sink and check the tap, waiting for the water to warm. “Just tilt."

There’s a long pause.

Then he does.

His head tips back against the curve of the tub. With his throat exposed, the worst of the bruising shines a mottled red-black beneath his jaw. His lashes flutter, lips parting just slightly.

The first pass runs slow and gentle down his scalp. He flinches.

“Too hot?”

He blinks, breath shallow. “No. S’fine.”

So you pour again. And again. Slow rivulets trickling through his hair, carrying blood and soap and grime down the drain. His hair start to fall naturally again, dark strands slicking to his forehead. 

It’s just the water at first. Rinsing out grit, loosening stiff knots and matted roots.

Then you lather the shampoo between your palms, and sink your fingers into his hair.

And that’s when it happens.

The shift.

Steve Harrington—king of easy charm, Mr. Everything’s Fine—goes completely still.

Not in a relaxed way. Not in a sleepy way.

No, he goes rigid.

His breath falters. His jaw locks. You can see the muscles in his neck ripple with tension.

And when you sweep a thumb absently behind his ear, chasing a line of foam, he jolts.

A full-body shiver, running shoulder to spine.

You clear your throat, voice catching before you force it steady. “Been a while, huh? Since someone did this for you?”

His response is delayed, a low rasp. “Uh huh. Long time.”

Then, after a beat:

“Used to be my mom’s thing. When I was a kid.”

Your hands still in his hair. He goes stiff the second he says it—jaw clenched, lips pressed tight, hands curling in his lap.

You blink, then resume drawing slow circles over his crown.

“That must’ve been nice,” you say quietly.

He doesn’t answer. Just breathes through his nose and keeps still.

So you keep going.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.    

And with each pass of your hands, his breathing changes.

His head rests heavier against the porcelain. His lips part around soft, even breaths. His eyes flutter shut.

Then, he leans.

Barely enough to notice. But you feel it, the subtle tilt of his head toward your hands.

Like a plant bending toward light.

You wonder, not for the first time, how long it’s been since someone touched him like this. How long he’s gone without care, without softness.

And maybe that’s why this hurts so much.

Because you’d had him pegged, hadn’t you?

The hair. The charm. Pretty boy, ladies’ man, heartbreaker.

King Steve.

But this? This isn’t him.

This is the After.                                                                                       

The aftermath of Russians and monsters and lakes with no bottoms. The man who throws himself between danger and kids that aren’t his, time and time again. Like he’s got something to prove. Or maybe something to atone for.

The one who apologized for bleeding on your floor.

This is someone who’s forgotten how to be held.

And right now, he’s under your hands. Throat bared. Hair dripping. Leaning into your touch like he’s starved for it.

And that slow, sinking weight in your stomach settles for good. That gut-churn of realization that you barely know anything about the man who nearly bled out on your couch last night.  

You try to swallow the feeling down. Try to keep your focus on softer things: dripping water, steam-soaked light, the silky-smooth slip of his hair between your fingers.

But every time your hands leave him, even for a second, you feel it. The tension in his frame. The hesitation in his breath. Like he’s bracing for it to end.

And each time you return—thumb grazing his temple, palm cradling the back of his neck—he breathes in. Relief, sharp and silent, tucked between the ribs.

You reach for the conditioner next, fingers trembling a little as you work it through. When you tip his head back, he goes easy. Pliant. Trusting.

And then a quiet thought hits you.   

A hunch, really.

You let your fingers drift lower. Past the crown. Down to the nape of his neck. The hair there is softer, damp strands clinging to skin gone tight with tension and bruising.

You trace gently around the worst of it. Avoid the dark, angry lines where something had closed around his throat. 

Strangled. That’s what Robin said.  

You press into the muscle just beneath it, right where the pain likes to live.

Steve shudders. His head lifts from the tub with a breath, caught on something sharp.

But you don’t let up.

You continue pressing in slow, deep circles, growing firmer.

There’s a sound, then. Sharp. Brief. A strangled thing, torn between a groan and a gasp.

He tries to stifle it a second later, clearing his throat.

“Too hard?” you ask quietly.

His voice comes cracked. “N-no. Just—it’s fine. You don’t have to…”

The rest trails off when you move to his shoulders next, thumb kneading into the dense muscle. You’re not a massage therapist, but you know anatomy. You know where pain settles when it’s been left too long. How it tucks itself into the tender parts: the base of the neck, the hollow beneath the collarbone.  

And god, he’s full of it. All the signs. All the tells.

He lets out another shaky breath, lips sealed around a sound he doesn’t let out.

And there, just for a moment, you let yourself look.

At the bruises. The thin cuts just beginning to scab. The water gliding over his collarbone, beading into the curve of his chest.

That thick, molten part of your brain—the masochist, the idiot, the one who says yes when she should absolutely say no—flares hot.

It wants to lean in.

Wants to touch your mouth to his skin, right there, at the slope of his throat.

Just to see if he tastes like lavender and heat. Just to see if he lets you.

To kiss him slow enough to wash the ache from his mouth. Replace every sharp thing he’s swallowed with something soft.

God, you’re losing it.

You drag your thumb again along the base of his neck. His lashes flutter.

Then, from the corner of your eye, you see it—his hands shifting in his lap.

Cross. Adjust.

You glance down without thinking.

And oh.

Oh.

The sweatpants don’t hide much. Not like this. Not with how he’s sitting, loose-limbed and open, the fabric soaked and clinging in ways it wasn’t meant to. They’re pulled taut across the breadth of his thighs, darkened in patches where the water’s seeped through.

And beneath that?

Yeah.

Your breath stutters. Heat rockets up your neck.

You yank your gaze away, fumbling for the faucet and filling another cup. Your hand trembles as you lift it, rinsing out the conditioner.

His hair sticks to his forehead. Without thinking, you smooth it back.

His eyes flutter open.

And the look he gives you…

It’s quiet. Devastating. Tucked somewhere tender and deep, pressed hard against bone.

Softer than longing. Sharper than want.

It's something that aches.

You don’t know what to do with it.

So you just keep your hands in his hair.

And you rinse.   … You rinse long after the conditioner’s gone.

After his breath has evened out and the water’s cooled to a gentle trickle, steam curling around your ankles like fog.

The bathroom smells like lavender and heat and skin that isn’t yours.

When you reach for the towel and bring it up to his head, he leans.

Blot, pat, smooth. The towel’s too soft, your hands too careful. You graze the shell of his ear, the edge of his jaw, feeling the quick flutter of his pulse beneath your thumb.

His eyes are still on you.

“Thanks,” he says, quiet.  

You nod, not trusting your voice.

The steam’s thinning now, but the air still clings.

Too warm. Too full of something unsaid.

His breath brushes your cheek.

You’re too close.

It’s too much.

You could kiss him. 

God help you, you could.

Just one lean forward. That’s all it would take. His mouth is right there—slightly parted, pink and swollen in the middle where he’s been biting down.

And the look on his face isn’t just gratitude. Not just relief.

That’s want.

And worse? It’s yours too. It’s in the pit of your stomach, burning upward. It’s in your hands, your chest, your throat, curling behind your teeth like smoke with nowhere to go.

You pull back abruptly. The towel slips from your hands and lands in his lap with a soft thud.

“Okay,” you say, voice tight. “You’re good.”

Steve blinks, like you just dragged him up from underwater.

His throat bobs. “Cool. Yeah. Thanks.”

You stand too fast. Your knees pop. You don’t look at him when you speak next. “You should lie down for a bit. Keep pressure off the stitches.”

He nods, a little too slow.

You grab the towel again and press it against his chest. Not hard, but firm enough to make a point. Whatever it is.

Then you turn.

And you walk out.

You don’t need to look back to know he’s still watching you go. ... It starts the way summer storms do. 

Not with thunder. Not with rain.

With pressure.

The kind that presses close to the skin, wrapping around like a second layer. That hair-raising, skin-prickling tingle. Right as the birds go quiet and the trees hold still and the sky forgets how to move.

Stillness so absolute your skin buzzes with it.

The moment before it tips. 

It’s here now. In this room.

In the narrow inches of couch cushion between you. In the weight of the blanket tangled over your legs. In the single, unspoken brush of his thigh against yours.

The TV plays to no one. A dull flicker of static and synth beats, some late-afternoon rerun neither of you are really watching. The glow of it pulses dim blue across his skin, the shadows deepening where his jaw tightens every time you move.

The room smells like clean skin and new sweat. Yours. His. Both.

His voice breaks the quiet.

“Hey, how long ‘til the stitches come out again?”

“Ten days.”

“Hm. I like this show.”

“Knight Rider?”

“Yeah. It’s cool.”

“No. It’s dumb.”

“What? C’mon, the car talks.”

“Exactly.” A beat. “How do the stitches feel?”

“Uh, good. Yeah. They’re fine.”

“You hungry?”

“No, you?”

“No.”

And it builds, again. That low, rolling kind of stillness.

Storm pressure.   

It crawls up your spine. Pools hot behind your ears. You fidget with the hem of the blanket, rolling your shoulder back into the cushion like you can shake it loose.

You can’t.

The blanket’s too warm.

He’s too close.

And he’s watching you. You don’t have to look to know.  

“…You’re doing it again.”

“Hm?”

You turn your head. Meet his gaze full-on. “Looking at me like that.”

His lips part. “Like what?”

Your eyes drop to his mouth.

His pinky brushes yours.

And just like that, the storm breaks. … Steve leans in first.

The same way he had in the bathroom, instinctive and unthinking. Like something inside him keeps tipping forward and you’re the only place left to fall.

Only this time, you don’t let him do it alone.

You meet him halfway.

His nose nudges yours. His breath fans hot across your cheek.

And then your lips meet.

A question and an answer, exchanged wordlessly.

There’s no clean edge between want and need, no way to separate gentle from hungry. One second, it’s the cautious warmth of shared breath, the next—

It’s the pull of his hands. The low, wrecked sound he makes in his throat when your fingers slide up his neck, threading into the damp hair at his nape.  

Heat. Ozone. The bright-white zing of electricity rocketing down your spine.

You move forward without thinking. He shifts to catch you, hands spanning your hips, guiding you into his lap. You straddle him, careful to avoid the bruises across his stomach.

His breath is hot. His lips are plush, a little chapped from the way he’s been chewing on them all night.

Wordlessly, you reach for the hem of your shirt, tugging it over your head and letting it fall behind you. Cool air rushes over your skin.

Steve goes still. “God, you’re…” He breathes, throat working around the rest of the words when you take his hand and guide it upwards. Across your stomach, up your ribs. His thumb grazes over your nipple, soft and reverent, and your breath hitches.

You tug him back into a kiss, hips starting to drag across his lap. The hard press of him burns heat through the cotton of your sleep shorts.

“Good?” you breathe against his mouth.  

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Fuck. Yeah. You?”

You nod, catching your breath.

But he doesn’t stop looking at you

And there’s something about the way his gaze lingers—soft, searching—like he’s waiting for more than just an answer to a question. Something he doesn’t know how to say out loud.

But you know.

You just… know.

The same way you knew when your hands were in his hair earlier. That quiet ache. That silent pull in him, desperate and soft.

So you give him what he doesn’t know how to ask for.

Your hand slides up to his chest, pressing over his heart. It’s pounding. So is yours.

“You feel so good, Steve,” you whisper, close enough for him to taste the words off your lips. “You’re so good. So fucking good.”

He shudders, pulling you in tighter, groaning with his lips buried against your neck like he needs to hide the sound somewhere safe.

Still, you don’t stop. 

You reach for his hand and slide it lower, under the waistband of your shorts. His fingers slip through your slick heat and go still.

“Jesus,” he breathes. 

You kiss his temple, then his cheek. Frame his jaw with both hands and lift his gaze to yours.

“Feel that?” you murmur. “That’s for you. All for you.”

He lets out a strangled sound, nearly pained, and surges up to kiss you again. His fingers start to stroke through your heat, finding the rhythm, learning you. When his thumb grazes your clit and starts to circle, you gasp, hips jerking into his touch.

“Shit, baby…” he breathes.   

And that word—

It’s soft. Unconscious. Slipped out before he knew it was there.

You don’t think he even realizes he said it. His eyes are blown wide, focused only on you: the way your hips grind, the way you cling to him when his fingers push deeper.

Still, there’s that tremble in his voice.

Like that word came from somewhere deeper than he meant to reach. Like it cracked off the part of him that’s always waiting to be turned away but still dares to offer softness first.

You roll your hips again, chasing friction, but your focus has shifted now. You’re watching him instead—flushed and open beneath you, mouth parted, eyes locked to your face like you’re something he’s trying to memorize.

And it guts you. The honesty of it.

How easy it is to see now.     

That this is someone who aches for closeness. Reaches for it before he even realizes he’s doing it. Who says baby like it’s the only word he knows for want. 

Your chest grows tight. The heat in your stomach twists into something unbearably tender.

You roll your hips one last time, savoring the drag of him against you, then shift off his lap. His hand slips from your shorts, reluctant, trailing warmth up your stomach.

His eyes follow you as you slide to the floor. Your knees sinking into the carpet, fingers hooking in the waistband of his pants. He lifts his hips and—

You blink. Your mouth goes dry.

Because he’s—

Wow. Okay.

Noted.

It’s not just the size—though, yeah, that’s definitely part of it. It’s the weight of him. The flushed color, the dusky warmth. Velvety skin stretched tight over thick veins. The way he sits heavy against his thigh, curved just slightly, leaking at the tip and twitching under your gaze.

You swallow hard.

“What?” He stirs, uncertain. “Is something…?”

You look up at him, eyes wide.   

“Jesus, Steve…” you breathe. “Just. Holy shit.”

His brows pinch together, concern flickering across his face—until he sees your expression.

And there it is.

That grin. That stupid, boyish, shit-eating grin.

“Oh,” he says, trying to play it off. “Yeah?”

You narrow your eyes, desperately trying to hide your smile. “Don’t get cocky.”

He raises a brow.  

You realize your mistake immediately. Your cheeks flare hot.

He laughs, breathless. Looks down at you all soft and pleased and fond. It makes you want to bite him until he forgets how to smirk entirely. Kiss him stupid and never let him go.

“Shut up,” you mutter.

“Didn’t say anything,” he says, still smiling.

You roll your eyes and yank his pants the rest of the way down.

He quiets instantly.

Because your hands are on him now.

You stroke his thighs first, warming up the sensitive skin there. Pressing soft kisses along the inside, inching higher and higher until he’s twitching under your mouth.

“You’re so pretty like this,” you whisper. “You don’t even know, do you?”

He makes a strangled sound, part laugh, part disbelieving groan. His hands flex where they rest against his thighs.

You reach up and guide one to your hair, eyes still on his.

“You can touch me,” you murmur.      

His fingers curl, tentative. “You sure?”

You nod. “I want you to. Want you to feel this.”

Then, without looking away, you lower your mouth to him.

Slow. Wet. Base to tip, dragging your tongue along the underside. He jerks, whole body going taut.  

“Jesus,” he hisses. “Okay. Okay.”

You take your time. Because no one ever has, it seems. Not like this.  

Your fingers wrap around the base, tongue gliding along the ridge, licking the salt beading at the tip. Every twitch, every shudder, every wrecked baby whispered from above becomes something you file away silently, cataloguing the way he unravels.

And Steve unravels beautifully.

You glance up through your lashes, watching the way his stomach trembles, how his throat works. All the control he’s trying so hard to hold on to.

Then finally, you wrap your lips around him.

Just the head at first, sucking slow and sweet. You circle your tongue around the crown and let out a soft hum.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Baby, your mouth—shit—”

His voice keeps catching like he doesn’t quite believe it. You get the sense he hasn’t been cherished in this way, either. Adored. Worshipped.

So you double down.

You ease off for a breath, kissing the flushed tip, thumb gliding over the sensitive skin there. Then you sink deeper, lips sliding lower, jaw loosening, tongue tracing the underside as you stretch around the thickest part of him.  

