Candied Lemon

Jack had finally found some respite. 

An unbroken hour of solitude after being surrounded by a pile of dog shit strapped to patriotism, one bullet graze to the shoulder and a cyber threat on the health network of Pittsburgh as a whole. If anybody asked, he’d meet it with a shrug and a simple: ‘It was a bog standard shift. For the Fourth of July.’ 

(You should see the PTMC on a full moon on Halloween weekend. Now that’s an explosive spectacle.)

He had found that thought enough incentive to shut his eyes after setting an alarm for an hour—and five minutes—time to haul himself and the tender muscles in his shoulder back to the PTMC to go old school with fax machines and white-boards. 

It took all of the three minutes out of the spare five he had added to his alarm, for his phone to light up and buzz against his chest. Thumb against the button on the side to preemptively end the call before it even started. Jack almost chose himself over whomever decided that 4PM was the sweet spot to catch a conversation with the physician. 

And then, in one sweep of realisation that thrashed its way to the forefront of his mind, Jack remembered that it might’ve been a perfect time for you to call. 

Shit. 

Without much deliberation, he flipped his phone over, eyes halfway to being peeled open, when he saw your Caller ID spread across the top of the screen with a photo of you and Jack smooshed together on your fourth date as the chosen background image. 

(You hated the photo. Which made Jack love it even more.) 

His thumb swiped to answer, phone pressed to his ear. “Hello?” 

“Jack-y Jack-y. Break my back-y.”

Wow. That was a crude—but not unwelcome—way of introductions over the phone. Jack could practically smell the Fourth of July bottomless brunch through the phone, not to mention that the slur of your words may have given away the level of intoxication you were experiencing from a couple of patriotic cocktail mixes of red, white, and blue and two stolen Mimosa’s from another table. 

That was yours and the empty Table 12’s little secret though.  Jack let a chuckle slip, “Hey, baby. What can I do you for?” 

“Just calling—” You hiccuped, “—To ask how your Fourth of July has been? Uneventful? Boring?” You teased, knowing fine well, a SWAT shift was far from those two adjectives. 

“Oh, you don’t even know half of it.” Jack pandered to your drunken taunt, his eyes fully shut now. “How are the girls?” 

“Well…” You took in your surroundings of a litter ridden street and a tired sun dropping below the horizon and let out a puff of air in response.

Jack opened his eyes at that. 

Suddenly, dosing off to the dulcet tones of your voice on the other end of a phone call seemed like a far fetched idea. Who needed sleep anyway? Especially when their—unlabelled—significant other blew out hot air in response to a simple question of how her impenetrable fortress of her friendship group made up of women from all walks of life were. 

Oh, Jack couldn’t wait to hear this one. 

He zeroed in on your hesitance. “You still with me?” When you hummed lazily, Jack narrowed his eyes at the wall across from him, “Is that a hard question to answer all of a sudden?” 

“Sheesh, Abbot.” You drawled, “Let me just…think for a minute.” 

(Absolutely not.) 

“Where are you right now?” Jack asked with the phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder. Already tugging at his prosthetic leg. 

You frowned, “Why?” 

“Why—?” Jack let out an impatient laugh. Not at you. Never at you. But, at the conclusion you would eventually come to during the phone call. He stood to full height and added, “Because, I’m coming to get you. That’s why.” 

“Uh, correction. You’re not invited.” You held your forefinger up in the air to draw emphasis on the correction you were making. You spoke again with one eye closed, “Don’t style my cramp. Or, however that saying goes.” 

Jack fished his keys from the bowl at his front door, “Oh yeah? Let me talk to one of them.” 

OK. Part of you took a mental note to be more consistent in recalling the fact that Jack Abbot was incredibly intuitive. Perceptive to a fault. Which meant, before you could even string a coherent excuse together from the jumble of words sloshing about in your brain, Jack had already been two steps ahead in deciphering the lack of female presence in the background of your phone call. 

Because, if it was a bottomless brunch that stretched far beyond the definition of ‘brunch’, that meant Jack would’ve been met with more than just one voice. How could he possibly know that? Perhaps, you had just stepped outside. Jack Abbot knew because of two things: 1) You never just called. It was always FaceTime, regardless of your location. And, 2) Your friends took every opportunity to interfere in your phone calls with Jack, because he had made a good, lasting impression on all of them. 

Put two and two together. The equation was…you had been ditched. 

Your fists clenched as you mouthed a profanity at Jack’s request. No, it hadn’t been entirely intentional that you were the last woman standing at the get together. The rest of the group—besides one who was married and left well before the lines got blurry on it being brunch drinks, and just, all day drinks—were single, and heavily active on all dating apps. Thus meaning, a holiday celebration statewide, and eight drinks thrown back; all your girlfriends were out for some metaphorical fireworks with someone they’d never cross paths with again. 

So, they all were picked off, one by one. Completely innocent. You’d never get in between a woman and her sexual prowess. 

