leticia !

Warnings & Notes | 18+, fem reader, slow burn, faking dating, opposites attract, bratty rich bitch reader, super minor revenge plot, dysfunctional family dynamics, idiots-to-lovers, smut & nsfw themes

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chapter list

"This is the alarm code-”

"Jesus, what neighbourhood do you live in again?"

"You don't have to use it, but a young woman staying alone? I want you to feel safe."

He handed you the note. That felt sweet.

You weren't entirely sure how you'd ended up being the one house-sitting for Robby while he disappeared on a three month sabbatical. You were the newest resident, barely eight months into your time at PTMC, but for whatever reason he seemed to trust you. He liked the way you taught, how patient you were with the med students, how you somehow managed to balance nurturing them without letting them walk all over you.

You'd been a little intimidated by him when you first arrived. Robby didn't take mistakes lightly. If you fucked up, you fucked up. There was no sugar coating it.

But he'd turned out to be a better teacher than you'd expected, taking you under his wing and dragging you into procedures most residents would have had to fight to get near. Sometimes you wanted to call it favouritism but it was probably just him doing his job. Probably.

"Anything else I need to know?" you asked. "Weird neighbours, paranormal activity, stalker exes?"

You tried to keep a straight face, only for the corners of your mouth to betray you.

He shook his head, laughing. "You sure you're okay doing this?"

"Are you kidding? This is gonna be like a vacation for me."

Robby nodded once, seemingly satisfied, and dropped the keys into your palm.

"Good. Call me if you need anything."

He started backing away towards the chaos of the ER. "Hey, remember. No parties, no pets, no boyfriends. Yours or anybody else's."

You scoffed, not quite loud enough for him to hear. Party? Required more than three friends. Pets? Required energy. And boyfriend? Don't even go there.

You didn't see Robby again before he left. Maybe the apartment handover had counted as a goodbye, or maybe the ER had simply done what it always did and swallowed every spare second before anyone got the chance to wave him off into the sunset.

Either way, all you could really focus on right now was three whole months without roommates and a bed bigger than a single. Happy days.

-

You managed to slip off shift without attracting any attention from the nurses or the night shift. Robby had said the only person he'd told about the house-sitting arrangement was Abbot. If you wanted to tell people, you could, but he didn't particularly care either way.

You decided to keep it quiet.

Work wasn't really where you made friends. You had three good ones on the outside but that was mostly it. Everyone was nice enough in the ER, and there had been the occasional invitation for drinks after a shift, but by seven o'clock you were usually too exhausted to be anything but horizontal.

Your circle stayed small, mainly Mckay and Ellis within the hospital.

You worked with Cassie every day and had become close over the months, and Parker had been your person during those brutal night shift rotations when you first arrived in Pittsburgh.

Either way, you made it to Robby's building without interception. Silver key for the lobby and brass for the apartment. Just like he'd said.

The building itself was nice. Clean hallways, warm lighting, planters hanging in the windows. The kind of place that felt looked after without trying too hard about it. The apartment was even nicer. Or maybe it just felt huge compared to the place you shared with four other girls.

"Well, fuck." The words slipped out before you could stop them as you flicked on the light switch.

The front door opened into a small hallway that led into a spacious living room, all exposed brick and worn hardwood floors. A brown leather sofa sat opposite a huge TV, surrounded by shelves packed with books and an almost concerning number of CDs.

You drifted towards them automatically, scanning album titles as you went. Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley. A laugh escaped you.

"Checks out."

Your finger brushed across the collection before you moved on, abandoning your investigation in favour of something far more important.

Bed.

The guest room had already been made up for you, fresh sheets stretched neatly across the mattress and extra towels folded at the end like you were checking into a hotel instead of crashing in your attending's spare room. It made you smile.

Maybe your standards for grand gestures were embarrassingly low, but between that and the hundred dollars waiting on the kitchen counter with a note that read for anything you need, you couldn't help it.

There was still plenty left to explore. The contents of his fridge, the bookshelves, photo albums (or lack thereof) and most definitely the bedside drawers. But not tonight.

You peeled off your scrubs, barely managing to change before exhaustion caught up with you. Within minutes you were under the covers, eyes heavy, asleep before your head had properly settled into the pillow.

-

Turns out this house-sitting gig was absolute heaven.

Two days in and it was already starting to feel less like a favour and more like a reward.

Today was your day off. You'd actually eaten breakfast instead of inhaling a protein bar, spent the afternoon doing absolutely nothing productive and met up with a couple of friends for drinks that evening. The friends who weren't doctors, nurses or in any way connected to the hospital.

Then you'd come home, changed into something comfortable and settled onto Robby's sofa with your book.

Life was good.

So far, the hundred dollars he'd left behind had contributed to a half-full fridge and a bottle of wine, which felt perfectly reasonable considering Robby had specifically said it was for anything you needed. It was somewhere around chapter twenty-three of your hot romance fantasy novel (not one of Robby's) when your phone buzzed beside you.

Robby:

Hey, hope you're good. Just checking in to make sure everything's okay?

You smiled before you could stop yourself. He was so proper. So formal. Even his texts somehow read like work emails. Still, you appreciated him checking since you honestly hadn't expected to hear from him at all.

The whole point of this trip was supposed to be getting away. You'd heard him say more than once that he wanted to leave Pittsburgh and everyone in it behind for a while. No calls. No emails. As close to no contact as he could realistically get. According to Robby, that was the only way to properly clear your head.

The one exception had always been Abbot, maybe even Dana. Apparently now it was the three of you.

You:

all good! your apartment is insane by the way

and thank u for the money, u didn't have to!

You took a sip of wine as you hit send. A reply came almost immediately.

Robby:

You're doing me a huge favour!

Spend wisely…

A laugh escaped you. You were a little tipsy by now. Not drunk, just pleasantly warm from the two glasses of pinot you'd had at the bar combined with the one currently sitting beside you. Which, admittedly, was a lot considering you barely drank.

Without thinking too hard about it, you snapped a picture of the glass balanced on the coffee table. Then you zoomed in slightly. Mostly to crop out the fact you weren't using a coaster.

You:

wise you say???

The typing bubbles appeared almost instantly. Then disappeared. Then appeared again. You frowned at the screen.

For some reason, a flicker of self-consciousness crept in. Maybe the photo was weird. Maybe the lipstick mark on the rim was weird. Maybe it was weird to be sitting in your attending's apartment drinking wine and texting him on a Friday night.

Before you could overthink it further, another message appeared.

Robby:

Naughty!

Your stomach flipped. It was ridiculous. The word itself wasn't even remotely suggestive. If anything, it was probably about the coaster.

But between the wine and the book currently sitting open beside you, the message seemed to land somewhere deep in your belly. You stared at it for a second longer than necessary.

"Time for bed." You said it out loud, as though hearing it might make it true.

Leaving the glass on the coffee table with a single sip left, you gathered your book and headed for the guest room.

-

Robby stared at the photo for longer than he meant to. Not at the wine or the coffee table and certainly not at the missing coaster.

His attention had landed on the faint lipstick mark circling the rim of the glass and stayed there for a second too long before he caught himself. He sat back against the headboard of the hotel bed, somewhere around Chicago, after a long day on the road.

The room was forgettable. Beige walls. Generic artwork. The low hum of an air conditioner fighting for its life in the corner. Exactly the kind of place he'd expected to find himself in.

He'd only been checking in. That was all.

You were doing him a favour and it seemed polite to make sure everything was going smoothly.

Except now he found himself picturing you in his apartment. Curled up on the couch, feet tucked beneath you. A glass of wine in one hand and whatever book had managed to distract you from answering his text in the other.

His apartment. His couch. His glass.

He exhaled through his nose. It was ridiculous. Of course you were there, that was the entire point. For the next three months you were going to be using his mugs, watching his TV, standing under his shower and sleeping in the guest room.

None of that should have felt strange. And it didn't. Not really. It had just been that split second when the photograph appeared on his screen and his brain had connected the image to a real person rather than the vague idea of someone looking after his place.

Someone he'd see almost every day at work. Someone currently sitting exactly where he usually sat. Robby shook his head once, more at himself than anything else.

Then he typed out the reply.

Naughty!

The second it was sent, he dropped the phone onto the bedside table and turned off the lamp. Tomorrow he'd have another few hours of driving ahead of him. That was what he should be thinking about.

Not a lipstick stain on a wine glass.

-

It was strange how different work felt when you had somewhere peaceful to come home to.

The shifts were still long and the patients exhausting. None of that changed. But when there were no roommate arguments waiting for you at the end of the day, no mountain of dishes that didn't belong to you and no obnoxiously loud sex through the wall at midnight, everything felt a little more manageable.

You had energy again. Energy to come home and shower. Energy to cook. Energy to actually enjoy your evenings instead of collapsing face-first into bed.

You'd always been a good cook. Your mom had made sure of that. While other kids were watching TV, you'd been standing beside her in the kitchen learning how to chop onions without crying and season food without measuring every ingredient.

Your family tree contained exactly zero Italians, but your signature dish was carbonara. Real carbonara. The proper kind. The kind that required ingredients expensive enough to make you wince in the grocery aisle.

Which was exactly why you rarely made it. But with Robby's hundred dollars quietly subsidising your lifestyle, you figured you deserved a treat.

The plan was going perfectly until you tried to turn on the hob.

"Come on."

You twisted the dial until it clicked. Nothing. You tried again.

Another click. Still nothing.

By the fourth attempt, you were staring at the appliance like it had personally offended you.

"Am I losing my mind?"

Getting a burner lit should not have been this difficult. You glanced at your phone sitting on the counter.

No. Absolutely not.

You were not texting Robby because you couldn't operate a stove. You were a doctor, a functioning adult. You could figure this out.

Another click. Nothing. "For fuck's sake." The curse echoed around the kitchen. A few seconds later, you picked up your phone.

You:

i don't want you to think i'm completely incompetent but i cannot work your hob…

Three states away, Robby's phone lit up. He'd spent most of the day hiking through some forest outside Rockford before ending the evening under a shower hot enough to steam up the entire bathroom.

He walked over to the phone, towel slung low around his waist, hair still damp. The text made him laugh.

Robby:

You have to turn and press. It's more of a button than a switch!

Also don't worry, I couldn't work it for the first six months I lived there because of that…

It was strangely comforting to know a physician widely regarded as one of the smartest people in Pittsburgh had also been defeated by a kitchen appliance.

Following his instructions, you pushed the dial inward and a blue flame immediately burst to life.

"Oh thank god."

You set a pot of water on one burner and poured oil into a pan on the other before reaching for your phone again.

You:

life saver. i was about to starve

and the great robby also not knowing how to operate a stove makes me feel better so thank u

Back in his hotel room, Robby laughed quietly at the screen. A small smile lingered as he reread your message.

He'd answered your question, technically the conversation could end there and it probably should. Instead, his thumbs hovered over the keyboard for a second.

Robby:

What are you cooking anyway?

You saw the message while stirring egg and cheese into freshly drained pasta. Not now. Carbonara required concentration and you weren't risking scrambled eggs for anybody.

Five minutes later, when the sauce was silky and clinging perfectly to the noodles, you twisted a generous serving onto a plate and admired your handiwork.

Then you grabbed your phone.

You:

carbonara!

You attached the picture before hitting send.

The photo sat open on his screen for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd expected, certainly not that. It looked better than anything he'd eaten in the last week.

After a moment he tapped the heart reaction and tossed the phone onto the mattress beside him. He ignored the part of himself that wanted to ask for the recipe.

-

The next two days brought two hellish shifts.

First a mass casualty then a stomach bug that seemed determined to take down half the ER.

Dana did her best to pull people in for extra coverage, Abbot came in early and somehow ended up working a double, but even that barely kept things afloat. It was chaos. The kind that left you running entirely on adrenaline until your body remembered it was human.

You finally made it home just before eleven: a personal record. The worst part was that when you dragged yourself up the stairs, peeled off your scrubs and collapsed into bed, you couldn't sleep.

You were trapped in that miserable state of overtiredness where your body was begging for rest while your brain stubbornly refused to switch off.

You hadn't looked at your phone once during the shift. Not during the mass casualty or the endless stream of patients. Not even while inhaling a granola bar somewhere around hour twelve. It stayed buried in your pocket until you stepped through the apartment door.

It wasn't until you were under the covers that you finally saw the notification waiting for you.

Robby:

I had diner food for the third night in a row tonight, your carbonara is making me look bad…

He'd given you a rough outline of his route before he left and, if you remembered correctly, he should be somewhere near Minneapolis by now. An hour behind. Not too late.

You:

trust me, my carbonara is the least impressive thing about my week

i just survived a mass casualty and half the department trying to die from a stomach bug

diner food sounds peaceful honestly

Robby:

Mass casualty?

You:

three car pile up

and before you ask everyone survived

mostly because abbot worked about seventeen hours straight

Robby:

I leave for one week…

You:

i was waiting for someone to blame

Robby:

Blame Dana…

You:

do you think i have a death wish???

that's not the attending wisdom i was hoping for

Robby:

🤷🏻‍♂️ ️

You stare at the screen. He's using emojis now? Something about that feels strangely significant.

The conversation probably should have ended three messages ago. Instead, another text appears a few seconds later.

Robby:

You okay?

The question catches you off guard. Not because it's particularly personal, just because he seems to actually mean it. You stare at the message for a moment before replying.

You:

yeah

just tired

too tired to sleep which is apparently a thing

Robby:

Been there. Your body's exhausted but the brain's stress response overrides it

Makes for a very restless night

You:

oh good

thought i was dying

Robby:

You're a doctor..

You always think you're dying

A quiet laugh escapes you. You weren't entirely sure why any of this felt comforting.

After one of the worst shifts you'd worked in months, you were lying awake in your attending's apartment, texting your boss from beneath the covers.

On paper, it sounded ridiculous but the knot that had been sitting between your shoulders since this morning was slowly beginning to loosen.

Your eyes felt heavier, your body sank deeper into the mattress and the first time all night, sleep actually seemed possible.

You:

night robby x

You hit send before thinking too hard about it. A second passed. Then two. Then your phone lit up.

Robby:

Sleep well!

You smiled at the screen. By the time you set your phone on the bedside table, your eyes were already closing.

Robby didn't go to sleep straight away.

Instead he sat against the headboard, phone still in his hand, staring at the open conversation. The room was quiet. Outside, somewhere beyond the hotel curtains, a truck rumbled along the interstate.

His thumb drifted across the screen and paused, hovering over the last message.

night robby x

Just one stupid little letter. It probably meant absolutely nothing. For all he knew, you signed every text that way. You were exhausted when you'd sent it, practically half asleep and already drifting off. He knew that. So why was he still looking at it?

With a quiet huff of amusement at himself, Robby locked the screen.

Tomorrow he'd drive another few hundred miles, stay at another hotel, eat another mediocre meal. Continue doing exactly what he'd left Pittsburgh to do.

And yet, as he finally switched off the lamp and settled back against the pillows, he found himself wondering whether you'd text him tomorrow.

The thought stayed with him longer than it should have. Long enough that sleep didn't come quite as quickly as usual.

-

The next few days settled into something that almost resembled normality (or at least as normal as life in the ER ever got).

The stomach bug finally burned its way through the department, leaving a trail of exhaustion and empty electrolyte bottles in its wake. Everyone looked tired and complained constantly. You included.

It was nearing the end of another shift when your phone buzzed in your pocket.

You ignored it only for it to buzz again.

And because every doctor secretly believed they were the most important person in the building, your brain immediately convinced itself it could be an emergency.

You pulled it out while waiting for the elevator.

Robby:

Rode twenty minutes off route for this

You opened it. Then frowned. Then laughed.

You:

what the fuck is that

Robby:

The world's largest prairie chicken

You:

of course it is

you rode twenty minutes out of your way to see a giant chicken?

Robby:

Yes.

You:

no further questions your honour

The elevator doors opened. You stepped inside, still smiling at your phone. Another message appeared.

Robby:

Thought you'd appreciate it!

Your lips curled at the suggestion he had taken the picture with you in mind.

You:

i'm genuinely concerned about how you're spending this sabbatical

Robby:

That's fair

For the record I did also spend six hours riding through some very beautiful countryside today

You:

and yet it was the giant chicken you sent

Robby:

Correct.

You laughed, probably too loud for the setting as others in the lift glanced over before you quickly looked away.

You:

well i'm glad my attending is making good use of his time

Robby:

You laughed didn't you?

You:

immediately

The elevator dinged and people shuffled out around you while you lingered behind, looking down at the conversation. At the completely pointless exchange.

The kind of conversation that served no purpose whatsoever and yet somehow it had made the end of a miserable shift feel lighter.

Robby:

Worth the detour then

You shook your head but the smile wouldn't disappear. It stayed with you all the way to the parking lot.

Across the county, Robby sat on the edge of his hotel bed with the television murmuring quietly in the background.

The hotels he was staying in were nice, he had the money to stay in much nicer but there wasn't much point when only passing through.

The final destination was a cabin in Alberta. That's where he'd spend the rest of the sabbatical when he got there, that he had spared no expense on.

But he didn't find himself thinking of his trip. The conversation still sat open on his phone. Nothing important, just the giant chicken staring back at him amongst a handful of messages and a stupid amount of amusement considering the subject matter.

After a minute, he locked the screen and set the phone aside. Then despite himself, he found his gaze drifting back towards it as though another message might somehow appear.

He'd be crossing into North Dakota soon and if he happened to see anything ridiculous along the way…

Well he knew exactly who he'd send it to.

-

The next few days followed suit. You and Robby started speaking like it was part of your routines without ever actually agreeing to it.

Nothing constant or heavy, just small check-ins threaded through the day. Snapshots from the road. Snapshots from the ER.

Things you'd caught out of the corner of your eye like the giant pigeon on a fire escape outside the hospital that made you stop mid-conversation just to take a picture.

Food also became a kind of currency between you. The home-cooked meals you'd send, still steaming on the plate whilst he'd drop his roadside breakfasts, gas station coffee, or whatever local specialty he'd found himself staring at that day.

You started waiting for the messages without really meaning to. Both of you did.

Robby:

This morning's view

You:

versus my morning's view

—

You:

i'm going old school and listening to your CDs

you have good taste old man

Robby:

I'll ignore those last two words and take it as a compliment...

—

Robby:

Got caught in a thunderstorm on the road today

You:

😭😭😭 😭 😭 omg

just know i'd be laughing if i were there

—

You:

robby

a guy came in today with an action figure up his ass

and dana made whitaker deal with it

Robby:

Nothing says good evening quite like a HIPAA violation

You:

i know you won't tell x

—

Somewhere between shifts and miles, the apartment stopped being the reason you spoke. It just became something that existed in the background, as if you'd both forgotten the house-sitting gig and this was all normal.

An excuse that had quietly turned into a habit. You didn't really notice the shift until one night you didn't text him at all.

Not on purpose, because of pure exhaustion. A shift that ran too long, a body too tired to think in sentences.

And on his end, Robby found himself checking his phone more than he liked to admit. Each time with a little more irritation than the last.

"Stupid." He muttered under his breath, tossing the phone face-down on the bed.

It didn't stay there long since he picked it back up a minute later.

His trip was still everything it was supposed to be. Long stretches of highway and peaceful mornings. Mountains, towns, weather that changed without warning.

It was all the kind of distance he'd been looking for and for the most part, the noise in his head had settled. It wasn't gone, he needed more than a solo road trip to fix that but it was quieter.

It was at its quietest when you text. Or when he took a picture and thought, without really meaning to, that you'd probably laugh at it.

Then his phone buzzed.

You:

sorry

today's been awful

The irritation disappeared immediately and he sat down properly on the edge of the bed.

For a moment, he stared at the message longer than he needed to. His first instinct was practical, to ask what happened and if you were okay. But it was nearly midnight your time and he knew, instinctively, that whatever you needed wasn't a barrage of questions.

Robby:

Do you want to talk about it?

You:

think i just need bed

speak tomorrow

He stared at the screen a moment longer than he meant to, leaving the chat open, your name sitting at the top of it. He didn't reply.

There wasn't anything else to say that wouldn't feel like too much.

-

The next day didn't actually bring a text. Or the day after that.

Shift patterns blurred together in the ER anyway, time measured in admissions and discharge paperwork rather than hours. You were exhausted, that was your excuse for not texting Robby. But by the second night, you were wondering what his excuse was.

It wasn't anything dramatic, just… absent.

No photos from the road or pointless updates about whatever strange thing he'd stopped to look at. There'd been no diner food commentary that made you roll your eyes while smiling at your phone.

You told yourself it made sense. Robby was on a bike somewhere between states and you were drowning in back-to-back shifts. There wasn't always going to be time.

Still, your phone felt heavier in your pocket than usual.

On his end, Robby told himself the same thing.

He'd spent most of the day on the road, miles of open highway stretching out ahead of him, the kind of silence he'd gone looking for. It should have felt good and it did, mostly. But every time he stopped for fuel, or pulled off to check a map, his hand drifted to his phone out of habit.

There he would find no new messages and he told himself that was normal.

It was normal. Until it wasn't.

-

It happened on a night that started like any other.

You'd left the hospital later than you meant to, fatigue settling into your bones in that familiar way that made everything feel slightly delayed.

The apartment was quiet when you got back.

You climbed the stairs and only realised something was wrong when your keys didn't turn properly in the lock. You tried it once, twice, three times and nothing. You paused then tried again but the lock didn't budge.

"Oh come on," you muttered under your breath.

You stared at the door for a second, exhaustion making it harder to think than it should have.

Of course this was happening now.

You pulled your phone out, looking who to burden with your troubles and force to come to your rescue. For a second, you considered calling Mckay but her shift had been just as rough as yours and Ellis' night was only just starting in the ER, suddenly you were out of options.

Your thumb hovered. Then moved.

In some hotel in one of the Dakotas, Robby's phone lit up on the bedside. His brow furrowed slightly, not expecting to see your name across the screen.

"Hello?"

Your voice came through slightly breathless and oh so tired.

"Hi," you said. "I have a problem."

He sat up a little straighter without thinking. "Are you okay?"

You let out a short laugh that didn't quite sound amused. "Your lock hates me." There was a pause.

Then, quieter, "Which one?"

"Front door."

"Right," he said. "Stay there."

"I am there."

"No," he corrected. "I mean don't try anything else. Just- stay."

You leaned back against the wall, sliding down slightly until you were sitting on the floor outside his apartment door.

"Robby," you said, "I am physically incapable of breaking your door at this point. I'm too tired to commit crimes."

That earned a small exhale of something that might have been a laugh.

"Good," he said. "I prefer it that way."

There was movement on his end. Fabric shifting, something being set down.

"Okay," he added. "Walk me through what happened."

-

The locksmith said he'd be there in twenty minutes which, judging by his tone, probably meant thirty. You thanked him anyway before ending the call and letting your head fall back against the apartment door.

"Well," you sighed, stretching your legs out in front of you. "Guess I live here now."

The laugh that came through the speaker was soft. You'd heard Robby laugh a hundred times at work, usually in passing conversations or when Dana pulled it out of him, but hearing it through the phone felt strangely personal.

"Could be worse."

"How?"

He was quiet for a moment.

"I'll let you know when I think of something."

You smiled. For a while, neither of you said anything.

The silence wasn't awkward, which surprised you. You could hear faint traffic somewhere on his end of the line, the distant sound of a television through a hotel wall perhaps.

"Where are you?" you asked eventually.

“Just outside Sioux Falls."

"Fancy..." You shifted against the wall, tucking one knee up towards your chest. "How's the trip?"

There was a pause. Not because he wasn't going to answer, but because he seemed to actually think about it.

"Good." You waited. "Actually, really good."

"Wow."

"What?"

"I don't think I've ever heard you sound that enthusiastic about anything."

"That's not true."

"Robby, I've worked with you for eight months."

"And?"

"The highlight of your emotional range is usually a nod."

That earned a proper laugh. The kind that made you grin before you'd even realised you were doing it. Why were your cheeks getting hot at the idea of making him laugh?

"That's harsh."

"I think you mean accurate."

"I'll have you know I've been having a great time."

“The giant chicken gave it away."

"Don't mock the chicken."

"I'll mock the chicken all I want."

He sighed dramatically. "This is exactly why I send you things."

Your smile lingered, you weren't entirely sure why. Like even if you wanted to get rid of it you couldn't. Maybe because it was nice knowing someone saw something during their day and thought to share it with you. Or maybe because lately, you'd been doing the same thing.

"Seriously though," you said. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

The teasing slipped away a little and you could hear it in his voice when he answered.

"Yeah. I think I needed it more than I realised."

You looked down at the floor. You'd thought that yourself. The difference in him was obvious, even through a screen. The texts were lighter. There was an ease to him that hadn't existed back in Pittsburgh.

"You sound happier."

He didn't answer immediately.

"Maybe."

It wasn't much of a response. Coming from Robby, it felt like a confession.

The conversation drifted after that. Work came up eventually, because it always did. You told him about the latest departmental disaster and he laughed harder than he probably should have at Whitaker's expense. Then somehow you ended up talking about music, and when you admitted you'd been making your way through his CD collection, he spent five minutes defending an album you'd called objectively terrible.

Before either of you realised it, headlights swept across the apartment parking lot. You glanced through the stairwell window to see a white van pulling in.