You keep going until he’s pressed up against your palate, brushing the back of your throat. You breathe into it. Let the weight of him sit there, hot and thick and yours.

“Shit, shit—” he pants. “I’m not—not gonna last if you keep—"

You pull off with a soft pop, lips slick and swollen. A line of spit follows you from the flushed head of his cock.

“It’s okay,” you smile, breath warm against his skin. “Don’t have to. Just want you to feel good.”

He stares down at you, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy.

Then, suddenly, breathless and earnest:

“Wait, can I—can I get you off first?” 

You pause, stunned.  

You blink up at him, hand still wrapped around the base of his cock. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” he says, quick and pleading. He cups your jaw, stroking your cheek. “Please. Let me?”

You hold his gaze a moment longer, drowning in that quiet, unspoken vulnerability he carries, one you’re learning to name without words.

Then, finally, you nod.

“Okay.”

You crawl back into his lap, shorts discarded somewhere behind you, it doesn’t matter where.

What matters is the way his hands settle on you again, calloused palms sliding around your hips, drawing you closer. You feel the thick heat of him pressed between your thighs, sticky and flushed and aching.

You roll your hips teasingly, gliding against him before reaching down to line him up. The head of his cock nudges, presses, catches. Then slowly, inch by inch, you sink down.

The stretch is immediate. Hot and all-consuming. You clutch at his shoulders, mouth falling open as you let your weight sink deeper, not pausing until he’s fully seated.

Your thighs tremble where you straddle him.

Steve groans low, one arm tight around your waist, the other gripping your hip.

“Shit, are you—?”

“I’m okay,” you breathe, laughing softly into his skin. “Just… gimme a sec. You’re kind of a lot, Harrington.”  

He kisses you, rubbing circles into your back while you adjust. The burn softens. The fullness remains.

And when you start to move—lifting your hips, rolling them back down—you feel him everywhere.

“God,” you pant, “you feel so good.”

You kiss his jaw, his throat, burying whispers between breaths.

“Can feel you so deep—fuck—”  

The rhythm builds slowly. Wide circles, deep grinds, savoring the way his cock hits just right.

And the more you give him—You feel so good, Fucking me so well, Low how you feel inside me—he melts a little more beneath you.

“Shit, right there—” you gasp, hips stuttering when his hand slides between your bodies, pressing into your clit.

“Come for me,” he whispers, voice rough. “Please. Want to feel you.”

His fingers circle faster.  

And your body breaks.

You cry out, nails digging into his shoulders, every muscle clenched and trembling as the orgasm crashes through you. You collapse against his chest, shaking, gasping his name, everything hot and white and so much.     

He holds you through it, breathing hard against your temple.

“That’s it,” he pants. “That’s it, baby, I’ve got you—fuck—”

You’re still trembling in his lap when you feel him thrust up into you once, twice. He pulls out with a sudden gasp, groaning your name, spilling hot and thick across your stomach, shuddering with the force of it.

You kiss him through the haze of your own come-down, legs still trembling, fingers tangled in the sweat-damp hair at his nape.

“Just like that,” you whisper. “You’re perfect like this, Steve. So good.”

His breath stutters against your cheek. His body, still pulsing with aftershocks, presses into yours like he can’t stand the space between.

And even after the world goes still, after the stuttered breaths give way to silence and the hum of the TV creeps back in, you keep touching him. Stroking his hair, brushing sweat from his brow, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses anywhere your mouth can reach.

And in the hush that follows, you murmur things you’ve never said aloud. Not to anyone.

Things too raw for daylight.

Things meant only for him. … You never ask him to stay.

Not when he wakes beside you the next morning, bare-chested, sleep-warm, hair sticking up in a dozen directions. Not when he wanders into your kitchen wearing nothing but rumpled boxers, whisking eggs for French toast like it’s an inside joke you’ve shared forever.

Not when you start leaving the sugar bowl out because that’s how he takes his coffee: one teaspoon, no milk. Not when you slip a second toothbrush into the cup by the sink, bristles leaning together like they’ve been kissing too.  

He never asks. You never offer. … You learn the little things first.

That he hums when he cooks, usually something dumb from the radio, sometimes dumber jingles from the worst commercials. That he wipes down your counters when he thinks you’re not looking. That he folds your laundry better than you do, big hands careful with worn-out cotton and delicate lace. It gets to you, the way he touches your things like they matter.

And sometimes, you catch him staring again.

Only now, you don’t look away.  

You’ll be across the room, pretending to read, eyes dragging over the same sentence for the fifth time because you can feel his gaze on you. He’ll be leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, wearing that stupid smug expression he pulls when he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Seriously, Harrington,” you mutter, eyes on the page. “Take a picture.”

He doesn’t blink. “I’m good. Like this view better."

You roll your eyes and throw a sock at his face. He catches it one-handed, smug.

Then he moves.

Three steps. That’s all it takes.

Three steps until your back’s against the mattress, his weight pressing you down, mouth dragging hot across your collarbone. His hands sneak under your shirt, warm palms sliding up your ribs. His lips chase yours like it’s a promise he’s been dying to keep.

“You’re annoying,” you whisper, breath hitching as he nips at your neck.

He grins into your skin. “Yeah? You gonna kick me out, then?”

You don’t.

You kind of never do. … The days bleed together after that.  

A quick stop at his house to grab spare clothes turns into a silent pause in front of his dresser. His fingers hover over a framed photo: faces you don’t know, smiles frozen mid-laugh.

He doesn’t explain. You don’t ask. You just wait by the door until he turns and threads his fingers through yours.

He doesn’t let go the whole ride back.

A grocery run on day three turns into a dumb argument in the pasta aisle. You’re ranting about canned tomatoes; he’s trailing behind you like a sulking toddler, forearms slung across the cart handle, sneaking cookies into the basket when you’re not looking.

You scowl at checkout. He grins.

“You’re gonna thank me later,” he says.

You do.

First with a mouthful of chocolate and a grudging laugh.

Then again, ten minutes later, when your 'thank-you's come in the shape of his name and a fistful of his hair between your thighs. … Eventually, the domestic stops feeling borrowed.

It starts to feel owned.  

You vacuum, he sweeps. You cook, he washes up. He steals bites of dinner while it’s still sizzling and you smack him with a spatula, pretending to be mad.

He says, “Ow,” even when it doesn’t hurt. You say, “Asshole,” even when it’s not true.

On the fourth night, you both sit cross-legged on the living room floor, scrubbing blood out of the couch cushions with baking soda and half-assed prayers.

He’s watching you. Again.   

You glance up. "What?"

He shrugs, smiling a little. “Nothing.”

“Steve.”

“I just…” He hesitates. Looks down. “I like this.”

You raise a brow. “Cleaning your blood out of my furniture?”

He shuffles forward, bringing his cushion closer to yours.

“Yeah,” he says.

But it’s not what he means.

You both know that. … The sex changes, too.

In the mornings, it’s quiet. Slow. All languid stretches and sleep-warm skin, coaxing sighs from your lips as the sun peeks through the blinds.

But at night? He’s something else entirely.

He fucks you like he needs it to survive. Like you’re his last breath. Gripping your thighs, your hips—holding you open, holding you still, driving into you like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you forever.

And as the bruises fade, so does his hesitation. 

He knows you now.

Knows what makes you beg, what makes you break. Where to bite, where to suck, where to press until your voice is raw and your nails leave crescent moons down his spine.

One night, he pins your wrists above your head, breath ragged.

“Say it,” he murmurs, grinding deep. “Tell me who makes you feel like this.”

You break on his name.

He swallows the sound with his mouth and doesn’t stop until your thighs are shaking.

And afterward, he stays.

Inside you. Around you.

He never pulls away first. … Not all nights are easy.

Some nights, you wake alone.

You find him in the kitchen, framed by the glow of the open fridge. The light catches the tired slope of his shoulders, the untouched glass of water going warm in his hand.    

You don’t ask. Just step in behind him, press your cheek between his shoulder blades, and wrap your arms tight around his waist.

He breathes out. Sets the glass down. Closes the fridge.

When he turns, he doesn’t speak. Just lets you hold him.

Lets you guide him back to bed. … Your mornings are different now.  

You wake in shirts that smell like him. Brush your teeth while he showers, fog curling across the mirror. He laughs at something stupid from behind the curtain, and you laugh back, still half-asleep.

It all happens so slowly you almost miss it.

The toothbrush that isn’t yours. The second pillow with its permanent dent. The pair of shoes you stop tripping over by the door because you’ve learned to walk around them.

He’s etched himself into your life in the smallest of ways. Fit through the cracks with warm hands and boyish grins and quiet looks in the daylight.

Like maybe he was meant to be here all along. … Somewhere between day seven and eight, you stop keeping count. 

Because every morning, you tell yourself he’ll probably leave soon.

And every night, he gives you another reason to believe he won’t. … Like tonight.

You’re wrapped around each other, skin still damp with heat, covers shoved somewhere near the foot of the bed. His hand rests on your back, fingers splayed. Yours curls against his chest, cheek pressed to the slow, steady rhythm behind his ribs.

It would be so easy to stay here.

To let the quiet stretch. To pretend the heaviness in your chest is just exhaustion, not the weight you've been carrying since the night you dragged his bleeding body across your living room. Since you sat awake beside him, watching every shallow breath, waiting for the next one to come.

But the question’s been sitting on your chest for days now. And with the weight of him beside you, it presses too hard to ignore.

“Why’d you do it?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and you wonder if he’s already fallen asleep. But then his chest rises under your cheek—a careful, deliberate breath.

“…Do what?”  

“The lake,” you murmur. “You jumped in first. Why?”

He’s quiet for a beat too long. You glance up to find the tight underside of his jaw, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” he sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. “Someone had to go. And I was the best swimmer, so. Didn’t really have to think about it.”

And you believe him. It’s the part that hurts the most.

That he didn’t have to think. That throwing himself in came as naturally as breathing.

Because somewhere along the way, Steve Harrington decided that his pain was worth less than everyone else's.

You shift closer, hooking your chin on his shoulder. His thumb draws slow, thoughtful circles against your spine.

“Steve,” you say quietly. “You know it’s not about being a hero, right? You don’t have to keep throwing yourself in front of everything just to prove yourself.”

His hand stills.

“I’m not.”  

“Not what?”

“A hero. I’m not.” He lets out a bitter huff, eyes looking at something past the ceiling. “I was… just kind of a selfish asshole for a long time. Didn’t care about much. Or anyone. And even after I tried to fix it, it just—it never felt like enough. Still doesn’t.”

You watch him, the weight of his words like pressing down on a bruise.

“So what, you jump into lakes now to make up for it?”

He almost smiles. “Kinda. Yeah.”

Then, quieter:

“I don’t know, it’s like, if I’m not the one stepping up, then… what’s the point, you know? What the hell am I even good for?”

Your heart aches. Because god, how long has he carried that? How many times has he thrown himself in just to keep from drowning?

You see it then, the fracture that runs through him. Spiderwebbed across everything he is, everything he was. A wound so old it’s fused to him. Clotted over, never cleaned.  

The weight he carries isn’t something he puts on; it’s something that grew with him.

Years of being told he wasn’t enough. Not smart enough. Not serious enough. Just the boy with the car, the smile, the house too big for how small it made him feel. 

That kind of doubt doesn’t heal. It burrows deep.

Sinks its teeth in. Festers.   

Until guilt turns into remorse,

Remorse turns into habit,

And habit drags on as penance.

So he made himself useful.

Built his worth out of protection. Of stepping up, stepping in, taking the hit before anyone else could.

Diving first. Bleeding first.

Hurt first. Hurt worst. Hurt instead.

That’s where his value lives. Not in being loved, but in being needed.

You lift yourself up until you're eye to eye, cupping his face, thumbs brushing the tops of his cheeks.  

“You’re for you, Steve.” 

He blinks, brows knitting.

“You don’t have to earn it. Being loved. Being cared for. That’s not something you have to prove.”

His eyes search yours, like he’s trying to make sense of the words.

Then, slowly, his shoulders ease. He cups the back of your neck, drawing you in. His exhale against your lips sounds like a weight being untethered.

You stay like that for a while, breathing together, fingers laced at his chest.

Eventually, he sleeps.

You don’t.

You stay awake, tracing the lines of his face in the dark. The peace that sleep gives him. The stillness that never lasts.   

You watch as his brow smooths. As his lips part. As his lashes flutter once, then settle into stillness.

You stay up.  

Because someone has to. … You get used to the quiet.

Used to Steve padding around the house in socks, humming half a tune under his breath.

To the way he opens every cupboard before finding the cereal that’s been in the same spot for days.

To the way he claims half your couch, half your bed, half your toothpaste.

You get used to someone else’s heartbeat in your space.

So when the knocking starts—three sharp raps that rattle the wood—it takes you both by surprise.

Steve’s already halfway to the door when you follow, tugging your sweatshirt over your head.

You’ve barely turned the knob before the door bursts open.

“Guess who’s officially un-grounded and here to collect her idiot boy? Oh, and look—I brought backup!”

Robin barrels in first, followed by two figures: a curly-haired kid drowning in a bright yellow baseball cap, and behind him, a taller shape in black denim and leather. Eddie Munson, wearing that same smug grin you remember vaguely from high school.

You’ve heard about them, of course—Steve’s strange little apocalypse crew—but hearing about it is one thing, seeing it is another.

“He’s alive!” Robin crows, flinging her arms around Steve.

“Took you long enough,” he mutters into her shoulder.

“Uh, excuse me. Your fault,” she shoots back, jabbing a finger in his chest. “Grounded, remember?” Then she turns to you, eyes sharp with curiosity. “So? How much trouble was he?”   

You glance over at Steve. He’s already looking back, mouth tugging at the corner like he’s daring you to say something first. There’s a kaleidoscope of memory that flashes between you in the space of a blink.

You look back at Robin and shrug, casual as ever. “Not much. He folds my laundry now.”

Robin gasps. Eddie lets out a low whistle.

“Well, shit,” he drawls. “Steve Harrington, domesticated. Didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You guys are hilarious.”

But his ears are pink by the time you close the door. …

After a round of burnt grilled cheeses, the kitchen’s a mess of crumbs and chatter.

Robin perches on a stool, slurping tomato soup straight from the pot. Eddie’s straddling a chair backwards, drumming on the counter. Dustin paces, orchestrating what sounds like a full-scale military operation using a butter knife and a salt shaker. 

“—I’m saying if we shift the rendezvous point closer to the treeline, we can cut our response time in half. Minimum.”

Steve leans against the fridge, nodding like he’s catching every third word.

You’re at the sink, rinsing dishes, the voices behind you fading into a comfortable hum—until Dustin steps in beside you, tone low and careful.

“So… he’s okay to come back now, right?

You glance over your shoulder.

Steve’s got his shirt hiked up for Robin and Eddie to see, scars catching the kitchen light—pale and raised, still tender from where you pulled out the last stitch two days ago. Robin wrinkles her nose, groaning about how she's lost her appetite.

You turn back to Dustin. “I mean, no fever, no infection. Doesn’t seem to be actively dying. So yeah, I’d say he’s good.”

Dustin beams. “Awesome.”

You hesitate. Then, before you can stop yourself:

“Actually… I was thinking I could come with you guys this time.”

The room goes still.

Robin lowers her spoon. Eddie looks up. Even the sink seems to hush.

Steve’s voice breaks the quiet.

“No.”

You turn, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

“No way,” he says, pushing off the fridge, crossing the kitchen with that particular brand of determined worry you’ve come to recognize. “You’re not going.”

You blink at him like, Seriously?

He raises his brows like, Try me. 

You sigh, turning off the water. “I wouldn’t be going in. Just close enough to help. You know, in case someone ends up bleeding to death again?” You shoot him a pointed look.

He ignores it, jaw working like he’s gearing up to argue again. But Dustin cuts in.

“Wait, that’s actually kind of genius,” he mutters thoughtfully. “You could be our medic. Like—Eddie, dude, she could be like our cleric!”

You frown. “Our what now?”