With that, and a short-lived chastising from Jack after you held your phone further away from your mouth, your voice raised two octaves higher to imitate the bubblier friend; Jack had your location and was already on his way before the call had officially ended. 

He found you sat on the sidewalk of East Carson Street. Knees drawn up to your chest with your chin propped up on the palm of your hand, you were a vision of tranquil inebriation. (You know, considering you had been abandoned like a dog after the novelty of owning one wore off.) 

You visibly brightened when you saw Jack round his truck, shoulders squared as he scoped the surrounding areas.

You could take the man out of the military. 

“Hey, sweet cheeks.” You announced when he reached you, admiring the way that he did his best to crouch to meet your half-lidded eye level. You scratched lovingly at the stubble on his chin, “Fancy a drink? Some guy gave me, like, $150 for the night.” 

Jack mulled it over. “Tempting. I think I’ll pass.” His eyes dropped to your purse, because he couldn’t help himself, “You didn’t use the money I gave you?” 

You blinked, “Some guy gave me, like $150 and I have $20 of it left.”

That had Jack’s smile grow wider. Just as he had intended. 

“How about…we save it for later, and I’ll even throw in some Tylenol, if you get in the car.” Jack tilted his head. 

“You drive a hard bargain, Jack Abbot.” 

Without much resistance, you allowed Jack the triumphant win of getting you off of the sidewalk infested with gum and other substances, and into the passenger seat of his car. If you hadn’t had a hard time knowing which way was up, you would’ve noticed the small act of kindness in which Jack had ensured that the passenger side of his car was flush against the curb; so you weren’t reduced to playing with the traffic whilst trying to get inside the vehicle. 

That was his problem. And the zero sleep under his belt. 

He strapped you in with the seatbelt, and when the metal clicked inside the mechanism, Jack planted a kiss to your cheek, amused by the way you melted into the seat from his affection.

The drive to his house was comfortably silent. Jack had brought bottled water and two sachets of Liquid IV to ensure the electrolytes were pumped back into your body to ease the foreboding hangover you would experience in a day or so. His hand would occasionally come to rest on the meatiest part of your thigh, or lovingly rub against the nape of your neck and you would lap it all up under hazy vision. 

And then you sobered up a little when you pulled up to his apartment. 

“I’m staying here?” You asked, a little surprised. 

Jack pulled at the handbrake, his voice low, “Is that okay?” 

“Yeah.” You blinked and mustered up a smile that wasn’t the average expression for you, “That’s absolutely fine.” 

It was fine. Even if your face painfully didn’t translate that. 

The thing about it was…you had never officially stayed over at Jack’s apartment. The two of you had reached a consensus that whatever affectionate adjacent companionship that had blossomed through the cracks like pretty delicate flowers, there was no reason to hasten to the end result. Let the flowers grow at their own pace, without unintentionally yanking at their stems to forcefully encourage them out. 

This meaning, the whole staying over thing was a month ahead of schedule. 

You had been in Jack’s apartment before, because, he wasn’t a brick wall. The apartment itself was pretty clean, everything had a place and if it didn’t…it would be organised neatly for a later day. He had a little fern that he took care of, and then you bought him an another house plant under the guise of keeping the fern company.

(Really, you just enjoyed the limited times that you were able to spend money on Jack.)

“Don’t panic.” Jack mumbled, leaning in between the two front seats to grab a plastic bag of goodies from the backseat of his car. A place you both had come nakedly accustomed to. He gave you a lopsided smile when he pulled himself back to the drivers seat, “I can see those thoughts. I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.” 

“No thoughts here, Abbot.” You tapped a finger against your temple, “Just alcohol.” 

“Uh-huh.” Jack mocked before exiting the car, quick to shut the passenger door after you had cracked it open to get out yourself. You let out a laugh at his stern glare through the tempered glass of the window, and when he re-opened the door for you, he said, “We had a deal on who opens doors.” 

You slid down until your feet met the ground, “Put that patriarchal tone away.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

And then, you let Jack open the doors anyway. There were three doors to get through, and each time he’d gesture for you to step through the threshold, not missing an opportunity to let his hand come into swift contact with your backside. Jack wasn’t the type of guy to take advantage of your drunken state, however, he wasn’t opposed to letting you know—physically—that he liked the way your ass looked in that outfit you had chosen for your night out in Pittsburgh.

When you entered his apartment, Jack flicked the lights on and guided you with a hand on your hip, through the corridor and to the room on the left; his bedroom. 

But, you already knew that. 

Hands planted behind you, you sat on the edge of Jack’s bed and watched him bend at the waist in order to solve the mystical contraption that were your heels. The last time you had worn them, Jack had gotten thus far in his attempt to strip you naked in record breaking time, and then had forgone the idea of seductively taking your shoes off when he couldn’t figure out how they came off. 

Albeit, a good anchor for him to hold onto at the time, Jack Abbot would conquer the removal of the heel this time round. 