"Oh."

"What?"

"That's him." You pushed yourself to your feet, brushing imaginary dust from your scrubs. "The locksmith."

"Right."

You checked the time. Nearly forty minutes since you'd spoken to him on the phone.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. Then you laughed softly.

"I don't think we've ever actually spoken like this before."

"Spoken like what?"

"Just…" You searched for the right words. "Talked."

He huffed a laugh. "We talk all the time."

"About work."

"Hmm. True."

You shook your head. "I know more about a giant prairie chicken than I do about you."

"Now that's probably not true."

"It definitely is."

The locksmith was already making his way towards the building entrance. You tightened your grip on the phone.

"Thanks for staying on the phone with me."

The words slipped out before you could think too hard about them and for a second, there was only the sound of his breathing on the other end.

"Of course." Robby said it with such ease, as if there'd never been any question about it. Something in your chest warmed at that.

"I should go."

"Yeah. You should."

Neither of you hung up immediately. You smiled even though he couldn't see.

"Night, Robby."

"Night."

-

Robby eventually made it to Alberta, trading motels and roadside diners for a cabin tucked between trees and more open sky than you'd ever seen in one place. The photos changed after that. It was less giant roadside attractions and more mountains, lakes so still they looked painted. Sunrises taken from a porch with a mug of coffee balanced somewhere just out of frame.

Your own contributions remained considerably less scenic.

You:

this mornings view

Robby:

Stunning!

You:

i know

thinking of getting it framed

Robby:

You should. Really ties a room together

The conversations drifted in and out of your days. Sometimes twenty messages. Sometimes two.

But there was rarely a day that passed without hearing from him. It had become your normal and that probably should have concerned you more than it did.

One afternoon you were halfway through a grocery shop when your phone buzzed.

Robby:

What's for dinner?

You snorted. Most days he was interested in what you were cooking, never quite getting over how good that carbonara looked weeks ago.

You:

demanding aren't we?

Robby:

I've been living off campfire food

Let me live vicariously

You balanced the basket awkwardly on your hip. Typing with one hand was becoming increasingly impossible so after a moment you sighed and held down the microphone button.

"Okay, so technically I haven't decided yet," you said, navigating around a woman studying avocados with suspicious intensity. "But I was thinking maybe chicken, potatoes, something easy because I had a twelve hour shift and Mckay spent most of it arguing with a guy who was convinced Red Bull counts as water."

You stopped recording and sent it, immediately forgetting about it as you continued to shop.

Robby was sitting on the cabin porch when the notification appeared. A voice note.

For a second he just looked at it before pressing play. Your voice spilled through the speaker, lighter than he was used to hearing at work, less hurried.

He could hear the wheels of a shopping cart somewhere in the background, people talking. The automatic doors opening and closing. It felt strangely intimate. Like being invited into a moment he wasn't supposed to be part of.

Before he knew it, the recording had ended and he found himself smiling Then replaying the first few seconds just to hear it again.

Robby:

Red bull absolutely counts as water

You:

you're part of the problem

-

A few days later you sent him a photo of a coffee shop you'd stumbled into before work. The picture was supposed to be of the ridiculous chalkboard menu, pretentious and completely overpriced.

Unfortunately, the reflection in the window caught most of your face and you didn't even notice before pressing send.

But Robby did.

He was halfway through replying when he stopped and stared at the photo. Then stared a little longer.

It wasn't as though he'd forgotten what you looked like, he'd worked beside you for months, seen you almost every day and yet somehow seeing your face appear unexpectedly on his screen felt different. Like it was more personal than bumping into you across an ER.

He zoomed in without meaning to then immediately felt ridiculous.

Robby:

That coffee costs more than my first apartment

You:

i knew you'd focus on the important issue

He didn't mention the photo but it stayed open on his screen longer than necessary.

The next Saturday night, you went out with friends.

The three you socialised with maybe once a month, the ones you'd gone out with on your first week at Robby's.

The evening disappeared beneath cocktails, bad music and stories that got funnier with every retelling. By the time you got home, your shoes were in one hand and your keys were in the other.

Your phone buzzed before you'd even made it upstairs.

Robby:

Survived?

You:

barely

my feet are filing formal complaints

Robby:

Worth it?

You:

yeah

free drinks always help

There was a pause before the typing bubbles appeared then they seemed to disappear before appearing once more.

Robby:

Free drinks?

You:

some guy at the bar bought them

either he was being nice or I looked desperately in need of a margarita

Robby stared at the screen. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he found himself reading the message twice.

Some guy.

An entirely normal sentence since people bought drinks for each other every day. It meant absolutely nothing. Yet his thumb hovered over the keyboard.

Robby:

Which was it?

The message sent before he could overthink it and he immediately regretted it. Not because it was inappropriate, just because he sounded interested.

And he wasn't sure why he was interested.

You:

definitely the margarita

he started talking about crypto ten minutes in

That pulled a laugh out of him. An actual laugh.

Robby:

My condolences

You:

thank you

it was a difficult time

The conversation moved on after that. But later, after you'd gone to sleep and the cabin had settled into silence around him, Robby found himself thinking about the message again.

Not the drinks. Not the guy. But the fact that he'd wanted to know. And the fact he still wasn't entirely sure why.

-

You hadn't really talked about the house sitting arrangement to anyone at work.

It never seemed relevant and, if you were honest, you quite liked having something that belonged entirely to you. That was until Abbot casually asked how it was going in front of Parker and Shen. Both of them had turned so quickly you would have thought they'd rehearsed it.

John loudly slurped through his straw.

You immediately regretted coming into work.

You'd spent the next five minutes trying to explain that, yes, you were staying at Robby's apartment and no, it wasn't a big deal. At the same time, you were reassuring Abbot that everything was fine and that the place was still standing.

Parker wasn't convinced. She waited until the handover was done and everyone had started drifting away before falling into step beside you as you gathered your things from your locker.

You'd only just pulled your phone out when it buzzed. The smile arrived before you could stop it and Parker saw immediately.

"Message from your boyfriend?"

"Just Robby-”

You stopped and looked up to see her already grinning.

"Oh."

"Oh indeed."

"Haha. Very funny."

"I'm just saying," she replied, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "That man hasn't been here for nearly two months and I've heard his name more than I have some of the attendings who actually work here."

You rolled your eyes. Except the comment lingered because you didn't talk about him that much. Did you?

Sure, you texted most days, you snapped pictures when something made you laugh. You answered when he called and never made a secret of it because, in your mind, there was nothing to hide.

But maybe Parker had a point.

You were always quick to tell people where he was, what he'd been up to, what ridiculous thing he'd sent you that morning. You were also one of maybe three people who actually knew how his sabbatical was going and that felt strangely significant when you stopped to think about it.

Which was exactly why you decided not to think about it. Instead, you bumped your shoulder into Parker's arm.

"Leave me alone."

"Never."

You laughed despite yourself, waved goodbye to everyone and headed out through the main doors.

-

Even without a department full of doctors reminding him, Robby found himself thinking about you more often than he probably should.

Alberta was beautiful, exactly what he'd imagined.

The mountains seemed endless, the lakes impossibly clear and every evening the sky stretched so wide it barely looked real.

He'd come here to breathe. To remember what it felt like to wake up without immediately carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

For the first time in years, it was working and yet every time he stumbled across a view that took his breath away, he caught himself reaching for his phone.

The bear he'd spotted at the edge of a trail or the river he'd nearly slipped into while trying to take a photo. The sunset that turned the entire lake gold. All of it was filed away somewhere in the back of his mind. Something to show you, to tell you later.

He enjoyed those moments for himself, he really did, but there was always a second thought afterwards. A quiet one of she'd like this.

And that was dangerous territory for a man who had left Pittsburgh specifically to be alone.

-

Today had been a bad day for absolutely no reason. Work hadn't been worse than usual. There was no mass casualty or outbreak, no disaster waiting for you.

You'd left almost on time and the handover had been unusually smooth yet, somehow, by the time you found yourself curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine balanced on your knee, you felt like you might burst into tears.

You probably wouldn't but it was comforting to know you could if you wanted to.

The apartment was quiet. A CD hummed softly in the background while the evening light spilled through the windows. You'd been enjoying the solitude for weeks now.

Your phone lit up. A text from Robby. It was just a small update about his day, a picture of a lake with a note underneath telling you there was a viewpoint about a mile from the cabin that you would absolutely love.

You stared at it for a second and then pressed call without thinking.

The phone rang twice.

"Hey, you okay?" He'd answered immediately.

Not because he'd been expecting the call but quite the opposite.

You almost smiled at the concern in his voice.

"Hey. Yeah, I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." A pause. "Can you talk?"

On the other side of the continent, Robby was sitting on the cabin porch with a beer bottle in hand, watching the sky darken over the mountains.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I can talk."

You exhaled. You weren't entirely sure why. Just hearing his voice had already made something feel lighter.

"Bad day?" he asked gently.

"A little."

"Want to talk about it?"

You considered it.

"Not really."

He laughed quietly. "Fair enough."

You took a sip of wine.

"Does it sound stupid if I say I just wanted to hear your voice?"

The words slipped out before you could stop them.

For a moment, all you could hear was the wind moving through the trees on his end of the line. Then Robby shifted in his chair.

"Well," he said, amusement colouring his voice, "I sure feel special."

You groaned. "Don't make it weird.”

"I'm not making it weird."

"You absolutely are."

His laugh settled something warm in your chest.

"I can tell you about the bear I saw today if you need a distraction."

You smiled. "Yes please."

And he did. He told you about the trail, about spotting movement through the trees and realising it was considerably larger than he'd first thought. Halfway through the story your phone buzzed with a picture he'd sent while still talking.

You put him on speaker to zoom in, immediately informing him that he was insane for getting that close. He disagreed.

You told him he was objectively wrong then somehow you were refilling your wine while he wandered into the kitchen for another beer and the conversation simply kept going.

Hours slipped past unnoticed. The topics changed every few minutes. Canadian wildlife became grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping became work which became Dana. Dana became the night you'd gone out with your friends. It felt effortless.

Like no matter what either of you said, the other would find it interesting, as if there were no rush to end the conversation.

Eventually, somewhere between your third glass and his third beer, Robby circled back to something you'd almost forgotten.

"So," he said casually. "Any more plans to go out and let random men buy you drinks?"

You scoffed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds suspiciously like jealousy, Michael."

Using his first name felt deliberate. The kind of thing you couldn't take back once it left your mouth.

For a moment he didn't answer and you could almost hear him thinking.

"I think I'm just curious."

"Curious?"

"You mentioned him." His voice was careful now. "And then I spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering whether you actually liked him."

Your stomach flipped unexpectedly.

"And did you come to a conclusion?"

He laughed quietly. "Yeah."

"Which was?"

"That anyone who talks about crypto for ten minutes straight probably doesn't stand a chance."

The warmth that spread through you had nothing to do with the wine. You sank further into the sofa, smiling into your glass.

"Good answer."

For a second neither of you spoke. The silence felt different now, like an awareness blooming.

On the other end of the line, Robby stared out across the darkening lake, suddenly very conscious of the weight in his chest and the dryness in his mouth. He wasn't entirely sure when the conversation had become the best part of his day.

He was even less sure what that meant.

On your end, the wine bottle was looking considerably emptier than when the call had started.

"How much longer have you got out there anyway?" you asked eventually.

He leaned back in his chair.

"Couple more weeks."

You hummed. "A couple?"

"Three."

You did the maths automatically. Three weeks. For some reason that felt shorter than it should have.

"That's weird."

"What is?"

"You coming back."

Robby laughed softly. “I haven't left forever."

"I know."

You picked absentmindedly at the label on your wine bottle.

"Still weird though."

He understood exactly what you meant. The cabin had become normal, so had the mountains. Waking up and sending you a picture of whatever he'd found that day had become normal too.

The thought settled uncomfortably somewhere in his chest.

"Yeah," he admitted quietly. "It is."

For a moment neither of you spoke. The silence wasn't awkward, if anything, it felt too honest.

"You'll probably be sick of Pittsburgh again within forty-eight hours."

He laughed.

"Probably."

"And I'll have to move back into my shoebox apartment."

He laughed again.

"You laugh, but I've become accustomed to luxury."

"My apartment is not luxury."

"It has an en-suite."

"It does."

You smiled into your glass.

"I'm gonna miss it."

The words came out before you really thought about them and then, after a beat, you added, "The apartment, I mean."

Robby looked out across the lake. The moonlight stretched across the water in silver streaks. He wasn't entirely sure why that qualifier felt necessary.

"Yeah."

Because he was going to miss something too, he just wasn't sure it was the apartment.

"I'm glad I gave you the keys."

The words slipped out naturally.

"Because I've been such an excellent tenant?"

"Questionable."

You laughed. "Rude."

"You locked yourself out and you don't use coasters."

"That happened one time. And yes I do."

"One time that I know about. And, no you don't."

You shook your head, laughing. "So why are you glad?"

The question hung there. For the first time that evening, Robby didn't answer immediately. He could have made a joke and he probably should have but instead he found himself telling the truth.

"Because otherwise…" He trailed off and you waited. "Otherwise I don't think we'd have ever talked like this."

Something in your chest tightened, just enough to make you still. The sounds around you seemed to disappear for a second. The music, hum of the refrigerator, everything.

"Yeah."

It came out quieter than you'd intended. Because he was right.

Without the apartment, he would've stayed your attending, you his resident. You would've chatted during shifts and maybe grabbed a beer with a group after work once or twice.

But this? The hours spent on the phone, the daily messages, knowing what the other person had for dinner. Sharing parts of yourselves that had nothing to do with medicine.

None of that would've happened.

"I guess not."

Robby stared down at the bottle in his hand. His pulse felt oddly loud.

"Would've been a shame."

The words were barely above a murmur. Honest enough that neither of you quite knew what to do with them. You swallowed. Suddenly very aware of the warmth spreading through your stomach.

And not because of the wine.

Another silence settled between you but this one felt different. It felt full. Like there was something sitting quietly between the two of you that hadn't been there before. Or maybe it had and neither of you had looked directly at it until now.

"Yeah," you said softly. "It would've."

For a second, neither of you spoke, neither of you hung up either.

Somewhere between Alberta and Pittsburgh, with a lake outside one window and city lights outside the other, it felt like the conversation had shifted onto unfamiliar ground.

Not enough to turn back yet not enough to move forward. Just enough that both of you knew something had changed.

-

The next morning arrived with a headache.

Not a catastrophic one, just enough of one to remind you that two glasses of wine had somehow become four and how you clearly couldn't handle your booze anymore.

Thank god it was your day off. You'd spent most of the morning moving slowly, making a trip to the store for supplies before returning to the apartment with a bag full of groceries, painkillers and absolutely no intention of leaving the house again.

After a shower, you pulled on an oversized t-shirt, climbed into bed and put something mindless on the TV. You weren't really watching it. Your attention kept drifting back to your phone. In between doom scrolling TikTok, you kept flipping to your messages.

Nothing from Robby.

You told yourself it was normal since he was a couple of hours behind. He could still be asleep or hiking, he could be doing literally anything.

Still, your thumb hovered over the conversation and you found yourself thinking through parts of last night's call. Especially the end.

Would've been a shame.

You groaned and tossed the phone onto the bed beside you. "Get a grip."

The phone buzzed almost immediately.

You grabbed it so fast it was actually embarrassing.

Robby:

Morning

You:

afternoon actually

Robby:

Right

How's the hangover?

You:

presumptuous much?

Robby:

I'll take that as confirmation

You:

i’ve survived worse

Robby:

Doctor approved medical assessment

You:

exactly

The conversation stayed comfortably familiar at first. Small things, nothing important. What he'd done that morning and what you were doing now. The weather in Canada versus Pittsburgh. The coffee he'd burnt.

You laughed quietly at something he'd sent and snapped a quick picture in response.

Mostly intending to show him the disaster of snacks you'd surrounded yourself with on the bed.

You hit send before really looking at it.

A few moments passed, longer than usual. You frowned.

You:

???

The typing bubbles appeared.

Robby:

You know you're in that photo right?

You opened the image again. Your stomach immediately dropped.

Between the blankets and the snacks was a very obvious stretch of bare leg disappearing beneath the hem of your t-shirt. If you zoomed you could definitely see the edge of lace from your panties.

Heat crept into your cheeks.

You:

well

too late now

His reply took a little longer this time.

Robby:

Suppose it is

Something about the message felt different though you couldn't have explained why.

The conversation slowed. Not because either of you wanted it to end but because both of you seemed suddenly aware of it. Aware of each other.

You:

you're being weird

Robby:

I am not

You:

you absolutely are

Robby:

And what if I'm just thinking?

You:

dangerous

Robby:

That's rich coming from you

You laughed and the tension eased for a moment then returned just as quickly. The phone sat warm in your hand. Neither of you quite saying what was on your mind.

Both of you hovering suspiciously close to it.

Then-

A knock sounded at the apartment door. You sat upright.

"Oh for god's sake."

You:

one sec

Robby:

What?

You:

someones here

terrible timing honestly

Robby:

That sounds ominous

You:

don't go anywhere

Robby:

Wasn't planning on it

You tossed the phone onto the bed and headed for the door.

When you pulled it open, Abbot stood on the other side with two coffees in hand, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

"Jack?"

"Good afternoon."

You stared. He stared back.

"Why are you here?"

"Robby asked me to check the place hadn't burned down."

You folded your arms.

"And?"

Jack looked past you.

"Still standing."

By the time Abbot eventually left, the afternoon had slipped away with him. He'd actually brought you coffee because he was passing by, knew Robby cared about you and wanted to check in. Sweet actually.

Your conversation with Robby had fizzled into a couple of harmless messages before disappearing entirely which somehow felt worse. Because now you were thinking about it and judging by the phone call that arrived later that evening, so was he.

You answered on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"I can't believe you left me hanging like that."

You laughed immediately. "Excuse me?"

"We were having a conversation."

"Jack showed up at your apartment."

"And somehow that's my fault?"

"Everything's your fault."

His laugh crackled through the speaker.

"You know," he said, quieter this time, "I did actually spend the next few hours wondering what happened."

Your heart stumbled slightly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

There was a pause. Comfortable but dangerous.

"Well," you said, settling deeper into the sofa. "Lucky for you, I'm free now."

The silence on the other end lasted just long enough to make your stomach flip. Then Robby laughed softly.

"Good."

The word settled somewhere low and God you hated that it did. Or maybe you loved it. Either way, you found yourself smiling into the darkness of the apartment.

"You sound very pleased with yourself."

"I am."

You laughed softly.

"Because I answered the phone?"

"Because I was beginning to think Abbot had kidnapped you."

"Trust me, if he'd kidnapped me, you'd know about it."

You eased into conversation again, tucking yourself deeper beneath the blanket, listening to him talk about a trail he'd found that morning. He was halfway through describing some impossible view over a lake when he suddenly stopped.

"Can I ask you something?"

You frowned. "Depends."

"That picture earlier."

Your pulse immediately betrayed you. "What about it?"

There was a pause. "Nothing."

You laughed. "That's not how questions work."

"I know."

"So?"

Another pause. You could practically hear him weighing his words.

"I just didn't realise you'd sent it like that."

Heat crept up your neck.

"Like what?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

Unfortunately, you did.

The worst part was how carefully he was speaking. How neither of you was actually saying anything and yet somehow both of you knew exactly what the other was talking about.

"It was an accident."

"I figured."

"You sound disappointed at that."

The silence that followed lasted a fraction too long. Your breath caught, just slightly. Then Robby laughed low and quiet.

"That's a dangerous thing to accuse me of."

You stared at the ceiling. Very aware of the oversized t-shirt you were still wearing and how your nipples were suddenly hard beneath it.

"I think you've become a lot more confident since Alberta."

"Oh yeah? Is that a bad thing?" he asked.

"No, it's kinda sexy actually." You laughed, so did he. Then a second passed and you felt the boldness creep in, so much so it decided your next move. "Do you want me to send another?"

You could practically hear Robby choke on his own breath and in the time he tried to get on top of his words, you'd pulled the blanket away, your phone up high with the front camera on, snapping a pic that showed a lot more than the last.

This time it was the bottom of your face, lips plump and pouty, your t-shirt tugged 'innocently' higher to give way to the band of your panties flashed across your hip. Your legs were crossed, not for the picture but to try and ease the now insatiable ache between them. As for your nipples? There was no denying they were the star of the show.

You sent it before thinking twice.

"Fuck." Robby breathed and you knew he was looking right at you.

"Is that better?"

You heard him take a deep breath and could imagine the blush on his cheeks. "You're gonna be the death of me."

You couldn't help but smile. His voice had gotten lower, a little huskier, almost like he was out of breath.

"Robby?"

"Yeah?" He breathed.

"What are we doing?"

He took a minute to answer. Not sure of what he should say, what he wanted to say. "I don't know." You couldn't see but he rubbed his face over his hand, coming to rest at the base of his neck. "I don't fucking know."

He was sat on the sofa at the cabin. The fire was going, lights dim and warm. Ever since you'd sent that first picture he'd been tight against his jeans but then you sent another and fuck, his hand came to adjust himself over the denim.

"But I'm not sure I can pretend I'm thinking of anything other than that picture right now."

You felt a little smug. That was, after all, why you sent it. It was so nice to feel sexy, for someone to be looking at you the way he was, someone you wanted to see you this way.

"Yeah? What you thinking about?" You knew what you were doing. Knew how it would draw the last breath out of him but you also knew you'd crossed a line and there was no going back. Not that you wanted to.

Your hands trailed over yourself, light touches over the cotton of your t-shirt. Your body jolted when finger tips ghosted the outline of a nipple, trailing left to pay the other as much attention. Fuck, it felt good.

Robby knew the pair of you were in dangerous territory but god, he wanted to be there. His head fell back in disbelief, as if he were mad at himself for what he was about to tell you over the phone.

His resident.

"You touching yourself in my apartment." He paused, waiting to see if he'd taken it too far only to hear a quiet moan from you in response. "Playing with yourself in the guest bedroom..."

"I am." Your hand snaked from your tits slowly to your panties, cupping yourself over the lace and that's when you felt it. "Fuck Robby I'm really wet…”

Jesus Christ. He felt himself jolt against his own hand, the one that was palming the growing outline of his cock.

"Fuck, baby. You're really trying to kill me huh?" He huffed a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief that this was happening. Almost three months of texts, phone calls, voice notes. A camera roll shared, bad days eased by mindless humour and companionship. A relationship built on all of that.

"You want me to go to your bed?" You almost panted down the line as you moved against your hand. "Fuck myself in your sheets?"

"Shit," He exhaled.

"You want that?"

"Yeah…" His reply was too fast and he cursed himself for it. But all he wanted was the image of you, two fingers deep, coming to his voice while soaking his bed spread. "Please baby, do it for me."

And with that, you got up. He heard rustling down the line as you made your way from the guest bed to Robby's. It wasn't a room you'd gone in much. You'd said you were going to snoop through his drawers, his closet just to be nosy but turns out you had too much respect for his privacy. That was months ago. Now you were crawling onto the bed, setting your phone on speaker next to you as you positioned yourself right in the middle.

Robby was waiting patiently. He'd done no more than rub himself a few times over his jeans, grinding a little into his hand but then knowing it'd be too much and he'd end up blowing his load like a teenager. Instead, he waited. For you. To enjoy you.

You laid your head back against his pillows, inhaling him as if he were right next to you. "Mmm, smells like you in here." You said quietly. "It's like you're here."

He wished he was there. You did too. Wished it was his fingers swiping through your wetness, dipping into your panties and feeling how worked up you'd got from sending him one (not even) dirty photo.

"Tell me what you're doing." It felt like an order even though it wasn't and your pussy jumped at the idea. "Wanna hear you."

"Fuck. 'M rubbing myself over my panties." You whispered lightly. "Wanna take them off."

"Take them off baby." He'd hoped you'd throw them to the side and forget, only for him to find them on his return. "Spread your legs, let me hear."

It'd be hard for him not to hear with how soaked you were.

It was amazing how one phone conversation and suddenly this is how you found yourself, legs open for Michael Robinavitch.

With your panties gone, you anchored your legs apart. Fingers sliding through your dripping slit, gathering your arousal to swirl it in tight circles around your clit. The slick sounds filled the room, they filled the cabin too.

Robby couldn't take it anymore. You heard the sound of metal, a belt unbuckling before a zip slid down in haste. He freed himself, pulling his cock from his boxers, thick and hard. He was leaking from the tip, all red and worked up just from listening to you. It felt so fucking good when he finally stroked himself.

"Oh fuck." He tried to bite it back, failing miserably.

That was music to your ears.

"You hard for me Robby?"

"You have no idea. Feels so fuckin good, thinking about you." He fucked his fist nice and slow, wanting this to last and despite his cock not being inside you, he wanted you to cum first.

You decide it wasn't enough. After all this time, the calls and the pictures, you needed to see him. And you wanted him to see you.

"Wanna see you." You picked up your phone, hand still working your pussy. "Can I face- face time you?" Your words faltered a little as your fingers sped up, rubbing your sensitive clit.

Robby froze for a second. He'd got this worked up just by thinking of you in such a state and now, you were actually going to show him?

"Mhmm, yeah."