“D&D thing,” Eddie smirks. “Healing spells. Keeps the rest of us idiots alive.”

You laugh softly. “Sure. Okay. Cleric.”

But Steve isn’t laughing.

“Wait, just—hang on,” he steps forward, catching your wrist. “Can I talk to you for a second?” … The hallway is narrow and dim, lit only by the slant of light spilling in from the kitchen.

You lean against the wall, arms crossed, watching him pace three slow steps before stopping, running both hands through his hair.      

He doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t speak.

You wait.

Finally, quietly: “You can’t come with us.”

You narrow your eyes. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“I mean it.” His voice is low. Firm. But it’s not angry. Not that sharp, flinty tone you remember from high school, when he used to wield confidence like armor. No, this is something else.

Fear.

You tilt your head, voice softening. “Steve…”

He exhales through his nose, more of a tremor than a breath. “You heard what it’s like down there. You saw what happened last time.”

“I did. That’s why I’ve decided to go.”

His eyes snap to yours, incredulous. “And you didn’t think to talk to me about it before?”

“Why? So you could freak out and tell me no?”

“I’m not—” He cuts himself off, jaw flexing. “I just can’t ask you to risk that. It’s not fair.”

“You’re not asking,” you say quietly. “I’m offering.” 

For a moment, neither of you moves. He stares at you like he’s searching for something—some argument, some loophole that’ll make you stay here while he walks back into hell. Like if he keep fighting back, maybe he won’t have to admit what this really is.

But when he speaks, his voice isn’t tense anymore. It just trembles.  

“I can’t—I can’t lose you in there. You get that? I can’t. I just…” His eyes flicker away, toward the shadowed doorway behind you. He swallows hard.

“...I just got you.”

The quiet stretches. You gaze at him, heart heavy.

His shoulders are tense when you reach for his hand. His fingers twitch in yours, like he’s ready to pull away—but he doesn’t. He never does.

“Steve,” you start gently. “I know you’re scared. I am too. But I can’t just sit here and wait while you...” you take a breath, squeezing his hand. “If there’s a chance I can help, I’m taking it.”   

He looks down at your joined hands, your fingers laced tight. His thumb drags slow, absent circles against your skin—once, twice, like he’s trying to memorize the feel of it. The fight drains out of him with a sigh that sounds too big for his chest.

He steps forward wordlessly, and pulls you into his arms. His chin drops to the top of your head. You press your cheek to his chest, feeling the wild rhythm of his heart start to slow.

“Fine,” he murmurs. “But you’re staying up here. Radio only. And you’re not going anywhere near the gate, you hear me?”

You smile into his shirt. “Deal.” … It’s almost 3 p.m. when he stirs.

The sunlight’s lazy this time of day, all thick and golden, caught in the slow spin of dust motes above the coffee table. The air smells like coffee and the lavender candle you lit this morning. You’re curled sideways on the couch, a book open but long forgotten on your chest.

“Jesus,” comes a voice beside you, rough with sleep. “How long was I out?”

You smile, already watching. “Couple hours.”  

He squints at the light. “You let me nap that long?”

“You needed it.”

Steve rolls up from where he was buried in the couch, a soft pillow line stamped across his cheek. His hair’s flattened on one side and sticking up in the back. You reach out and comb your fingers through the mess. It fluffs up worse for it, but he sighs and leans into your hand anyway.

He trades the throw pillow for your stomach, draping a heavy arm across your waist. You rest your palm on his shoulder, thumb tracing the ridge of his collarbone.

The house hums around you: the low buzz of the fridge, the steady tick of the clock, the soft creak of settling wood. It’s a silence that no longer feels hollow.

You let it breathe.  

It’s been three weeks.

Three weeks since you stood on the other side of a collapsing gate, heart in your throat, waiting for their silhouettes to break through the mist. 

Three weeks since the air finally stilled, the ground stopped shaking, and the last portal sealed itself shut behind Eddie, behind Robin, behind all of them.

Three weeks since you checked every pulse, cleaned every wound, counted every head, and realized, miraculously, that no one was missing.

That everyone made it out. Alive. Together.

Three weeks since Steve stumbled out of the wreckage and into your arms and didn’t let go.

The bruises have faded since then. The stitches dissolved. The nightmares are fewer now, further between.   

And Steve hasn’t left. Not once.

You're not sure when it stopped being temporary. When duffel bags became dresser drawers, when his shaving cream started living on your bathroom counter, next to the ceramic dish that holds your rings. When the dent in your couch, the dip in your pillow, stopped feeling like borrowed space and started feeling like home.

He still has his edges, the instinct to fix, to shield, to throw himself in front of the next disaster before it happens. But you’ve learned how to slow him down. To be the hand that pulls him back before he burns himself out.

And he’s learning to let you.

You’re halfway lost in that thought when he pokes your side.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “You okay?”

You hum. “Just thinking.”

“Uh oh,” he teases, voice still scratchy with sleep.

You smile, ruffling his hair. He groans and nips playfully at your stomach. When your laughter settles, you say it, quietly:

“I was just… thinking about what you said.”

He stills, blinking up at you. “Yeah? What’d I say now?”

“At the gate.”

That’s all you have to say. You both remember.

The roar, the smoke, the sting of blood and dirt. The ground giving out beneath you when he finally made it out—only to tell you he had to go back. One last time. To help the others out. To step into the jaws of a place that wanted to claim him for good.

I know! I know! Just—I need to tell you something. No, I know, just listen—

You remember the chaos closing in, the sky fractured by fire and screaming metal, and his hands—steady, impossibly steady—as he caught your face. His voice cracking on the words:

I love you. I need you to know that, okay? I love you.

You stare at the book laying on your chest, swallowing hard. “I never said it back.”

Steve looks at you for a long moment.

Then, softly: “Yeah, you did.”

“When?”

He smiles, tracing a quiet pattern along your waist.

“Not out loud. But you did.”

You think back.

To the tremor in your hands as you let his fingers slip away. The hitch in your breath when the walkie crackled with his voice. To how tightly you held on when he staggered out with the others, bruised and shaking and breathing, and realized you could finally breathe too.

Every heartbeat since has felt like a promise.

Maybe words would’ve failed then. Maybe he heard it in all the ways you refused to let go.

Your fingers find his jaw.

“Still,” you whisper. “I want to say it now.”

He tilts his head, waiting.

And you do.

Softly, firmly, the words falling easy like they’d been waiting inside you all along.

And when he says it back, you feel it in your chest long before you hear it. … The house is still too small. The front door still sticks when it rains. The couch still carries the faint stain from that first night.

But it’s home.

More than it ever was. More than it ever could’ve been without him.

The proof is everywhere: his Ray-Bans next to your keys, a battered boombox on your plant windowsill, the Polaroid Robin took where he’s smiling at you instead of the camera.

Some nights still weigh heavy on him. When even rest won’t stay kind.

But on those nights, he finds you. He always will.

And somewhere between the grocery runs and movie marathons, between loud songs in the kitchen and quiet kisses before bed, it stopped feeling like borrowed time.

It’s just time, now.

Yours.

Together. … Robin once told you that you get off on fixing people.

She meant hearts. You meant bones.

Maybe she was right.  

But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

You've named it something else now, anyway. …

epilogue

You stretch, set the book aside, and head for the kitchen.

You’ve got prep to do for night.

Steve moves in behind you, hair still rumpled, sleeves pushed to his elbows. He leans his hip against the counter, flipping through the Player’s Handbook Dustin left last week, brow furrowed like he’s cramming for a test.

“I swear,” he mutters, squinting, “you need a math degree to play this game.”

You laugh, laying a neat row of apple slices beside a bowl of pretzel sticks and M&Ms—fuel for the chaos to come. “You’ll live.”

“Not if Eddie's dragon eats me.”

“Well, maybe you should listen to your cleric tonight, then.”

He grins, stealing a slice from the tray, then slides closer until he’s flush against you. His hips trap you against the counter, chest warm against your back. He leans into the crook of your neck, lips grazing your ear.

“You know it's kinda hot when you boss me around, right?”

Before you can roll your eyes, he catches you by the hips and spins you around, grin breaking wide and easy. You love how it softens his face, how it creases the corners of his eyes.

Soon, the party will be here—arms full of sodas, dice clattering in boxes, voices overlapping in familiar chaos. The house will fill with laughter, with the easy rhythm of shared lives.

But for now, it’s just him.

Rumpled hair. Soft smile. Apple-sweet kisses and the honey-gold hush of afternoon light. And the sun keeps pouring in.   

On the comms, Hotch’s voice came in low and clipped.

“Reid, what’s your position?”

A beat of static. Then Spencer’s voice: calm, focused, a little breathless.

“Top floor of the east wing. There’s someone moving inside. I think he’s leading me in.”

Y/N froze. Her eyes met Morgan’s. Both of them knew what that meant.

Hotch’s voice again, firmer now. “Wait for backup.”

But the reply came too fast.

“I’ve got eyes. I’m going in.”

And then—

A sudden, breathless boom ripped through the forest.

The ground surged beneath her, lifting like a wave, heat slashing across her back as light erupted—blinding, orange, unnatural—splintering the sky like something holy had shattered too close to earth.

She didn’t even have time to scream.

One instant, she was reaching instinctively toward the treeline; the next, she was airborne, limbs pulled taut before the earth vanished beneath her. It felt like a cord had been cut somewhere deep inside her spine, like gravity had forgotten her name.

Then the landing.

Hard.

Her elbow took the first blow, agony flashing through her arm; her hip struck next, then her ribs, then her shoulder, her body dragged against the forest floor, a broken thing skidding through ash, until it folded to a halt. Something sharp kissed her temple and tore it open, and for a moment the world tilted, slanted sideways, blurred at the edges like waterlogged film.

A sound escaped her, not a scream or a word, but something hoarse and sharp that cracked from her throat without permission, like her body exhaled the pain all on its own.

She landed on her side, breathless, then rolled onto her stomach, slowly, weakly, her muscles shuddering with the effort. A low, broken whine slipped from her lips, quiet but ragged, a thread of breath laced in pain that barely sounded human. Her palms sank into the dirt; twigs and soot smeared against her skin. The pain was everywhere—deep, ringing, bright like static.

A warm trickle spilled down her face. She didn’t need to touch it to know. Blood. Still hot, still moving, just trickling.

The only thing she could hear was the high, piercing hum inside her own skull; everything else had been drowned out. No comforting birdsong. No sirens. Just the sharp, erratic rasp of her breathing as she fought for air that burned her lungs.

Her eyes darted across the wreckage, stinging from smoke and ash.

Morgan was a few feet away, chest rising fast and rough, his hand dragging up to cradle the side of his head. He was down, but alive. Her vision stuck to the sight of him, locked in the shape of his body.

But that relief barely settled before it turned into something colder.

Spencer.

The thought hit so suddenly it almost knocked the wind out of her all over again.

She inhaled sharply, tried to shout, but the sound caught—dry and useless—in her throat. Her hand scrambled to her belt, fumbling for her gun. The weight of it grounded her, just barely. She used her free arm to push herself upright, staggering on unsteady legs. The trees swayed, whether from the wind or her disorientation, she couldn’t tell.

She slammed her hand to her ear, fingers shaking.

“Spencer, come in,” she rasped. “Spence—can you hear me?”

Nothing.

Only the whine in her ears and the thundering of her own pulse.

The forest crackled around her, fire bleeding out of the fractured building, smoke curling into the canopy above like the remnants of something sacred and ruined. The scent of metal and char clung to her clothes, seeping into her skin.

Her eyes caught the blaze — not just the light, but the violence of it — and held it there, unflinching. The reflection flickered across her irises like a painting too bold to fade, all orange and gold and fever-bright, like something from a myth where gods died in fire and love was the last thing left burning.

In that moment, she was all color and silence, her pupils wide and wet, the fire burning not in front of her, but through her, bright and unapologetic.

And somewhere inside all of it, she was thinking of him. Of his body in the heat. Of what flame might make of someone so soft.

Y/N moved like something half-woken, limbs sluggish with shock, blood in her eyes. Her boots crunched through scorched pine needles as she limped forward, breath tearing out in sharp, uneven bursts. Smoke hung low in the trees, curling through the air like it knew something she didn’t.

Somewhere behind her, Morgan moved, slow, unsteady, one hand pressed to the side of his head, the other bracing against a fallen branch as he tried to rise. His chest was still heaving, breaths short and hard. He was muttering into his comm, voice low and cracked, not yelling—he couldn’t yell.

“Reid’s last ping… east wing… building’s compromised…”

His words dissolved into static.

From somewhere deeper in her ear, another voice filtered in: Emily, this time. Sharp, clipped.

“All units check in—has anyone heard from Reid?”

A pause.

“Spencer, if you can hear this—come in.”

And then Garcia, barely holding it together. “We’ve lost his signal… there’s nothing—nothing yet, I’m trying to reroute, but—I don’t see anything. Oh my god…”

Voices layered together, bleeding into one another, indistinct and tangled, like wires crossed behind glass. Morgan’s, Emily’s, Garcia’s—familiar sounds made strange, dulled by static and distance. Y/N heard them all but couldn’t parse them, like someone had submerged the world underwater and left her there, suspended in something too thick to swim through.

Her hand stayed clamped to the comm, knuckles white, fingertips numb.

It didn’t matter. None of it was reaching her.

Her own breath was the only thing she could hear now: too fast, too shallow, too loud. It shuddered in and out of her lungs like her body had forgotten how to breathe quietly, how to slow down. The air felt thinner here; it tasted like smoke and metal and burnt wood, like grief sharpened into something physical.

Her vision wouldn’t hold still. The edges of the trees blurred, their outlines melting into smoke that curled through the air like ghosts dragging themselves through the underbrush. Her stomach twisted. Her boots didn’t feel steady against the earth. Her chin quivered once. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

She blinked, hard, but it didn’t clear anything.

The building groaned, fire licking through the upper rafters. Her body turned toward it, drawn like a compass to something broken. Her mouth was dry. Her heart was crawling up her throat.

Her gun was in her hand now. She didn’t remember pulling it.

Spencer.

The name lived somewhere behind her ribs. Not a thought. Just a weight. Just a pressure.

Her finger hovered near the trigger. Her grip was shaking. She couldn’t stop it.

And then—

Crunch.

A branch snapped underfoot.

Sharp. Sudden. Final.

Everything reeled in. Like gravity had slammed back into place. She froze, and her head jerked toward the sound.

A soft shuffle. The sound of dirt grinding under a boot. Another breath. Her last one ragged.

Then, a cough, low and hoarse, someone trying to swallow it. Not Spencer, but someone. 

Her body moved on instinct.

She raised the gun, finger steady despite the tremor in her bones. Her body turned before her mind caught up, her eyes locked ahead.

She stepped through the trees—

And saw him.

The unsub.

He stood at the edge of the clearing, just beyond the smoke, as if the forest had birthed him from the fire. His face was streaked with soot, and the detonator still sat heavy in his hand, catching the last of the dying light. His mouth twisted up into a grin — not amused, but satisfied, smug. He didn’t look scared. He looked proud.

Her breath caught somewhere between her ribs and her throat. Her boots sank lightly into the soft, scorched dirt, her body swaying slightly from the blow it had taken minutes before.

And then, a sharp crack under her foot. Glass. The sound sliced through the smoke like a warning shot, too quick, too clean.

The unsub turned toward it. Toward her.

He tilted his head, eyeing her like a wolf would something trembling and cornered.

“You think he made it out?” he said, almost conversational. “Not a chance. Walked right into it. You should’ve heard it.”

A smile.

“Boom.”

Y/N’s teeth clenched. Her jaw locked so tight she thought it might crack. Her chest was rising and falling too fast, her lungs scraping against her ribs. Her eyes burned, not just from smoke. She could feel the wetness gathering. She blinked hard. Refused.

Behind her, Morgan emerged from the trees, weapon raised.

“We’ve got you surrounded,” he said tightly, into the open. “Don’t move. There’s no way out.”

Then, softer, closer, his voice finding her.