You nudged his chest gently with your foot, a smile growing on your face when he pressed a kiss to your inner ankle. He mumbled against your skin, “Why did the girls leave you at the bar?” 

“Alcohol induced libido.” You muttered nonchalantly, “They’re all single and well—”

Jack eyed you carefully as he gently wrangled your foot free of your heel, watching as your brow furrowed. You were truthfully stumped in the piloting of your own thoughts through the definition of whatever you and Jack were. Not that slapping the sticker of approval on the whole boyfriend thing would have Jack running in the opposite direction. But, it was the principle of it all. 

You were intransigent in not being the one to leap over that hurdle. 

Jack nodded slowly, “And you’re with me.” (Call a spade, a spade, you guess.) When the skin of your nose wrinkled in a scrunch, Jack lifted himself to press a chaste kiss to your lips. “We can talk about it later. For now, take a look in the bag. Got you some stuff for tonight.”

Grateful for the diversion, you peered into the plastic bag tossed onto the bed. The contents had your heart warm. A toothbrush—in your favourite colour—makeup wipes for sensitive skin, the pot of (rather) expensive moisturiser that Jack knew you worshipped the ground of, and a pyjama set that was made for the scorcher of a July you were already having. 

When you gave him an all-knowing glance matched with the smirk on your face, Jack deadpanned and smacked your backside for the fifth time that night, to get you and your smart mouth moving into the bathroom to de-shed the bottomless brunch attire off of you. 

He helped where he could, respected the part where you told him to turn around whilst you changed—despite seeing you naked several times—and even let you apply a dollop of moisturiser onto his face, because he wasn’t getting any younger. (That part earned a pinch to your hip.) 

You sauntered out of the bathroom, feeling less weighted down by the buzz of alcohol, and more lighter on the aspect of being loved correctly. Jack close by as if he were a dog on a lead.

Where you’d go, he’d follow.

It was just a bonus that he got to appreciate the view whilst doing so.

You flipped his duvet sheet back as you spoke, “I don’t know, Abbot. Seems like you’re going soft on me.”

Jack rounded the bed to approach you as you nestled into his bed, pillows propped up with all intentions of watching some re-run of Love Island. A show Jack swore against, but still somehow managed to catch up on it intermittently. One hand came to your hip as he leant down and kissed you like he meant it. And then two more times for good measure.

He spoke quietly against your lips, “Well, you make it pretty easy to fall in love.”

Oh.

You were really doing this.

Jack stood at full height, gratified by rendering you speechless.

“Alright, honey.” He continued with his voice laced with amusement, “I gotta go. The PTMC waits for no man.”

You slapped a palm to your forehead. “Oh my god. I completely forgot you had a shift at the Pitt today. Jack! I should’ve just gotten an Uber, holy shit.” 

“I am your Uber. Don’t forget it.” Jack reminded you on the agreement that was made that, it didn’t matter what time of day it was. If you needed help—no matter how small—you call him first. He was also feeling a bit playful as you reeled in guilt, “Plus, the SWAT shift wasn’t exciting enough. I only got shot at once.” 

“You got shot?!” 

“Shot at.” Jack corrected, “I’m fine. You should see my buddy. Not good.” 

“And you didn’t think to say anything.” You gawked, but deep down, you weren’t surprised. You let out a hefty sigh, “Did you even manage to sleep?” 

“Nope.” 

Looks like you owed him a couple of homemade dinners, and an abundance of leg massages. 

You dragged your hand down your face, “Why not?” 

Jack looked at you, amongst the sheets of his bed, now fresh-faced and sobering by the minute, and it left him confused as to how it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. Sleep, and everything in between, came second to you. 

You were like a goddamn Northern Star to someone like Jack Abbot. 

Yeah. You two were definitely having a conversation about labels and all that ooey-gooey relationship shit, when he got back from his shift in the morning. 

With his camo bag thrown over his good shoulder, the answer was readily available for you. 

He smiled softly, the flowers beginning to flourish between the cracks as he spoke the words that would come naturally for the rest of his life.

This wasn’t what the two of you did. Ever since… that night… and the night after that, and the night after that… it’d been different. You didn’t wingman each other, in person or on dating apps. You didn’t try to set each other up. Sure, before you’d started sleeping together it wasn’t unheard of for you to talk about your relationships, or random dates you went on, but neither of you asked further than the polite, cursory questions. Even for the first few weeks of this new relationship, each of you made the odd comment about a guy you were texting or a girl that Dick had met at a gala, but those had slowly fizzled out, too. The only thing you had to share with each other was if you hooked up with someone else–to be safe, at the beginning–but the situation had, blissfully, not presented itself.

Recently, Dick had barely even opened his Tinder. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d been thinking about deleting the thing entirely, honestly.

He’s not even sure why he’s so adamantly against you seeing his dating apps right now. It’s not like he’s got anything to hide. He hadn’t had a match in months. Maybe that’s what he didn’t want you to see. The lack of notifications, the empty messaging tab, the few chats he left unanswered past a hey. The fact that the only girl he was currently interested in was you. 