And within a second you'd pressed the button the change this to a video call. When he accepted, he saw the dark room lit by a single bedside lamp. You'd slowed your motions for a second, to pick up the phone properly and see him for the first time in months.

"Hey." You smiled, like it didn't matter what the pair of you had been doing just seconds ago. You were so happy to see his face. The slight tan he'd caught, his greyed out beard and stubble around the neck.

"Hey." He couldn't help but smile too. Knowing your hands were down your pants but not being able to get past the heat in your cheeks, how your hair had fallen across the bed and despite stating you had a hangover, you were fucking glowing.

He pondered it for a second, how he might have not noticed this before. The way your eyes narrowed when you smiled, how you looked at him.

"You look beautiful."

That might have turned you on more than anything in the last fifteen minutes. You were breathless, a little wrecked, in disbelief at any of this.

Then you set the phone down on the bedside table to free up your hands. That's when you pulled off the t-shirt entirely, leaving your perfect tits in plain view for Robby to see.

His eyes grew wide as he surveyed every inch of your skin before you laid back into the cushions as you were before, shifting to your side facing the phone.

"Is this what you were thinking about?" You snaked your hand back down to your cunt, dipping in but not all the way, just enough for Robby to hear the slick mess.

"Even better." His hand slowly started to work on himself again, matching your rhythm as he held the phone in front of him.

Your mouth parted when you finally sank a finger inside, then another. Two digits curled deep in your pussy, rolling your hips against them and you never took your eyes off him.

"Fuck Robby." You sped your motions a little, so did he. "Wish it was your fingers, wish it was you inside me."

You weren't sure where it came from. The filthy tongue, the boldness. You weren't shy in bed but he was your boss. The boss you were innocently house sitting for until you decided to get attached.

"Christ." He bit back a moan at your obscenity. "Imagine it's me baby." He started fucking his fist faster, wishing it was your pussy. "Imagine it's my cock deep inside you, I'd fuck you so good, make you feel so fucking good."

It dropped from his tongue with little effort. He thought about how much he wanted to be buried inside you, how he'd wanted that for a while and was too scared to admit it.

"Mmmph Robbyyyy." You whined his name, breathing hard, riding your fingers as you felt the coil tighten in your belly. "Let me see you."

He did the same as you, positioning the phone on the side table that sat at the same height as the sofa. It left him in view from the waist up, free hand roaming his covered chest, the other pumping his cock hard.

You watched him intently. Heard the sounds of precum slickening his strokes as his hips drove up with every beat.

"Fuck I'm close-” You worked yourself with both hands, two buried to the knuckle and the other rubbing your clit with such ferocity. "Really fucking close Robby I think I'm gonna cum soon."

"Cum for me angel, let me see. Such a good girl."

Your hands worked even faster and suddenly, the coil snapped with words of praise and you were coming in Robby's bed.

"Oh my god oh my-” Then silence, your body went rigid as you clamped your hands hard, riding out the most intense orgasm you'd had in years.

You were a sight for sore eyes. Mouth wide open, tits bouncing with every movement and all it took was your guttoral moans for Robby to feel himself close to the edge too. He was fucking himself so hard and fast, it was almost a blur on screen until you heard him pant, a strangled "Uh uh uh" and then-

"I'm gonna cum baby oh fuck-”

You watched him spill his load all over his hand. Thick white ropes dripped down his knuckles, marking his jeans as he stroked himself through it, twitching at his now very sensitive cockhead.

You were both left breathless and sweaty, each reaching for your respective phones.

"You-” He was trying so hard to catch his breath. "-are something else."

You both laughed breathlessly. Fuck, this felt good.

You stayed on the phone for hours after until he ordered you to bed. Told you to sleep well, that he'd be thinking of you.

And that night was the best sleep of your life.

-

Everything felt different after that night except it also all stayed the same.

You spoke every day. Called most nights, FaceTimed, voice noted when you were cooking dinner or carrying groceries. But now it seemed like nothing was left unsaid, that you were both being honest with each other. It was amazing.

The only thing eating away at you right before you fell asleep was the idea this might end. When the three weeks crept closer, when the sabbatical would end. Would everything go back to how it was before?

"Hey can I ask you something?" You broke mid conversation.

"Anything."

"When this is over. Your sabbatical I mean. When you come back and I'm not here." You trailed off slightly. "...Will this all go away?"

There was silence on the line for a second.

"Not if I have anything to do with it."

Your smile reached your ears. Good because-” You inhaled deeply. "I don't think I can go back."

-

You worked like a dog over the next four days.

At one point you'd even picked up a double because Lena had practically begged for night shift cover, and despite every intention of saying no, somehow you'd found yourself agreeing anyway.

It meant you barely saw daylight all week and you didn't get to speak to Robby much either. Not in the way either of you would've liked.

You checked in between shifts, during breaks and whenever you made it home with enough energy to keep your eyes open. He'd send the occasional text during the day, but most of your conversations happened at night. Sometimes a quick call, sometimes longer if exhaustion didn't drag you under first.

It was a brutal four days. By the end of it you were running almost entirely on caffeine and stubbornness, convinced you'd briefly developed double vision somewhere around shift three.

When you finally crawled into bed at the end of it all, you slept hard.

Since your FaceTime call, you hadn't stepped foot in the guest room. Every night you ended up in Robby's bed instead, tangled in his sheets and surrounded by things that smelled faintly like him.

He loved knowing that.

Day five arrived with something close to actual rest. You woke around nine and, for the first time all week, didn't feel like death.

After a shower you made coffee, pulled on some loungewear that wasn't technically pyjamas and settled onto the sofa with every intention of finally finishing the book you'd started at the beginning of all this.

You'd texted Robby before getting in the shower. There was still no reply. You assumed he was asleep or hiking or somewhere without signal. Either way, you weren't worried.

Twenty-five minutes later there was a knock at the door. You sighed immediately.

It had to be Jack.

Apparently nobody trusted you to spend three months in an apartment unsupervised.

Already preparing your speech, you marched towards the door and pulled it open.

The words died in your throat.

"Robby."

For a second your brain simply stopped working. Because Robby was supposed to be in Canada. Robby was supposed to be another two thousand miles away. Robby was supposed to be a voice coming through your phone speaker. Not standing in front of you.

"Hey."

His smile spread slowly across his face, tired and genuine all at once. His cheeks were pink from the road and his eyes looked glassy around the edges, like he'd spent too many hours behind the handlebars and not nearly enough sleeping.

You stared. "What are you doing here?"

He laughed softly. "Good to see you too."

"No, seriously." You gestured vaguely at him and the doorway. What are you doing here? You were in Canada. That's like-" Your brain searched desperately for a number. "It's like five thousand miles."

"Not quite."

"Robby-”

He kissed you.

Just stepped across the threshold and kissed you.

His hands came up to cup your face as he guided you backwards into the apartment, the front door swinging shut somewhere behind him.

Every thought disappeared. All the questions and confusion, gone.

Because he was here, after months of messages and phone calls and hearing his voice through a screen, he was finally here. The last four days worked in his favour, you being so busy. He'd hit the road almost immediately, covering far too much mileage to be considered safe. All to make it back to you.

You kissed him back immediately, both hungry and relieved. Like you were making up for every mile that had sat between Alberta and Pittsburgh.

When he finally pulled away, it was only far enough to look at you, forehead resting against yours.

"Two and a half thousand miles," he corrected quietly.

You laughed.

For a moment neither of you spoke.

"You know," you murmured, fingers still wrapped around his wrists, "this is a very dramatic way to get your keys back."

Robby laughed, the sound warm and familiar.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

His thumbs swept across your cheeks.

“Good thing I never came back for the keys”

Your heart squeezed.

Nights spent pacing the garden of Smurf’s house, bare feet on the cold ground, counting his steps to keep his mind occupied. It never did. He tried to outrun the memories of his actions, to drown his pain at the bottom of the pool. But on those nights, his torment wore the faces of his ghosts.

First there was Julia, then Cath, quickly followed by Baz. And Smurf. Always Smurf. A cycle of misery that makes his ribcage feel as though it might collapse under the violent pounding of his heart.

Some days, seated at a table with his family, Andrew had felt he could scream until his throat gave out, and no one would have heard. He imagined falling into the pool, slipping under the surface, water closing over his head and staying there, lungs burning just long enough for the noise to finally fucking stop, no one coming to pull him out because nobody would have noticed he disappeared.

There were moments when the thought settled heavy in his bones: he would not survive another day in his family, he didn’t want to. He kept straining toward a bond that no longer reached his end…if it ever did.

Over the years, Andrew had grown accustomed to his role. Weird Pope, Creepy Pope, the family’s guard dog: asking for nothing, obeying to the beatings, the killings and never, never, mentioning the ghosts hunting the corner of his eyes each night.

He remembered Smurf’s voice, years ago. “Pop him a few pills and he’ll follow your commands, baby.” She said it to Baz like it was nothing, like he was nothing. This was before prison, before Andrew felt deep in his bones that the other half of his soul left this merciless Earth without him.

Sometimes he let himself think about Julia, since no one else did. He hoped that at least one of them had finally found peace.

Then, you happened.

And Andrew can’t make sense of it, no matter how much he turns it over in his head, how a girl like you ends up being friends with Craig and therefore, near the Cody brothers: you are sweet, kind, nothing but soft edges, and innocent. Almost like the world has spared you the knowledge of what men like him are capable of.

Whenever you are in the house, his gaze follows you from room to room. He tells himself that it’s vigilance and habit that pushes him to act like that. Except he doesn’t need to memorize the way you tuck your hair behind your ear, or how he can recognize the distinct sound of your footsteps in a heartbeat.

He learns and catalogues each of your reactions: the faint frown of your nose at the smell of a particular brand of coffee (gone from the house and replaced before sunset), the soft curl of your lips whenever you are kindly refusing his offer to make you a sandwich.

(He wouldn’t be bothered if you took a bite of his.)

To see you is a special kind of hell and an indescribable heaven, like pressing on a bruise just to make sure it still hurts.

Lately, you shift the air of the house by simply existing in it. Your laugh, in the rooms where Smurf had once lived, seems to almost cleanse the walls of her memory.  And Andrew knows. He knows that’s why Craig is friends with you. Because each day, the sun seems to finally be able to reach the house, even his own room.

It frightens him.

His body instinctively adjusts around your presence, his mind reassessing new rules (the glasses on the bottom shelf so you can have access to them, checking how many drinks you have at Deran’s bar). He memorizes your schedule, notes which books you are bringing with you in your bag, times how long it takes you to get home, parks far enough that you can’t notice his truck but close enough that he can reach you if something goes wrong.

All his life, Andrew had survived by wanting nothing. By hollowing himself out until the obedience Smurf wanted from him fitted neatly inside his ribs, because wanting had always been a liability, a weakness someone could press a knife into.

But now…now that life seems finally good and breathable, that he has the skatepark and his siblings and an almost regular life (if one exists for men like him) without Smurf’s claws on his throat, Andrew finds himself cornered by a simple, terrifying truth: he wants you.

He swallows it. Buries it deep inside, trying to drown it with numbness and even more repetitive actions when you are near: chopping, tidying the house, scrubbing counters that are already clean, fixing hinges that doesn’t squeak… Anything to keep his hands busy so they don’t reach for you.

No, Andrew Cody has never been able to sleep properly.

──────────

You remember telling yourself that the house felt wrong before you ever understood why.

Craig had asked you to come meet his brothers and from his tone alone, you knew it was a big deal. That something was at stake.

You showed up at four sharp, even if he hadn’t given you a specific time (something you would soon realize was typical of Craig), a paper bag pressed to your chest, palms already sweaty. You stood outside for a full minute before knocking, taking a few deep breaths, and stepping over the threshold with a smile as he wrapped you in a hug with his tall frame before dragging you straight into the kitchen.

That’s when you saw him.

Broad shoulders, dark curls on a face held tight, back straight and hands braced on his thighs, his posture so still you almost thought he was a mannequin.

“My brother Pope,” Craig said. “Don’t mind him, he almost doesn’t bite.”

His gaze was already on you, unblinking, steady in a quiet unnerving way, like he was committing every detail to memory, a look so intense it coaxed words out of you before you could stop them.

“H-Hi,” you stuttered, giving your name as you tried to stay composed. You extended your hand toward him, and he stared at it for a moment. The pause stretched long enough for doubt to creep up your spine (maybe he didn’t shake hands? maybe you had already broken some invisible rule?).

You swallowed, blood rising to your cheeks, drawing your hand back to clutch the paper bag as you tried not to stammer on your words. “I brought pastries. I didn’t know what you all would like so…I kind of…guessed,” you hated how small your voice sounded.

He stayed silent, brows faintly furrowed, as if he was processing what you had just said. Then he nodded. “Thank you.”

His tone was quiet, almost a hum, pulled from the depth of his chest, the sound settling low in your stomach, warm and heavy, and your first thought (unwelcome and strange) was how that vibration would feel beneath your palm.

Craig sighed with desperation at the conversation with a quiet “Stop being weird, bro!” while his other younger brother, unbothered, simply ignored the awkwardness, nodded as an introduction and handed beers around.

It was a welcome distraction, the cold liquid sliding down your throat, and buying you time to think on what to say next, but the youngest, Deran, beat you to it, asking you about your job and how good a surfer you were.

“You fuckin’ with me? You live in Oceanside and can’t stand on a board?” he laughed and couldn’t stop the slight condescending tone from his voice. “No worry, me or mister El Craigo here will introduce you to it. You’ll only swallow, like…a gallon of water before you get it.”

“Oh, um…I don’t think…”  you tried to say, though it was mostly ignored.

Pope hadn’t looked away once, hand gripping tightly enough on the beer that you could see his knuckles whitening. There was something careful about the way he held himself: still, contained.

Your eyes met his again and you smiled tentatively.

“Um…Pope,” you started, uncertain, the name tasting strange on your tongue. “Can I ask you…”

“Andrew.” He interrupted, the tone firm enough to stop you mid-breath.

You suddenly became aware of your heartbeat, your chest lifting as it rattled against your ribs. Your gaze dropped at the intensity. Had you done something wrong? You suddenly felt foolish for the pastries, for the outstretched hand, for trying so hard, and an absurd urge to apologize rose in your throat, even if you didn’t know what for.

When you looked up, he was already halfway out of the kitchen.

You never finished your question.

Later that night, when you slipped into your bed, the sheets cold but familiar in their welcoming loneliness, you turned from one side to the other, eyes pinched shut without any release to exhaustion, realizing that you couldn’t remember what you had meant to ask.

Only that you wanted to hear his voice, just one more time.

──────────

The house is too loud. It always is when there are people over.

It reminds him of being a kid, hiding with Julia, hands intertwined, avoiding the drunk and high grown-ups. Whispering that everything would be alright. That no one would find them. Not even Smu-

(Bad thought. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the dents on the kitchen counter.)

The volume of the music is pushed too high for his comfort, a constant buzz under the conversations in the house and near the pool while Andrew stands in the kitchen, hands deep in soapy water, scrubbing a glass that is already clean.

He finished the dishes ten minutes ago, but he is still washing, still drying, rearranging things that don’t need rearranging because it gives him somewhere to put his hands, to put his eyes. Because the alternative is the living room. And you.

(You, in that white dress. He has the stupid thought that you look like an angel and immediately hates himself for it. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the droplets dripping from his fingertips.)

He tells himself that he is staying in the kitchen because it lets him see everything in the house, because parties mean unlocked doors, strangers who could wander into rooms they shouldn’t be in. And there are the habits he can’t shake off: watching the exits, the unfamiliar faces, counting heads (Deran, Craig, you), noting who is drinking too much, who is getting loud, who might break something.

He dries the same plate twice in a row before setting it down on the kitchen counter and looking up without meaning to.

You are by the couch, perched on the armrest while Craig, bare chest and shameless about it, tells you the story about the time he smuggled a burrito full of drugs across the Mexico border, story he knew you heard a dozen times these past three months. But still, you are laughing, head tipped back, hair falling down your spine (he wonders what they would feel like underneath his fingertips), one hand wrapped around a bottle you haven’t drunk from in a while, like it has more to do with keeping your hands busy while you are listening.

Andrew noticed it the first week he met you.

But the moment your lips wrap around the drink, he looks away and goes back to washing clean and dried plates, hands in the ice water, soap stinging the small cut on his knuckle.

(Good. Something sharp. Something real. Better than counting for now.)

“I bought you a new pair of gloves.”

Your voice is closer than he expected and his head snaps towards you before he can stop it. You are standing at the edge of the counter, smiling, so close that he can smell your shampoo despite the soap and the lingering smell of weed (it’s so clean, so soft, he wants to drown himself in it).

 “Why?” He asks, his nostrils flaring at his own bluntness.

You shrug, small. “I know Craig threw your pair away yesterday. And, um… I know you like wearing them when you clean.”

“Why?” his voice repeats, breaking at the word.

Of course, you ignore his question, and he can’t help but spiral (why did you do that? do you realize how much the gesture is affecting him? no one ever cared about his gloves. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the freckles on your nose.).

“I got the good ones,” you add, beaming. “So the soap doesn’t mess up your hands.”

While your eyes drop to his hands, his are still enraptured on your face, studying every single feature (you really do look like an angel. and you act like one too. maybe you are his salvation. stop, he needs to fucking stop but he no longer knows what to count.).

Andrew swallows what feels like an anchor in his throat because you look like you worry about him (you have done that for a while now, which still baffles him). Nobody worries about him: they worry about what he might do, not whether he is hurt.

“’m fine.” He mutters, not convincingly enough, judging by the look on your face.

You are still looking at his bruised hands and your fingers twitch on the counter like you had the sudden urge to reach for him, like you might take his hand to look at it.

(He has the overwhelming need to know what you would do with his hands in yours. Hold them? Kiss them better? One. Two. Three- would you let his hands run along your hair? He knows what it’s like to touch you when you need help, but he feels that this would be very different.)

“They are under the sink,” you say above the music and Andrew can’t do anything else but stare, not trusting his own voice.

You linger for a moment at the counter and Andrew wants to ask you to stay (in the kitchen, in his life, doesn’t matter), but Craig shouts your name from the living room and suddenly he has some homicidal thoughts. You glance over your shoulder, then back at Andrew, and you look…reluctant.

“I’ll…”

“Yeah.”

You don’t move. Neither does he.

“Thanks.” He finally says, his gaze still tracking every shift of your expressions, trying to burn your smile in his retina, hoping one blink would not be enough to erase it.

“Of course, Andrew.”

Andrew. For you, he is Andrew and that’s all that matters because you are the only one calling him by this name and you make it sound like it belongs to you ever since you first said it by the pool.

With one last little smile, you walk away and his eyes follow you until he knows you have reached Craig but even then, he doesn’t look away, afraid you might disappear, just like every good thing always did.

And Andrew learned, a long time ago, that if you wanted something to stay alive and safe, you watched it. Guarded it. Didn’t blink.

Andrew didn’t blink.

──────────

You stepped outside because the house had started to feel too small, suffocating all at once, Craig and Deran’s voices stacking over each other in the open kitchen, arguing about a job - a part of the Cody brothers’ lives you knew existed but mostly chose not to look at too closely.

You told yourself you only needed a second of quiet, just enough space to breathe properly again after a long day at work full of aggravating customers, meager tips and a coffee spilt by a coworker on your bare legs.

The noise softened once the door closed, letting you draw in a deep breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“Fucking hell.” You muttered, exhausted by the shouting.

You hadn’t noticed him at first, too busy staring at the pool and ignoring your inner voice telling you to jump straight in the pool fully clothed, a thought that you were soon pulled out of when you heard a sound that didn’t belong to the wind or the trees.

That’s when you saw him, seated at the edge of a lounge chair, head bowed, a skateboard turned upside down across his thighs, one hand spinning a wheel while the other oiled it with slow, precise movements.

“Not a fan of the shouting matches?” you asked, trying not to startle him.

He glanced up, shook his head before going back to the board. “No.”

“So…not keen on loud noises either?”

“No.”

For a moment, you simply watched him, struck by how different he looked when he was doing something he seemed to…enjoy. Less folded into himself, the usual tightness of his posture easing (was it because of the board? the sound of the pool? the absence of his brothers? whatever it is, the view looked precious enough for you to want to capture it).

You lowered yourself onto the warm concrete next to him, your back resting against the lounge chair, knees pulled to your chest, neither of you speaking for a while.

That’s when you noticed his hands: knuckles swollen and red, the skin split near the thumb, a faint line of blood reopening every time the skin stretched.

“They look like they hurt. Y-Your hands, I mean.”

He shrugged without looking at you. “They’re fine.”

Your eyes drifted from them to his profile: from his hazel eyes fully focused on the board to the tight set of his mouth and you caught yourself distracted by his lips for a second too long before forcing your eyes back to the floor, warmth creeping up your neck (don’t think about that, don’t think about that).

“Andrew?”

The wheel immediately stopped spinning. Not gradually, just…stopped.

The entire yard suddenly became too quiet as his face snapped towards you, something unreadable flickering across his face and vanishing just as quickly, and you felt the realization settle in slowly that you had finally said his name after almost a month of avoiding it.

“Do you think I could learn how to skateboard? I…” the words got stuck between your throat and your lips while you searched for the courage to finish your sentence without tripping over yourself. “I mean…I wanted to know if you could help me. Learn it, I mean. If you wanted to. You don’t have to, I just…” (fuck. why? why were you so weird?)

Your fingers picked at the hem of your skirt and pulled on a thread to busy your hands, and from the corner of your vision you caught his brief smile, and the warmth that spread was so shamefully immediate that you bit your tongue until you tasted metal just to keep from blurting out something along the lines of ‘i really, really, fucking love your smile, please do it again so my day goes from moderately shitty to embarrassingly close to perfection.’

“Give me your phone.” he said, and you didn’t hesitate, fishing it out from your pocket, and placing it in his palm.

“There’s no password on your phone.”

“Yeah…I know.”

“It’s dangerous.” His thumb hovered over the screen, nose flaring. “Anyone could get into it. Your photos. Your messages. Your address. Everything is in there.”

You barely heard the end of it, too focused on the pull in your chest as his words kept coming, just for you.

“I haven’t thought about that.” You murmured, feeling foolish while he muttered to himself something that definitely sounded like ‘I did.’

He tapped his number in before going through the settings while you were still struck by his intensity and that he was doing this for you without being asked.

“Six digits. Not birthdates and not something simple like six zeros.” He handed your phone back, his fingers lingering for a second too long before pulling away. “Put one.”

This time you knew it was an order and you didn’t hesitate a second as you followed it, typing something in, suddenly hyperaware of how close he was standing, your shoulder almost brushing his calf, your pulse loud in your ears and a slow, humiliating heat pooling low in your stomach that you refused to think about at the moment.

“Good.” He said after you saved the password. “Text me your work hours.”

“So, it’s a yes? Really?”

He grunted and whether the dusting of crimson over his freckles was real or something you imagined, you couldn’t tell, you were too busy feeling as light as a leaf.

“Yes. And…”

His words were cut off by the screen door banging open, leaning back abruptly just as Craig made his way toward you both with a grin that meant whatever the fight with Deran had been about, he had won.

“Deran agrees for Friday night. And you,” he tapped your forehead. “didn’t hear shit.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s my girl. Now get your ass in the pool.”

Craig was already running to the pool before you could respond, clothes coming off mid-step.

“I can’t believe this man has a kid. Has you brother always been a shameless nudist?”

 “Unfortunately…yes.”

You snorted before murmuring. “Thanks, by the way. For the password thing. And for agreeing to teach me. I promise I’ll only be like…average terrible.”

“You’ll be fine,” he shrugged. Then, quieter, “I’ll make sure.”

His gaze dipped briefly to your mouth when he said it, before snapping back up, and something in your stomach turned warm and gooey, a reckless part of you hoping he might add something else. Or step closer again. But he didn’t, just nodded once, before muttering. “Go.”

“Okay, I’ll leave you to your board, Andrew.”

You made it halfway to the pool before you glanced back. He was still watching, not even pretending not to, looking like a leopard ready to jump. Like if you slipped, he would already be moving.

And lying awake that night, window cracked open and the ocean humming somewhere in the dark, you muffled his name into your pillow, trying to quiet yourself, imagining his hands instead of yours. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.

──────────

Andrew is used to ending his nights alone because wanting people to stay never goes well for him.

So, when the party finally ends at four in the morning, he does what he knows best: throwing the bottles into the trash, making sure no one is passed out in the backyard or asleep in one of the bedrooms and…cleaning.

First the diving board, even if Craig is still making out on one of the lounge chairs with a girl whose name Andrew can’t remember and doesn’t try to (he knows best). Next, the counter, twice in a row for good measure. Then the sink, while Deran claps a hand on his shoulder with a “Don’t stay up too late, okay?” before heading out.

(One. Two. Three. Four. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. He counts the second you spend in the bathroom.)

He stands in the kitchen for a moment before realizing it might look strange and make you uncomfortable. That’s the last thing he wants.

He rushes back to his room (he wouldn’t exactly call it ‘sprinting’. sprinting would mean he is trying to avoid you. which he is not. not at all.).

He doesn’t bother turning on the light when he decides to lie on top of the covers, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling because he knows that sleep won’t come. It never does.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the cracks.)