“Y/N. We’ve got him. You don’t have to do this.”

Her arms stayed outstretched, both hands wrapped tightly around the grip, the gun raised and aimed directly at the unsub’s chest. Her shoulders were locked, her stance firm but fraying at the edges. Her finger rested on the trigger, curled tight, unmoving. Her brows twitched, just slightly, the barest crack in her expression betraying the war happening behind her eyes, but still she didn’t move, didn’t blink. 

The unsub took a step forward.

“Go ahead,” he murmured. “Do it. What’s the point of carrying that thing if you won’t pull the trigger?”

Another smirk.

“He didn’t even see it coming, did he? I bet he screamed.”

Y/N’s body pulsed with the threat of something uncontainable.

The barrel of her gun rose and fell with each breath. Her arms were shaking, her grip unsteady, but her aim didn’t falter. Her finger tensed tighter on the trigger. Her lip quivered once. Her brows furrowed, not in anger, but in ache — in something sadder than she’d ever let herself show.

Her eyes were shining now, water gathering in the corners, heavy and hot, refusing to fall just yet. Her chin trembled. Her nose flared slightly as she breathed in through it, trying to find control. Her lips twitched, trying to form something — a curse, a sob, a sad smile — but never fully landed on any of them.

Behind her, Morgan’s voice came again, quieter this time, soft as a hand on the back of her neck.

“He wouldn’t want this,” he said, barely louder than a breath. “Let it go.”

Her eyes fluttered shut for one long moment. Her lips pressed together, but they couldn’t hold. The shape of them folded downward, trembling into that soft, helpless curve that only grief can make — the kind of expression that forms when someone is trying not to cry and failing quietly. It was a mouth made not for speech, but for silence and sorrow.

Her chest moved with a shallow inhale. Another. And then a single tear slipped free, trailing down the curve of her cheek.

Her breath caught. She exhaled, low, cracked, empty.

And, like it cost her something deep and invisible, she lowered the gun.

Her fingers unclenched.

She holstered it, careful and quiet, like a ritual she didn’t want to remember.

Then she turned away quickly — not in strength, not in triumph, but in something quieter. Something that lived at the edge of heartbreak.

It hurt to do it. You could see it in her walk, in the angle of her jaw, in the way her composure folded into itself as she stepped away.

But she walked anyway, because she still could.

Her steps were uneven, stumbling through the uneven earth, her boots sinking slightly into the forest floor, into ash and pine and blood. Her spine was rigid, her body taut like a bowstring about to snap, not from tension now, but from restraint. Her head was bowed low, as if the weight of what she hadn’t done was heavier than a bullet.

Behind her, the unsub’s voice chased after her like a sickness.

“That’s what I thought,” he spat. “You don’t have the guts. None of you do. Cowards! All of you—cowards!”

The trees caught the sound and echoed it back in a cruel loop, throwing his words in every direction. But she didn’t flinch. She didn’t look back.

“You hear me?! He’s dead! And you just let me walk—!”

The crash of boots behind her, a thud — agents swarming, voices shouting over one another. The unsub snarled, a desperate sound, before the snap of bodies hitting dirt cut him off.

“Get down—!”

“He’s got something in his—!”

A brief struggle. Then silence again, sharp and echoing. Only the sound of cuffs locking into place and the unsub still laughing, quieter now, but still cruel.

Y/N didn’t turn.

Morgan caught up to her in four long strides, his hand reaching out and catching her by the upper arm. She didn’t fight it, only she couldn’t if she tried. Her knees were giving, her steps faltering like her body was too heavy to hold itself upright anymore. Her breathing came in sharp, gasping pulls, not from running, but from everything she was still trying to contain.

She let out a sob, quiet and raw, and swallowed it down before it could fully escape. The sound lodged in her throat like it didn’t want to leave her. Her head dipped forward slightly, and she let Morgan guide her, let him walk her away like something wounded.

“Hey,” Morgan said softly, voice lowered like a secret. “You did good.”

Y/N’s lip trembled. She shut her eyes.

“Come on,” he said. “We got you.”

Her head dipped in a nod so small it barely moved. But it was enough.

She let him walk her, one arm curled around her back, keeping her upright. Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was parted just slightly, as if she was too exhausted to hold it shut.

Behind them, the unsub screamed again: a rage-filled, hollow sound.

“You’re weak! You’re all weak!”

Y/N didn’t hear it anymore. She wasn’t listening.

She was walking away from him. Her grief was a coat she couldn’t take off.

The forest was no longer silent.

Red and blue strobes painted the trees like a warning, and the air buzzed with distant radios, the hiss of oxygen tanks, and the crunch of boots over broken earth. The building still smoldered like a haunted thing, black smoke curling out of its gut and spiraling up into the bruised sky.

Y/N leaned against the BAU SUV like she didn’t know how to stand on her own anymore. One leg bent slightly, shoulder pressed to the passenger door, eyes vacant and unblinking. The blood on her temple had dried into a thin, rust-colored trail. Soot clung to her eyelashes. Her hands, still trembling, were clenched around the edge of her jacket like they might float away if she didn’t anchor them.

She wasn’t speaking.

She hadn’t spoken since she’d turned away from the unsub. Not when the others arrived. Not when Hotch debriefed. Not when Emily gave her that look: all silent worry, too much softness to bear.

Morgan stood beside her, one arm crossed over his chest, the other loose at his side, close enough to catch her if her legs gave out again. He was watching her like she might disappear.

After a while, he spoke, his voice low.

“You did the right thing.”

She didn’t answer.

He shifted slightly, leaning a little closer.

“You know he’d be proud of you.”

Y/N blinked slowly, her throat tightening. She swallowed once, but still said nothing. Her jaw was locked. She kept staring at the wreckage, as if looking hard enough might change the ending.

Morgan’s gaze followed hers.

“We’re gonna find him,” he added. “We always do.”

Her eyes were glassed over again, rimmed red, lashes clumped with soot and blood. When she spoke, her voice barely came out at all, like it had been trapped behind her teeth for too long.

“Don’t say those things to me,” she whispered. “Not unless they’re real.”

Morgan turned his head to look at her fully. He exhaled hard through his nose, the breath sharp and tired, like it had been building for miles. Then he tipped his head back, laid it against the car, and stared up at the dark sky above them. His brows pinched, his throat worked once.

“You know,” he murmured, almost to himself, “I’ve never seen you lose it. Not once.”

Y/N’s lips parted. Her jaw shifted, clenched tight. She wasn’t fully facing him, just turned enough that her eyes were locked on his face, her voice still broken when it came.

“Yeah, well,” she said, hollow and quiet, “I might.”

They stayed like that, not speaking, not breathing too deeply, not trusting the air. Just two people on the edge of something unbearable, trying to hold it together.

And then—

The radio crackled.

“Oh my god—”

The SUV’s open window. Garcia.

“Oh my god, he’s—They found him. He’s—He’s okay. I repeat—Reid is okay. They’re bringing him out now—he’s alive—he’s alive—”

Both Y/N and Morgan whipped their heads toward the SUV.

Her heart lurched. Her body moved before her breath did. Her mouth parted, eyes wide. Everything around her slowed — not in a surreal way, but in a cell-deep one, like her pulse was moving through molasses and her mind couldn’t quite catch up. Her breath echoed in her ears, louder than Garcia’s voice, louder than the crackling static. It was all she could hear.

Morgan lunged forward, grabbing the edge of the open window, voice punching out of his chest.

“Garcia, we hear you—where is he? Talk to me.”

He was already pulling the radio closer, leaning in, but Y/N wasn’t listening anymore.

She had taken a step back, unsteady, her boots dragging in the dirt. Her hand was still half-raised toward the car, fingers twitching slightly, and her whole body swayed with the weight of something breaking loose. Her lips were parted. Her eyes were scanning the chaos in front of her, lights and medics and wreckage and smoke, like she was looking for the end of a dream.

Her brow wasn’t furrowed anymore; it was focused. Sharp. Like everything in her had snapped into one direction.

And then—she saw him, and it felt like she could breath again.

Two paramedics, moving from the haze of the still-smoking building. One supporting the weight of a tall, dust-covered man, arm slung over their shoulder, hair flattened with ash, clothes torn and dark with soot.

She blinked once. Hard. Her lungs locked, then opened.

“He’s—” her voice caught. “He’s right there.”

Morgan turned toward the direction she was staring, following her gaze.

But she was already gone.

Her body launched forward like her soul had jumped first and her limbs scrambled to follow. She stumbled, one foot catching on the edge of a branch, almost falling, catching herself on instinct alone.

She didn’t stop.

She ran.

Her lungs burned. Her legs barely moved fast enough to keep up with the rush of blood in her veins. Everything was heat and noise and the rhythmic pounding of her boots against the earth. Her breath tore out in gasps, wild and uneven.

She didn’t care.

She just ran.

The lights blurred past her again, red and gold flashing across her skin, shadows skipping over her as she cut through the forest floor. Every step was desperate and real and alive.

He was alive.

Morgan shouted behind her, but she didn’t hear. He followed, but she was already ahead, already too fast.

She reached the ambulance just as they were helping Spencer up the steps.

“Spencer!” she choked, grabbing his arm before the medic could lift him. “Oh my god—Spencer—”

He turned, sluggish, confused—

“Y/N…?”

She didn’t wait.

She surged forward and cupped his face in both hands, her fingers dirty and trembling, palms pressing to the hollows of his cheeks like she didn’t believe he was real.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?” she panted. “Oh my god—I thought you were—”

Her voice broke. Her face was cracking open. She looked like she’d forgotten how to breathe again. Her forehead dropped to his chest.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

Spencer’s hand slid up, shaky but certain, to press over hers.

“I’m okay,” he whispered. “I’m okay. I’m here.”

She let out a sound this time, a sob, raw and jagged, pulled straight from her ribs like something ripped open.

And then Morgan was there too, catching up beside them, voice low.

“It’s okay, baby,” he murmured, touching her arm. “Let them work on him now.”

She didn’t protest. She didn’t speak.

She nodded once, barely, and let Morgan guide her back a few steps. But she didn’t move far. Her hands caught at his sleeves, gripping tightly, grounding herself. Her body leaned into Morgan’s, seeking the support she couldn’t give herself. Her breath stuttered again: a soft, aching sound that escaped before she could stop it.

She didn’t make a sound at first. Her jaw was clenched tight, shoulders trembling, the effort of holding it in visible in every part of her. Her breath came in shallow gasps, shaky and uneven, her chest rising too fast.

And the tears started falling, slipping down her cheeks like she hadn’t noticed them, like they were happening without her permission.

Morgan kept an arm around her, steady as ever, his other hand covering hers where she still clutched his jacket.

They both stood there, still and braced, watching as the paramedics lifted Spencer onto the ambulance seat and began cleaning the blood from his hairline. Spencer glanced toward her once through the crowd, and their eyes met.

He didn’t smile.

He just watched her like he’d never seen anything more real.

And she didn’t look away.

Later, the forest was still. Not silent, but softer — the kind of quiet that comes after too much noise.

The building had stopped burning. The ambulances hummed. The radios had gone from frantic to background static. Night had finally taken hold of the sky, drawing everything beneath a soft navy veil, stitched with stars and the lingering smear of smoke.

The paramedics had finally stepped back.

Spencer sat on the open edge of the ambulance rig, feet planted in the dirt, his hands slack between his knees. A clean white bandage wrapped above his brow where the skin had split, and fresh stitches lined the side of his temple, red and angry against pale skin. His shirt was torn near the shoulder, dried blood visible through the gauze that now wrapped it. There was a splint around his wrist, a strip of bruising just beginning to show beneath it.

But he was breathing. Upright. Alive.

He blinked into the air in front of him, dazed, trying to catch his bearings in the chaos that was finally beginning to quiet.

And then he saw her.

She was still dust-streaked and bloodied, jacket open, hands balled into fists at her sides. Her cut hadn’t been treated, the dried trail still dark along her temple, skin raw. But her eyes, when they landed on him, went wide and bright and full of something that hit him in the chest.

Spencer straightened slightly, and without even thinking, said:

“You’re here.”

That was all it took.

It was like the wind was knocked out of her a second time. Her shoulders dropped, and her mouth parted, but she didn’t speak. She moved.

She was rushing forward before her body knew what to do with the motion, feet kicking up the soft dust around the tires of the rig, heart stammering wildly behind her ribs.

By the time she reached him, her hands were already reaching, one sliding behind his head as she pulled him into a hug so tight it made him wince — not from pain, but from the sheer need in it. Her arms wrapped around him fully, one hand bracing the back of his neck, fingers threading through the ends of his hair as if anchoring him there. Her other hand gripped his shirt at the back, twisting into the fabric.

Her breath hitched, once, then again, and he could hear the way she was trying not to cry. Not completely. Not yet. Her lips were trembling against the curve of his shoulder, breath coming in soft stuttering pulls.

He didn’t say anything. He just held her. His arms, sore as they were, moved around her waist, steady and firm.

She pulled back slightly, not far, but just enough to breathe. Her hands cupped his face, palms warm and dirty against his skin, thumbs brushing just under his eyes. She leaned forward then, rested her forehead to his, and closed her eyes for the first time in what felt like hours.

The contact felt holy.

Her breath broke again, and this time it came out on a whisper.

“Spencer.”

The way she said his name — like she’d waited her whole life just to be able to say it again — made his eyes sting.

He opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes flicked up, catching on the smear of red still trailing from her temple.

“Your cut,” he said, his brows pulling tight. “It’s still bleeding.”

His hands lifted carefully, and hers fell away, cupping her face in both palms like he was afraid she might pull away, or worse, fall apart completely. His thumbs brushed along her cheekbones, and then higher, smoothing her hair back gently, his fingers ghosting around the edges of the wound. He traced the skin there with featherlight worry, eyes searching hers like he needed proof that she was really standing in front of him.

He was still studying it, still frowning, lips parting like he was going to ask for a medic, or insist, or say something else she couldn’t bear to hear.

“It looks bad,” he said quietly, the words full of worry. “You should—”

“It doesn’t hurt,” she cut in gently, shaking her head just enough for his hands to move with her. Her voice was soft, not dismissive, but full of something warmer. Older. Graver. Like she’d already made peace with what mattered and what didn’t.

Her eyes opened again, glinting with tears and ash and something almost like awe. Her fingers reached up, then, too, again like she couldn’t stop moving from the nerves, brushing his hair back from his forehead, careful to avoid the edge of the bandage. She looked at him like he was something precious she had nearly lost; her gaze flickering from his eyes to his nose to his cheek to his mouth, over and over, like she couldn’t decide where to land. Her lips parted again, voice still hoarse with everything she hadn’t cried out, a faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, tremulous but real.

“I wanted to wait,” she whispered. “I wanted to wait until you were okay.”

And in that moment, with the smoke still curling behind them, with the world only half right again, that was all that mattered.

Spencer leaned back slightly, just enough to look at her clearly. His hands moved away, gentle but sure, and wrapped around her wrists. He held them like he was afraid they’d disappear, his thumbs brushing slowly across the skin there — gritty, trembling, still cold.

“I’m okay,” he said, low and steady. “So let’s get you checked out, okay?”

Y/N let out a soft, unsteady breath, the kind that hitched halfway up her chest. She nodded once, small and slow. Her mouth twitched again, not quite into a full smile, but close, like it hurt a little less now to try.

And before she could even think, before hesitation had the chance to catch her, she leaned forward and kissed him.

Just the corner of his mouth — soft and grateful and breathless — like something she’d wanted to do for years but only now realized she could.

Spencer’s eyes widened slightly, and he blinked like she’d pulled the air out of his lungs. His mouth parted, but nothing came out. His hands were still around her wrists, thumbs still brushing.

“That’s what you and I do, right?” she whispered, voice fragile but steady. “Keep each other alive.”

Her eyes flicked over his face again, as if memorizing every line now that she could, her fingers brushing gently against his jaw.

“And you always hold my hand through stitches,” she added, quieter now. “So don’t start slacking.”