“Baby, stop,” he sighs as he relaxes back into the couch. His sudden change in demeanor has you stalling, too. Your hands drop down, your body collapsing into his side. 

His breath catches in his throat, looking at the way you’ve almost curled up under his arm now that you’re done fighting him. His gaze snags on your lips, but he manages to snap it back up to your eyes before he thinks you catch him. 

“What? You’re still seeing other people, aren’t you?” you ask quietly. Ice crawls up his neck. Why? Does he need to be? 

“I mean…” Dick says, tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

You seem to take that answer the wrong way, pulling away from Dick slowly and planting yourself back into your original spot on the couch. You keep your eyes on him, but your face is a lot less smiley than it had been a minute ago, much to his dismay.

“Is it serious?” you ask as you tuck your knees up to your chest. His heart stutters a bit, resisting his initial urge to just pull you right back into him. “What?” he asks with a furrowed brow.

“The girl you’re seeing. It’s serious, isn’t it? That’s why you don’t want me to see,” you say. 

“I’m not- What?” he parrots. 

“It’s fine,” you say, even though it says like you’re barely managing the words out. “I mean, I wish you would’ve told me, so that we could stop doing… y’know, but-”

Panic floods through him. He can’t handle it anymore. In the span of a second, he’s bridged the gap between you and locked his lips over yours. You’re seconds away from melting into him the way he knows you will, when you start to push at his chest with the heels of your hands.

“Dick, wait-”

“I’m not seeing anyone else,” he pants out, pained. He needs you to stop talking. To stop thinking and spiraling and throwing this away before he has a chance to explain himself. He needs you to stop your mind from wandering to the idea that he could want anyone but you. 

“You’re not?” you ask, trying to pull back further when Dick drops his forehead against yours. You need to see his eyes right now.

“I’m not,” he exhales. You can see the words forming, but it takes him a while longer to ask, “Are you?”

When you shake your head, Dick shifts. He gently begins to pull your legs down and out to give him space to slot himself better between your thighs. His head ducks down, nose bumping against yours.

“Why wouldn’t you let me see your Tinder?” you ask quietly, bringing a hand up and running your fingers though his hair as he kisses along your cheeks.

“I dunno,” he mumbles into your skin. “We haven’t really talked about this in a while. I didn’t want you to see that I wasn’t, you know… putting myself out there if you were.”

“That’s stupid,” you scoff lightly. 

“I know,” he says, raising up to slant his mouth over yours again. “I don’t exactly think straight when you’re around.”

You let him kiss you for a while. You let him lick along your bottom lip, and eventually part them to slide his tongue into your mouth. Even though his response should’ve eased the pit in your stomach, it hadn’t. It lingered, gnawing at you like it had been for the last couple of weeks. 

You think you wanted to see his Tinder for another reason entirely. No matter what you’d tried telling yourself in the moment, no matter how playful and giggly you’d been, you knew you’d been fighting for his phone to try and quell the thoughts that had been nagging at you. You wanted to see the competition, more or less. You wanted to see who else Dick’s attention was lingering on, see if you were able to compete with them. 

That voice is nagging at you, now, despite the fact that Dick’s attempting to shove his tongue down your throat in a way that would typically have your eyes rolling into the back of your head.

“Why aren’t you seeing other people?” you ask, in spite of yourself. You bite down on your tongue to try and stop any more damning words from spilling out of you. 

He seems to glitch for a moment before exhaling. Reluctantly, he pulls away. Not for long, though, as he’s subsequently pulling you up and bracketing your knees around his hips. Once he’s seated and you’re settled on his lap, he speaks.

“Okay,” he sighs. “I don’t think we can keep dancing around this.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek as he begins to slide his hands down your sides. Slowly up around your hips, around your waist, down your thighs, and back up again. It does little to calm your nerves. 

“You don’t want me dating anyone else, hm?” he asks, brows raised in a way that might’ve looked condescending if you didn’t know him as well as you do. You think the question over for a beat before slowly starting to shake your head.

“No,” you admit solemnly. “I know when we started… fooling around we said we weren’t going to do the whole labels thing.”

“I know what we said,” he hums. 

“And we said that we were free to still… you know, go out and stuff,” you manage out.

“And stuff,” he mimics. “I’m not asking about before. I’m asking about now.”

“But, what we agreed on before matters,” you say.

He shrugs, “Sure, it mattered before.”

He looks down at where your hands are resting on his stomach before grabbing them both in one of his. He brings them up to his chest, maneuvering them so that your palms are flat against him.

“I agreed to all of this because I thought that’s what you wanted,” he says before his eyes flick back up to meet yours. 