Every time he closes his eyes, something crawls up from beneath his ribs and he is once again plagued by his ghost: Julia’s voice, Cath’s smile, Baz’s forgiveness. Smurf’s words cutting straight through him.

He thinks about the pool and how easy it would be to let the water close over his head. How all the voices would finally be silent forever, his own included.

(Bad thoughts. One. Two. Three. Four. He recites the number of cameras in the bank for the incoming job.)

He forces himself to think of something else.

Of you, earlier, laughing at Craig’s story (and the immediate, unwelcome ache in his chest as he wonders if there’s something between the two of you, if this will end the way things always seem to, if you’ll be another Cath: close to him before preferring his brother).

Then he thinks about the way he made you laugh on your first skateboard lesson, all because he wanted to make you feel safe and seen, how the simple feel of your waist had nearly made him press his forehead to your shoulder and beg for you to stay and keep looking at him like that.

He thinks about that night when you called him for help, and how he didn’t hesitate for even a second when reaching for his keys, truck already running before you even finished explaining because the simple thought of you alone somewhere in the dark, waiting and frightened, had felt like acid running through his veins, the kind of fear that made him beg to the sky “Not here, not her, not again. I won’t fail her”.  

He presses his palms against his eyes until he sees bursts of purple light.

(Breathe. One. Tw-)

A faint knock against the door makes him freeze.

Nobody knocks in this house, his brothers just…barge in.

He is already on his feet before he realizes it, his hand finding the handle before he opens to find you there.

Barefoot, hair loose and messy, the mascara smudged at the corners of your eyes and the dress wrinkled. Earlier, Andrew thought you looked like an ethereal angel, something untouchable and holy.

But now…now you just look human, real and warm, which is worse because real things like you can stay as well as leave.

“Hey.” You murmur, leaning against the doorframe.

He grips the handle tightly to steady himself.

“Something wrong?”

“I was supposed to sleep on the couch,” you begin, talking with your hands the way you always do when you try to explain a situation, “but signor El Craigo has decided that it’s now his new make out spot with Sam and I really don’t need that image burned into my brain. And of course, I thought about taking his room in retaliation, but I don’t trust his conception of hygiene,”

That makes him huff.

“So…” you add, rubbing your arm, almost shy which doesn’t make sense in his mind because you haven’t been shy with him in a long time with the skatepark lessons or with the ‘hallway accident’ you both had together, “Can I stay here tonight?”

You don’t say ‘with you’ nor ‘in your bed’, but Andrew understands and he is pretty sure his brain short circuits for a second or two.

You didn’t text Deran or try to Uber home. You just came to him. Because you trusted him.

“Yes.” He replies too fast, stepping back from the door.

“You sure?”

He nods to avoid confessing that he would give you the bed. The room. The house. The air in his lungs.

You slip past him into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed before looking back at him and asking gently, “You’re not sleeping, right?”.

“No. Not…not really.”

“Yeah, figured.”

You lie down beneath the covers first, curling onto the side of the bed closest to the wall, leaving him space.

“Don’t think about staying on top of the covers, Andrew.”

The warning in your tone almost makes him laugh so he complies, lying down beside you, fully clothed and aware of every inch separating the two of you.

He stares at the ceiling again.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your breathing.)

The mattress shifts while you slowly roll onto your back before turning fully toward him, your shoulder brushing his arm.

“Sorry,” you mumble sleepily. “’m cold.”

“It’s fine.” He says it like the ghost of your breathing over his collarbone didn’t just set every of his nerves on fire, like he was not terrified to shift even an inch.

After a few minutes, you drift closer in your sleep, chasing warmth without thinking, your knee pressing against his thigh, your hand sliding across the sheets until your fingers come to rest on the fabric of his shirt, right over his heartbeat and for a moment he genuinely forgets how to breathe.

Your palm is so warm, and he is painfully aware that you can probably feel how hard his heart is pounding.

Nobody has ever touched him like this, like he is something safe and out of everything that has happened to him: the underground fights, the prison, the jobs…none of that ever made him feel this defenseless.

His eyes suddenly burn because he wants to turn so much to see your peaceful face, tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, pull you closer to know just once in his life what it’s like to hold something good without destroying it, to press his face into your hair and breathe until the ghosts quiet down, but he doesn’t.

He stays exactly as he is, lying in the dark, eyes wide open, staring at nothing.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your breaths again. Then the seconds between them. He thinks about the fact that you’re here and the miracle of it.)

Sleep doesn’t come, but for the first time in years, the night doesn’t feel empty. Because you’re here. Warm. Alive. Trusting him.

So, Andrew stays awake until morning, guarding the only good thing that ever chose him.

──────────

You were so, so late.

You had told Andrew on the phone that you would be at his skatepark at 5:15 sharp after work, and it was now 5:42 and you were sprinting the half mile that separated the coffee shop from there, bag smacking against your hip, your lungs burning, already sweaty before you even reached the entrance, trying to slow your breathing with a few useless deep inhales, hands braced on your knees, pretending that you were not seconds away from passing out.

(First lesson and you were already late and a disaster. Great. Very impressive.)

You straightened, wiped your forehead, and stepped inside, scanning the park before finding Andrew, board tucked under one arm, sleeves riding up his biceps, curls messy from the wind and sweat and you were now positively sure that you had some drool at the corner of your mouth (the universe had decided to sabotage you and that was fucking unfair.)

You watched the tiny smile he had as a girl showed him her board, proud and beaming at him like he had personally hung the sun in the sky (no, you didn’t need to think about him being good with kids. you didn’t need to picture him with kids, him gentle, him…stop. shut up.).

The second his head lifted and locked eyes with you, you were pretty much done for. It was ridiculous, really, how one look from him could short-circuit every coherent thought in your brain, how your feet just…moved, carrying you toward him instinctively, dropping your bag by the fence without breaking your stride as he met you halfway.

His gaze dragged over you once: your face, your hair, your chest.

“You ran here?”

“Yes. And I’m sweating…a lot. Please don’t judge me.”

He took a few seconds, a storm passing through his eyes before he added.

“You’re late.”

“I know,” you rushed, your hands quickly moving and your words tumbling over each other like they always did when you got flustered around him. “but a guy ordered for his whole ‘cheaper by the dozen’ family like three minutes before we closed. I’m probably sure he sensed my despair and fed on it.”

A small huff escaped him. “You didn’t have to run.”

You shrugged, eyes to the ground. “Didn’t want you to think I bailed on you.”

You felt it, his head tilting down just enough to catch your gaze again, stubborn about it.

“I wouldn’t. Now you ready?”

“Born ready.” You lied through your teeth.

“You look terrified.”

“I can do both, you know,” you shot back quickly. “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

There was the tiniest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Okay, Whitman.”

“Y-You know Whitman?”

A pause.

“I mean…not that I don’t believe you or think you can’t read poetry or anything…that’s actually super hot, so good job!” you gave him a thumbs-up, aware you had just lost every ounce of dignity you had ever possessed. “It’s just that last week Craig asked me if ‘Pride and Peace’ was a good book to impress a girl, so…my bar was very low.”

Andrew stared at you for a moment. “Pride and Peace.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not…”

“I know, I know. But don’t worry, I did a good deed for society and told him not to mention any book ever. You and Deran are safe from now on. You’re welcome.”

And there it was again: that quiet amusement on his lips, the roll of his eyes like he couldn’t help himself, making you feel the stupid and dangerous need to continue to jest (keep talking, say anything, make him do it again).

He shook his head once. “C’mon Whitman. Let’s see what you got.”

You trailed after him without thinking and the first few attempts were…humiliating to say the least: your balance was nonexistent, your feet refused to cooperate, your arms stood uselessly at your sides, and you had absolutely no idea where you were supposed to look while Andrew hovered nearby like he was ready to intervene at any moment.

“I look stupid!” you complained.

“You’re fine.”

“I’m not fine! This is deeply humiliating. I can barely stay upright and there are twelve-year-olds doing tricks behind me! Tricks, Andrew!”

“You’re doing good.”

“I almost died.”

“You didn’t.”

“Socially, I assure you I did.”

Your heart did a stupid little skip when a tiny, amused sound escaped him.

(You could bottle that sound and live off it. You were now pretty sure you would commit crimes for it.)

“Makes sense you’re friends with Craig,” he muttered. “Dramatic.”

You gasped, unable to contain your grin. “Excuse you mister Cody, but I am layered! I am complex!”

He looked unimpressed and repeated “Dramatic.”

You opened your mouth to argue before your foot slipped, the board shooting forward, and for one horrible second you thought that worse than falling off in front of children was falling off in front of the guy you had a crush on.

But you never got to know the feeling before his hands were suddenly there, at your waist, catching you fast and steadying you while you became acutely aware of every nerve under his palms, of his thumbs grazing your hipbones, of his breath brushing your cheek as heat pooled between your legs.

He moved behind your back, still holding your waist before murmuring “Don’t lean and bend your knees.”

(You were starting to suspect he was fucking with you on purpose.)

But still, he adjusted you gently, palms rotating your hips and guiding your stance before kneeling to help place your legs on the board and you couldn’t stop yourself from blurting:

“I haven’t shaved my legs. Sorry.”

“Me neither.” He huffed, his breath warm on your calf and the faintest hint of amusement threading through his voice.

(Was that…a joke? Was he joking? Since when was he doing that? You liked that. You wanted that.)

Andrew pushed himself back on his feet, stepping away just enough for you to feel the sudden absence of his body, leaving you oddly cold, like you had stepped out of the sunlight.

“Try again.”

You nodded, realizing that his joke had somehow shaken the worst of your nerves away, before pushing off, your knees bent like he had shown you, your weight centered and the board rolled.

“Oh my God, I’m doing it! Andrew, I’m really doing it!” you exclaimed happily.

“You are.”

You risked a glance over your shoulder, and he was watching you with his usual careful intensity, hands half-raised and prepared to catch you, like protecting you was the only thing on his list right now.

So (naturally), you did the dumbest thing possible and tested him. Just a little bit. Just to know.

You leaned and let your weight tip forward just enough to know if…

His hands immediately caught you, his hands on your ribs, scanning up and down if you had been hurt, “You okay?”

You swallowed, realizing that you had never doubted a second he would be there. And that settled something warm and terrifying in your chest.

It was not a silly crush, not your friend’s brother that you thought was hot and interesting, no. It was falling. Headfirst, no parachute.

And judging by the way his hands hadn’t moved from your waist yet, you weren’t entirely sure he wasn’t falling a little too.

──────────

You are screaming and he is too late.

He is always too late.

Your voice breaks into something small and terrified, the kind of sound that doesn’t even feel human anymore, and he is running but his legs don’t cooperate, move in slow-motion, the floor stretching longer and longer beneath him and the house smells like chlorine, metal and something sour he recognizes too fast.

You’re in the pool, face down and the water is red. And you are so, so still. He tries to move, to drag you out, but he can’t.

You turn toward him, eyes open and your mouth spilling blood.

“You were supposed to be there, Andrew. Why weren’t you there?”

He jerks awake, his whole body snapping upright while air refuses to enter his lungs, a pain in his ribcage so intense he thinks it might split him open from the inside out.

He doesn’t understand why at first: why his pillow feels cold and damp to the touch, why his throat burns, until he drags a shaky hand across his face and touches something wet, the realization feeling nauseating.

He has been crying in his sleep for God knows how long.

He presses his palms hard into his eyes like maybe the pain will help him, like maybe if he suffers enough the images will disappear. That you won’t be floating face down in the pool, covered in blood, your blood, your voice joining all the others, the same disappointed tone he’s memorized over the years with his ghosts.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He tries to count but it doesn’t work.)

The house is quiet for once, too quiet, and Andrew has this awful, crawling sensation lodged under his sternum, something cold and irrational that he can’t help but spiral into.

(What if…No.)

He is already moving, because lying back down would mean closing his eyes again and he can’t, he fucking can’t risk seeing you like that again, can’t hear the sound of your voice pleading and begging for him to save you when you are already gone, can’t add you to the long list of ghosts that wait for him every night.

Halfway down the hall, he gets as quiet as he can manage, moving through the house like he is on a job, because it feels the same: this sick, urgent need to verify something, to be sure that you are here, that you are safe.

The living room is glowing faintly blue before he even steps in, the light spilling on the floor and he hears it: a narrator speaking about sharks and the distant sound of recorded waves.

You always pick sea life documentaries when you stay over.

He doesn’t know when you figured out he liked them.

He stops at the threshold and sees you: curled on the couch, hidden beneath a blanket and alive.

(Your chest rises. Then falls. Rises. Falls. You’re not floating. You’re not gone.)

His lungs finally unlock and he breathes sharply, the sound loud enough that you look up immediately, like you sensed him there, like you are now tuned to him in a way he doesn’t understand, and your expression softens the second you see his face.

“Hey,” you say, voice thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”

He nods automatically but knows that he can’t bullshit you.

“You don’t look okay.”

“I’m fine,” he manages, but the words come out wrecked and dragged through his throat.

Your eyes examine him slowly and it clicks behind them. “Nightmare?”

(Oh, he hates this word. Hates how small it makes him feel. Hates how childish it sounds. Hates how accurate it is.)

His jaw locks so hard it aches and he can’t force out anything more than a stiff, miserable nod, his nails digging crescent moons in his palms as he braces himself for questions, for having to justify why he is standing there at three in the morning, shaking over a bad dream. But you don’t push.

You just scrub a hand over your tired face before moving your legs and lifting the blanket, creating space beside you.

“Come here.” You mumble, looking at him, patient.

He crosses the room slowly, the couch dipping under his weight as he lowers himself beside you, hyperaware of every inch of distance, of your arm brushing his, of the warmth bleeding through the thin fabric of your shirt, of how close your knee is to his thigh and how easy it would be to accidentally touch.

Your hand bumps his and even if he should pull away, he doesn’t. The contact is small, just skin against skin but for Andrew, it’s the closest to heaven he’s ever been.

Your fingers linger, uncertain, like you’re giving him time to decide, like he is allowed to decide. His thumb moves before he can stop it, brushing lightly over your knuckles, slowly, reverently, like he needs to make sure you are solid and not a trick of his mind. You feel warmer than him.

(Alive warm. Not water cold. Not bloody and floating. Not like in the pool.)

The memory hits so hard it hurts.

He jerks his hand back abruptly, his breathing going wrong again, shame creeping hot and fast because for a moment he wanted something and asked for it, letting the walls go down.

But you don’t comment, don’t tease and don’t pull away in response to his neediness and instead, you shift closer and you help settling the blanket over both of you, your arm following, tugging him in gently, like there has never been a version of this world where he wasn’t permitted to be here.

He stiffens when your hand finds the back of his neck and he wants to reassure you that it’s not because he wants it to stop but because he wants it too much, and he doesn’t deserve it. But your fingers brush his scalp, and suddenly he is nothing but starving for it, leaning toward it instinctively.

You guide him down gently, so gently and he can’t win this fight tonight, his ear pressing against your chest.

(Your heartbeat. Steady. There. One. Two. Three. Four. It’s there. You’re alive.)

The documentary keeps whispering about tides and sharks, but he barely hears it now because all he can focus on is the rhythm under his cheek and the way your fingers keep caressing his curls in slow strokes like you were calming a frightened wild animal.

He wants to move. To slide his arm around your waist. To press his face into your shirt and breathe you. To hold you tight enough so nothing could ever take you away.

But he stays still, terrified of ruining it and breaking something with the weight of his want.

Your fingers drift lower to cradle the back of his head while your other arm tightens around him and pull him fully into you, closing the remaining space between your two bodies. His relief is immediate and overwhelming, pulling a whimper out of him, emptying him of his thoughts.

His chest caves inward on a shaky exhale, his hand finally moving hesitantly until it rests lightly on your waist, barely touching and giving you room to pull away if you want to, but you don’t. You tuck him closer, your chin brushing his hair.

 “I’ve got you. You’re okay, Andrew, I promise. I’m here.”

The words land deep and it takes him a moment to realize he is sobbing in your arms, the tears soaking your shirt while he presses his forehead closer to your chest, just to confirm that the heartbeat under him is real.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your heart now.)

“Shh…It’s going to be okay, Andrew.”

The storm in his head – the ghosts, the pool, your voice – slowly quiets for the first time all night, dissolving under the simple, undeniable fact that you are here and breathing under his cheek, speaking to him, comforting him.

And somewhere, between one beat and the next, his body finally gives up the fight, his sobs stop, exhaustion dragging him under gently this time, no drowning, no screaming, just the steady rhythm of you and your quiet voice drifting above him.

“I’m not leaving Andrew.”

He knows that for tonight at least, no nightmare will come at him.

You promised.

──────────

“Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.”

Craig was the worst and you were absolutely going to kill him. Not even metaphorically, but in the sense where you would pick up the nearest heavy object and aim for his head the next time you saw him, if only you were able to find him right now instead of wandering through a house you didn’t know that smelled aggressively of weed and alcohol.

Deran and Andrew would forgive you, you were sure of it, if you murdered their brother under these circumstances. Hell, they might even help you bury the body. Because you could have had a regular evening at home, watching for the hundredth time Shawshank Redemption but no, you had to be alone in a stranger’s kitchen, trying not to panic.

The party had shifted, you felt it about twenty minutes ago.

It had stopped being loud fun and started being loud wrong when little bags started to be passed around, people disappearing in rooms and coming back with pupils blown wide and white powder on their nostrils.

You had looked for Craig. Texted him. Called. Nothing.

You had found someone who vaguely resembled one of the friends he introduced you to earlier, and when you asked if they had seen him, they laughed and replied something about “upstairs with Renn so it might take a while, Sweetheart,” and you stood there for a second, scared. Really scared.

Because you didn’t know anyone there, not really. And you were now surrounded by idiots who were snorting cocaine.

(Okay. Calm down. Breathe. Don’t cry. It doesn’t help your situation at all.)

A guy you didn’t recognize slid a drink toward you with a grin that lingered too long, and the fact that your very first thought was ‘I wonder if he put something in that’ made your decision for you: you were leaving. Immediately. Whatever Craig was doing upstairs with Renn was officially no longer your problem.

The night air hit your face, making you regret for the lack of jacket.

You stood on a sidewalk for a moment, trying to calculate the distance back to your apartment. You were too far, with no car and a phone at nine percent.

“Craig is dead. He is fucking dead. I will kill him myself,” you muttered under your breath as you started walking anyway, heels dangling in your hand, bare feet against the cold concrete, just to put some distance between you and the house.

But the further you got, the louder your heartbeat became, pounding in your ears, the fear crawling up your spine.

Still, you kept walking, arms wrapped tightly around yourself, repeating ‘You’ll be fine,’ over and over to your brain.

(You were not fine. You were alone. In the middle of the night. Walking barefoot down a street you didn’t know. Why were you like this? Why didn’t you just stay? Why didn’t you drag Craig out by his stupid hair to drive you back home?)

You didn’t want to try to call Craig again and waste your last percentage of battery on someone who would not answer.

And before you could talk yourself out of it, before you could rationalize or be embarrassed…your thumb was already pressing Andrew’s name.

(If you called him, he would come. He wouldn’t hesitate. You knew it.)

The phone only rang once before he picked up.

“Yes?”

That was all it took for you: the sound of his steady and low voice to make something inside your chest collapse, the fragile composure you had been clinging to dissolving instantly as you let out a shaky exhale, thanking all the Gods above for Andrew Cody’s existence.

“Andrew,” you said, your voice betraying you immediately with a crack right through the middle of his name. “I-I’m sorry. It’s late, I know. I just…”

“What happened.”

You swallowed, trying to force the tears to back down. “I’m at this party and…and Craig left. I mean…he is upstairs with Renn doing I don’t know what and he won’t answer me. I left the house because it got weird there and I’m trying to walk home but I think that was a stupid idea and I just…”

(You hated how your voice wobbled. How small it sounded. You should have bought pepper spray.)

“I’m so scared.”

In the background, you could hear keys jangling, a door closing and his truck starting.

“Where are you?”

No ‘why’, no ‘what were you thinking’. Just that.

You gave him the street name and the closest intersection you could see, wiping your face with the back of your hand and trying to steady your breathing so you didn’t sound like you were seconds away from a breakdown.

“I’ll be there in five.”

You let out a weak, disbelieving laugh. “It’s at least ten.”

“Five.”

The line went dead before you could argue, the call cutting off abruptly as your screen went black. Dead battery.

You stared at your reflection for half a second on the dark screen, heart hammering while you counted the seconds in your head, hoping that somehow it would summon him faster.

It took less than three hundred for you to see headlights cut around the corner of the street faster than the required speed limit, relief crashing into you. He didn’t even fully stop before the driver’s door was already swinging open, crossing the distance to you in three long strides, eyes sweeping over you from head to toe then past you to the houses.

“You okay?”

You nodded too quickly and he stared at you, jaw locked so hard you could see the muscles twitching. He looked furious.

“Get in,” he said, opening the passenger door, one hand braced on the roof as he helped you climb up into the seat, taking your shoes to put them in the back seat.

You stayed silent, not wanting to know to whom his anger was directed at. It was only once you were down the street that he finally spoke again, eyes flicking between the road and you.

“Did anyone hurt you?”

You blinked at him. “No.”

“Touch you?”

“No.”

“Follow you?”

You shook your head, watching his knuckles tightening around the steering wheel.

“Say anything to you?”

“Just…offered me stuff,” you admitted quietly, wrapping your arms around yourself again. “But I said no. I would never do that. You know I would not.”

You weren’t sure why you felt the need to add that, why you wanted him to understand that you hadn’t been reckless. That hanging out with Craig didn’t mean being like him. That you wouldn’t caught yourself in drugs. You knew better.

The streetlight caught the side of his face and for a split second you saw something raw there before it slipped behind his mask of control. The silence continued to stretch, heavy.

“Are you angry at me?”

The truck slowed to a stop at a red light, allowing him to turn his head toward you fully, eyes dark and intense in a way that made your whole body pulse in response, not from fear but from the weight of being seen.

“I’m not angry at you,” he said, holding your gaze. “I’m angry you were there alone. Angry that my stupid brother left you. Angry that I wasn’t there sooner. But not at you.”

The light shifted to green, but he didn’t move right away. His eyes remained locked on yours, unblinking, making sure you understood the distinction.

“You call me,” he added quietly. “The second you have a problem, you always call me. Okay?”

You nodded, fingers twisting in the fabric of your dress. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

“You don’t.”

And there was something in the way he said it, like he was wounded at the idea you thought you might ever be an inconvenience to him, that made you blush.

The truck finally rolled forward, but the air between you felt different, heavier in a way that you’ll only be to shake off with a cold shower.

You watched the way his shoulders remained tense all the way to your home and understood then that he had come because he had been frightened, that the thought of you alone in the dark had unsettled something in him, and that he had needed to fix it.

And the scariest part was that something warm and traitorous inside your chest responded to that.

You liked that he had been scared.

You liked that he came in less than three hundred seconds.

That he didn’t even hesitate when you admitted you were frightened, he simply moved.

And you liked the way he refused to let you walk barefoot to your apartment, carrying you, as if the idea of your skin touching the cold pavement was something he would not allow.

He didn’t put you down immediately. No, he held you all the way from his truck to your doorway, one arm firm beneath your legs and the other steady at your back, your shoes dangling loosely from his fingers, your body tucked close enough to feel his breathing through his shirt, making you aware of how easily you fit there.

When he finally set you down at your threshold, his hands lingered at your waist a second longer than necessary.

“You’ll be good?” he asked quietly, handing you your shoes, your fingers brushing his in the exchange.

You nodded, incapable of trusting your own voice, because if you opened your mouth, you were fairly certain that something reckless would fall out, something dangerously close to ‘stay’ and you were overwhelmed enough by the urge to step over, to reach for him and press your forehead against his chest just to see if his heart was still beating as fast as yours.

He was still staring at you, something unspoken passing like electricity.

“Good night,” he whispered, the softness of it almost undoing you.

“Good night, Andrew.”

You closed your door slowly, pressing your back against it, listening to his boots on the pavement, realizing that he hadn’t moved until he heard the lock click.

Only then did he walk back to his truck.

You would maybe not murder Craig after all.

──────────

Andrew spends the entire day watching for the moment you are going to change your mind and run from him.

And you don’t act differently when you wake up: you drink coffee while humming along to the songs on the radio, trying to coax a laugh out of him, but he keeps waiting for it anyway: the flicker in your eyes that says you’ve seen too much of him now, that holding him while he sobbed was enough to scare you off for good.

He replays the night while you are in the shower. How he cried in your arms. How your fingers combed through his curls. How you held him pressed against your chest. How he let himself need you.

He wonders if he should apologize, or explain, or at least even just…acknowledge that you saw him at his weakest and that he was thankful it was you.

Instead, he washes the dishes twice in a row to calm his brain, avoiding looking directly at your body when you step back into the kitchen in your coffee shop uniform, hair damp.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the dents on his mug.)

You ask him if he is still taking you to the skatepark after your shift, and he wants to say no. The word sits right there on his tongue, ready to spill, because the park means proximity and proximity means touch and desire which always ends with something being taken away from him.

But you smile at him in such an open and easy way, and if it was something you really wanted to do, far be it from him to deny you after last night when you held him like he was something that could be saved, that was worth saving.