Spencer huffed a tiny breath of laughter, dazed and full of everything he didn’t know how to name yet. His eyes stayed on her like he was afraid she might vanish.

“Yeah,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Always.”

Y/N let out a quiet exhale, her forehead dropped to his again, but only for a second before she pressed her nose into the side of his face, the curve of his cheek. She leaned into him, finally letting her weight settle between his legs where he was perched on the edge of the rig, her arms curling loosely around his sides. Not tight. Just there. Present.

And he let her stay.

His hands slid from her wrists to her back, one resting just below her shoulder blade, the other finding the place between her spine and the base of her ribs. Holding her gently. Steadying her.

They stayed like that for a long moment, unmoving. Around them, the forest shifted — the light dimming to something quiet, emergency lights softening, boots crunching faintly in the background.

But here, in the stillness between breath and pain and after, she had him.

And he had her.

He's not knocking. Just standing there, unmoving. Like he didn’t trust his body to hold out long enough for you to answer.

You blink once. Twice.

Then the world slams into motion.

“Jesus Christ—Clark—”

You don’t remember crossing the threshold, or grabbing his arm, or how you manage to haul all 6’4” of him inside without both of you collapsing. One moment you're staring through the peephole; the next, your hands are buried in his shirt, sodden and sticky, his weight folding into yours like he’s finally allowed himself to fall.   

The door thuds shut. Your hands come away slick and warm.

Red. So much red.

Clark braces against the wall, a shaky breath dragging through his lungs like it hurts to keep air inside him. His palm smears crimson along the paint as he sways, barely holding himself up.

And then you see it.

The wound.

A jagged, vicious thing slicing through his side, just under his ribs. Too clean to be accidental, too deep to be survivable. The kind of injury you’ve only ever seen in trauma drills or crime scene photos.

Never in real life. Never on him.

“I’m okay,” Clark gasps.

And it’s almost laughable, the way he says it—like he thinks you might believe him.

He’s pale. Not tired-pale, not his usual I forgot to sleep for three days pale—but death-pale. The gray-lipped, hypovolemic kind of pale. Sweat clings to his forehead in cold beads, his eyes unfocused and blown wide.

Your brain kicks into triage mode before you realize it:

ABCs. Always the ABCs. Airway. Breathing. Circulation.

Airway? Still intact. Gurgling now. Risk of aspiration if he loses consciousness.

Breathing? Shallow. Rapid. Could be pain. More likely he's compensating for blood loss, trying to oxygenate what little volume he has left.

Circulation? Jesus Christ. You don’t even need to take his vitals. You can see it. Pale skin, gray lips, and the blood—god, the blood is everywhere. Soaked into your floor, smeared across the wall, dripping from your hands.

He's bleeding out, and he's still conscious, which means adrenaline’s masking how bad it is. That won’t last.

You drop to your knees before you realize you’ve moved, hands pressing into his side, searching for depth, exit points, foreign objects. Old reflexes flare up like muscle memory, taking the wheel while your mind struggles to catch up.  

Your palm finds his chest. It’s heaving unevenly, his heart rate fast and shallow.

Tachycardic. Hypovolemic shock setting in.

“Clark, hey—hey, stay with me.” You cup his jaw, tilting his face toward the kitchen light. “What the hell happened to you?”

No answer.

His eyes crack open just enough to find you—glazed and unfocused, but there’s recognition there. Relief, maybe. Or just the exhaustion of someone who’s finally stopped running.

You don't let yourself think about it. Not yet.

Because there’s blood fucking everywhere and it’s not stopping.

It’s soaked into his pants, leaking through what remains of his shirt, dripping in slow rivulets onto your floor—bright and thick and horrifying.

You press harder into the wound, more red welling around your fingers and trailing down your wrist. You start calculating the volume lost.

Easily 1500 mL, probably more. Class III hemorrhagic shock.

You know what comes next: Hypotension. Organ failure. Unconsciousness. Death.

Shit. Shit.  

You’re trying to stay in protocol. Trying to remember the checklist:

Maintain airway. Control hemorrhage. High-flow O2. Rapid transport.

Except—

There’s no ambulance. No trauma center two blocks away.

Just your couch, a half-stocked med kit, and a man you haven’t seen in years bleeding out under your hands.

You need IV access. Two large bore 18-gauges. You need warm saline, blood transfusions, a surgeon—a fucking miracle.

But all you have in your tiny one-bedroom is some gauze and a suture kit you haven’t touched in over a decade.

You should call 911. You should already be halfway to the ER.

But Clark came to you. Not the hospital. You.

And that has to mean something.

So you push down the rising panic. Triage the rest later. Because right now, there’s only one priority:

Stop the bleeding. Keep him awake. Don’t let him die.

“Okay,” Your voice trembles. You try to force it steady. “We’re doing this. Come on, big guy.”

Clark moves like he’s underwater, each step heavy and disconnected. You guide him toward the couch. He nearly crumples onto it before you catch him, arms locked around his waist to help ease him down. He sags into the cushions, head tipping back—and for one awful second, you think he’s about to pass out.

You tap his cheek harder than maybe necessary.

“Clark. Don’t you dare.”

 “M’here…” he slurs, lashes fluttering.

You exhale shakily. “Good. Okay. Just—stay awake. I’m grabbing the med kit.”

“Not going anywhere,” he mumbles.

And for once, you pray that it’s true.

...

The bathroom is a blur. Cabinets slamming, drawers flying. You grab the med kit, clean towels, and your old suture kit. You run the water scalding, scrubbing your hands until they sting.

All the while, your brain won’t stop screaming.

Because here’s the thing:

You know Clark.

You’ve known him since you were nineteen. 

Back when you thought pre-med was your calling and he was a wide-eyed journalism major with a bleeding heart and shoulders too broad for lecture hall chairs. You crammed for finals together. Split greasy pizzas on the dorm floor. You watched him ace ethics presentations and sulk over rejection letters. People loved him effortlessly—your friends, your professors. Even your mom asked about him for years after graduation.

You know how he takes his coffee. How he fidgets when he’s nervous. The exact brand of shampoo he forgets to replace until you text him twice.

You know how he cares—quietly, ferociously, without asking for anything in return.

But this?

This bleeding, broken version of him, half-collapsed on your couch?

This you don’t know.

...

You rush back over to the couch, dropping to your knees and slicing through his shirt with kitchen shears. The fabric parts with a wet crunch, revealing torn, angry flesh. He winces.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

“For what?” Your voice cracks. “For dying on my couch?”

He tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite get there. “You’re mad.”

“You’re damn right I’m mad, Kent.” Your hands shake as you rip open the gauze. “Who did this?”

He grunts as you press down on the wound but says nothing.

You glance up sharply.

His jaw’s set, and he's refusing to meet your eyes. Not evasive—calculating.

He’s deciding how much of the truth you can handle.

“Clark—”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Really?” You gesture to your blood-streaked floor, his ruined shirt, the 6 inch laceration in his abdomen. “Because this is kind of screaming ‘stabbed by a mob informant.’”

He exhales, slow. Rainwater drips from his curls onto his brow. “I wasn’t stabbed.”

You pause, blinking.

“…Okay. Just for kicks, then. What was it?”

A beat. Then, carefully:

“Metal beam.”

You blink. “Like… it fell on you?”

“No.” A longer pause. “Someone hit me with it.”

You look down at the gash, blood still seeping between your fingers.

“And you’re alive because…?”

He meets your eyes, giving you a crooked, exhausted smile. “I got lucky.”

Bullshit.

But before you can call him on it, his hand finds yours.

You hadn’t even noticed they were trembling until he covered them—solid, warm, too steady for someone who should be unconscious by now.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “I’m okay. Really.”

You stare back.

And something inside you splinters.

Because you’ve seen Clark tired. Bruised. You’ve seen him limp into your dorm room with some excuse about a ‘bike accident’ and you never pushed—because friendship is built on trust, and denial was easier.

But this?

This is not a bike accident.

This is not something you can explain away.

This is blood. This is secrets. This is something ancient and unbearable he’s been carrying on his own for far too long.

And tonight, for some reason, he brought it here.

To you.

Something inside your chest flares, unmoored and furious.

You press the gauze harder. He flinches, but doesn’t make a sound.

Apply firm pressure. Do not remove once placed. Stay present. Communicate.

“You’re not okay,” you mutter. “You need stitches. Or staples. Something. This is beyond triage, Clark—how are you still conscious?”

“I’ll be fine.” He says again, voice thin and fraying.

“No, you won’t. You’re bleeding out and I—” You choke off as another surge of blood rushes down your wrist. “I can’t fix this. Not—not here. Not on my damn couch.”

He winces, stirring. “Sorry about your couch.”

“Shut up about the—” you bite it back, heat stinging behind your eyes. “God, Clark, I—”

You falter.

Stay calm. Reassure. Act.

“We need to get you to the ER,” you say. “I can’t do this alone.”

He just nods, blinking slow. “I know.” 

“Then why?” You whisper. “Why come here?”

There’s a pause. Then, barely audible:

“I just needed somewhere safe.”

Your chest goes still.

Not help. Not a hospital.

Safe.

You reach for him with your free hand, fingers curling tight around his.

“You’re safe here,” you say fiercely. “Okay? Whoever did this—whatever this is—you’re safe.”

His eyes lift to yours. And in that look is everything he can’t say.

Pain, exhaustion, relief. And something dangerously close to longing.

He nods.  

You nod back.

A wordless agreement, forged in blood and history.

...

Eventually, the bleeding slows. The air stinks of copper and antiseptic and rain. You clean and stitch the wound through clenched teeth, working out of sheer muscle memory. He doesn’t flinch—just watches you like the pain doesn’t matter anymore.

When it’s done, you bandage it carefully, refusing to let go. Holding together the one part of him you can fix.

He’s fever-warm, but breathing. Still him beneath the wreckage—impossibly, stubbornly alive.

He sags back against the cushions, lashes low.

You sit on your heels, palms stained red.

“Clark.”

His eyes crack open. There’s color in his face now. Barely, but enough to make you breathe again.

Relief lands sharp behind your ribs, heavy and nauseating.

You swallow.

“Clark. I need the truth.”

A long silence.

“It’s not just journalism. What I do.”

“Yeah,” you murmur. “I figured.”

“I try to keep people safe.”

“Is that why someone hit you with a metal beam?”

He smiles, tired. “Something like that.”

You stare at him—at the too-familiar face you’ve known for a decade—then breathe out the thing you’ve only ever whispered in your head:

“Superman.”

It’s not a question.

He blinks. “Sorry?”

You gesture at him. All of him. The height. The shoulders. The rain-slick curls. The way his hands don’t tremble, even with the amount of blood he’s lost in the past hour.

“Clark. I’m a public defender. I know when someone’s lying to me. You think I haven’t put it together?”

He’s quiet for a long moment.

“And?”

“And what?”

“You’re not gonna yell? Throw something?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

He laughs, soft and a little broken.

“I didn’t want you to know,” he says, voice quiet.  

“Yeah. Figured that too.”

“Not because I don’t trust you.” He frowns, stirring. “Just… it makes things different.”

You look at him—bloodied and battered and still so painfully Clark. Still full of that stubborn decency, that quiet conviction. The same gentle hands that used to pass you napkins during takeout nights, now stained with his own blood.  

And no one should have to bear that.

Not the man who used to bring you tea when you were sick. Who gave your mom flowers at graduation. Who vanished for years and came back like no time had passed, always full of apologies.

Not the man who bleeds on your couch and still says sorry.

“It doesn’t make things different,” you say, soft but sure. “Not in the way you think.”

He blinks. “It doesn’t?”

You shake your head. Then you reach up, thumb brushing just under the dried blood along his cheekbone, and admit something else you’ve been swallowing back for the last decade.

“I’ve always kind of known.”

The air shifts. He stills.  

“You have?”

“Yeah, you idiot.” Your smile is soft, aching. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

He exhales, and it sounds like a breath he’s been holding in for years.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Your throat tightens. Your hand drops to your lap, fingers sticky with the slow-drying proof of whatever’s just cracked open between you. The rug bites into your knees, still damp from rain and blood.

“…because you were trying so hard not to let me see.”

Clark doesn't say anything for a long time.

He just sits there, chest rising and falling in short, uneven breaths, gauze seeping red at his side. Outside, thunder rolls low and distant; the worst of the storm has passed. You're not sure about this one.

After a long while, he breaks the silence.

“…I never wanted to lie to you.”

You glance up, watching guilt soften the pained lines of his face.   

“I figured it out a long time ago,” you say eventually. “Bits and pieces. You’d disappear for hours, come back limping. Say you tripped on the stairs. You saved me from that drunk driver once without even blinking.”

He looks down, jaw tight.

“I didn’t say anything,” you go on, quieter now, “because I figured… maybe you needed me to pretend. So I did. Because that’s what friends do.”

Rain taps softly against the windows. The city beyond is blurred by fogged glass and streetlight halos.

“You should’ve asked.”

“You should’ve told me.”

Touché.

The silence that follows is heavier than anything you’d said aloud. Thick with all the truths that never made it past your teeth.

Clark shifts, the couch creaking under his weight.

“I was scared.”

You arch a brow. “Of me?”

“Of what it would mean. Of what I’d become to you after that.”

You don’t answer right away. Instead, you stand quietly and disappear into the kitchen. When you return, it’s with a clean towel and a glass of water. You kneel beside him, offering it wordlessly.

His hand trembles when he takes it.

“You’ve always been you, Clark,” you say gently. “Even before I knew. That doesn’t change just because you can fly.”

He huffs a tired smile, voice ragged. “You’re taking this better than I expected.”

“Oh, I’m freaking out internally,” you say, dabbing his forehead, being careful around the bruises. “But there’s triage, then there’s emotional processing. We’re going in order.”

He chuckles into the glass. The sound is quiet and rough, but it’s something.

“You scared the shit out of me,” you murmur, softer now. “You know that?”

“I know.”

“You don’t get to show up bleeding to death and not explain.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just…” His voice falters. “I wanted to be somewhere familiar. Safe.”

Your hand stills over his brow.  

That word again.

Safe.

Your palm finds his chest, just above the bandage. His heart stutters beneath your fingers—too fast, too hard. His body is still in panic mode, compensating for all that it’s lost.

But still alive. Still trying.

“You’re safe here,” you say fiercely. “Even if I want to strangle you a little for scaring me like that.”

He smiles, weary. “Noted.”

…

You ease him out of the torn remnants of his clothes and into the old Met U sweatshirt he left at your place forever ago. It was during a movie night he never came back to finish. Now you know why.

You pull a blanket over him, then clean the floor in silence while he dozes—head tipped, breathing just steady enough to keep your panic at bay.

You don’t sleep.

You sit in the armchair across from him, legs folded, eyes on his chest to make sure it keeps rising.

You think about college. About Clark at twenty-one—too kind, too tall, always carrying someone else’s books.

You think about his laugh, how it used to fill rooms. How he’d show up at your door with takeout and an armful of old DVDs he swore you had to watch together.

You think about that day in the coffee shop, how he blushed to the tips of his ears when the barista gave him her number, then spilled his drink all over his favorite flannel shirt.

You think about all the nights you almost said something. All the mornings you convinced yourself not to.

You think about the distance that grew after graduation. How he moved away. How you buried yourself in law school. The texts that slowed. The calls that stopped. The almosts that never quite were.

You think about how he nearly bled out on your floor tonight.

You think about the word safe.

…

It’s almost dawn when your eyes snap open.

Still bleary, you blink through the pale blue light filtering through the curtains and find Clark—resting on the couch as you left him, but sitting more upright now. Skin a healthier shade, pulse visible in his throat. His chest rises and falls evenly.

He’s awake. Watching you. You can tell he’s been watching for a while.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

You blink hard, rubbing your eyes. You stir underneath a blanket you don’t remember falling asleep with. “For what?”

“For the lies. The disappearing. For showing up like this.” His voice is hoarse, words coming quick like they’ve been coiled on his tongue, waiting for you. 