“Isn’t that what you wanted, too?” you ask

“I wanted whatever you were willing to give me. I didn’t push for more because I thought you… you know… didn’t want that,” he says. The world stops spinning for a solid minute. Suddenly, every appliance in the apartment has gone inexplicably silent and all you can hear is your own breathing–or, lack thereof–and the blood rushing through your eardrums. He’s calmer than he was a minute ago. Less frantic, now, that he seems to have clicked a few pieces into place.

“What?” you croak out.

“Is it that hard to believe, sweetheart?” he asks. “You think I treat every girl the way I treat you? Talk to any girl that way I talk to you?”

He brings your hands up until they’re just under his jaw.

“Fuck any girl the way I fuck you?”

“You want more?” you ask. You have to blink about twenty times in a row to focus down on him again.

“Yes, I want more,” he says. “But I think the real question is if you want more.”

Your mouth opens and closes with a thousand different ways of saying yes, yes, of course I do dying on your tongue. When you finally decide that words are just apparently not going to work right now, you lean in and slant your lips over his. He meets your mouth eagerly, still holding your hands against him, but lifting his head to match your vigor. 

“You’re so stupid,” you huff once you’ve parted.

“That– okay,” he chuckles, brows furrowed, “Why am I stupid?”

“Because I’m in love with you,” you say. 

“Yeah?” he asks. The smile on his face could rival the sun. He uses the lack of space between you to his advantage and smacks a couple of kisses against your lips. “Why does that make me stupid?”

“Because!” you say, like that’s reason enough.

“Because I’m in love with you, too?” he asks. A comment you’re, unfortunately, quick to breeze past. 

“Because we wasted so much time!” you whine with a weak smack to his chest. The air around you is thick with his confession. 

“We’ll have so much time,” he says as he brings both palms up to the sides of your face. Slowly, he pulls you down until you’re chest to chest with him, but he doesn’t make a move to kiss you again. He seems content to just look at you, now. To let his gaze move over the dips and lines of your face, the slope of your nose. 

“We could’ve had more,” you murmur. 

Dick shrugs, thumbs swiping over your cheeks. “I’ve always been yours.”

“Yeah, but…” you start.

“We’ve basically been dating for months already,” he says. “This doesn’t change anything other than what we call each other.”

Huh. You hadn’t thought of it that way.

“There we go,” he hums. His index finger taps against the center of your forehead. “I can see those gears shutting down.”

You sit there for a while, just letting the weight of it all sink into you. You love Dick, you knew that already, and he loves you. He loves you. You didn’t have to settle for–admittedly, amazing–sex, you could have him. You could have everything. 

“Will you let me fuck you now, baby?” he asks, hands moving back down to hold your hips.

Your lips pull into a thin line. “That feels a little crude after what we just admitted to each other.”

“Oh my-” he laughs, those dimples of his peeking out. “Can I make love to you? Is that better?”

“I could so say no right now- oh,” your giggle sharply turns into a gasp when Dick rolls his hips up into yours. Just once. Just enough to feel his hardening cock pressing against your pussy and punching the breath out of you. His lips find the edge of your jaw.

“Baby?” he prompts.

“Yeah, yes,” you exhale, already melting into his touch. “Please.”

And it’s like a band snaps. The thinly veiled restraint he’d been exerting before is gone when his lips find yours again. He’s inching the hem of your shirt up, the warmth of his hands heating your skin. 

“You’re so pretty,” he whispers, parting from you long enough to slide the shirt up and over your head. “My girl.”

“Dick,” you whine. You roll your hips down against his, trying to ease the building pressure building up between your legs. 

“Hold on, pretty,” he laughs in spite of the way his hips jut up to meet yours instantly. “I wanna do this right.”

“We’ve fucked before,” you huff, pushing down harder against his cock until you feel the head of him catch against your clit. Ah, fuck. 

“So we’re calling it that again?” he teases. He licks along the edge of your bra, down the center of your chest, and for a second you think he’s going to make out with the foam padding but then he unclips the back of it with the dexterous accuracy you’re used to. He latches onto one of your nipples, sucking and swirling his tongue in a way that sends a tingle down your spine. 

“Come on,” you hiss, back arching and pushing your chest further into his mouth. He pops off with a grin. His thumbs swipes over your nipple, breaking the string of spit still connecting him to you.

“So impatient,” he says. “I get you worked up that fast, huh?”

“Shut up. You know you do,” you bite, still trying to grind down on his cock but not getting the relief you need through the layers between you. 

“‘Cause you love me?” he asks. One of his fingers hooks into the waistband of your shorts. The elastic snaps against your skin. 

“Stop teasing.”

“‘M not teasing, baby. Promise,” he says before his hand slips into your shorts. His fingers swipe through the slick building there. One taps your clit with just enough pressure to pull a gasp out of you. He tilts his head as he watches you grind against his hand. He seems entirely too pleased with himself. 

You fist your hands into his shirt in a clumsy attempt to get him to take it off. That request, at least, he concedes to. He grabs it by the back of the neckline, tugging it up and tossing it elsewhere on the floor of his living room. When you think he’s going to go back to his heavy petting, though, he doesn’t. He grabs you back the backs of your thighs before standing, leaving you to flail for a second and grab onto his shoulders with a squeak.