So, he nods and the way your whole face lights up makes him think, not for the first time, that he would probably give you anything you asked for.

That is the part of himself that scares him.

And now that he is finally at the skatepark with you on this late afternoon, he knows that he should be tracking your stance and foot placement the way he always does, but today he notices different things about you instead: how you are not pulling away from him, not avoiding him, how you stand close when you talk, lean into his space without hesitation.

And somehow that unsettles him more than distance would have. Because, if you are not afraid of him, if you are not stepping back after seeing what he is like during his worst nights, then what does that mean?

You sway on the board.

He sees it, but his brain is still half-caught in the memory of your heartbeat under his ear, still waiting for the recoil that doesn’t come and by the time his body reacts, you’re already too far from his reach.

You hit the concrete hands first, palms slamming down on instinct before your knees follow, the skin scraping on the ground with a sound that makes his stomach drop. The impact steals the air from your lungs and for a fraction of a second you manage to hold yourself up before your face strikes the ground with a sickening thud.

Andrew is already moving before you even understand what happened, the board rolling behind you while he drops to his knees so fast, he doesn’t register the sting tearing through his own skin, doesn’t feel the way his jeans split at the knee or how his knuckles scratch raw when he catches himself, because none of it matters to him. He is scanning, assessing and cataloguing the damage, forcing his mind to clear before he dares to touch you.

Your palms and knees are damaged through the torn denim, but it’s the blood beginning to run from your eyebrow that makes him feel abruptly cold. It gathers at the edge of your lashes and runs along the curve of your nose, bright red against your skin, and for a second, the world tilts.

(Blood. So much blood. He knows blood. Knows how to stop it. How to clean it. How to stitch it close. Pope is good with blood.)

The thought lands with cold precision, and even if he hates the name, even if it sounds wrong in his own head, he can’t afford to hate the part of himself that steps forward first right now - efficient Pope, steady Pope, the one who does not panic.

“I’ve got you,” he says, and his voice is low, measured, trying to reassure you the way you reassured him last night while he broke apart against your chest, even though his heart is hammering through his ribs.

Your eyes flutter, dazed, before you try to sit up, but he is already there, placing one hand at the back of your neck and the other on your shoulder to help you.

“It’s okay sweetheart, I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs, and there is something almost pleading behind his words that has less to do with your eyebrow and more to do with the memory of the pool and your voice accusing him of being too late.

He swipes his thumb gently beneath the cut to assess its depth, his other hand moving to brace your jaw so you don’t move, and when fresh blood coats the pad of his finger, he feels the familiar switch inside him flips into place.

(His breathing slows. His hands stop shaking. This he understands. This he can control.)

“It’s not deep,” he says after his inspection, even though he knows you’ll need stitches. “You still with me?”

Your hand lifts and finds his wrist, fingers curling around it, and the contact sends something through him that is not adrenaline and not fear but softer that frightens him more because it makes him aware of how much he needs you to be okay.

“I’m fine,” you whisper, though your voice is small.

He shakes his head once, tearing a strip from the hem of his shirt. “Let’s get you home so I can clean this properly, okay? Keep pressure there,” he instructs, guiding your hand back to your eyebrow and pressing it into place.

You nod, and that’s enough for him.

He slides one arm behind your back, his broad palm spanning the length of your shoulder blades, the other slipping beneath your knees to lift you, ignoring the sting of his knees and the sticky blood drying across his knuckles because none of it is important compared to the steady rhythm of your breath brushing his collarbone.

He carries you toward the truck, opening the door and lowering you carefully into the passenger seat, one hand coming up to your jaw, his thumb resting lightly on your cheekbone to make sure your eyes focus on him.

“Stay with me,” he says softly.

Your lips twitch despite the pain. “Bossy.”

He goes to buckle your seatbelt, adjusting the strap and closing the door gently before circling the truck, wiping his bloody hand against his jeans.

While driving back to your apartment, his eyes keep darting to you every few seconds.

“Talk to me,” he says after a moment.

“About what?”

“Anything.”

You take a moment before starting to talk about your day at the coffee shop, just mindless little moments. He doesn’t interrupt, he listens and nods at the right moments. You are grounding him on purpose, he realizes, dragging his thoughts back to something ordinary, something alive.

(You are not in the pool. You are breathing. You are not telling him he failed you. He counts your breaths.)

Inside your place, he works methodically, like he always does when someone comes back from a job hurt and bleeding – controlled, shutting everything else out. He lays out all your medical supplies on your desk with a precise spacing: first gauze then antiseptic, needle, sewing thread…The order is important. Order means control.

 You sit on the edge of your bed, looking at him and continuing the pressure of the piece of his shirt against your eyebrow.

“Alright,” he says quietly, stepping between your knees so he can reach your face properly. “Hold still.”

He cleans your palms first, his concentration absolute because his entire world has narrowed down to the square inch of skin beneath his fingers.

“I should have caught you.”

“It’s not your fault, Andrew. Don’t punish yourself for it, okay? I’m fine, I promise I’m fine.”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t trust himself to.

Instead, he goes silent and returns to the work in front of him, bandaging thoroughly your hands before taking off your pants and doing the same with your knees, making sure everything stays in place.

Finally, he allows himself to look fully at your face again, examining the cut on your eyebrow and tilting your chin upward with two fingers, feeling your breath ghosting on his lips in the small space between you.

“You’re going to need stitches,” he murmurs.

You study him for a second. “You’re very serious about this.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not dying, Andrew.”

“I know.”

“You look at me like I am.”

His jaw tightens and for a moment, he almost says it. Almost tells you that in his head, he’s already seen that version of you, floating and gone, but he swallows it back.

“Hold still,” he says instead.

He cleans the wound carefully by dabbing away the dried blood, and when you flinch, his free hand comes up automatically to steady the side of your head, thumb resting near your temple, not commenting on the way you lean into that touch.

The first puncture makes you inhale sharply.

“Breathe,” he says low, “Just breathe slow for me.”

You obey, focusing on him rather than the pull of the thread, your eyes locking on his face. He works carefully, tying each stitch with precision, trying not to falter at your gaze and even less at the reckless, intrusive thought about pressing his mouth to your brow to undo the wound.

When he finishes, he doesn’t move right away. He studies the line of the sutures, checks for tension, checks for bleeding or anything he might have missed before studying you.

“You’re okay,” he says, trying to convince himself.

You give him a small, tired smile. “I told you. I’m tougher than I look,” you say before your gaze drops, narrowing as you notice what he has been deliberately ignoring. “Andrew.”

“What?”

“You’re bleeding.”

He shrugs, dismissive, trying to pull his hand back so you can’t look too closely. “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing,” you murmur, reaching for him before he can retreat, your fingers tracing carefully over his knuckles, making him go still. “You can’t patch me up and ignore yourself.”

He swallows, and before he can argue, you’re already reaching for the antiseptic with your bandaged hand, fumbling slightly. He catches the bottle before you drop it, his other hand covering your instinctively.

“You shouldn’t…”

“None of that,” you interrupt, and there is a flicker of stubbornness there that makes his mouth twitch despite himself.

You tug his hand toward you, and this time he lets you clean the scrape on his hands. He doesn’t look at the wound. He looks at you.

At the crease between your brows as you concentrate. At the way your lips press together. At the way you treat his injuries as if they matter. No one ever does.

Your fingers tie the bandage clumsily but securely, and when you finish, you don’t let go right away. Your thumb lingers, stroking slowly over the back of his hand. He is not sure how to breathe. The room feels so much smaller now. Quieter?

You lift your eyes up to him and whisper. “Can you stay? Just for a bit. So…we can check on each other.”

He could tell you it’s starting to get late and he was supposed to meet Deran and Craig for their next job. He could tell you he’ll call you tonight to see how you feel.

But there is nothing in him that wants to leave this room.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I can stay.”

He helps you shift properly onto the bed, careful of your knees. When you lie back against the pillows, you reach for him, fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

It takes him a second of hesitation before lying down beside you, stiff at first, but you roll toward him, your bandaged hands pressing against his chest as you settle close, your head finding the space beneath his chin.

He exhales through his nose before lifting his arms and resting them around you.

After a few minutes of silence, when he thinks you might already be drifting, you murmur. “I like it when you called me sweetheart.”

He presses his mouth lightly into your hair.

“Go to sleep now.”

You nod, your body going slack after a few minutes while he stays wide awake, his hands moving slowly along your spine.

“You scared me,” he whispers into the quiet, once he is sure you’re gone.

His fingers move to brush lightly just above the stitches of your brow.

“I can’t lose you,” he breathes, pressing his forehead gently against yours.

(He counts your breathing. One. Two. Three. Four. Not because he is afraid. But because he simply likes knowing the rhythm.)

When sleep finally comes at him, he knows there won’t be any nightmare.

Because you’re there.

──────────

You did not mean to end up alone with Deran.

In fact, if you were being completely honest with yourself, you had carefully avoided being alone with him since you met, not because he had been hostile to you, but because he seemed to have this unnerving habit of seeing through people and you were not a fan of subjecting yourself to that.

Craig had dragged you to the bar “just for a bit,” (which in Craig language meant ‘indefinitely’) before promptly disappearing with a girl, leaving you at the counter, nursing a soda because you had work in the morning.

Deran was wiping down the bar in front of you.

“El Craigo has already left?” he asked without looking up.

“’Flee’ would be a better word to describe what happened.”

“And so now you’re just…” he gestured vaguely toward you with the cloth, “…miserably contemplating on drowning yourself in your drink?”

“It’s a soda.”

“You know what? That’s so much sadder.”

You exhaled, dragging a hand over your face before saying, “Can I ask you something without you telling Craig?”

That caught his attention immediately, making him glance up.

“Depends how embarrassing it is.”

“It’s not embarrassing,” you protested automatically, then faltered. “Fine. It’s…a little embarrassing.”

“A little?”

“A lot,” you admitted.

He huffed once, almost amused, tossing the cloth over his shoulder. “Fine. What?”

You took a breath, suddenly aware of how absurd this was and how you were feeling like you were sixteen instead of twenty-nine. “It’s…” you cleared your throat. “It’s about Andrew.”

(Fuck. This was so deeply humiliating. But Craig was not an option. He would weaponize the information and never let you live it down.)

Deran blinked once before leaning his forearms on the counter, a smirk spreading on his lips. “Oh, I see.”

You groaned immediately. “Oh, please, can you not react like that? You’re making this worse.”

“I haven’t reacted! I’m just…not quite surprised about this discussion. Come on.” he waved a hand. “What’s your question?”

“It’s just…” you stopped. “I don’t know how to tell if he…”

(Oh my God. You had faced worst things than this. You could finish a sentence.)

Deran tilted his face slightly, with a shit-eating grin that you absolutely hated. “If he…what?”

“If he likes me,” you blurted out in one breath.

The silence fell for exactly two seconds before he let out a short, incredulous laugh.

“You’re fucking with me. Right?”

Your face burned instantly. “Okay, great. Never mind, I’m just gonna dig my gra-”

“Easy tiger. Don’t get your panties in a twist. He’s obsessed with you.”

You stopped, your stomach flipping violently.

“That’s not true.”

“It is deeply true,” Deran replied flatly. “He reorganized the shelves in the kitchen.”

You blinked. “Well…I thought he just liked order.”

“Oh yeah, he does. Trust me, he fucking does. But…not that much.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“Surely that doesn’t mean…”

“He drove across town at three in the morning to get you out of a party,” Deran continued, counting off on his fingers now. “He cancels family meetings to go to the skatepark with you. He did his ‘scary stare’ to me the last time I drank in your mug.”

Heat crept up your cheeks as you stammered, throat dry. “B-But he doesn’t…He doesn’t say anything.”

Deran snorted. “Yeah, that’s Andrew.”

“It’s just...sometimes I don’t even know what he’s thinking.”

“Neither do we,” he deadpanned. “Welcome to the family.”

You exhaled, frustration spilling over. “So, what am I supposed to do now?”

Deran considered you for a moment. “Just…let him try to go at his own pace here. He is not good at the whole…relationship thing.” he said, his voice stripped of its usual sarcasm before adding. “And for the record, the way you look at him? Not subtle. Like, at all.”

You nearly choked on your own spit. “I am subtle!”

“I mean, yes,” he conceded dryly. “You are subtle…for Andrew and Craig. So don’t be proud about it. That’s the lowest level of subtility possible.”

“I hate you, Deran.”

“Yeah?” he replied with an amused smile. “Well, get in line.”

There was a pause before he said quietly. “You’re good for him. Just…don’t screw it up. You’re in the tribe now. Which means I have to tell you this…”

You straightened slightly.

“…if you’re not sure about this, about yourself, you go now. Not in a few months. Not after he lets himself think this might be real. You don’t get to backpedal if it gets complicated. He wouldn’t recover from it.”

You shook your head immediately. “I swear, I won’t hurt him. He’s…he’s-”

You stopped, because the word felt too large to say aloud. But Deran looked at you intensely enough for you to finish.

“He’s important. To me. I don’t want to fix him, because I don’t think he’s broken. I like him the way he is. I...I think I wouldn’t recover from losing him too.”

Deran held your gaze for a long moment. “Alright.”

You tilted your head. “Alright?”

“Alright,” he repeated. “You pass.”

“Was-Was it an interview? Are you serious?”

“Yep. And congrats, you got the job.”

You rolled your eyes, but your chest felt lighter than it had in quite some time while Deran smiled, a real full grin, almost boyish, making it easier to see the younger brother under his usual cryptic attitude.

“I forgot what it was like,” he said after a beat.

“What?” you asked.

“Having a sister you can annoy.”

“That’s…extremely sweet of you.”

“Don’t ruin it,” he warned, pointing the towel at you. “I will absolutely deny this conversation ever happened if you mention it to my brothers.”

You laughed despite yourself, shaking your head.

Then, he leaned forward and whispered to you. “And if you hurt him, I’m stealing your car and slashing your tires.”

“O-Okay.”

He had a little smile before straightening up. “Welcome into the family.”

──────────

He has not told you.

No one has told you about the job.

Craig said it wasn’t necessary, that you would make a big deal out of it. Deran said it was cleaner that way, the less people know, the less risk and Andrew didn’t argue, telling himself it was better if you didn’t know the details, better if you didn’t have to sit there, waiting for them to come back and spiraling about what could be happening to them.

He told himself that ignorance would keep you safe.

The screen door slams and your voice, sharper than he has ever heard it is rising against Craig, who’s following you in the backyard like a kicked puppy.

Andrew doesn’t turn immediately from his spot, staring at the water of the pool. He closes his eyes, preparing himself for the loud noises.

(One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the tiles of the pool.)

“You asked me to babysit Nick,” you’re saying, your voice shaking like you are about to start crying, “and you made it sound like it was for a date or something stupid! You didn’t say it was because you were going to fucking rob a jewelry store!”

“Jesus, lower your voice.”

“Lower my voice? How about you shut your mouth you liar!”

It isn’t only outrage in your voice, Andrew feels it. It’s fear. A raw, unfiltered fear for them. For him. And he doesn’t know what to do with that because no one has ever been afraid of losing him. When he went to prison years ago, his family moved on, sold his place and went on with their lives. For them, it was an inconvenience, for him, it was three years in Folsom.

Andrew turns then.

You’re standing a few feet from Craig, hands still bandaged, the thin line of stitches above your eyebrow visible, pointing a finger at Craig angrily while he tries to stay calm, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re breaking into a jewelry store, Craig. That’s not exactly Disneyland.”

“We’ve done jobs for years,” he snaps. “We’re good at it.”

Andrew watches the way your shoulders rise and fall too fast with your breath, the way your fingers flex like you’re resisting the urge to grab something and throw it at Craig.

“You know what happens if you get caught, right? You know what that would do to Nick?”

Craig’s jaw tightens. “We don’t get caught.”

You let out a bitter sound that is half a laugh, half a sob.

“Repeat this in the eyes of your brother, I fucking dare you. That’s not how life works, and you know it. You can get caught.”

Andrew feels the words hit him in the chest and rip something out of him. He doesn’t know when you learn about it. Doesn’t know who told you or the extent of your knowledge about those three years of fights and isolation.

If you know – truly know - why aren’t you running away? Why are you still here?

(He doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. It’s too much. It’s too little. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts the cracks on the floor.)

“We’re not idiots, just trust us, okay?” Craig argues, rolling his eyes.

“You left me alone at a party in a house full of people doing coke,” you fire back, your finger jabbing hard against his chest. “You are the exact definition of an idiot, Craig.”

Craig winces. “We don’t have to do this right now, okay? I already told you I was sorry about it. Pope, back me up.”

Both of you turn toward him at once, the weight of the fight landing on his shoulders. He doesn’t move immediately. Doesn’t speak either. Andrew has never been good at splitting himself in two, at giving his opinion. He was raised to follow orders.

Craig gestures toward you. “She’s acting like we’re amateurs.”

You slap his arm, wincing, forgetting for a moment about your bandage. “Fuck.”

Andrew walks up to you, checking your hand while you keep repeating him. “I’m okay, Andrew. I promise.”

He lifts his eyes to yours, angling his head to catch them, and when your gaze finally locks with his, he holds it, stubborn and unblinking. Your eyes shine brighter tonight than they usually do, so he doesn’t give himself permission to look away.

(You’re about to cry. It’s his fault. It must be his fault. He should have been better. But the voices are too loud. He doesn’t like when it’s too loud. One. Two. Three. Four. He remembers your breaths when you sleep.)

“I just…I thought you all trusted me,” you say, your voice breaking halfway through, fighting back tears of frustration.

Craig’s shoulders drop while Andrew’s thumb strokes over the back of your hand, grounding himself.

“We do,” Craig says, less combative now. “That’s why I asked you to watch Nick.”

“That’s not making me feel like you trust me. It’s making me feel like I’m a convenience.”

The word hangs there, making Andrew feel like he failed something. He has never wanted you to feel like this. He wanted you to be protected.

His gaze doesn’t waver as he keeps your hand in his, stroking over the bandage.

Craig looks between the two of you, seeing the hand, the closeness and mutters, “Jesus, bro, this is the worst time,” under his breath.

“Okay,” he exhales finally, turning fully toward you. “I fucked up. Massively. About the party. About not telling you. About…probably a million other things. I didn’t mean for you to feel unsafe.”

You don’t look convinced.

“Trust me,” Craig adds quickly, throwing Andrew a sideways glance, “I got my ass kicked enough by Pope to regret this party for the rest of my life.”

Your lips twitch a little, trying to keep it contain.

“Now, if you could hand me back my brother, I would be very grateful because we have a job to do, and you have a kid to entertain,” Craig says, rolling his eyes and retreating inside the house.

Andrew doesn’t let go of your hand, refusing to blink and terrified of losing a moment of you. He has the irrational feeling that if he does, something will waver on your face, the moment when you realize what this life looks like and he won’t be able to see his failure in time.

 “We’ve planned it,” he murmurs finally.

You hold his gaze. “And if something goes wrong?”

He doesn’t answer right away because he knows the answer to this, and he is certain you don’t want to hear it.

(If something goes wrong, he goes down first. He makes sure Deran and Craig are safe. He doesn’t come home because he won’t ever go back to prison. He prefers to die trying to escape than go back in a cell. One. Two. Three. Four. He counts your eyelashes.)

You are still waiting, searching his face.

“Then I handle it,” he says quietly.

You shake your head, your jaw working as if you’re trying to physically hold yourself together. “Promise me to come back safe.”

His hand lifts before he can stop himself to settle against the side of your face, his thumb resting just beneath your eye, making you go very still, waiting for what he will do next.

His thumb caresses your cheekbone once, just enough to fill his mind with the memory of your skin.

“I won’t let anything happen to me,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know if it’s meant as a vow or a lie he’s trying to force into becoming true. “I promise,” and before he allows himself to overthink it, he presses a careful kiss to your forehead, his lips brushing just above the line of stitches.

He can hear you catch your breath and it makes him pull back, his lips tingling at the contact. He knows it now: if he stays longer, if he lets himself feel the warmth of you, he might not leave at all.

He memorizes the sight of you like this: looking like losing him would break you and it does something unfamiliar to his chest. No one has ever been scared at the thought of him disappearing. No one has ever demanded that he come back.

He turns quickly, putting distance between the two of you before he changes his mind, the promise he made echoing in his head.

He hears it when Deran cuts the alarms. Promise me to come back safe. When he cuts through the back entrance. Promise me. And when Craig tries to improvise. Promise. He is not one to do reckless things but tonight, he is particularly unyielding each time the job almost goes sideways.

He knows you are in the house with Nick, probably pacing the kitchen and waiting to see the outcome of his word. So, when he finally reaches the main display room, he is quick to reach for the highest value pieces that will be cut down and reshaped. No traces or evidence will be left, they have done this long enough to know how to make everything disappear completely.

Andrew’s hand hovers for half a second over a particular velvet cushion before picking up the thin gold chain, a small heart-shaped pendant set in the center. It’s delicate and quiet, reminding him how it feels to bask in your light. He turns it between his fingers once, twice, imagining it resting just below the hollow of your throat, his thumb brushing over it absentmindedly while you are both sitting on the couch and watching a documentary.

He slips it securely into the inner pocket of his jacket, pressing it flat against his chest for a brief second before stepping back into motion and leaving with his brothers without any alarms or police sirens cutting through the night.

And when they get at the warehouse to stash the duffel bags, Andrew doesn’t stay like he usually would to make sure about getting his fair cut of the job. He nods once, quiet, ignoring their snickers and comments about him being ‘down bad’ all the way to his truck.

The house is dim when he enters, a soft glow coming from Craig’s bedroom and before he sees you, he hears your voice. It’s so soft.

“And baby whale swam all the way across the ocean to find mama whale,” you murmur.

He quietly walks up to the threshold to see you sitting on the bed with Nick lying, his eyes dropping with sleep, his thumb in his mouth and clutching to his monkey plushie. You slowly close the illustrated book before pressing a kiss onto the his hair and something expands in Andrew’s.

(You would be good at this. At building something steady. He can picture you pregnant, swelling with a child. His curls and your smile on a being that would never know the kind of hurt he had to go through.)

You stand up from the bed and see him, the relief crossing your face so achingly tender it nearly knocks the breath from his lungs.

“Andrew.”

He nods once, trying to convey his feelings, “I came back.”

You smile, closing the bedroom door behind you and stepping close to him, scanning for injuries the way he did for you at the skatepark. He lifts his hands, showing you his palms.

“I’m fine. I promised you I would.”

Your shoulders drop in a way that tells him you’ve been holding yourself rigid for hours, managing a barely audible, “Thank God.”

His lips tilt upward before reaching into his jacket’s pocket, “Turn around,” before adding a quiet, “Please.”

“Bossy,” you reply, amused, before turning your back to him.

He closes the one last step between you, pulling out the necklace from his pocket, careful not to let his hands shake as he lifts your hair to expose the back on your neck. He fastens the chain, the clasp clicking softly into place and for a second he doesn’t step away, the pad of his thumb grazing at the nape of your neck.

“Andrew,” you whisper, turning back toward him, your fingers lifting to trace it. “It’s…It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

He keeps staring at the pendant who rests exactly where he imagined it would be, then at your mouth before quickly going back to your eyes. You are close enough that he can feel your breath on his face, the world narrowing to the space between you.

He wants to close the distance, to press his mouth to yours.

Instead, he rests his forehead gently against yours, grounding himself with your scent, refusing to close his eyes.

“You should sleep,” he murmurs.

You smile softly and suddenly, Andrew wonders how he can extract a memory and preserve it forever in resin.

Because this moment feels like the dawn of his existence.

──────────

When Andrew was seven years old, the house was already too loud.

Somewhere down the hall a door slammed hard enough to be heard from the bedroom he shared with Julia, who was sitting on the floor with a deck of cards spread between them while he lined them into exact rows instead of playing War.

He liked the rows and the symmetry of it. It calmed him each time the edges were precisely following the pattern of the carpet. With this, he didn’t need to count.

In the backyard, someone shouted about money, making the twins flinch in fear. Julia reached for his hand, and they sat like that for a long time: her fingers curled tightly around his, his eyes fixed on the the cards. (Hearts. Diamonds. Clubs. Spades. Everything will be all right.)

Smurf emerged in the doorway with her bright smile, eight months pregnant with their little brother, tilting her head, “My baby is a strange one,” she whispers to his new stepfather, “But useful.”

Andrew heard it. He didn’t know what strange meant exactly, but he knew it was something you said when you didn’t want to say wrong.

At school, boys kept snatching his skateboard, tossing it across the asphalt because he rode the same loop over and over during recess, memorizing how many pushes it took to reach the fence.

(Fourteen. Fourteen every time. An even number. He liked them. That’s why he always counted till four.)

The first time a boy shoved him and called him a freak, Andrew didn’t respond. Just took back the board and kept doing his loops. The second time, when the board got kicked away and Julia was not there to held his hand, Andrew swung without warning. He couldn’t remember deciding to, just the sound of the impact and how the noise inside him went blissfully silent.

After that, teachers called him difficult, the kids stopped approaching him and Smurf congratulated him with a kiss on his mouth.

At night, when Julia was asleep beside him, Andrew kept staring at the ceiling, wondering something he couldn’t say out loud to his mother or his sister: would anyone ever see that he was trying? Trying to keep himself together so he didn’t explode? Trying to be good? Trying to stop the noises in his head?