You let out a slow breath. “Clark… I’d rather see you bleeding and alive than not see you at all.”

His mouth quirks, faint and tired. “You’ve changed.”

“So have you. Less flannel, more… cape.”

He snorts. “Still have the flannel.” 

“Of course you do.”

He glances down, throat working around a swallow. His hand twitches in his lap.

You move before you can overthink it. You cross the room, sink beside him on the couch, and slide your hand into his.

He clutches yours back immediately.

Then, softly, he leans in, temple resting against your shoulder, weight sinking into your side.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

You squeeze his hand.

“I know.”

…

You don’t know how long you stay like that—curled together, the room filled only with quiet breathing and the sound of rain tapering to a steady drip outside. The sky begins to soften with early, golden light, enough to breathe color back into the room.

His eyes are closed now, but you can tell he’s awake by the way his thumb traces idle circles along your wrist.

Eventually, you shift, careful not to jostle him.

“I need to check your stitches,” you murmur.

He lets out a small groan, but lifts his arms enough for you to ease the sweatshirt up.

You brace yourself.

You remember how bad it was—the torn muscle, the gaping wound, the blood loss.  

But when you peel back the dressing—  

“…what the hell.”

The wound’s nearly gone.

Not scabbed. Not bruised. Just… gone.

New skin. Pale pink and clean, like something that comes after months of healing, not hours.

Your fingers hover, barely touching. “Clark, this was… a trauma wound like, five hours ago. This isn’t possible.”

Clark watches you, mouth curving into something soft, almost guilty.

“Told you I’d be fine.”

“Fine?” you echo, stunned. “Clark, you bled like a horror movie. I thought you were going to die.” 

He shrugs faintly. “Just needed some time.”

You stare at him. At the place the wound used to be. At the man you’ve known half your life and are still just beginning to understand.

And the very last piece of the puzzle, the one you’ve been holding at arm’s length, slides into place.

Not just strong. Not just fast.  

Something else. Something more.

Something not entirely human.  

You exhale slowly, trying to level your breathing. “You heal fast.”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Like, biologically impossible levels of fast.”

Another nod.

You sit back, arms folded, trying to make space in your brain for this new version of him. The one that was always there, just beneath the surface.

 “I spent hours stitching you back together.”

“And you were incredible,” he says quietly.

You shoot him a look. “Are you trying to distract me with flattery?” 

“Is it working?”

“Not even a little.”

You both laugh—exhausted, frayed, but real.  

And then, out of nowhere:

“…I think I just needed an excuse.”

You glance over. “What?”

Clark’s gaze drops to his hands. Big and steady, knuckles scabbed. The same hands you’ve seen lift impossible things. Save impossible lives.

“I kept wondering what it would take. To come back. No lies, no pretending. Just... me.” His voice breaks a little. “But then I got hurt, and I didn’t need a reason anymore. I could just… show up.”

You stare at him, every breath a struggle against the pressure building in your chest.

“So what you’re saying,” you murmur, “is you nearly bled out on my couch because you missed me?”

He winces. “Not exactly on purpose?”

You smile, small and tired. Lungs aching with something that feels like hope and heartbreak all at once.

“I just didn’t know if I’d be welcome,” he shrugs quietly. “After the way I left.”

You quietly shift closer, your knee brushing his.

“Clark. You’re always welcome here.”

The silence that follows is full.

Charged with everything unsaid: the years that slipped away, the calls that went unanswered, the truths you both kept buried under long nights and missed chances.

His eyes meet yours, searching.

Then, his eyes drift down to your lips—soft, uncertain. There’s a question there, hanging in the silence, unspoken but unmistakable. Like he’s asking for permission. Or maybe forgiveness.

You’re the one to close the distance first.

He meets you halfway, tilting in with quiet care, and when his lips find yours, it’s with an aching kind of tenderness.  

It’s a delicate, almost sacred kiss—like a truce, like something long overdue. His hand cradles your face, thumb tracing delicate circles against your skin.

When he pulls back, he’s a little breathless. Eyes wide, voice quiet.

“Wow.”  

You blink. “Wow? That’s what you’re going with?” 

A laugh breaks from him—open and full, like it hasn’t had room to breathe in years. It floods the space between you, easing the tightness in your chest.

“What else am I supposed to say?” He grins, flushed. “I’ve been waiting, like… thirteen years.”

You freeze. “Wait. What?”

His grin softens. He leans back slightly, enough to really look at you.

“Freshman year. Since that time you did CPR on a squirrel. Then you yelled at the guy who was chasing it.”

Your jaw drops. “You remember that?”

He gives you a quiet look, like how could I not?

“I remember everything about you,” he says simply. “Even when I was trying not to.”

You can’t breathe for a second. There’s too much here—too many memories, too many years, too many finallys.

“Then why didn’t you ever—”

“Because I thought it’d make things harder,” he interrupts gently. “Because I didn’t think I could protect you if you got too close. And I didn’t know how to be this—” he gestures at himself, wry and helpless, “—and still be the guy you thought I was when we met.”

You swallow hard, voice trembling.

“I always saw you, Clark.”    

He nods, thumb brushing softly along your knuckles. “I know.”

Outside, dawn stretches long across the city. Golden light spills in, soft and syrup-thick, catching on everything it touches. 

It lands on his cheek, bright against the dried blood, illuminating the edge of his jaw in a soft halo.

At first, you think it’s just the sunrise.

But then it lingers.

Not just light. Something else.

Something more.

“You’re… you know you’re kind of glowing.”

His brow lifts, lips twitching. “Gee, thanks.”

“No, seriously—" You squint, leaning back a little. “You’re actually—”

But he just smiles.

“It’s the sun,” he murmurs, blinking slowly. “Helps me heal.”

And then he tips his head back, angling toward the light like a sunflower. His lashes catch the warmth. His whole frame softens.

You go quiet.

Because of course it does.

And now that you’re thinking about it, you realize this isn’t new, either.

You’ve seen this before. Not the literal glow, maybe, but the feeling of it. That quiet radiance he carried when he thought no one was watching.

There’s a memory, years old now, of a spring afternoon on the quad. A memory of a blanket, half-eaten sandwiches, and aimless debates about Kierkegaard and pizza toppings. He’d fallen asleep mid-sentence, sunlight in his hair, freckles just visible across his nose.

You’d watched him for a long time that day, trying to figure out what it was that made your chest ache when you looked at him. 

He seemed... golden. Like something built from warmth and gravity.

And there were other moments, too. The way he lingered in open doorways when the light hit just right. How his moods always seemed to lift in the sun. How his dorm window was always cracked open, even during the winter, pale light spilling across his desk while he read you his latest submissions for the student journal.

You’ve always known, in some buried, wordless way, that he’s tethered to the light. That he’s made of something just a little more golden than the rest of the world.

But you never thought to question it. You just thought it was him. Just Clark.

Your heart beats a little harder.

“So you’re like… solar-powered?”

He cracks one eye open, shooting you a grin. “Well, technically, solar radiation metabolized at a cellular level, but—yeah. Solar-powered.”

You huff a laugh, but he’s already turning back toward the window, basking.

“It’s not just healing,” he murmurs, voice growing softer with each word, like he’s admitting something sacred.. “The sun fuels everything. Body, mind, spirit. Without it, I feel… drained. Slower. Tired in ways I can’t explain.”

As the sun continues rising, he lets it wash over him—golden light threading through his hair, kissing the curve of his jaw. His shoulders drop, his chest rising slow and easy.

He looks... peaceful.

Not just better.

Whole.

Like this is the version of him that existed before all the weight and worry and hiding.

Wordlessly, you rise over to the window, drawing the curtains fully open.

Sunlight floods in, warm and golden.

Clark exhales, the last of the tension melting from his frame. His lips twitch into a faint smile.

“That’s nice. Thank you.”

You don’t respond right away.

You just stand and watch—this impossible man, forged in truth and humility, finally letting himself rest in the thing that keeps him alive.

You wonder how long it’s been since he let himself have this.

The warmth. The stillness.

You.  

A soft smile finds your lips. You move to join him on the couch, curling close.

“You’re welcome.”

…

This was, almost certainly, a mistake.

Clark had stepped into the shower half an hour go, and in that time, you’d nearly started two kitchen fires and lost a staring match with a pot of chili that may or may not be plotting your demise.

Now the apartment smells like scorched sugar and something vaguely spicy that technically qualifies as chili, if you suspend all culinary standards and ignore the growing evidence to the contrary.

You frown at the bubbling pot, wooden spoon in hand like a weapon against whatever eldritch thing you've created. A bubble bursts and hisses near the rim, clouding your vision.

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Definitely not it.”

You’ve tried everything—cumin, paprika, brown sugar, honey. Even a pinch of cocoa powder, because you vaguely remember hearing that it adds depth. Or maybe that was just a finals-week fever dream.

None of it has helped.

The chili tastes too sharp, too bitter. Like it’s trying too hard.

Like you are.

And the cinnamon rolls? God help you.

You glance over at the tray sitting on the counter. Store-bought—quick and easy—virtually impossible to get wrong, unless you forget them in the oven long enough for smoke to curl up, leaving them just shy of edible and somehow still cold in the middle.

Now they’re blackened on the edges and slowly congealing into one semi-charred mega-roll.

You lean against the counter and drag a hand over your face.

“Martha, forgive me,” you mutter. “I’m dishonoring your legacy.”

Because that’s what this is, really. Not just food. Her food.

You remember that weekend, freshman year. Clark’s parents had driven up from Smallville with two coolers of groceries, a crockpot the size of a baby elephant, and enough love to feed an entire college campus.

While Clark was stuck finishing an exam, Martha had taken over the dorm kitchen like it was her own. You’d offered to help. She'd smiled and handed you a spoon.

You two made enough chili to feed the whole building.

And, of course, cinnamon rolls to go with it.

Because apparently in Kansas, that’s a thing. Chili and cinnamon rolls.

You’d blinked in confusion until she handed you a bowl and said, ‘Sweetheart, just trust me.’

You did. And she was right.

By the end of the night, the whole building had smelled like cinnamon and a kind of home you didn’t realize you’d been missing until it was handed to you in a steaming bowl.

Now, ten years later, you’re standing in your kitchen, apron half-tied, frosting on your cheek, desperately trying to recreate that feeling from memory.

You taste the chili again and grimace.

Too bitter. Too much heat. Not enough something.

You reach for the spice rack again, unsure if cinnamon or divine intervention is the missing ingredient, when:

“Are those cinnamon rolls?”

You nearly launch the spoon across the room.

Clark’s leaning against the doorway, towel slung around his neck, hair damp and curling across his forehead. He’s shirtless, and the loose sweatpants you loaned him hang low on his hips.

He’s filled out since college—broader through the chest, stronger in the shoulders, and taller somehow, too. Like he grew into himself somewhere between Kansas and saving the world.

You blink once, then again, like that might change the visual. It does not.

“I—yeah,” you stammer, gesturing toward the tray. “They’re, uh, store bought.”

He smiles, stepping closer to inspect it. You wince.

“I forgot they were in the oven for, like… several minutes.”

His lips twitch as he bites back a laugh, eyes drifting to the stove behind you.

“And is that… chili?”

“Technically?” You shrug helplessly. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to get it right.”

Clark hums, stepping closer.

You gesture at the pot, brows furrowed. “I don’t know if I’m missing something. If it’s too spicy, or maybe too bitter, or—can you taste it for me? I can’t remember if your mom used brown sugar or molass—”

You don’t finish the sentence.

Gentle hands wrap around your waist, spinning you around—and suddenly, his lips are on yours.

And it’s not like last night’s kiss.

This one is immediate. Intentional. Certain.

You freeze for half a second—caught somewhere between he’s shirtless and oh, this is happening again—but then everything else fades. Your body remembers him, and you melt into it.

His hands settle at your hips. His mouth moves over yours with slow, deliberate heat.

He kisses you long enough to make your head spin, and when he finally pulls back, he doesn’t move far. Just rests his forehead against yours, eyes dark and warm.

“Thank you,” he breathes.

You smile, knowing he’s not talking about just the food.

“Don’t thank me ‘til you’ve tasted it.”

He grins, then kisses you again. Softer this time, laughing into it. You laugh too, hands tangled in the towel around his neck.

“Clark,” you murmur between kisses, “the chili’s gonna burn.”

He loosens his hold, barely, thumb drifting in circles across your hip.

“Sorry,” he grins, clearly not sorry. “I just wanted to kiss you when I wasn’t all bloody and gross.”

You smile, tracing your fingers over his shoulder, where bruises are still fading beneath damp skin. “I think I like you a little bloody and gross.”  

He scrunches his nose. “Weirdo.”

“Dweeb.”

His smile softens at that, nostalgic and a little stunned. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”

You press a kiss under his jaw, lips brushing just below his ear. “Better get used to it. I’ve got a decade of insults saved up.”

He laughs then—a real one, unguarded and full. It rumbles through his chest and into yours as he wraps you in his arms.

God, you missed that sound.

You tuck your face into the curve of his neck, breathing him in—shampoo, steam, and your own peach-and-jasmine body wash.

Your hand drifts downward, to the place under his ribs where he was torn open last night.

Where there should be pain and raw edges, there’s only smooth skin. Just a faint scar, barely raised.

You trace over it gently.

“I’m okay,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head like a promise.

You nod, pressing closer.

You sway there together in the kitchen, wrapped in burnt-sugar air and simmering spice, the chili bubbling softly on the stove.

After a long moment, you murmur into his skin:

“…okay. It’s definitely burning now.”

Clark hums. Doesn’t budge.

You lift your head, giving him an affectionate shove.

“Go put on a shirt, Dweeb. No one wants to see all that.”

He smirks, eyes gleaming. “If I put a shirt on, will you kiss me again?”

You roll your eyes, badly, and whip the dish towel at him.

He yelps, dodging dramatically, hands in the air.

“Okay! Okay, I’m going! Assaulting a wounded man, unbelievable—"

He turns with a grin, jogging down the hallway to your bedroom, his towel flying behind him like a makeshift cape.

The sound of his laughter echoes the whole way down.

…

Two months later.

“Court is adjourned.”

The crack of the gavel rings through the chamber.

You exhale through your nose, smoothing down your skirt as you stand. Papers shuffle. Shoes clack. The usual post-hearing hum follows you out—another long day, another uphill battle fought and filed.

You step into the hallway, already drafting a follow-up motion in your head, when you hear it.

A voice.

Calm, respectful, yet laced with the kind of certainty that doesn’t bend.

“…ma’am, I’m asking you to reconsider. He wasn’t following orders, he was threatened. There’s a difference.”

You stop mid-step, then turn.

And—

There he is.

Red cape. Blue suit. Broad shoulders and dark hair.

Absurdly, unmistakably out of place amongst the federal courthouse’s beige wallpaper and stale lighting.   

He's hunched over slightly, back turned to you as he argues—polite but passionate—with an assistant prosecutor who’s half his height in heels and about two seconds away from spontaneous combustion.

She spots you behind him and practically lights up with relief, storming toward you with righteous fury and a death grip on her iPad.

“This is completely inappropriate,” she hisses, all but vibrating. “He’s interfering with active proceedings. No badge, no bar number, and he’s wearing a—cape, for god’s sake.”

You don’t look at her. Not yet.

Because he’s already turning, red fabric swishing dramatically across the linoleum as he faces you.

Recognition lights up his face—shoulders dropping, eyes brightening, like stepping out of shadow and into warm daylight.

And then he grins.

That crooked, I know I’m being a problem kind of grin that makes your stomach flip in a deeply unprofessional way.

You school your expression into something more neutral. You do not smile back. Not here. Not yet.

You nod to the prosecutor. “I understand, Ms. Kendrick. I’ll handle it.” 

She looks like she’d rather see him forcibly ejected by bailiffs, but she backs off, heels clacking loudly as she makes her way down the hall.

You wait a beat. Then turn to him.

“Superman,” you say evenly. “Why don’t we continue this conversation in my office?”