“Dick!” you huff, face scrunched up in mock annoyance. “What the hell?”

He makes sure you’re situated in his arms and not going to fall before starting to walk towards his room. The fact that he can pick you up and carry you around without care like this still heats you up inside, despite the fact that he’d done it countless times before. You think he knows. You think that’s why he keeps doing it.

“It’ll be better in bed,” he murmurs, pecking your lips. “Want you to be comfortable.”

Every part of you feels like it's buzzing. Warm static from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. If Dick set you down, you don’t think you would be standing.

If sex with Dick before was good, this was nirvana. And he had barely started touching you.

He kicks the door closed with his heel then gently lays you out at the end of the bed. You’d told him before how grateful you were for his money, only if for the fact that it meant that his bed felt like heaven. A fluffy comforter and egyptian cotton sheets for you to ease down into as Dick starts shimmying your shorts down your thighs. He groans at the sight of your, admittedly, unsexy panties. 

He kneels down and spreads your legs wide, pinning them open with his shoulders. His arms wrap around your thighs and he tugs you the last couple inches so that your ass is at the edge. 

“So beautiful,” he grins, biting the inside of your thigh. His thumb flicks over the tiny bow on the front of your old cotton panties. Your legs attempt to close, but the conspicuously Dick Grayson shaped object in front of you prevents that from happening. 

“Please,” you whisper as you lean up your forearms to get a better look at him. His eyes flick up to yours as his head dips to press delicate kisses to your still clothed cunt. It’s not nearly enough to alleviate the ache building in you, but it raises the hair at the back of your neck all the same. You dig your heels into his shoulders in an attempt to drive him in closer. “I need you.”

“I know. Poor baby,” he hums, tongue coming out to flick your clit through the cotton. He uses his thumb to push the fabric aside before licking a flat stripe up your heat. 

You wobble a bit, falling back into the sheets as your fingers find purchase in his curls. “Ah, Jesus, Dick.”

He laughs against you, the vibration causing you to clench around nothing. 

“So fucking good,” he groans. The lewd sound of him slurping and sucking mixed with the feel of his tongue prodding at your entrance has to embarrassingly close already. 

“I’m gonna cum,” you moan.

“My girl’s gonna cum for me already?” he hums. “C’mon, baby.”

When he sucks on your clit, the band snaps. Dick hisses when you yank on his hair, nearly pulling him off of you, but he manages to stay put. He eases you through your orgasm with gentle kisses against your pussy, nose bumping your clit every so often. Once he’s satisfied with how twitchy you’ve become, he detaches himself.

Gently, lips following his fingers, he pulls your underwear off to drop them at the end of the bed. He stands up to his full height soon after, pushing his own shorts and boxers down his legs before he leans over your body. You reach out to grab his waist and tug him back between your legs. His head drops to slant his mouth over yours. He’s quick to part your lips with his tongue, the taste of you still lingering as he licks into your mouth.

“Pretty girl,” he grins once he pulls back. “Feel good?”

Nodding, you reach between you to wrap a hand around his cock. Your thumb swipes over the head, smearing the precum down his shaft. He groans, thrusting a bit into your grip. 

“Shit,” he whines when you squeeze the base of him. You lock your ankles around his back and pull him in closer. “Wait, sweetheart. I gotta get a condom.”

“No,” you whine. “I want to feel you.”

“Baby,” he laughs when you squeeze him in tighter. The heat of his bare cock nudging against your pussy has your mouth watering. “Are you sure?”

He may be smiling, but his eyes are serious as they search yours. 

“I’m on birth control,” you say, your cheeks heating at your next admission. “And I haven’t slept with anyone other than you since we started hooking up.”

“Yeah?” he asks, suddenly alight with something new. “You only let me make you feel good?”

He smooths his palms down your sides before wrapping a hand around where yours is gripping his cock. His bottom lip tucks between his teeth.

“I haven’t slept with anyone else, either,” he says as he lines up with your entrance. “If that wasn’t obvious.”

He slides into you slowly, jaw clenched and eyes locked on yours. He doesn’t breathe until his pelvic bone brushes yours, and the exhale he lets out is pitchy and broken. 

“Hah- Holy- f-fuck,” he whines as he drops down over you. His weight is braced on one hand resting beside your head. The first roll of his hips is experimental, but you can see the way he short circuits. His balance wobbles and for a split second you worry that he might headbutt you. Or, you would’ve if the feel of him bare inside you didn’t already have you seeing stars. The second he starts to really move, he can’t help the broken pleas of your name that begin to spill from his lips.

“I love you,” you moan as you link your arms around his shoulders to hold him closer. You manage to get him to focus enough to drop a messy kiss to your lips, but it doesn’t last for long. It quickly devolves into a mix of teeth and spit as you both lose yourselves in the new sensation.