-

When you were seven years old, the house smelled like warm cookies.

You were sitting on the couch, your small arms cradling your cousin, afraid to drop her. You didn’t know how to act with a baby. Your parents had sat you down a few months ago at the kitchen table and told you that you were their little miracle, that Santa sometimes forgot things and that maybe it would always just be the three of you – which sounded a little sad until your father had squeezed your hand and told you that three was already perfect.

But it was alright, because now, you had your cousin’s fingers clutching onto your hair, “She’s holding me!” you squealed, delighted and in awe because here, in this house, you were allowed to be amazed and to grow at your own pace.

The day you scraped your knee on the sidewalk, trying to teach yourself how to roller skate, you cried for less than a minute before your mother knelt in front of you, cleaning the wound and kissing the sting away. “You’re gonna be okay,” she said, and you believed her.

At school, you had a best friend who whispered to you how babies were made, and that made you giggle all day, the teacher shaking his head and calling you incorrigible, even though you had no idea what that meant and decided it must be something wonderful if it made you laugh that hard.

And the day you asked what you could be when you grew up, no one laughed. “You can be anything my little monkey,” your father had told you, and you thought about it for the whole day. Because anything was a lot for your brain: a teacher, a vet, a marine biologist. You always circled back to the same answer: something to help people.

And at night, as you looked at your glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling, you wondered about other things: would someone look at you the way your father looked at your mother when she was singing in the kitchen, with that love that said I am home?

──────────

Deran’s bar is louder than usual tonight, crowded by sports fans watching a game between Los Angeles and Atlanta. Craig has tried to tell him why it was so important to win at least five times since their arrival, but Andrew’s attention remains elsewhere entirely, watching you from across the room the way he has been watching you for four months now: trying to read something in your posture or in the tilt of your head that could give him an answer.

Because the truth is…he doesn’t know what you are after last night and if what happened in the hallway, or every night you’ve spent wrapped together, mean the same thing to you that they mean to him. He wants to ask, to spill the question out before it eats him alive: what are we?

Andrew hates not knowing. On a job, he knows every camera, every blind spot, every possible way things can go wrong but with you, there’s no map. And he hates that he can’t predict your next move.

You are standing at the bar, ordering a drink, your back half-turned to him and wearing a dress that shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public. It makes his pants grow tighter and has him readjusting on the stool, trying to pretend he isn’t affected while his brother sits three feet away and would never let him live it down if he knew.

And he knows he shouldn’t be staring, but you keep touching absentmindedly the necklace, your fingers tracing the pendant as it moves with your breathing, and before he can stop himself, he’s counting it.

(One. Two. Three. Four.)

You had said thank you last night in a way that felt like you meant something more, had let him secure the necklace around your neck and had met his eyes when you called it beautiful as if you were promising you would always wear it.

Always.

(Oh, how he doesn’t trust that word. Doesn’t trust anything that implies staying. He knows better. He should know better.)

And yet, there you are, wearing it for everyone to see, which does nothing to steady his accelerated pulse, and leaning across the counter to collect your cocktail from Deran. The movement doesn’t reveal much more of your skin, but it still sets ablaze Andrew’s brain, his lips going dry as he tries to resist the urge to walk up to you and beg for you to tell him that he isn’t the only one picturing rings, and a cradle in a quiet house and your head on his chest until he is old and grey.

“You’re not being subtle, you know that?” Craig says, cutting through the haze of his thoughts.

“Don’t start.”

Craig raises his hands innocently. “Jesus, relax.” He immediately reaches for the bowl of peanuts on the table, and Andrew feels his jaw tighten at the thought of how many unwashed hands have touched that bowl already. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you tonight?”

What’s wrong is that he just stole diamonds worth more than all of the jobs he did last year and it doesn’t compete to the way you look with the chain resting against your collarbone.

What’s wrong is that he would give back every dollar from last night if it meant waking up beside you for the next fifty years.

What’s wrong is that he is one second away from walking across that bar and lowering himself at your feet for your hands to baptize him clean, as if loving you were the only absolution worth asking for because whatever heaven exists for a man like him begins and ends with you.

And what’s wrong right now is that a man slides into the empty space beside you, leaning too close and touching your arm to get your attention. You turn toward him politely, your lips curving into the small smile you once called your ‘customer smile’.  You had explained it to his brothers and him: that you always kept the worst-case scenario in the back of your mind and that a smile felt safer than a hard no since it could mean the difference between walking away or not.

(Andrew doesn’t know the names or the faces of those who made you feel like that but he wants to find them. He wants to press them on the ground and feel their pulse panic under his thumbs. He wants them to understand what fear tastes like when it turns metallic into the mouth. He wants the air stolen from their lungs the way it must have been stolen from yours when you felt scared. He no longer wants to count. He wants to hurt. To see this man’s blood on the bar.)

Andrew starts walking towards you before he even formulates the thought, shoulders squared, already calculating how much force it would require to grab the stranger by the collar and steer him outside of the bar.

His vision narrows as he sees the stranger laughing, his hand lifting to linger near your elbow as if he was testing whether he can push for more and that makes Andrew’s vision blur at the edges. He is three steps away. Two.

Your eyes find his instantly, and something shifts in your expression. Your hand leaves the cocktail and you smile at him. It’s not the customer smile. No, it’s the real one that unravels him each time.

“Hey, honey,” you say brightly as your arm wraps around his neck and you press a kiss to his cheek, your hand traveling down his side before sliding into the back pocket of his pants, settling against him.

Andrew is almost sure he died at some point on the way there because he is pressed against you and now, he is no longer Andrew or Pope. For a brief moment, he gets to just be honey, and the word makes him happier than any name ever has.

The stranger glances between you. “Oh. I didn’t realize…”

“My boyfriend,” you cut him off with a smile, looking up at Andrew’s face.

His eyes were already on yours, searching for the smallest flicker of fear. Because if the man has dared put some in them, Andrew would dig an unmarked grave without blinking. When he finds none, his hand comes to your waist, his thumb strolling along your hip as he dips his head and presses his mouth above the faint line of stitches on your forehead.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs, low enough that the word belongs only to you.

He feels your breath hitch against his skin before turning to the man and saying lightly. “No worries, he always gets a little intense about men crowding me,” you tilt your head, thoughtful. “Not sure if it’s the boxing or the prison time. But don’t mind him…he almost doesn’t bite.”

The stranger’s smile falters just enough to satisfy something dark in Andrew’s chest. “Oh, um…yeah. Sorry man, I didn’t know she was taken.”

Andrew doesn’t raise his voice or move, he just stands there with your hand in his pocket, letting the silence stretch until it feels suffocating. “She is.”

“Right. I’ll go back to…the match.”

Andrew doesn’t blink and keeps track of the man’s back until he is laughing again at his friends’ table like nothing happened and only then does he let his focus shift back to you. You, who’s still close and warm, holding onto him like you have no intention of letting go.

His hand remains at your waist as he turns toward you, the movement bringing your faces close enough that your noses almost brush and your breaths mix between you. He lowers his head slightly, almost enough to kiss you.

“You okay?” he murmurs while his thumb keeps its slow movement on your hip.

You nod, your mouth curving up in that smile he loves. The real one. The one that you have at the skatepark each time you manage to stay upright a little longer than the day before: proud, bright and stubbornly pleased of yourself. And he can’t help but think about those lips and the way they said ‘honey’.

(He wants to hear it again. Wants to hear it softly. Wants to hear it moaned in the dark and against his mouth. He wants to kiss them every day for the rest of his life. To learn them. To know how they would part as he pounds into you. Stop. He has to stop.)

He blinks twice, grounding himself in the feel of your waist.

“Andrew. I’m good, I promise,” you murmur, sliding your hand out of his pocket and lace your fingers with his instead, interlocking them. “Let’s get out of here, please. It’s too loud.”

He doesn’t say it out loud, but relief settles at your suggestion. The bar feels too loud, too crowded and the idea of how many unwashed hands like Craig’s have been over the counters keeps coming back at him. So, when you tug gently at his hand and turn toward the door, he follows without hesitation, grateful that you were the one saying it.

The door swings shut behind you and the noise from the bar dulls instantly, reduced to a muted thud. The air is cooler than inside, smelling like the salt of the ocean mixed with your shampoo and he doesn’t understand how he gets to still have your hand in his and your thumb moving across his knuckles.

It’s only when you stop beside the truck and turn toward him that his eyes drop to the thin gold chain resting around your neck. His free hand lifts carefully to brush the chain first, following it down until the pad of his thumb rests over the pendant itself, flattening it against your skin.

“Still got it on,” he murmurs, tracing the outline of the pendant.

(He imagines doing this, years from now. In the kitchen. In bed. In the shower. Adjusting it before you leave the house. Brushing it aside before he kisses the curve of your throat. Seeing it against your skin when you are carrying his child.)

“Looks better on you than it did in the store,” he adds.

Your fingers slide slowly between his, guiding his hand so it settles flat over your heartbeat. He can feel it beating loud and fast under his palm, matching his own.

You tilt your face enough to find his eyes back. “Thank you for what happened in there, Andrew. You were good.”

His eyes slip shut for half a second because he doesn’t trust himself to survive the way you are looking at him, smiling at him with such warmth he shivers of pleasure.

(Good. You think he is good. If that’s what you want, he can be good. He can kneel. He can find how to rebuild himself from the bones if it means you keep calling him good.)

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” he says under his breath.

“Why?”

“Because I’d do anything if you asked.”

Your fingers start to caress the back of his hand. “Anything?”

He nods, his gaze unwaveringly focused on your eyes. “If you told me to walk away from the jobs, I would.”

Your hand pauses against his.

“Andrew…” you murmur, but there’s no panic in it, no immediate rejection. “You know why I wanted to reject him, right?”

He doesn’t answer, too scared of startling the moment with another word.

“You know why I’d reject any other guy in that bar and why I wanted him to know?”

“Know what?”

“That I’m not available.”

“You’re not?” he asks, as his mind races.

“I don’t know,” you say softly. “Are you?”

The question hangs there, in the small space between your bodies, his mind fumbling with a thousand overlapping questions.

(Are you with him? Calling him yours? Defining what this was? Finally answering the question that has been rattling his brain for weeks?)

“Are you available Andrew?” you repeat gently, your hand lifting up to cup his face.

He exhales slowly, trying not to whimper at the contact, shaking his head.

You lean closer, your nose brushing his and your voice dropping lower. “No?”

“No.”

Your thumb traces patterns along his cheekbone and it takes him a few moments to realize that you were mapping his freckles. “How long?” you whisper.

He feels too weak to reply, overwhelmed by the tenderness of your touch. If his heart had not been already yours, he would lay it at your feet right there, so long as you promise to treat him with this gentleness and care for the rest of his life.

“Before the party? When I called you to help me?” he nods. “Before our night on the couch?” another nod. “Before our first skateboard le-?”

 “When we met. And you brought pastries,” he replies, on the verge of a sob, shameful to confess that he keeps thinking about you on top of him, under him, any way you want it as long as he could disappear into your light and be drown whole by your grace to wipe out every horror he has ever seen or done for the sake of others.

“Andrew. Honey. Please, look at me.”

He keeps his gaze darted to the ground, like looking anywhere but you might prevent him from saying anything more revealing about the depth of his feelings, before his eyes close on their own instinctively, only realizing a heartbeat later that it’s because your lips found his.

And for the first time in Andrew’s life, that deep pit of misery in his heart goes completely silent, frozen for a flash before kissing you back.

Your lips are warm and a little reckless, tasting like mint and something entirely yours that he knows he will crave for the rest of his life. Your fingers thread into his curls, pulling a groan he can’t control out of him. He moves closer without thinking, his hand sliding along your waist until your back meets the metal of the truck door.

The second he registers the force of it, he pulls back just enough to search your face, to scan for any sign that he has gone too far, but the pause barely lasts a breath before your fingers tighten in his hair, guiding him back down as your body arched into his, slipping his tongue past your parted lips.

You are an oasis and he is nothing but a thirsty man wandering in the dark who gets to finally know what it’s like to drink every drop of it. You taste dizzy and intoxicating and he knows that he has been feeding on scraps of affection all his life and now…now he understands what it means to be full.

He is about to tell you how much sweeter you taste than in his fantasies before you bite down on his lower lip, drawing another sound of his throat.

You tilt your head, your arms wrapping fully around his neck as his drop to your hips, steady and sure, to raise you higher against the door, a gasp spilling out of you that he swallows eagerly and your dress hiking up as your legs wrap around him, denying any space between your bodies.

He feels you pull away for air by an inch or two, making him whine at the loss of contact, but he quickly recovers as he sees the flushed smile on your kiss-swollen lips. “Show off.”

“Yeah?” he asks while one of his arms tightens under you, anchoring your body to the door while the other frees itself to trail up your body and adding a smug, “Yeah,” skimming your inner thigh and marveling at how many sounds he can coax out of you, wondering how much more he’d pull if he could trace his thumb along your heat. But instead, he cups again your cheek, tracing slowly the bow of your lips.

“Dimples,” you murmur.

“What?”

“Dimples, Andrew,” you repeat, delighted, like you’ve just discovered something rare. “I didn’t know you had them.”

(Oh. Of course. You can see them because he is smiling. For real. A real one. Not the tight, guarded version. Not the twitchy one. A full unguarded smile. When was the last time he did that?)

“I do,” he says, trying and failing to smooth it away. “So do you.”

Your eyebrows lift. “I do not.”

“You do,” he insists quietly, shifting his hold slightly to keep his arm secure around you, his thumb pressing gently at the corner of your mouth. “Right there…”

Inside the bar, the crowd erupts in a wave of shouting, making you glance at the door before erupting in laughter, eyes wide.

“Oh, fuck,” you whisper, incapable of stopping your giggles. “I forgot.”

Andrew exhales through his nose, trying to calm the blood pumping hard all the way down his length. He knows that you’ve been feeling him against you the whole time, your hips still rubbing together, and for once in his life, he doesn’t want to excuse himself or feel ashamed of his desires, of how much he wants. He has spent too many nights thinking about how you’d taste, how you’d moan. Too many cold showers to try get rid of his hard-on whenever he was picturing you.

“Maybe…” you murmur against his mouth, pecking soft kisses along his jaw. “Maybe we should relocate.”

He looks at you, at the way your lips are still swollen and glistening from kissing, at your panting and the tremors of your legs.

He nods, lowering you carefully back onto your feet, his hands still trailing along your sides to still have some ways of being connected to you before reaching for the door handle of the passenger seat and helping you in.

He feels, walking around to the driver’s side, that he is still smiling. Dimples and all.

──────────

“Maybe…” you sigh, struggling to keep your composure and pressing kisses along the freckles dusting his jaw. “Maybe we should relocate.”

The intensity of his eyes on you, trailing along your body and taking in your rampant arousal, feels like he is on the verge of taking you against the door. You are pretty sure that if he’d ask you for permission, you’d grant it promptly. You want him. You want to know how long it would take for his unwavering hazel eyes to become pleading wet just by your lips telling how good he is to you.

But he just nods, jaw tight before lowering you carefully back onto your feet, making you bite down a protest at the loss of contact, like even the air feels like too much distance, until you feel his fingertips dragging over your waist.

He opens the door for you and not so long ago, you would have described his current behavior as controlled and cold, but now that you know him…you recognize a man who’s trying to contain himself, like a wild animal finally freed.

(Devour. You want him to devour you. To ruin you. Four months of trying – miserably – to have a date with him and it took only a gross man and a ‘honey’ to get him to kiss you like that and tell you he would quit everything?  Fuck. Focus.)

He starts the engine, snapping you out of your thoughts, before pulling out of the parking lot, still smiling. You stare at his profile: the line of his jaw that has now faint traces of your lipstick, the way his tongue briefly drags across his lower lips like he can still taste you and his hand on the gear shift that slowly drifts to your thigh.

Your breath stutters the moment his palm settles just above your knee, the pads of his fingers tracing patterns over it while he keeps his eyes on the road. That definitely doesn’t help your craving for more.

(How much can be a fine for having sex in a car anyway? Andrew has money. Plenty from what you understand so…that would just be a drop in a bucket, right?)

You slide your fingers over his, intertwining them on your lap and stilling his slow, absent movements. He glances at you immediately, probably to understand why you stopped him. But the look you give him is enough to answer his question.

His eyes trail your face a fraction too long before looking back to the road, purposefully, the streetlights passing by a little faster.

“We’ll be there in five,” he declares without looking at you.

“Andrew, it’s at least ten minutes away,” you say, with a barely contained smile.

“Five.”

“I’m timing you, you know,” you smirked, pointing at the car clock.

The truck moves through an intersection just as the light turns yellow - once, then again at the next block – while Andrew doesn’t do so much as blink.

“See?” he says, the hint of a smug smile on his face when the car finally parks home.

You check the dashboard clock. Four minutes.

You shake your head, laughing as you both unbuckle your seatbelts. “Show off.”

Of course, you should know better now, he is not a man to stop there. So, when he opens the door for you before you even reach for the handle, and offers his hand, you should see it coming.

He helps you down carefully and for half a breath you think that maybe this time he’s not going to do it. No, you definitely should know better cause the moment your feet hit the ground, his arm slides behind your knees, sweeping you off while the other moves behind your back.

A breathless gasp escapes your mouth. “Andrew!”

(God you are so fucking gone for him. Is this what it would feel like? Crossing a threshold with him as a young bride? Completely besotted in a white dress? No. Not would. Will.)

He shuts the door with his hip, adjusting you against his chest as your arms loop around his neck automatically, your body relishing his touch as the thought slips out before you can stop it: “I feel like your bride right now.”

His steps slow on his way to the door, just enough for you to notice and wonder if you should just tell him to brush off your stupid words. That you are just drunk (you barely had the time to drink a sip of your cocktail earlier) and tired (you just spent two nights in a row sleeping like a baby in his arms).

The garage light flickers as he reaches the front door. “You are.”

He carries you inside like he’s done it in a million other lifetimes while you are still gaping, mouth wide open at his words. You shake your head a bit wobbly before moving your hand from the nape of his neck to the place on his cheek where you know a dimple is hiding.

“Careful,” you murmur, smiling softly. “Keep talking like that and I might start looking for a dress rea-”

Your words are being cut off by his mouth, kissing you like he is trying to drown in the sensation, tilting his head to fit you better, to take more of you, and you can’t stop the moan passing your lips. It feels like stepping into the fire and realizing you don’t ever want to be pulled out.

Your feet carefully find back the ground as his hands slide along your backbone, fingers spreading between your shoulder blades. His lips part yours with the same confidence he has when he catches you at the skatepark. You feel him everywhere and you still want more.

(Is it ever going to stop? This feeling? This whole tremor that dances under your skin every time he touches you? Every time he kisses you like he means forever?)

He pulls away just enough, heavy breath mingling with yours, hazel eyes half-lidded in pleasure and his nose brushing yours softly with your foreheads pressed together, “We can just kiss. If that’s what you want. I don’t need more. Just you,” he murmured in a broken voice.

The words settle deep in your chest, heavy and large as if they have roots. It makes you want to answer him with your mouth, to kiss him until his doubts leave his bones entirely. You bring your fingers to the bow of his lips and he kisses them gently, one after the other, the softness of it making you tremble.

“Andrew,” you say quietly, smiling despite your racing pulse. “Take me to bed.”

He regards you for a long moment, his eyes moving slowly over your face as though he is searching for hesitation and when he finds none, a smile begins at the corner of his mouth, enough to carve that rare, gorgeous dimple into his cheek. “Bossy,” he smirks before lifting you back by the waist so your legs can wrap up around his waist, walking around the house guided only by his memory since his lips are too busy coaxing moans out of you.

You are almost blacking out from the lack of oxygen when the kiss suddenly breaks. In the soft lighting of his bedroom, you distinguish most of his expression: lustful and bewildered that this is finally happening.

“I want to taste you. Please,” he breaths and you nod, not trusting yourself to reply.

The look that passes through his hazel eyes is hazy, fingers finding the hem of your dress and carefully pulling it up.

“Don’t want to mess it,” he says, folding it neatly on his chair. “You look pretty in that.”

You sit on the edge of the bed, trying not to feel too self-conscious about being only in your underwear, braless as he kneels down to the floor, still fully clothed and face a few inches lower than yours, prying your legs apart.

“Andrew,”

He doesn’t respond, pressing his lips to the inner corner of your thigh and moving further up between your legs.

“You don’t have to Andrew.”

He only lifts his gaze up to yours, unwavering as he continues his kisses, “You don’t want it?”

“I…I’m not saying that. I just…I don’t want you to feel obligated to it. I know it’s not…what men like the most,” you gasp, your hand finding his curls and twisting them around your fingers, making him grunt.

“It’s what I want to do the most, right now,” he says with a sinful gaze. “Can I?”

“Yes. Okay. Sure,” you choke, closing your eyes and lying down as he continues his torturous path, his hands slowly tugging the last piece between him and your pussy.

You don’t think you have ever been this wet with a man. Or a woman. Or anyone at all. Normally, you feel a bit uncomfortable with men going down on you cause they never seem to know what they are doing or are too impatient of having ‘real sex’ to let you finish. But here with Andrew, you are nothing but pleasure, his lips fiddling with you like you are an instrument that he is tuning to his own harmony.

You gasp as his tongue finally probes your folds stopping just underneath your clit, earning from him a low whimper.

“You taste delicious,” he goes, coming up for air by an inch. “Just like how I dreamt,” he adds, making you feel close to delirious.

He lowers his face again, tongue working its way up your pussy again, finally reaching for your clit and rolling over it, making you shudder and writhe on the bed, incapable of keeping your moans down and your hands running through his scalp.

“Andrew, please. Just like that. It’s perfect,” you praise him, feeling how it makes him pick up the pace.

Your last straw is the sight of his face between your legs, eyes burning with nothing but want, his hands used to stealing and hurting now holding onto your legs to keep them open and making you come with a hoarse cry. If there’s a heaven on Earth, you know now that it must only exist in this man. In his hands, his chest, his mouth, his eyes. He is nothing but your sanctuary, your promised land and your altar.

When your orgasm subsides, you feel Andrew crawling over you and pressing his lips against you, making you taste yourself on his mouth as you slip your tongue in it. The small noise of pleasure from the back of his throat is the most delicious sound you’ve ever heard.

“You,” you breathe against him, your lips brushing his, pupils probably wide. “I want you. Like right now. So please…take off those clothes. I love them. Really. But take them off.”

His lips twitches again to the side, “Anything.” as he starts to undress, folding them before going above you, his hard cock pressing against your heat.

His eyes keep searching your face, looking for an ounce of backtrack in your eyes before slowly entering you. That’s when you realize how grateful you are for the previous climax because in any other situation, you would have probably wince at his thickness. Thankfully, he seems to catch on with it - probably due to his gaze not leaving your face and refusing to blink – and takes his time to be fully inside you.

For a couple of minutes, the two of you don’t move, give you the time to marvel at how good he feels inside of you. You know now that you’ll have other days and nights to ask him to stay like this for hours, just to be one.

Andrew presses his forehead against yours, lips brushing yours as he whispers. “I love you.”

The word hums through your body. Love. Love. Love. Andrew loves someone and it’s you. From your scalp to your toes, you can feel it resonating through you. Love. Love. Love.

“I love you, Andrew. My Andrew,” you murmur happily, moving a drenched curl from his forehead. “So good to me.”

His face ends up in your neck, trying to cover his reaction to your words. “You really think I’m good?”

“Of course you are. Look at me, honey,” you say, holding onto his chin to bring back his face close to yours as your legs wrap around his waist. “You are good. You are kind. You keep making me feel safe. And…I’m so lucky to have you,” you add, rolling your hips and making him shiver.

You drink in the sight of him: his sweaty hair sticking to his head, curls messy from where your fingers had run through, the freckles dusting his chest and the traces of old wounds that you’ll ask about one day. But the most important of all is the way he is looking at you – as if he loves you. Because he does. He said it. I love you. I love you. I love you.

You keep whispering sweet nothings into his ear, just to see the flush spreading on his cheeks, his ears, his chest and encouraging his thrusts to go harder, deeper. Soon enough, you are quivering around him, your nails digging in his skin as you bite on his lower lip in retaliation for making you wait so long for this moment.

He lets out a desperate moan. “I won’t…last long. ‘m sorry. You feel so…”

“It’s okay,” you encourage him. “I want you to come.”

He slams his cock one more time and goes. “Wh-Where?”

“In me,” you beg, and you know you have hit the right nerve from the way his whole body trembles.

“Really?” he breathes.

“Please.”

The sight of his body, eyes fighting to not shut tight from the pleasure, mouth pursuing yours, mixed with how good he is making you feel, is too much. Your back arches as you reach your second climax tonight, quickly followed by Andrew, clinging to you as his warm load fills you up. Both of you are gasping for one another, time almost freezing as your eyes are sharing the same thought. I love you. I love you. I love you.

After a couple of minutes, Andrew slips out of you and lays most of his body against your side, putting his head above your breasts, on your heartbeat, intertwining your hands together.

“Tomorrow,” he says.

You brush a kiss on top of his head. “What?”

“Tomorrow, we’re picking out your dress.”