…

You shove him against the door the second the lock clicks shut.

That smug grin he wore the entire walk to your office—hands tucked behind his back like he didn’t just hijack a judicial proceeding in broad daylight—only widens when your mouth crashes against his.

Your fingers twist into the soft stretch of his suit, gripping at the raised edges of the 'S' like you could rip it off with enough force.

“Hi,” he breathes between kisses, amused and already breathless. “I missed you too.”

You pull back just enough to glare at him—heart hammering, breath ragged, still high on courtroom adrenaline and now this.

“What the hell were you thinking? Showing up like that?”

He just shrugs, maddeningly unrepentant. “I thought you’d be proud of me. I used actual legal arguments.”

“Clark.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, laughing softly as he cups your jaw. “I also had a legitimate reason.”

“Which is?” you mutter, dragging down your zipper. He helps you shimmy out of the skirt without missing a beat.

“She was about to process that guy for obstruction,” he says, frowning as he works open the buttons of your blouse. “He wasn’t resisting—he was terrified. She ignored every mitigating factor.”

“Yeah, well, they always do that.” You let out a breath, shivering slightly as his hands skim the bare skin of your waist. “That doesn’t mean you get to cape up and swoop in mid-hearing.”

His eyes glint with something brighter than mischief. “You say that like you weren’t happy to see me.”

You try to glare again, but it doesn’t last. His hands slide to your hips, pulling you flush against him, and then he’s kissing you again—deeper now, less teasing, all heat and hunger.

“Clark,” you murmur against his lips, trying to focus, “I’m serious. I already get enough flak for being the state’s bleeding heart. If people think I’ve got Superman in my back pocket—”

“Mm.” He hums, kissing down the line of your jaw, hands sliding lower. “Pretty sure I’m more in your front pocket right now.”

You huff a startled laugh and swat his chest. “You’re an idiot.”

“Your idiot,” he grins, far too pleased with himself. Then he bends, one arm curling under your thighs as he lifts you effortlessly off the ground.

You wrap around him instinctively, still half-scolding, but he carries you to the desk and sets you down with such quiet tenderness that the rest of the argument slips away.

You pull him back in, mouth desperate, fingers fumbling at the seam of his collar. “God, get this thing—how do you even breathe in this?”

He laughs, low and warm, resting his forehead against yours. “I thought you liked how it looked.”

“Yeah, until I realized how impossible it is to get off.” You tug again, frustrated.

He just smiles, slow and knowing, then steps back. In one fluid motion, he strips: shoulders, arms, hips. The suit puddles at his feet, leaving him flushed and bare.

You stare, caught off guard by how easily he sheds the symbol, how beautiful he is underneath it.

He leans in, brushing a knuckle down your cheek.

“Better?”

You nod, tugging him close by the waist, voice barely a whisper. “Much.”

His smile brushes your mouth, warm and familiar, as he kisses you again. His hands glide over your hips, pulling back just enough to wet two fingers with his mouth and slide them between your thighs. You gasp softly as he traces slow, teasing circles over your clit, then slips one finger inside, soon joined by a second.

“Clark…” you moan, head tipping back, fingers tangling in the hair at his nape.

“Yeah, baby,” he murmurs, lips grazing your jaw as he works you open with unbearable patience. “I got you.”

“Need you,” you groan, “Now, Clark—please.”

He huffs a soft laugh, kissing the corner of your mouth. “Okay, okay."

You watch, dazed and aching, as he spits quietly into his palm, slicking himself up before pressing against your entrance. His eyes catch yours in a silent question, and when you nod, he pushes in—smooth and deep and steady. One long stroke that leaves you gasping for air by the end.  

You groan against his shoulder, nails digging into his skin as he bottoms out. He holds still for a moment, letting you breathe, then begins to move—slow, deliberate thrusts that punch the air out of you with every stroke.  

“God, you feel so good,” he groans low against your neck.  

You cling to him, breathless, caught in the rhythm. He kisses you between gasps, lips finding yours again and again, like he can’t bear to stay away for too long. His hand finds your clit, circling with practiced precision, every touch calculated to push you higher. He’s so attuned to you—reading every twitch of your body, every hitch in your breath, like scripture. His eyes are locked onto your heavy-lidded ones, dark with focus, as if he’s trying to memorize you from the inside out.

The pressure in your belly coils tight, winding impossibly fast.

“Clark—fuck—” you gasp, hips stuttering. Your grip tightens in his hair in a desperate, pleading warning.

“I know, sweetheart,” he whispers, voice thick. “I’ve got you. Let go for me."

And you do.

You shatter beneath him, body arching as the wave hits, white-hot and endless. He follows a moment later with a broken sound, his rhythm faltering as he spills into you, face buried in your neck to muffle the noise.  

Silence stretches in the aftermath, broken only by your breathing and the slow return of your heartbeat.

Clark kisses you, deep and lingering, before he eases out, resting his forehead to yours.

“I love you,” he whispers.

It’s a promise worn smooth with repetition, yet it still catches in your chest like the first time.

You brush your thumb gently along his cheek.

“I love you too.” 

…

“So.” Clark zips up your skirt, hands warm against your hips as he smooths down the fabric. “You’ll talk to the DA? About the charges?”

You turn slowly, folding your arms across your chest as you give him a flat look.

“Clark Kent,” you say, brow arched. “Is this your long game? Date the state public defender so you can infiltrate the justice system?”

He doesn’t even blink. Just flashes that easy, crooked grin that still gets to you somehow, even when you know better.

“Thirteen years,” he nods. “Longest con of my life.”

You let out a short laugh, surprised by how easily he pulls it from you, how naturally he fits into these corners of your world. You pull him back down by his collar, pressing a slow kiss to his mouth.

Then you let go.

He moves slowly toward the door, boots quiet against the floor. The cape follows, always trailing a second behind. He’s halfway there when you call his name.

He turns, gaze softening at the sound of your voice.

You’re still standing where he left you, arms folded, lips drawn into something that wants to be stern but doesn’t quite get there. You’re still getting used to this—to him, woven so neatly into your routines. To how the thought of him coming back no longer feels like a wish, but a given.

That slow ache of permanence settling into your chest, even as the weight of what he carries trails just a second behind.

“I’ll see you for dinner?” You ask.

His smile grows soft, honest and steady. The cape flutters gently behind him.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

And this time, you don’t have to wonder.

…

epilogue.

Eventually, you’ll come to realize what it was. The ingredient missing from your chili.

Not sugar. Not molasses.

Time.

Time for flavors to settle. For the sharpness to mellow out. For bitterness to give way to something warm and rich.   

It happens gradually, like most good things.

With the smallest of details.

Clark, setting the table, humming under his breath as he moves with familiar ease: forks on the left, knives on the right, mugs instead of glasses because you’re both terrible at unloading the dishwasher. The plates don’t match. One’s a chipped blue ceramic you picked out together at the Sunday flea market. The other is a slightly-too-fancy porcelain from your grandmother’s old set. He always picks that one out for you, insisting it’s ‘too pretty not to use.’

You’re halfway through stirring the pot when he pulls you away—arms around your waist, cheek pressed to your temple—because ‘this is more important.’ You end up slow dancing in the living room, swaying to the soft crackle of a song from the record player—his pick, your vinyl. The pothos on the windowsill leans toward the open light, swaying with the breeze.  

There’s a folded crossword on the coffee table, half-finished, both your handwriting tangled in the boxes. A grocery list is stuck to the the fridge, layered with receipts, newspaper clippings, and a sticky note that says ‘go get em!!’  

His flannel is draped over the back of your couch. His socks are on your feet. His glasses are perched on your nose as you come back over to the stove—too big, sliding every few seconds—but he likes putting them on you just to see you smile.

The cinnamon rolls come out golden this time. The chili tastes just right.

Clark appears behind you, hand brushing the small of your back as he dips down for a kiss.

You lean into it without thinking, smiling against his mouth.

You let the pot simmer for a while longer.         

You peeked through the slight crack of the door, watching the two of them perform their morning ritual. “I am kind,” Spencer cued her again.

“I am kind,” Kit echoed, a shy smile on her face, exhibiting her toothy grin. 

Gently, Spencer reached to the top of her head, straightening the bedazzled tiara she had gotten specially for the special day. You’d placed it there earlier, after you’d done the princess hair that she had been begging for. “I am beautiful,” he told her. 

Kathleen swayed gently on the stool, the shimmery fabric of her dress glistening in the daylight that peeked in from the windows. “I am beautiful,” she responded, patiently sounding out the word. 

“My mommy and daddy love me very much,” Spencer said, kissing her cheek with a knowing smile. 

Her grin broadened, “My mommy and daddy love me very much.” She bounced on the stool, and she would’ve fallen off if Spencer hadn’t been there to corral her back onto the platform. 

Your chest ached while you watched the two of them, so focused on their interactions that you hadn’t noticed the tears that were beginning to sting your eyes. Spencer continued, “I’m four years old today!” 

Kit cheered, “I’m four years old today!” 

“Okay,” Spencer said, picking up your newly four year old daughter and holding her. “Are you excited for your party?” 

She nodded, “Yes and cake.” 

Spencer raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, “Really? Well, we have plenty of cake.”

“Can I have two pieces?” She asked, dishing out her puppy dog eyes that he’d never be able to resist. 

He hummed and pretended to consider the option, “I think we can make that happen. Now, do you wanna go downstairs and watch Uncle Derek put up the bounce house?”

At the offer for her to go downstairs, you quickly got yourself out of the hallway, taking a few steps and turning into your bedroom. Forcing yourself to take a few deep breaths, you paced the length of the room, pulling your shirt off of your skin when the fabric started to suffocate you. You turned around to continue your pacing when you were met with familiar brown eyes, “I thought I heard you out in the hallway.” 

The concern that dripped from his words only made you feel worse. With tears dangling from your lower lash line, you glanced at the floor around him, “Where’s…” Your voice trailed off, foregoing the name of your daughter and instead trusting Spencer to understand you. 

“She’s with Garcia, telling Derek how he should be inflating the bounce house,” he explained, smiling softly at you. 

You laughed despite yourself. The image of your daughter, dressed like a princess, instructing Derek Morgan on how to put up the nylon structure that you’d rented for her birthday was enough to diminish even the saddest of emotions. “Good,” you said, sniffling through your tears, “Someone has to keep him in line.” 

He nodded with understanding, “What’s wrong, baby?” He asked, stepping toward you and guiding you until you were sitting on the bed, him taking the spot next to you. 

“She’s four today,” you said miserably. You wished you could remember being four, but as Spencer already knew, you’d forgotten a majority of your childhood. You knew there was an abyss of unhappiness that was buried there. You remembered shouting and you remembered tears, but none of the details had stuck to you. Sometimes, you preferred it that way. 

Without another word, Spencer put his arms tightly around you, letting your salty tears fall on his shirt uninhibited. “I know,” he murmured, holding you so tightly that your body was being dragged closer and closer to his until you were nearly in his lap. 

Your chest ached. Instead of reciprocating Spencer’s hug, you pressed your hands to your chest to ease the pain of your broken heart, “You’re such a good dad.” Your words escaped from your swollen throat, remembering the grin on your daughter’s face when the two of them had done their affirmations earlier. 

To that, he was silent, knowing there was nothing he could say that would make it any better - make it hurt any less. There were no words in any available language that would heal the wound left in you by your father. Your childhood stuck to your heart like a wound that would never heal, there were some days where the pain couldn’t get to you, blocked by a pain medication that came in the form of your husband and child, but sometimes the world felt too vast, and you became that little girl in a big house with an angry man. 

There were some things that Spencer could understand, but while Spencer had felt the absence of his father, you’d felt the opposite. Like a poltergeist, your father lingered in every corner of your home, you’d learned to recognize the footsteps of everyone in your house. Sometimes, when someone's gait had just the right rhythm, your heart started to race and the hair on the back of your neck stood up. There were some things that were just your own. 

“She has such a good dad,” you murmured, screwing your eyes shut as if that would prevent any other tears from forming. Your stomach roiled as the gears in your brain started to turn and you recognized the emotion that burned your skin - envy. You gasped back a sob, “Why didn’t I deserve that?” You considered it to be a cosmic joke, that you had, at the toddler stage of life, done something to deserve the father you had gotten. “What did I do wrong?”

This time, your husband cooed, dragging his fingertips up and down your back, outlining your spine. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he whispered. You knew it broke his heart to see you like this, reduced to nothing more than a puddle of tears by a man who was no longer there to haunt you, but you couldn’t get yourself to stop. 

Your question echoed in your ears, every time you had asked yourself if you had done something wrong reverberated in your skull like a gong. Ranging from when you were a kid and banned from attending the school carnival to when you were an adult, and your final attempt at reaching out had ended in tears much like these. He’d never met Kathleen, and admittedly, you preferred it that way. There was no way he could weasel his way into your lives, flooding your daughter’s mind with the same muck that you spent years watering down. Hours of speeches about disappointment from before you were able to stand up for yourself, but even then, the only way out had been to leave. 

It wasn’t until years later that it felt like a refuge, leaving behind the life you had spent so many years trying to fix. You hadn’t been that girl in so many years, but she was still in there. Behind a closed door, there was a little girl who just wanted to wear a princess dress and go to her father daughter dance. Some days you let her out, finding her again when you sat down to a tea party with Kathleen, but sometimes she snuck out, filling your chest with envy when you saw the care that Spencer put into his relationship with her, just as she had done today. You couldn’t blame her, because what you did remember was growing up and seeing girls with their dads, being pushed on the swing without being critiqued, being congratulated for their hard work without being asked why they hadn’t done better, and you’d felt the same jealousy then that you did now. She was just a girl. She didn’t know any better. 

There had been a time when you assumed all fathers were like that. That the fathers in books and movies were dreams of other daughters that hadn’t been able to go to their daddy daughter dance, but as you got older, the absence of paternal love ostracized you from your peers. 

“You did nothing wrong,” Spencer whispered to you again, softly dragging his knuckle across your cheek. Your head now rested comfortably in his head, and you were running out of time.

Sniffling, you pushed yourself up, looking at your husband with bleary eyes, “I love her so much, and I love that you love her so much.” It was the truth, too. You loved that Spencer was a good father, especially after growing up with a fear of angry men in your home. 

He nodded understandingly, “I know you do, and she knows you do.” 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, afraid you had ruined what should’ve been a happy day with the gaping wound on your heart. 

Dismissing your concern, your husband shook his head, “There’s nothing to be sorry for, sometimes we feel big emotions and they have to come out one way or another.” 

A small smile bloomed on your face, recognizing the words you’d said to your daughter earlier that week. “That’s right, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of our emotions, no matter how big they are,” you finished your speech from that night. You had talked her down from what had been, as it turned out, her final toddler tantrum. 

Gently, Spencer cupped your cheeks and kissed you. You closed your eyes, letting the last of your tears fall where he could easily swipe them away, “I am smart.”

A soft laugh escaped your lips when you recognized what he was doing with you, giving you the same affirmations that he had given to your daughter earlier. “I am smart,” you repeated, entertaining his methods. 

“I am kind,” he said, reaching over to your nightstand for a tissue so he could better dry your tears. 

You nodded in confirmation, “I am kind.” You closed your eyes while he wiped at them, smiling at the familiar giggles you heard coming from the backyard.

He smiled at you, though a thread of sympathy remained sewn in his irises, “I am beautiful.” He hooked his finger beneath your chin, lifting it so he could see you better. 

“I am beautiful,” you echoed, your confidence waning ever so slightly.

Spencer noticed, you could tell by the way he took your hand in his. “My husband and daughter love me very much,” he told you, squeezing your hand comfortingly. 

Taking a deep breath, you squeezed his hand back, “My husband and daughter love me very much.”

“And I am worthy,” he reminded you, an affirmation that was unique and directly pointed at you. 

“And I am worthy,” you responded, setting your shoulders. “I love you,” you told him, grateful to have him by your side. 