“I love you so much, baby,” he whispers. “God, this is a dream. You’re a dream.”

His thrusts start to get sloppy, a mix of jerky pumps and deep grinding. The way you’re clenching around him has his balls tightening at maddening speed.

“Cum in me,” you hum before he can ask when you feel his dick twitching.

“Ah, fuck,” he hisses. He uses the hand not bracing the brunt of his weight to reach between you to start rolling over your clit in tight circles. “Cum with me, sweetheart.”

Your nails dig into his shoulders as the pressure builds tighter in your gut. Your brain goes a little fuzzy once your orgasm hits, a tingle traveling all the way down to your fingertips. Dick follows soon after. He manages to thrust a couple more times before his pace stalls at the hilt. 

“There we go,” he pants. “Jesus, you’re gonna kill me.”

His forehead comes down to rest against yours. The both of you are breathing heavily with sweat beading along your temples, but you don’t think you’ve ever felt better. You’re beneath the man you love–full of him, actually–after having probably the best sex you’d had with him, and he loves you back. He loves you back.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs, gently petting the side of your head. You lean into the touch, face tilting to kiss his thumb. 

“I’m perfect,” you reply. He stays put, only moving to glide his lips along your hairlines, until your breathing goes back to normal. 

Pulling out with a wince, he murmurs, “I know, I know. ‘M sorry.”

You almost want to trap him there, dig your heels into his ass and keep him inside you for the foreseeable future, but you let him pull out with minimal whining.

Dick leaves you for a minute, but returns with a washcloth in one hand and his phone in the other.

“What’re you doing?” you ask as you scoot up a bit on the bed.

“Cleaning you up,” he says easily

“No, why’d you go get your phone?” you chuckle.

“I’m deleting Tinder.”

“You had to do that right now?”

“I don’t need it anymore,” he shrugs before setting his phone down on the side table, apparently already finished with his task, and spreading your legs again to wipe you down with the warm cloth. Once he feels he’s cleaned you up to the best of his ability, he tosses the rag into his hamper and grabs a clean pair of boxers from the drawer. You half-expect him to leave you naked once he’s got the boxers pulled up, but are pleasantly surprised when he grabs another pair and a t-shirt for you to wear. 

He crosses back over to you, sitting you up and lifting your arms up to slide the clean shirt over your head. The underwear is a bit more of a challenge to get on without forcing you to stand, but he does it with surprising grace.

“Hi,” you grin after you’ve both slid under the covers. You’re facing him, now, allowing your eyes to wander over his features.

"sure." he mumbled, a little stumped from the sudden affection. "you okay? need anything?"

"i'm good." you spoke quickly, in a high pitched, breathy voice, and let out a particularly sharp exhale, as you were still trying to regain your breath. "it's just that i still need to get used to this, you know?"

wally heard you laugh softly at your own words, but his heart skipped a beat at the implications behind them, and he was glad that you could not see his surprised expression, was it something you were actually willing to go through with? "what do you mean?"

"it's just that sex with superspeed can be a bit rough, you know?"

"right..." he trailed off, but decided not to press on the matter, he'd just have to wait some more to find out if you were actually planning on having sex with him often enough to end up getting used to his powers. "sorry about that."

"that's fine, i like it." you tightened your arms around his neck. "just need the support right now."

"sure." he was still feeling a bit awkward, but he wrapped his arms around your waist and held you close to his chest anyway, allowing you to relax into his arms and your breath to even out. he felt the soft rise and fall of your chest against his own, your warm skin against his, and heard your heartbeats slowing down to finally synchronise with his.

he was sure the moment felt a lot more intimate than anything you'd agreed on. still, wally decided to allow himself to take in your warmth rather than push you away, it'd been you who'd started it after all and he was not going to be the one to stop you. you felt tired, you wanted to be held, and he was the one responsible for it, so he shouldn't deny you of that, right?

one arm tightened around your waist while the other snaked up your back to tangle his fingers in your hair. he liked having you this close. even after the activities you'd been engaging in prior to this moment, he felt a lot closer to you like this. it felt nice, maybe he shouldn't be enjoying the softness of the moment as much as he was.

he stayed still for a few seconds, taking in your scent and listening to your soft breaths fanning against his neck. he wasn't sure if you were planning on falling asleep like that but he would let you if you needed to.

he pressed a kiss to your temple and hoped that it wasn't too much for you, hoped that you wouldn't be able to feel all the love he had for you, that he was sure practically radiated off him while he held you like this.

jack learnt very early on that loving you meant accepting that there was very little about you that remained still. from your thoughts, your seven half-finished craft projects scattered around the apartment, the fact that you could actively lose your keys while they were in your hands.

you lived your life in a state of perpetual motion.

but even you had your moments of stillness. for every day that you buzzed around with enough energy to last three lifetimes, there were times where your body seemed to remember all at once how tiring existing could be.

you'd tell jack you'd lay down for just 20 minutes, and he would find you two hours later sprawled across the top of the duvet — missing a sock, a book laying forgotten beside you. you were the most peaceful in those moments.

jack never had the heart to wake you. he'd simply drape a blanket over your sleeping form before rescuing your phone from wherever you'd abandoned it, plugging it into the charger before it had the chance to die.

you'd wake up some hours later, cocooned in a blanket you didn't remember wrapping yourself in, your book back on your nightstand with your page marked, and your phone alive and charging.