Six months ago, your world stopped in the middle of the Pitt during a random Tuesday shift.

You’d joined the ED only a few weeks prior, a transfer from the VA after Jack Abbot, who’d been your patient, recommended you join him at his hospital. He said it was not only a better environment for omegas but that you’d have more opportunities to find your niche during your residency. You wanted to find a surgical fellowship after your residency, and putting in hours in an emergency department would let you log some OR time if you played your cards right.

That day, you'd helped triage the worst broken femur you’d ever seen from an insane football injury and paged for an ortho consult. Dr. Brendon Park came downstairs within minutes; his sub-specialty in sports injuries had him as the first line of defense.

When he pushed through the door, a thick cloud of clove and amber filled your nostrils.

Your pupils dilated. Heat bloomed in your cheeks, your chest, your stomach, your everywhere. Yes, everywhere. The world reoriented and you knew something for certain for the first time in your life: Brendon Park is your mate. Fated. Something rare and special and sacred, even among medical professionals who write it off as a medical phenomenon.

This was supposed to be the most important moment of your entire life. A moment that makes an omega’s knees weak and their world restart for the better. The two of you were supposed to leave the room enamored with each other, ready to explore the possibilities of your life together.

There were two problems with this new reality of yours.

You had been on scent blockers for nearly a decade, which made you unrecognizable to him, and,

Dr. Brendon Park is a big, huge, massive, planetary fucking asshole

“He’s the most stereotypical alpha I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering. Always peacocking around scenting all over everybody and grinding to be ‘The Top-Rated Orthopedic Surgeon on the East Coast Three Years Running,’” Trinity sneers, doing a decent impression of him as she walks out of yet another awful consult with Park the Shark, snapping off her gloves and punting them in the trash. “You know I had a dream about clocking him in the jaw the other night after we had to work on that hand amputation together?”

Next to you, Whitaker says, sounding almost wistful, “You should try it for all of us omegas who can’t stand him. At least it would give us some entertainment.”

You nod along as you peck away at your chart. It’s a major point of frustration for you; Park is so annoying you want to swat him like a fly, but something in your biology stops you from bad-mouthing him when you can still smell him lingering in the ED. You hate the fact that you get tongue-tied whenever he comes up, the thought of his autumnal scent like a warm, addictive blanket around your shoulders.

Trinity leans over the desk and waves her hand in your face. “Earth to cherry,” she teases, using the nickname based on your scent the way affectionate alphas do to their omega friends, “I’m being mean about Park; don’t you want to pile on while I’m still pissed?”

“Um, not today,” you try weakly, catching Park’s bulky frame talking with Robby in the corner of your eye. “I need to, ah, to get to-” Thankfully, an ambulance rolls into the bay before you have to come up with some lame excuse to duck out of the conversation and away from Park’s smell. You nod toward it and say, “That’s my ride. See you later, guys.”

As you jog over to the EMTs as they unload a crying, embarrassed, upset teenage boy, Park watches you carefully, his subconscious making sure you get to your destination safely. He’s always liked you more than the other ED residents who always find some way to piss him off. The only doctor he fully respects down in this hellhole is Abbot and Abbot chose you personally, which automatically gave you some cred in Park’s mind, but it’s more than that. It’s something in the way you speak, maybe, or how you hold yourself around patients. He can’t quite place his thumb on it, but you’re just better than the rest of your class.

After an hour of waiting on imaging and taking a thorough history for the teenage athlete with his shattered knee, you reluctantly page for an orthopedic surgery consult – and brace yourself when it’s Park who returns it right away. You half-jokingly warn the family, “The surgeon who’s coming down gets called Shark by everyone in the emergency department, but don’t let his whole thing scare you. He’s one of the best sports medicine surgeons on the eastern seaboard; you’ll be in great hands.”

Your patient’s mom smiles and gives your forearm a gentle touch. “Thank you, doctor. I’m glad to hear that.”

As usual, Park walks into the room already talking. “Saw you bringing in a kid from an ambulance earlier; what have we got going on here?”

“This is Franklin Murray, but he goes by Frankie.” You give the kid a warm, affirming smile as he stares nervously at the hulking doctor who’s just come in, his alpha scent stinking up the room and making all of you feel small, even Garcia as she stands in the corner. “Fifteen, male, no secondary sex yet. He came to the ED today via ambulance with both parents showing a traumatic fracture to the patella with ACL and meniscus involvement due to an accident at a track meet. After thorough evaluation, I’m guessing the next course of-”

“You’re guessing?” Park grunts as he tugs on his gloves and starts to roughly maneuver the poor kid’s swollen knee around. Through Frankie’s winces and yelps, Park chastises you, “I don’t like the sound of that. Try again.”

You bite your tongue and grimace. “The likely course of treatment would be either open reduction and internal fixation or arthroscopic repair of the tendons with stabilization of the kneecap, but I’m not the orthopedic surgeon here, thus the consult.”

“Good work on these fixes,” he murmurs, almost under his breath, like he doesn't want to give you any praise. But it makes your traitorous heart flutter anyway. Park shakes his head out and snatches the X-Ray machine over, flipping through the scans with that familiar intensity on his face. You can always imagine, far too clearly for your ongoing sanity, what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of a look like that while he drills into you, reckless and sweating, giving you exactly what you need. It’s exhausting. While you swallow hard and avert your eyes, Park gives Frankie a stern expression and informs him, “Kid, you’re not gonna be running on this leg anymore. Time to buckle down on your school work to diversify your options.”

Your mouth falls open as Mrs. Murray chokes out, “Are you serious? You really believe it’s that catastrophic of an injury?”

Arms crossed over your chest, you glare daggers at Park and say to the room before he can, “Actually, Dr. Park is the one who’s guessing now. He can assess the severity of the injury and perform the right surgery to repair it, but he definitely can’t see into the future when it comes to healing, rehabilitation, and physical therapy.”

Park gives you a flat not-smile and tells Mrs. Murray, “Twelve years in orthopedics with a specialization in sports injuries; I know what a long-term disability looks like when I see it.” While you debate how unprofessional it would be to jump on his back and bang some sense into his thick skull with your fists, he glances at Garcia and says, “Get him prepped. I’ll have my team prepare Surgery Three. Come find me when we’re ready to scrub.”

Garcia nods. “Of course, Dr. Park.”

As Park leaves the room without another word, you turn to Frankie and his parents, all of whom now have tears in their eyes because of that stupid-ass alpha, and tell them, “Look, Frankie, you’re not gonna run for the rest of this season, but that definitely doesn’t mean you’ll never run again. Stay positive and focus on following your post-op instructions to a tee, okay? I’ve seen athletes come back from much worse than this and there are actually a lot of studies that show a positive outlook can improve outcomes during recovery, so keep your chin up. For me. Promise?”

Frankie gives you a weak smile, sniffles, and nods.

“Okay, good. I’ll be the first one to check on you after your surgery. I’ll introduce you to our awesome rehab team – they’re so amazing, I promise – and we’ll get you on the right schedule to get you back on track – and on the track. Good?”

Mrs. Murray pulls you into a hug. The gentleness of getting a hug from another omega always makes you feel light and soft. The feeling only doubles when she pulls away and says, “You’ve been so great during all of this, thank you.”

“That means the world to me.” You assure one more time, “We’re all going to make sure he gets the best care possible. You and your husband can wait here at the hospital in one of our family lounges or you can ask reception to give you a call when he’s coming out of anesthesia. Either way, I’ll see you later this evening.”

Then you give all of them another professional smile, walk confidently and slowly out of the room – and then absolutely book it toward the elevator when you spot Park about to successfully escape back upstairs.

“Hey, mister, you stop right there!” You snatch Park by the arm (using your rage to ignore the part of your brain that notices how large and firm his bicep is) and try to drag him away from the elevator toward the nearest corner where you can have him partially alone. After letting you struggle to move his massive form for a second or two, he goes along with you. He doesn’t speak, just gives you one of those ‘get on with it’ looks of his. You furrow your brows, set your jaw cruelly, and shove your finger hard into his broad chest. “You absolutely cannot talk to patients like that. You crushed his dreams without even caring and that’s not acceptable. He’s just a kid!”

“He’s fifteen,” Park scoffs back. “It’s time for him to start learning the ropes of the real world.” Then he laughs, sounding a bit condescending for your taste, and puts his big hand on your shoulder, “And that’s doctor mister, pup.”

The word makes you do a double take. Calling another adult that is so overtly intimate – almost familial – that it has absolutely no place at work. If someone overheard it, they’d assume you were married. Or they’d report him. And, honestly, it’s a spear straight through your resolve to resist him.

A tiny whimper escapes your lips without your permission and you have to pinch your thighs together to attempt to convince yourself not to get all slick when you don’t have a panty liner on. With your eyes shamefully averted, tears stinging them and face burning hot because you’re so embarrassed you whisper, “You can’t call me that when you’re not- when we’re not-”

“I’m sorry,” he replies, earnest, urgent. Regret floods his body; he knows exactly what kind of effect sudden intimacy like that could have on an omega. He cups your cheek, forcing you to look up, but he’s sure to drop his hand away as soon as he has your eyes. You can still feel the strength of his smooth skin on yours when it’s gone and you miss it immediately. You’ve never noticed how pretty his blue eyes are when they’re focused solely on you. “I- I honestly don’t know why I said that. I’ve never called someone – anyone, not even girlfriends – that before.” He tilts his head to the side and searches your face like there’s a mirror in your eyes and maybe he can understand himself by looking into them. After a minute of tense silence, he mutters, “I know I’m…me. I know how people talk about me and they’re not wrong. But I’m not a sexist. I’m not someone who ever questions omegas being doctors or treats them any different than the idiot alphas I work with and- Sorry. Genuinely sorry. I really don’t know what came over me.”

Suddenly unable to stop himself, he takes your hand in his, squeezing it gently, almost like a stress ball, and goes on quickly, like the words are just tumbling out of him, “You’re an incredibly competent doctor and I appreciate that you don’t just fold to me the way a lot of people do. It makes me a better physician when you challenge me. I know I could, ah, work on my bedside manner. If it matters to you, I’ll go back to Frankie and his parents and apologize before his surgery, alright? You’re right; he’s- he’s just a kid. Hasn’t even presented yet. He doesn’t need me talking to him like that when he’s already scared shitless. You’re a kind doctor and a good hire and you shouldn’t ever doubt yourself.” With his voice now shaking slightly – that’s new to him, very new – Park finishes, “I hope you can forgive me. For- for saying that just now and for being a dick. I promise I’ll be better for you.”

For you.

It slips out.

He doesn’t know why.

But he doesn’t apologize for that one.

You study him for another moment, smelling the subtle change to his scent. It’s lighter and sweeter now, more like warm cinnamon instead of harsh clove, and you’re officially a little drunk on it when it’s served up with a side of him actually showing you some vulnerability and care. Without overthinking it, you throw your arms around the back of his neck and murmur, “I forgive you. Thank you for saying all that. It matters, I promise.”

For one split second, he can write it off as normal omega sweetness, the same way he does when his nurses hug him after a successful procedure. He knows how to respond to those hugs. Hands briefly on the upper back, posture tall but open, a professional compliment exchanged. But then his nose makes brief, soft contact with the scent gland on your neck.

There’s only so much scent blockers can do.

They can’t stop someone from smelling your pheromones directly above your skin, especially at the strongest gland on your body. Crisp green apple and nectarine and cherry, the exact sorts of fruits that marry well with cinnamon and cloves. The two of you are a mulled wine slowly simmering over a fire, the rich steam filling a small space with its intoxicating aroma.

Brendon’s cells rearrange. His heartbeat speeds up and his veins are suddenly full of something sweet and syrupy. His eyes flutter shut and he softly noses your neck, the tiny gesture completely instinctual, a quiet, barely-audible moan coming from somewhere deep inside of him. Somewhere completely foreign. He pulls in a deep breath and lets you coat his throat and lungs. When you feel the bridge of his nose touch your jaw, you gasp softly.

Brendon’s right hand slides down your spine slowly, resting at the small of your back, pulling you close against him with a campfire rumble in his chest. His other hand goes to the back of your head, protective, intense, and you twine your fingers in the soft hair at the base of his neck, loose and slightly curled after a day of surgeries. Your nails scratch his scalp softly, right at the edge of his scruff, and he shivers. You roll onto your tiptoes and bare your neck more, thoughtless, pressing your chest to his and falling into the dream of having a mate who adores you completely. Who holds you like this. You sink into the intimacy of the moment and he does, too, both of your bodies molding to the other.

Time ticks by in slow motion. Neither of you have any clue how long the embrace lasts, but you’re pretty sure you could stay safe and cocooned inside of it forever. This is what everyone’s talking about; it has to be.

Then Garcia clears her throat behind Brendon and quietly says, “Um, Dr. Park? Sorry to, ah, interrupt, but I finished with Frankie’s prep; it’s time to take him in for the surgery.”

Brendon pulls away as quickly as possible, eyes blown wide and dark. Pure shock rolling over him in waves. It takes herculean force to stop looking at you. At his mate. He tightens his jaw. Rolls his shoulders. “I’ll, ah, I’ll see you around.” He has to swallow hard and breathe slowly, focusing on Garcia’s and Santos’ nearby scents, to get his cock to soften. Before turning around, he murmurs seriously to you, “Thank you for your understanding. Sorry again.”

You whisper breathlessly, “It’s okay.”

Brendon gives you one more curious, scrutinizing look – Did you feel what he just felt? Does his scent make you go wild like that? Does this mean something? – before turning around and heading with Garcia toward the surgical wing.

Materializing behind you after following Garcia around like a stray, Trinity balks, “What in the holy hell shit fuck was that?”

“I, ah, I- He- He apologized to me. For being mean to my patient,” you rush out to try to explain the truly bizarre scene she’d walked in on. Oh, fuck, your panties are ruined. Your head is pounding and blood whooshes loud and fast in your ears. Blinking fast as your pupils adjust to the lights after being so wide, you awkwardly stammer out, “Um, I have to tell you something, Trin, because if I don’t talk about it with someone I think I’m going to die.”

Back at Santos’ and Whitaker’s shared apartment that evening, Dennis’ jaw has gone slack as he leans forward over his Chinese food and clarifies, “Park the goddamn Shark is your fated mate? How did you- When did you-”

“The first time I met him,” you admit sheepishly as you push your food around your plate. “I could tell right away. Clearly he doesn’t use any suppressants or blockers; it’s completely and totally overwhelming. The first few months, I could hardly think around him until I got used to it.”

Trinity’s eyebrows go up. “Overwhelming? Park? I barely know what he smells like.”

“Yeah, because you’re an alpha.” Whitaker rolls his eyes and then gives you a sympathetic half-smile. “Park does smell really strong. I mean, not as strong as Robby, but-”

It’s your turn to question, “Robby? I can barely smell him at all. What is it…menthol?”

“Peppermint,” Dennis sighs wistfully. “And a little bit of this kind of cold smell I can’t place. Like that Dentyne ice gum with the crystals in it.”

Trinity hangs her head and groans, “I need more non-omega friends; this is brutal.”

Whitaker shushes her and asks you, “How have you been doing it all this time? I just have a crush on Robby and working with him every day makes me want to vomit.”

“It helped a lot that he was always a dick to me,” you reply with a heavy sigh. “Now that he’s all ‘I promise I’ll be better for you’ I just- I’m fucked.”

Dennis whispers like he’s watching a rom-com, “He said that?”

“Yeah, he did.” You flop back on the couch, your appetite dying. Then you throw your arm over your forehead and groan, “And my breakthrough heat is scheduled for next month, of course, because I have the worst luck in the world.”

Whitaker stares at you like you’re absolutely bonkers. “Why haven’t you switched to the implant for your suppressants? The technology’s been available for years now. I haven’t had a heat since before med school.”

“I had one for a year, but the side effects were too strong for me. I guess that makes sense. My secondary hormone levels have always been through the roof. Hard to suppress.”

“You should have a blood panel done,” Trinity adds, “the hormones behind the whole ‘fated mates’ legend can cause-”

“Trinity, please. I’m also a doctor. I know.”

She raises her hands up in defeat. “Well, are you at least certain that you have enough time off planned for when you take the placebo pills? I know I helped you out on your breakthrough heat last year, but now I have-”

Whitaker leaps off the couch. “What?!”

Trinity yanks him back onto the cushion. “It’s not a big deal, huckleberry, that’s something friends do if they need to. Don’t be such a prude.” Then, exasperated, she returns her attention to you. “Like I was saying, it’s gonna be way worse now that you know your mate’s just out and about in the hospital. Now that you know what he smells like. You have to tell him.”

“No. Not an option. I can’t do that.”

“Why not? It’s not like you can avoid it forever.” When you frown, she narrows her eyes at you and gestures like ‘duh,’ “Y’know, it’s fate.”

“I’ve been doing a great job avoiding it until today! And you said yourself that’s a myth! We absolutely can avoid…what do they call it now to make it sound all serious?”

“Endocrine-Mediated Pairing Response,” Dennis says with dramatic, sarcastic air quotes. “Like it’s some disease and not a normal part of evolution.”

“I mean,” Trinity treads carefully, “it is kind of a disease, if you think about it.” She looks to you for confirmation, offering, “Like, something’s happening to you that you can’t control, and it’s because of your hormones, and you don’t want it to be happening. We treat endocrine disorders, right? How is EMPR any different?”

A bit tentatively, you reply, “Who said I don’t want it?”

“You, just now.” Trinity shrugs and says, “You said you don’t want Brendon. So wouldn’t you rather be – sorry for phrasing it like this, but I’m sure you get what I mean – a normal omega? Den can just go around having crushes and once him and an alpha click, they get to choose who to mate with. Isn’t that how it should be? Your body’s doing something to get in the way.”

“Well, yeah, I guess if you say it like that, but-” You gesture around dramatically, trying to make sense of your own thoughts while your friends look on in pity. It doesn’t even make sense to you, not really, which is part of the problem. You’re doctors; you want to be able to sort everything into neat boxes, but there are always exceptions. Some of those exceptions are diseases, some of them are normal variations, some of them are advantages. They all just are and it’s up to your field to decide which category they fit into. So you tell them the truth: “Look, when I hugged him today after he showed me a different side of him, that’s- It was- Jesus, honestly, it’s the best I’ve felt in my entire life. Seriously. I felt so safe and so comfortable and, yeah, okay, so turned on. But it definitely didn’t feel like something was wrong and that’s definitely not a feeling I’d medicate away. I've never felt anything like it.”

She pushes, “Even if that feeling is entirely dependent on proximity to Park the Shark?”

After a minute of quiet, tears sting at your eyes. You’ve never felt so confused. You whimper out, “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“Oh, cherry.” Trinity scooches closer and wraps her arms around you. She lets her scent flare in an attempt to comfort you, but all it does is make you long for the way it felt when Brendon’s scent finally fell into place with yours. Still, you nestle into the nook of her neck and try to breathe deeply and let your nervous system calm down. “We can figure this out. The three of us – well, us two, at least – are plenty capable of dealing with something as simple as hormones, right? We’ve got, like, two decades of medical training between us -- and Garcia, too, who I’m sure would help out if I asked.”

You pull back and swat tears off your cheek. You feel pathetic and silly and sad all at once. “Help with what?”

Trinity takes out her phone, already scheming. “When’s your heat, sweetheart?”

Still sniffling while Dennis tries to follow what the hell is happening, you take out your phone and open the tracking app. “I start my month of placebo pills tomorrow, so just about four weeks.”

With a tight nod, she says, “That means Shark’s gonna start smelling you like crazy this week while the suppressants leave your system.”

“Fuck, I hadn’t even thought of that,” you groan, pacing around the apartment and debating the merits of hiding under a rock for the next six weeks. “I’ve never had to do this with my mate just walking around all the time. The rest of you stupid alphas won’t even pick it up until the last week before my heat starts. I’m supposed to be-”

“Okay, time to end the spiral,” Whitaker interrupts, standing up and steadying you with hands on your shoulders. “Trinity’s right. We’ll figure this out.”

“I texted Garcia and she’s down,” Trinity replies, trying to sound encouraging. “For the next couple weeks, we run recon on Park. There’s no way he’s ‘the Shark’ 24/7, right? He’s gotta be some semblance of normal underneath all that. We’ll get enough details for you to decide if you can, y’know, invite him to, ah, to do your whole heat thing with you this time or if you need more time to, ah, to trust him with your- with your precious-”

Finally, that makes you laugh. “Are you blushing?”

Definitely turning red, she practically shrieks, “It’s weird to think about!”

You howl, “We’ve literally had sex before.”

“That doesn’t count; we were both-”

“Doesn’t count?” Trying desperately hard to keep a straight face through the laughter, you tell her with a pout, “You’re hurting my feelings here, rosemary.”

“I’m just saying; this is Park we’re talking about. Picturing him all knotted up in your sweet little nest is like-” She shakes her head like the concept is truly revolting. “Not trying to yuck your yum, but…yuck.” Then she forces a smile and adds, “But, hey, if it doesn’t work out, well, you always have dildos.”

A little softer now, you sigh, “Dildos don’t make me feel like he does.”

“Maybe if we added a good vibrator too it could get you there?”

While you finish preparing your patient presentation for the incoming orthopedic surgeon consult on the case you’ve been working all day, Dennis Whitaker, who’s been assisting you, groans under his breath as he catches an imposing figure approaching. “Fuck, our consult’s the Shark.”

“Of course it is.” Shen, who’s been in the corner half-supervising you since he completely trusts your work as a fellow, tells Whitaker, “This kind of damage? He eats up cases like this. The Shark’s never gonna let someone else-”

You turn to both of them, hold up a hand to shut them up, and ask, “Who?”

“Dr. Brendon Park,” Shen explains like he’s telling you about an upcoming horror movie. “He’s the head orthopedic surgeon.”

“Haven’t met him yet,” you reply. Drawbacks of circumstances forcing you to change hospitals in the middle of your fellowship; you don’t know the whole team like you did back in your residency. With a final few glances through your day’s meticulous work, you wrinkle your brows and check, “I thought Torres was head of orthopedic surgery.”

“No, she’s the nice orthopedic surgeon. The Shark only deigns to come to what he calls ‘the butcher shop’ for juicy cases.” Shen shakes his head and says, “I’m gonna dip before he gets down here. I’ll grab Robby to supervise.”

“You’re leaving? Why?”

“Park can actually stand Robby.” Shen shrugs and tosses his gloves in the trash. “I made the mistake of suggesting an amputation when it was possible to salvage a limb and the Shark’s always down my throat when we work together now.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Three years.” Shen pushes the door open and says before heading over to the hub to grab Robby, “That thing you’ve heard about sharks having three-second memories? Not accurate. PTMC’s Shark never forgets. Don’t fuck up your first impression.”

Your wide eyes turn to Whitaker. “Well, that was comforting.”

Jesse, who’s been supporting you on and off when you needed more hands than just Whitaker’s, tries to offer, “Park’s not so bad.”

“Yeah, because you’re a nurse,” Whitaker replies. “He likes nurses. Respects them. It’s other doctors he thinks are stupid.”

You screw up your face with confidence and nod sharply. “Then I won’t be stupid.”

“Good luck with that,” a deep, clear voice says behind you. You turn and nearly bump into the center of a very broad chest. Very broad. With matching biceps and traps threatening at the fabric of his blue scrubs. He’s easily a whole head taller than you. And his face. Oh. Good face. Lots of masculine, rugged angles. It’s not that the ED is lacking in arm candy, but most of the doctors down here aren’t so…biteable. You’re fighting not to ogle as his voice draws your eyes back up to his mouth. Which is a nice mouth. Under a nice nose. And a heavy brow with pretty blue eyes so sharp you feel a little light-headed under their intensity. “You’re new.”

Robby slips into the room behind him and hugs the wall, posture much straighter than you’ve seen. He doesn’t look scared the way Whitaker does, but there’s a clear expectation about what the interaction’s going to be: Efficient, intense, clear. Robby says bluntly, “New fellow. Recent relocation.”

Park’s eyes narrow, taking in your pink shoelaces, perfectly applied makeup (including shimmery gloss) despite being elbows deep in the shift, and the pastel-heart-patterned long sleeve beneath your scrubs. “We haven’t met.”

You take one quick, deep breath and remind yourself there’s no reason to be scared. You don’t play hospital politics like the residents. You’re a fellow, a real goddamn doctor. This is your case. Your save. You’ve got it. So you introduce yourself with a friendly smile and explain, “I started here last month. Just haven’t had a big sexy skeletal trauma to dangle in front of you until today.”

Park cracks what almost appears to be a smirk. Committing your name and your pretty face to memory, he says, “Welcome to the team, pipsqueak. Try not to butcher any bones and we’ll get along fine.”

“No problem.” You bounce slightly on your feet. “Shall we get started here?”

His chin cocks slightly to one side. You’re not shrinking. Not bashful. You’re smiling. That’s rare. He doesn’t mind. Arms crossed over that massive chest, he orders, eyes sweeping the room, “Tell me what we’ve got.”