He nodded reassuringly, “I love you too.” Your eyes met one more time when a small voice started calling for you, knowing it was only a moment before tiny feet started running up the stairs, Spencer got up from the bed. “I’ll get her,” he promised, “Come down when you’re ready.”

You mutter under your breath, “You’re insufferable,” loud enough for Spencer to hear.

He smirks, eyes glittering as he says to no one in particular, “Just doing my job. Protect and serve, even the boss’s brat.”

You lunge forward a little, and Emily steps in between you, hands raised. “Okay, children, let’s all relax.” Then Emily leans in. “Please tell me you’re not dating that guy.”

You gave her an apologetic wince. “Worse.”

Before you could explain yourself—or dig the hole deeper—everything in the bar seemed to pause.

Your stomach dropped.

You turned to see your father enter, his jaw already tight, eyes scanning, calculating—landing directly on you. Holding a drink. Underage. Standing between his agents and a terrified grad student. Oh fuck.

You raised your glass like a white flag. “Hi, Dad.”

His jaw tightens. “Outside. Now.”

Your father’s voice slices through the noise like a blade, and for a second, you wonder if the whole bar just flinched with you.

You’re already moving, muttering a quiet apology to your ex-date as you push past Morgan, Emily, and—of course—Reid, who has the audacity to look amused. His eyes meet yours for half a second before he turns back toward the officers with a casual, “West entrance should be cleared. And someone should probably tell the bartender his license is about to be investigated.”

Prick.

You step out into the night, the air cooler than it felt ten minutes ago. Or maybe it’s just your nerves setting in.

Hotch follows, the door shutting behind him with a heavy thud. You’re already bracing yourself.

“How stupid are you?” he snaps.

You roll your eyes immediately, arms crossing over your chest. “Oh, awesome. We’re starting with that.”

You know that look. That I’m-fighting-every-urge-to-ground-you-until-you’re-30 look. He stares at you, unreadable, like he’s doing the math on what disciplinary action won’t make him look insane in front of his team.

You exhale hard through your nose and shake your head. “I wasn’t even drunk, okay? I wasn’t doing anything illegal except the fake ID, and I wasn’t going to let it get out of hand. You raised me, remember?”

“You think that’s an excuse?” he fires back. “You’re in a bar linked to an active crime scene, drinking underage, with a guy who’s too old for you—”

“He’s my T.A.,” you snap, and immediately regret it.

Aaron Hotchner goes silent. His eyes narrow.

“I’m sorry—he’s your what?”

You cringe. “Look, it’s not like that, we didn’t even sleep together—”

“Oh my God.” He cuts you off, voice low and lethal. “You’re done. Hand it over.”

“What?”

“The ID.”

You scoff, annoyed. “Oh, come on, you can’t just—”

“I can. And I will. Now.”

You mutter a curse under your breath, digging through your purse and slapping the fake ID into his hand. “Here. Confiscate away, Agent Hotchner. Go ahead and pretend you weren’t 20 once.”

He doesn’t react, just stares down at the ID. Then at you. “You’ve got no idea how dangerous that place is tonight.”

“I do, actually,” you snap, tired of him treating you like you’re six. “I listen. You think I don’t know the risks just because I’m not wearing a Kevlar vest?”

He says nothing, and it only pisses you off more.

“I came because I thought I could handle it. I needed a night out. A drink. A distraction.” You pause, swallowing. “Not that you’d understand.”

His expression twitches—just a little—and then softens in a way that only makes you feel worse.

“You should’ve told me.”

You shrug. “You’re never home.”

That lands. His jaw tightens again, but not in anger. Guilt this time.

“You’re too smart for this,” he says finally, holding up the ID between two fingers. “Next time you want a distraction, don’t pick a guy who can lose his teaching job for breathing near you.”

You sigh, the fight draining from your shoulders. “Duly noted.”

There’s a long pause between you. The kind that makes your ears ring. Until—

“I’m driving you home,” he says.

You groan. “You can’t. You’re working.”

He raises an eyebrow. “And you think I’m leaving you here?”

You glance behind you through the bar’s grimy windows. Spencer is still talking to officers, arms folded, side profile annoyingly pretty as he watches everything unfold like he’s a part of some indie film noir.

“I’m not staying here,” you say quietly. “I’ll walk. Or—get a ride.”

Hotch follows your gaze. His jaw clenches again. “Not from him.”

You look at your father. And you smirk.

“Why not?” you ask, voice laced with challenge. “Spencer’s safe. You trust him, don’t you?”

He looks like he wants to strangle someone. “He’s twelve years older than you.”

You shrug. “You said I was too smart for bad decisions.”

He stares at you for a beat. Then lets out a frustrated breath through his nose.

“I’m driving you. End of discussion.”

You hesitate. Then nod. “Fine.”

But not before casting one last look over your shoulder at Spencer, who’s definitely been listening the whole time, if the smug little smirk tugging at his lips is any indication.

By the time Hotch’s black SUV pulled up, Spencer had already lingered just long enough near the front of the bar, elbow resting against the brick, trying so fucking hard to act like he wasn’t eavesdropping. He was biting the inside of his cheek, practically begging you to snap.

So you did.

“You’re real quiet now, huh?” you taunted, arms crossed as you stalked past the security tape and toward him. “That mouthy little commentary act doesn’t hold up when Daddy’s around?”

He didn’t flinch, just turned his head slightly to look at you. His eyes trailed over your legs, your too-short skirt, your heels, before settling on your face.

“I’m just wondering what it must be like,” he said calmly, “to be so deeply committed to self-destruction you’d throw your academic record and your father’s reputation under the bus in the same night.”

You blinked. Slowly. “You done?”

His gaze dropped to your lips. “Not even close.”

Your heart stuttered. Your mouth was dry. But not in a bad way. A dark smirk curled at your lips. “Prove it.”

He arched a brow. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Doctor Reid.” You leaned in close enough for him to smell your perfume, something expensive and stupid and way too adult for your age. “Since you’re so sure I need saving. Come save me.”

There was a beat—a sharp, split-second moment—where you both just breathed. Then Spencer muttered, “Get in the car,” and walked off.

Hotch’s SUV was dead silent.

Not a word was exchanged the entire ride, save for the sharp click of the turn signal and the faint grind of his clenched jaw. The radio was off. The A/C was on full blast. And he hadn’t looked at you once.

You didn’t dare check your phone. You could feel it buzzing in your purse—probably Emily asking if you were alive, or Garcia wanting more details about your “date”.

And Reid?

You didn’t even want to imagine what Reid would text you. Probably something insufferable like You forgot to say thank you. Or worse—Did Daddy lecture you real good?

By the time your father pulled into the driveway, he still hadn’t spoken. The car shifted into park like it hated you. You opened the door and stepped out, the porch light washing over you like a spotlight you hadn’t earned.

The second you made it to the front door, Hotch finally spoke.

“I can’t believe you.”

You paused. Back still to him. “Yeah,” you muttered. “Get in line.”

“I’m serious,” he snapped. “Do you even realize what could’ve happened tonight? That bar is under investigation. There’s a suspect on the loose, and you decided it was a good time to play grown-up.”

“I didn’t know about the case—”

“But you knew it was illegal.”

That shut you up.

He got out of the car and came around the hood, arms crossed, towering. He looked… tired. Beyond angry. Frustrated. Defeated.

You hated that it made you feel guilty.

“Do you know what it's like?” he said low. “Spending my nights cleaning up blood off sidewalks and then finding out my daughter is at the center of a fucking crime scene, wearing a skirt up to her ass and sitting on a suspect’s lap?”

You flinched. “He’s not a suspect.”

“Then why the hell was my team questioning him?”

“I don’t know, maybe because Spencer has a God complex and hates anyone who breathes near me—”

Hotch's brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”

You realized—too late—you’d said too much. He narrowed his eyes. “What happened between you and Reid?” Your heart thudded.

“Nothing,” you lied, swallowing. “Just… academic differences.”

He didn’t believe you. But he didn’t push. Instead, he sighed. “Go inside. Lock the door. Don’t leave.”

“Where are you going?”

He was already getting back in the car. “Back to the scene. To actually do my job.”

And then—he was gone.

Just like always.

Fifteen minutes later, the house felt too quiet, too empty and really lonely. You tapped your nails against the kitchen counter. Once. Twice. A pause.

You should go to bed.

You shouldn’t sneak out.

You definitely shouldn’t drive across the city in your shortest skirt to knock on the door of the man who made you lose any and every sense of self respect.

You took a second to think about it before snatching your keys off the counter.

You pulled up just as he was stepping onto the sidewalk in front of his building—dark slacks, suit jacket slung over his shoulder, that lean frame backlit by the streetlight like the world’s most inconvenient wet dream.

His eyes landed on you instantly, and even from across the street, you could see his jaw tick.

You stepped out of your car, slammed the door with a smug little smile, and said, “Fancy seeing you here.”

Spencer didn’t even blink.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

You shrugged, sauntering up to him like it was the most natural thing in the world. “You didn’t really think I’d let you walk away after that, did you?”

He dropped his keys into his pocket and turned toward his building. “Go home.”

“Can’t. Already did. Got bored.”

“You are unreal.” He spun back toward you. “Do you have any idea what I’ve had to deal with tonight? What your father is going to say if he finds out you came here?”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do,” he snapped, stepping closer. “You care more than anything. That’s why you came here. That’s why you’re standing in the middle of the damn street, in a skirt that barely qualifies as fabric, looking at me, wasting my time.”

He turned back around walking up the steps of his apartment ignoring you as you followed behind him.

“Lose your T.A. privileges?” he asked dryly, eyes sweeping over you like he was cataloging your posture, your blush, your breathing. Always observing.

You crossed your arms over your chest. “Lose your sense of professionalism?”

He didn’t answer—just pushed the door open a little more and stepped inside setting his keys down. “I was actually going to check on you.”

“Sure you did,” you snorted, turning your back on him and walking toward the living room. “You just wanted to gloat.”

“I mean,” Spencer’s voice dropped, footsteps following close behind, “you did fake an ID, drink underage, flirt with a walking ethics violation in the middle of an active crime scene, and nearly give Morgan an aneurysm.”

You turned around sharply. “I didn’t flirt.”

He raised a brow. “You were in his lap.”

“That’s not flirting.”

Spencer tilted his head. “Then what would you call it?”

You hated how hot he looked like that—smirking slightly, arms crossed over his chest, sleeves rolled just enough to reveal the veins in his forearms. Cocky. Controlled. Just a little unhinged.

“A distraction,” you muttered, looking away.

He stepped closer. “From what?”

You let out a bitter laugh, turning your head to glare at him. “You’re really going to make me say it?”

He blinked. Once. “Say what?”

“You,” you snapped, stepping back and throwing your arms up. “You, okay? The fact that you keep looking at me like that—judging me, hovering, acting like you’re above all this when we both know you’re not.”

His brows pulled together slightly, like you’d confused him. Like he wasn’t fully aware of the effect he had on you.

You scoffed. “God, I came here hoping you’d at least—fuck, I don’t know—kiss me or yell at me or anything that would feel like something.”

“Instead,” you continued, voice rising as your body buzzed with irritation, “you’re just standing there, all holier-than-thou, pretending like you don’t want this. Like you haven’t been thinking about it just as much as I have.”

Spencer’s expression didn’t move, but something in his jaw flexed.

You kept going, unable to stop yourself. “I’m so fucking tired of chasing your attention like I’m some dumb kid with a crush. You want to play the good guy? Fine. Be the good guy. But don’t act like I’m the only one who feels it. You could’ve told me to leave. You should’ve told me to leave.”

Spencer exhaled slowly, but you saw his hands flex at his sides.

“I should’ve,” he said quietly. “But you didn’t let me.”

You took a step toward him. “Because you don’t want me to leave.”

“No,” he said simply. “I don’t.”

That was all it took. You surged forward, grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt and pulling him down, mouth crashing into his like you were trying to devour the breath from his lungs. He caught you immediately—one hand gripping your waist, the other tangling in your hair, kissing you back like the thing he’d been denying himself had finally broken loose. His hand shot out and gripped your waist, pulling you flush against him as you grabbed a fistful of his curls and tugged.

He groaned—a low, broken sound—and your legs hitched around his hips like instinct. Spencer caught you easily, lifted you, walked you backward until you were on the couch before you could even blink. Your skirt had ridden up and he didn’t bother fixing it—just pressed his mouth to your inner thigh, lips dragging, tongue wet and dangerous.

“Off,” he ordered, tugging at the hem of your top. You obeyed, breathless, skin hot under his stare as you wriggled out of it and arched beneath him. Your bra was sheer and teasing and did nothing to hide the way your nipples pebbled under the AC—and his gaze.

You whimpered as his tongue slipped past your lips, demanding and slick and desperate in the way only Spencer could make feel precise.

“You are such a goddamn problem,” he muttered against your mouth, hands sliding down your sides, gripping your hips like they were meant for his fingers. “Your dad’s going to kill me.”

“Then stop,” you whispered, already breathless.

His mouth dragged down your jaw to your throat, sucking a dark bruise just below your ear. “Tell me to.”

And then his hand was under your skirt, fingers slipping beneath the edge of your underwear. You gasped as two fingers dragged through the heat of you, slow and purposeful, and Spencer leaned in, biting softly at your neck.

He added another finger, curling them just right. You moaned, hips lifting.

“You like that?” he asked, lips brushing your ear.

“Fuck—yes,” you whined, clawing at his shirt. He hauled you back onto the couch, tearing your panties off and tossing them aside without a second glance. He slid in with one long, slow thrust that had you both gasping—stretching you, filling you, as your scream ripped through the apartment, muffled only by his palm clamping over your mouth.

“Shut up,” he hissed in your ear. “You wanna wake the neighbors?”

You whimpered against his hand, eyes rolling back at the sheer stretch of him—deep and relentless, pushing into places you didn’t even know you had.

He didn’t give you time to adjust—he didn’t care. He fucked you like he was punishing himself for wanting you in the first place, each thrust brutal and sharp and perfect. Your moans ringing out in his apartment, his hand doing little to nothing to muffle the sound.

You arched up into him, your legs wrapping around his hips, desperate for friction.

He set a brutal rhythm, hips snapping into yours as the couch creaked under the weight of it all—your breathing, your begging, his name ripped from your throat over and over again.

You dug your nails into his back. He caught your wrists and pinned them above your head, fucking into you harder as you arched.

“Still bored?” he rasped.

You couldn’t answer. Could barely see.

He grinned, sweat-damp curls falling into his face. “Answer me.”

You nodded, frantic and breathless, and then shook your head when he narrowed his eyes.

“I asked you a question,” he growled, voice low and lethal as he thrust even deeper, grinding down into you like he wanted to imprint himself there forever.

“N-no,” you choked out, writhing under him, your wrists straining in his grip. “Not bored. Not even a little.”

“That’s what I thought,” he muttered, leaning down to bite at your neck, right where your pulse fluttered.

Your moan shattered into something obscene—your back arched, hips snapping up as your orgasm ripped through you, your body trembling beneath his like it had never known anything else.

Spencer groaned low in his throat as you clenched around him, and he wasn’t far behind—thrusting once, twice more before he stilled, spilling deep inside you.

He collapsed onto you, head in the crook of your neck, breath warm and heavy against your skin.

Then Spencer pulled back, brushing a strand of hair from your face with surprising gentleness.

You swallowed hard. “That was—”

“Stupid,” he said quietly. “So fucking stupid.”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

Neither of you moved. Then, finally, he sighed. “Stay the night.”

Your eyes met his. “And tomorrow?” you asked.

Spencer gave you a soft, almost broken smile. “We’ll figure it out.”

Next morning: You wake tangled in sheets that smell like him. There’s a note on his pillow in Reid’s handwriting:

You’re still grounded. But I’ll come visit after class. —Dr. Reid

And beneath it… a real ID.

With your name.

And your actual birthday.

Because of course he already pulled strings.

Because Spencer Reid may judge you, tease you, fight with you—

But he’ll always save you.

Even from yourself.

a/n: well I don’t really know what happened here but it happened