"you know" jack would say without looking up from whatever medical journal he was reading, "chargers only work if you actually plug your phone into them".

you'd frown at him, still blinking sleep from your eyes.

"is that how they work?"

he'd hum his response.

"good thing you have me around, otherwise you'd be walking around all day without any way of falling down your wikipedia rabbit holes".

"lucky me", you sleepily grin at him.

the calls at the beginning of his shift had started off sporadically when your relationship was still new. sometimes he'd call to remind you to eat, other times just to hear your voice before the chaos of the emergency department swallowed him whole. you usually called with little updates about whatever new thing had captured your attention that week.

over time, the calls became an unspoken way for the both of you to make sure the other was okay. they became a ritual; one final moment of normality before jack disappeared behind the ambulance bay doors for the next twelve hours.

if you couldn't catch him before he clocked in, he'd call the moment he found five spare minutes between patients. if it was a really hectic shift, you'd leave him a voice message before you went to bed, promising to catch up in the morning.

and no matter how unpredictable your days were, one of you always found a way to keep in touch.

until tonight.

jack was on his third attempt of calling you, the phone still ringing. but he wasn't worried, not yet. you could've misplaced your phone again, you could have some music playing too loudly to hear the ringing, or maybe you were busy watering the plants again.

people missed phone calls all the time.

he ended the call before it went to voicemail, making a mental note to try again later when he had a break — if you hadn't called him back before then.

the break never came. twenty minutes later EMS rolled in with two men who'd turned a disagreement over a football match into a bar fight. one with a broken nose, the other with a bottle-shaped laceration across his forehead.

then came an elderly woman in respiratory distress.

a teenager with a dislocated shoulder.

a child who'd swallowed a coin.

the emergency department moved the way it always did: relentlessly. by the time jack finally scrubbed the dried blood from his hands and reached for his phone, nearly 4 hours had disappeared.

he expected to see your name, a missed call, maybe a text.

sorry!! accidentally fell asleep lol.

instead... nothing. his lock screen stared back at him, stubbornly empty. the familiar calm he'd carried all evening gave way to something more restless.

he called again. straight to voicemail.

jack frowned. phone's dead, he thought automatically. it was the most logical explanation. it should've been enough to put his mind at ease, but it wasn't.

he spent the rest of his shift with his body and mind in two different places. physically he was exactly where he needed to be — suturing lacerations, reading x-rays, reassuring anxious families, signing discharge papers. mentally though, he couldn't stop searching for the reason for your silence.

there had to be one.

you'd misplaced your phone before. forgotten it in the bathroom, left it buried beneath a pile of laundry, abandoned it somewhere in the apartment while your attention drifted to something else. you'd fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon more times than he could count, usually waking hours later with no memory of closing your eyes in the first place.

any one of those explanations should've been enough, so why couldn't he believe them?

jack spent every spare moment checking his phone, hoping to see your name lighting up the screen. a missed call. a text. anything.

there was never anything.

by the end of his shift, jack was exhausted. he felt it everywhere.

in the ache behind his eyes after hours of fluorescent lights, in the stiffness settling between his shoulders, in the dull irritation where his prosthetic rubbed against his skin after twelve hours on his feet.

on any other day, he'd have driven home already thinking about a hot shower and collapsing into bed beside you.

tonight, there was only one thing on his mind.

he drove home as fast as the speed limit allowed, tapping restless fingers against the steering wheel every time he was forced to stop at another red light. when he finally pulled into the driveway, your car was exactly where it should've been.

relief loosened something in his chest. but only for a moment, because he still didn't know if you were okay.

the house was dark when he stepped inside.

"honey?"

silence.

he spotted your phone almost immediately, abandoned on the kitchen counter exactly where you'd left it.

he pressed the power button, nothing.

"...of course."

the tension in his shoulders eased just enough for him to breathe.it was dead, he'd been right. all the worst case scenarios that had been plaguing him for the entire shift hadn't come true.

he rounded the corner into the living room, and there you were.

curled up on the sofa beneath far too many blankets, one leg dangling over the armrest, your book lying open across your chest exactly where sleep had claimed you. the television was still playing quietly to an audience of no one.

jack stood there for a long moment.

he hadn't realised how tightly he'd been holding himself together until he felt everything finally unwind.

you were okay, that's all that mattered.

he bent down and placed a gentle kiss to your forehead before turning off the tv and grabbing your phone from the kitchen. he plugged it into the charger with the familiarity of someone who'd done it a hundred times before.