Whitaker looks to Robby. Robby looks to you. You nod and list off, “Mr. Jacob Westman, thirty-seven-year-old green energy tower technician, brought in by ambulance after falling from an electrical tower. Freak accident. Alert and responsive on arrival but no sensation in lower extremities. Lead doctor on the case – that’s me; I’ve been point for Mr. Westman all day – chose to sedate for pain management and stabilization once significant spinal injuries were identified. The most severe salvageable damage is in the cervical and thoracic, but I don’t necessarily agree with the interpretation from the ortho radiologist that-” Robby clears his throat to stop you there. Sheepishly, you finish, “Vitals are within safe range for operation to correct cervical and thoracic fractures and dislocations."

Robby offers, “So essentially, the approach is-”

“Hold on.” Park looks up from the chart and focuses squarely on you. “What did the radiologist say? Why did you stop there?”

You glance over at Robby, who’s shaking his head with pleading eyes. But it’s your case. You’re the one who gave up your lunch break to pore over the imaging. So you let your eyes rove back to Dr. Park’s and tell him firmly, “Your radiologist feels that the lumbar injuries causing Mr. Westman’s paralysis are completely inoperable through traditional methods. I was advised to defer to his opinion.”

Brows furrowed, he eyes you seriously. Almost…amused. Like he’s watching a puppy try a new trick. “What’s your opinion, doctor?”

Behind Park, you see Whitaker shake his head and grimace like you’ve just signed your own death certificate. Even Jesse is gripping his clipboard a little more tightly.

“I suggested that, even though it may be riskier, a series of nerve grafts and transfers could return the patient’s ability to walk.” Your voice lowers a bit and you try not to let your wobbly ‘bleeding heart baby doctor’ voice come out. “Mr. Westman is a highly-trained, highly-educated specialist in a type of engineering only a handful of people in the country can do. Work that’s absolutely critical for the development of renewable energy sources. When I was going over everything with his wife, Jenna, she told me that he loves his job more than life itself. That he would risk everything to regain use of his legs.” You swallow hard and pinch back tears. It’s something that always annoys you; whenever you really, really care about something, you start to cry. Eyes averted, you wrap up, “I know that the kind of procedure I’m suggesting would be much longer and much riskier on several levels and that it’s not at all my place to-”

Park shakes his head and cuts you off, “Show me the scans.”

You quickly brush past him to the nearby screen and blow up the images.

Dr. Park lets out a low whistle as he flips through the X-Rays, head tilted slightly as he gives the scans his full attention. He asks you a handful of questions and you answer them as best you can, all the eyes in the room burning the back of your head. You watch the wheels turning behind Park’s eyes; this is his passion, his favorite thing, his reason to wake up. You love seeing people in that state where all they’re thinking about is what they do best.

Finally, he turns to you and says, “I don’t care what your title at this hospital is. If a goddamn janitor can propose a valid surgical approach for an ‘inoperable’ injury, I want to hear it. Complex spinal reconstruction with multiple fusions, laminectomy, discectomy…fuck, ‘just-about-everything-ectomy.’ Plus nerve transfer. Now that’s sexy. I like it.” Before Robby can thank him for taking over, Park looks you up and down – just a little slow to be completely professional – and asks, “Pipsqueak, you wanna assist?”

You stand up straighter and turn your attention to Robby with wide, hopeful eyes. Looking nothing short of shocked, he nods and does a ‘sure, why not?’ type of gesture. You give a big, adorable grin and say, “Yeah, that would be awesome. I’ve always wanted to see autograft harvesting and transfer firsthand.”

Whitaker shakes his head and mutters, “Freak.”

“Go to the bathroom, eat a snack, and scrub for OR three,” Park tells you, ignoring everyone else. As you nod eagerly and excuse yourself, he slaps Robby on the back hard enough to make him stagger and mutters, “Congrats, Mike, you finally matched a competent fellow.”

Dumbfounded, Robby just says, “Ah, thanks.”

Coming out of the surgery thirteen hours later, you’re glowing like you haven’t been awake for thirty-four hours in a row. Following tight on his heels, you’re practically skipping as you beam, “Dr. Park, that was so amazing. I can’t thank you enough for the opportunity.”

“You’re good,” he says simply, walking through the halls of the surgical wing like he owns the place. “Great calls like that deserve great rewards. Would’ve given you a gold star sticker, but I’m not as soft as Robinavitch.”

“I wish Robby gave out stickers,” you reply wistfully. “That might actually convince me to stay here after my fellowship is up.”

You’re about to say something else when Park turns around and puts one baseball-glove-sized hand on your shoulder. “Unless you want to see my dick on our first day working together, you should probably stay on that side of this particular door.”

You startle backwards as you realize he’s pushing into the men’s room. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry; I sometimes kinda space out when I’m excited.”

Park lets out a laugh. An honest-to-god laugh.

He has a handsome smile.

Even though your face is now about a thousand degrees, you still nibble your lower lip, grin, and call through the door, “By the way, it’s technically our second day working together since that was an overnight surgery.”

Park’s amused, loud voice hollers back, “Go home and get some sleep, pipsqueak.”

When you clock in for your next shift two days later, Dana waves you over right after you’re done putting your things away. She says, “There’s something in your mailbox, if you’d believe it.”

“Really?” You worry a hangnail on your thumb. “Don’t tell me I’m getting served or something.”

“You? Come on, you’re Miss Bedside Manner USA.” She nods over to the doctor’s lounge and explains, “It’s from ortho. Something about that surgery you sat in on last week.”

“Huh, okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

You scurry off to your mailbox, which you’ve only even looked at once, the day you started. They’re a relic from the days of fax machines and printers. Inside your cubby is a blank, hospital-issue envelope. Upper left corner: Brendon Park, MD, FAAOS. In the middle, in his scratchy handwriting: Pipsqueak. With your lips pursed in curiosity, you rip the top of the envelope and remove the contents.

Inside a folded piece of notebook paper, there’s a card-sized sticker sheet with eight big, cutesy stickers on it. A happy sun, baby ducks, a strawberry, a stuffed bunny. All things sweet and girly. The theme is white, baby pink, sky blue, and light yellow, the same colors as the heart-patterned shirt you’d been wearing under your scrubs. In between the big stickers, a few pastel stars serve as filler.

With a little squeal, you unfold the note and read. Couldn’t find one with a gold star. Close enough. Good job. Happy you’re here.

Underneath, he’s drawn a tiny shark in lieu of a signature.

You melt – just a little.

Riding the elevator up after your lunch break, it’s kind of embarrassing how much your heart is pounding. You’re really not supposed to be doing this. It’s a total violation of protocol – not the sort that would get you in real HR trouble, but definitely the kind that could permanently piss someone off.

But you do it anyway. You gently knock on Dr. Park’s door after checking with the ortho receptionist that he’s in. He makes a sort of grunting sound that you interpret as ‘yes, what?’ Pushing the door open just enough to slip into the opening, you say, “Hi, Dr. Park. Robby asked me to page ortho down for a follow-up on the Westman case, but I thought it would be nice to ask you directly so that they could have consistency of-” When Park doesn’t even look at you, eyes staring intently at the file on his computer, you shrink into the doorway and shake your head. “Sorry; that’s silly. I’ll get back downstairs and send a page like I should’ve to stop annoying you.”

His eyes flick to yours for half a second. His eyebrows go together almost imperceptibly. “You’re not annoying me.”

“Oh. Thanks.” You bite your lower lip and stare at your shoes for a moment. Purple sneakers today, Park notices. Matching the lavender polka dots on your long sleeves. “So, yeah, if you have time today to come down and check his repeat images with me, that would be really amazing. I’m working until six, so no rush. No pressure. I know you’re really busy. And I can definitely just ask Torres if you-”

“I’ll do it,” he interrupts urgently. “Don’t ask Torres. Or anyone else. I’ve got it.” Then he adds, hasty, “Patient outcomes improve when they have a consistent care team. You’re right about that. You can come get me about Mr. Westman whenever you need to.”

At that, you absolutely beam. His eyes go to your lips. Your cupid’s bow and the way it stretches when you smile. A pretty smile, he thinks. Really pretty. You glow, “Okay, perfect, I will. Thank you.”

You linger for a second, one hand on the doorknob as you debate whether or not to say something. He hasn’t returned to his computer screen, eyes just roaming around the room and occasionally spending a second on you, so you take it as an invitation.

“I also wanted to, um, to say thanks for the stickers, by the way.” You lift your water bottle and show him the doodle-style pink star you’d picked out to grace it among your collection. “I really like them.”

“Good.” He’s tempted to lie, say it was someone else’s idea, act like he found them somewhere in the hospital, but he can’t when he’s looking at your delighted schoolgirl smile. “Saw them at Target and thought of you. It was nice to work with someone so…competent.” You swear there’s a slight blush in his cheeks, but it must be a trick of the light. It must be. Then he clears his throat and adds, “I’ll come down to see you- for Mr. Westman’s follow-up in an hour, alright? I have to finish this report and my dyslexia’s fucking killing me today.”

Physically unable to stop yourself from being helpful, you offer, “I could type it up for you, if you want.”

“I didn’t mean to tell you that,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You have this disarming thing about you. It’s jarring.”

“Um, thanks?” You tilt your head like a puppy. “Are you not supposed to talk about it or something?”

He shrugs, definitely blushing now and pretending not to be, and replies, “People hear their doctor has a learning disability and get a little antsy. So if you don’t mind, keep that to yourself.”

“No problem, Dr. Park, I’m the picture of discretion,” you assure him seriously. But then you keep spilling out, “But, y’know, I actually read this study from the Royal College of Surgeons that showed people with dyslexia make better surgeons than their peers because of their well-developed spatial reasoning skills, attention to detail, and problem-solving ability – not to mention the resilience and creativity that inherently come from- Aaaand I’m word vomiting. Shoot. Sorry. It’s- it’s chronic, my word vomit. I see a specialist.”

He raises an eyebrow in amusement. “Do you now?”

“Yup. My likelihood of remission is incredibly low. Lifelong struggle, really.” You swallow hard and tell him gently, “Um, I had this undergrad student I tutored. He was in biology – pre-med – but he didn’t think he could do it because he was dyslexic. So I did a bunch of research and presented it to him. I’m not, like, one of those cool photographic memory people who remember every study on earth or something.”

“People with photographic memories freak me out,” he says with a chuckle. You wonder if you’re the only person in the ED who’s heard him laugh. More than once, even. Then he says something that actually does manage to shock you: “I’d love the help, if you have time.”

“Yay!” You do this little bouncing thing that makes his head spin. “I’m still on my lunch, so I have a few minutes.”

Voice sounding almost protective, he checks, “Did you eat?”

“Yeah, of course. But I get bored if I don’t have anything to do after my leftovers.” You scooch around his desk and slide between him and the computer, your perky ass directly in his face. With your fingers hovering over his keyboard, you lilt, “Alright, big man, what are we writing?”

It takes Park fifteen seconds to recalibrate, ten of those seconds spent memorizing the way he can see the outline of your tiny thong when you lean forward slightly, the fabric of your scrubs taut over your ass. Then he hastily stands up and puts himself behind the chair, his nosy dick safe from being seen, and says, “Why don’t you take my spot? You’ll be more comfortable.”

You shrug and sit down, throwing your head way back to look up at him with perfect, sweet blowjob eyes. “Whatever you say, Shark.”

The next time Park’s in the ED, his crush on you is completely and totally solidified. It’s horrifying, the way the feeling swirls around his stomach and makes his cheeks hot. It’s not a feeling that’s ever dared encounter him in the workplace and, honestly, not in a hell of a long time outside of it, either.

It’s because you’ve got Ogilvie backed up against a wall, your pointed finger in the center of his chest. He’s a head taller than you, even slouching, but you’re dwarfing him with your energy. Park’s never seen you so brutally animated, eyebrows knitted together and posture perfectly straight. He lingers a bit too close, hugging the corner so he can listen and watch.

Ogilvie’s hands are up in the air, waving, frustrated. “I didn’t do anything wrong! All I did was-”

“Oh my god, how many times do I have to tell you to shut up and listen to me?” With your feet planted firmly in your white sneakers with red laces and your arms crossed in your cherry-printed sleeves, you go on, “I get that I’m a woman. I get that I’m short and cute and girly. I get that you think you’re god’s gift to medicine.”

“I don’t think I’m-”

“I wasn’t done. I get that you struggle to respect me. Idiotic men often do. But let me make one thing abundantly clear: You are a slug of a man-child, James. You leave a trail of slime behind yourself in the form of problems everyone else needs to clean up, you hide whenever things get hard, and you need to blot the oil from your T-zone so you’re less shiny. And invest in a frizz-control shampoo.” While Park stifles a snorting laugh, you go on with the most pointed, cruel voice he’s ever heard from a woman so painfully adorable, “If you ever speak to me like that again, you will envy the corpses you practice on. All you will do clinically is change infected necrotic dressings and disimpact bowels and every other moment of your day will be dedicated to administrative scut so monotonous it makes your vision blurry. I will ask to have you on my service every day just so I can torture you until you question your entire career path. Do we have an understanding?”

Ogilvie is too stunned to speak for thirty seconds straight. Then he swallows and stammers out, “Yes, doctor. I- I understand.”

You nod tightly and add, “I’d like an apology now.”

“I’m sorry,” he says right away. It sounds more afraid than earnest, but that’ll get the job done. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did.”

“Good. I forgive you.” Then you give him a warm, friendly smile and a pat on the head that you have to rock up onto your toes to execute fully. “Now let’s get back to Mrs. Andrews so you can get another lumbar puncture under your belt before your next evaluation, alright?”

Ogilvie manages to get out, “Thanks,” before you turn around and lead him back to the ED. He looks like a scolded toddler, lip pouted and cheeks red, while you have that familiar unshakeable pep in your step.

And Brendon Park is smitten.

The next week, as you’re sending off a list of prescriptions, you hear Langdon’s voice from the other side of the ED. “Sharkbait, get over here!”

You turn toward Langdon and point at yourself. “Me?”

His eyes are big and begging. “Yeah, c’mon, I need you.”

“I have work to do, Frank.”

“Please?” He clasps his hands in front of his chest like a prayer. “Park’s going to kill me when he sees the state of these ribs.”

Exasperated, you cut back, “What the hell does that have to do with me?”

“You’re Sharkbait,” he replies, mimicking your expression. “When you’re in the room, he’s less of a dick.”

Several craving any time with Brendon, you roll your eyes and stomp over, telling him, “I’ll give you five minutes. Get me up to speed.”

He runs through the patient history with you while you gently palpate the chest.

“Jesus Christ,” you breathe as you feel the myriad of fractures all over the ribcage and sternum. “LUCAS?”

“On an elderly osteoporosis patient. Dumbass firefighter meatheads.” He shakes his head and mutters, “It’s basically a bag of bone soup in there.”

“Sounds promising,” Park announces, always knowing when to cut into a conversation. When he sees you, he sighs in relief, “Pipsqueak, thank god you’re on this, too. I don’t have the patience for dealing with Ken on my own today.”

As Langdon talks to Park with you just sort of standing there as an emotion diffuser, Santos and Whitaker watch in wonder from the hub.

Trinity, whose last interaction with the Shark ended with him saying she should switch to a career with no skeletons involved, scoffs and murmurs, “Why hasn’t he ripped her head off? She’s brand new; she doesn’t know how to placate him.”

“Her aura powers are unknown to us,” Whitaker mutters back. “She has some kind of sorcery ability incomprehensible to the masses.”

“I mean, she has nice tits,” Trinity reasons. “She’s smart. Made some good calls in front of him.”

Whitaker argues, “Baran’s brilliant and has great tits. He called her an imbecile last week.”

Amused, Trinity raises her eyebrows. “You think Dr. Al-Hashimi has great tits?”

“Not the point.” A minute later, Park leaves the room with a smile in your direction. You swish over to the hub to grab a new chart and Dennis asks, “What’s the deal with you and the Shark?”

Humming gently, you ask him absently, “What do you mean?”

Trinity cuts in to reply for them both, “Well, I mean, he likes you. Are you two fucking?”

Your eyes startle wide at the idea – tantalizing but impossibly far away. Park is so wildly out of your league you can barely entertain the thought. “What? No! Of course not. Brendon’s not as bad as you guys think. You just have to get to know him.”

Trinity mouths to Whitaker, Brendon?

Whitaker shrugs, baffled, and then muses as the three of you watch Park head toward the OR, “I didn’t realize that was a possibility.”

You chuckle and tease, “Maybe try being a better doctor next time?”

“Brutal, Sharkbait. Brutal.”

That weekend, the Pittsburgh Penguins hosts its annual Medical Worker Appreciation Night. Because Dana’s been nominated as a spotlighted nurse, the hospital sprung for discounted tickets in the name of staff morale.

Robby shepherds you and the other newer ED staff who’d gotten their hands on a ticket down to the PTMC section. When he checks seats, pointing everyone in the right direction, he frowns at yours. “Kid, do you wanna trade spots with me?”

Your brows furrow. “What? Why?”

“Look.”

Your eyes follow Robby’s pointing chin. At the end of the long row, Park’s perched on the edge of his seat, staring down the players doing warmups. He’s wearing a black Penguins hoodie, a black Penguins hat, and a pair of jeans that his meaty thighs battle for dominance with. You’ve never seen him outside of scrubs and it’s becoming a problem very quickly. You shrug and tell Robby, “I don’t mind.”

“You sure?”

“We get along great, actually.”

“That explains the new nickname,” he chuckles under his breath. “I figured it was because you’re a sacrificial lamb.”

Park catches your eyes and waves you over, his lips flirting with the concept of a smile. He can’t bear to say it out loud, can barely even tolerate the thought in his own head, but he’d looked over the seating chart on the HR receptionist’s computer and basically threatened Ogilvie’s life to switch with him (and then swore him to secrecy on similar conditions).

You plop down next to him and nudge him in the bicep. “Hi, Bren, I didn’t think you came to things like this.”

Bren. Nobody’s used a nickname besides ‘Shark’ for him in decades. He shrugs like his heart rate isn’t picking up at the way your arm has to touch his because of how broad he is. “It’s hockey.”

“It’s team bonding,” you tease. “You hate bonding. And teams that aren’t sports.”

“But I like free Pens tickets,” he replies simply. Then he notices your outfit. You’re wearing pants, at least – leggings, because fuck him, he figures – but your arms are agonizingly bare from the elbows down, your yellow tee not doing much to protect your skin. He frowns and asks, “Did you bring a jacket or something? You’re gonna freeze to death in here.”

You shake your head. “It’s not that cold; I’ll be okay.”

“Give it a period.”

“I’m not on my- Oh. They’re called periods in hockey?”

Biting back a mean joke because of your sweet, innocent eyes, he says, “Yeah. Periods. Three twenty-minute periods with intermissions between.

“You’re gonna have to explain everything to me,” you say as you stare at the different parts of the stadium. “I’m not from a hockey town.”

“I don’t mind,” he admits after a second. He adds carefully, “I never get to talk hockey outside of work.”

“No gym buddies to gab with?”

“No gym buddies,” he confirms.

“That’s shocking, considering the biceps of it all.” And the pecs you would honestly motorboat. And the big veiny hands. And the thick thighs you could bounce on for hours. You swallow hard, thankful you don’t have a dick to give away your thoughts. “Are you one of those douchey guys who puts in his AirPods and focuses on his form in the mirror? Oh my god, do you film yourself so you can make sure you-”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” he laughs, raising his hands in defeat. “You’ve got me pegged, sweetheart. I have to be strong because I crack femurs all day. And you have to focus on form if you want to get strong and don’t want to get hurt.”

“So no time for gym buddies.” You lilt, sweet and easy, “Maybe you can show me some time. I could use a little more muscle and a little less-”

“No, you definitely don’t need ‘less’ anything,” he protests way too quickly as his mouth goes dry. He can barely tolerate the sight of you in leggings this close to him; he’d burst a blood vessel if you were in bike shorts and a sports bra like his brain immediately supplies. With his neck going splotchy pink, he course corrects, “Lifting isn’t about losing weight or visible muscle. It’s about building practical strength.”

And your body is fucking perfect. If you wanted to change it out of insecurity, he’d drop to his knees and kiss your feet until you realized you shouldn’t change a thing. Your thighs are just the right thickness, your ass downright juicy, your stomach spectacularly soft, your breasts-

Park sucks in a sharp, deep breath and shakes out the thoughts. “I’m gonna grab something to eat before the game starts. Can I get you anything?”

After a second of thinking, you ask sweetly, “Do they have cheese fries?”

“They have every disgusting, greasy sports food you could ever want,” he confirms. “I’ll be right back with some goodies.”

You occupy yourself by playing social butterfly, introducing yourself to everyone you haven’t had a chance to meet yet. When Park returns, he takes a second to admire you running around spreading your sunshine. Then you return to his side and squeal when you see a mountain of loaded cheese fries that make your mouth water in the best way.

Before sitting down to share them with you, Park shoves a folded garment into your arms. “Put this on. I won’t be able to focus on the game if you’re shivering next to me the whole time.”

“Aw, Bren, thank you.” Your voice borders on a whimper as you unfold the classic lacer pullover, black with yellow and tan bars around the lower hem and arms, the iconic penguin himself at the center of the chest. “Just let me know how much I owe you for it – at least for half.”

He rolls his eyes. “Shut up; it’s a gift.”

“Okay, thank you so much, that’s so sweet, but the suggestion to shut up is incredibly offensive given I disclosed my word vomit diagnosis to you,” you reply seriously, glaring at him.

Park clutches his chest and tells you, “I apologize for making light of your vulnerability with me.”

“I forgive you because of the cheese fries.” You examine the back of the thick, cozy hoodie and observe, “Crosby. Is he your favorite? Or just the cheapest sweater?”

Park smirks (it’s the most expensive sweater) and replies, “Sid the Kid. Best player Pittsburgh’s ever had. Best player in the league, if you ask anyone with a brain. Rumor has it he’s retiring soon; I think that’ll be my first true heartbreak.”

You balk at the idea. “You’ve never had your heart broken? I get my heart broken ten times a month.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You go on that many dates?”

“No, no, no, no dates,” you quickly reply. Too quickly. A little desperately. “But it breaks my heart when I see sad puppy commercials or old people eating alone at restaurants or trailers for romantic dramas at the movies. One time I cried because I could only find one of my favorite socks. I tried and I tried but the second one was just…gone. I couldn’t look at the single one without getting so sad it was hard to-”

“Team introduction’s starting, then the national anthem,” he interrupts gently. Reluctantly. Like he’s actually invested in your rambling. “Put a lid on the word vomit for ten minutes and I’m all yours for a full sock eulogy.”

You giggle and salute as the whole stadium stands. “Yes, sir.”

He rolls his shoulders and pretends that doesn’t go straight to his dick. When you cheer extra loud for Sidney Crosby as he skates to center, jumping a tiny bit like your smile is too big to hold in your body, Park damn near swoons. He wants to sling his arm around your waist and pull you into him, to kiss the top of your head, to, fuck, put you on his shoulders and parade you around or something. He can’t even name everything he wants to do with and to and for you. It’s agony.

Once the game starts, Park takes care to make sure you understand what’s going on. “That’s Ovechkin. You’re gonna see one hell of a game. He’s Crosby’s biggest rival.”

“So we hate him,” you reply obediently. “Got it.”

He smiles at you and confirms, “Yeah, we hate him. Mostly because he’s really fucking good.”

You nudge him with your shoulder and tease, “That’s why people hate you, so it’s good company.”

He barks out a laugh. “Is that why?”

“That or because you never show off that handsome smile.”

With a pout, he counters, “I smile plenty.”

“He said, frowning.”

“I’ll smile when the Pens win,” he promises.

But, despite his best efforts, he does, actually, get caught smiling before the end of the game. In a big, obnoxious way. After the end of the second period, with the game tied 1-1, you watch the kiss cam flying around the arena with dopey heart eyes so precious Brendon can’t rip his eyes away from you. It’s too cute of an expression not to memorize.

You don’t notice he’s staring, too wrapped up in loving to see people in love, until his face lights up the big screen. You’re so shocked that you don’t process just how bright and intent his eyes are, his lips soft and slightly upturned, everything about his expression and posture screaming ‘god, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ It’s the kind of expression kiss cam operators gravitate toward; only men who adore their girls look like that.

Before he can even truly realize that it’s you and him on screen, his eyes widening, you grab him and plant a big fat shimmery lip gloss kiss on his cheek. Then you grin, following it up by blowing a kiss and winking to the camera.

And Brendon Park smiles wide enough to power the whole arena, the apples of his cheek glowing neon pink and he drops his eyes and shakes his head in delight.

The video is immediately saved and sent to the ED group chat by none other than Trinity Santos, naturally. One of the nurses proceeds to forward it to the nurses chat, where it makes its way to the ortho chat. By the time the camera even pans away, the moment has been forever cemented in PTMC history as the first time Park the Shark has smiled earnestly – innocently, even – in front of his coworkers.

Only the whoops, cheers, and laughs from your nearby ED coworkers drops him back onto earth from cloud nine. Park frowns as he rubs his cheek with a napkin, pouting, “You got lipgloss on my face.”

“What was I supposed to do?” You gesture to Trinity and Whitaker, who are pumping their fists in their air victoriously. “Leave my adoring fans hanging?”

With a sheepish wave in their direction to get them to fuck off, he mutters, “I think you’ve permanently damaged my tough guy reputation.”

But you just reply in a sing-sony voice, “You didn’t have to blush.”

“Involuntary response to relevant stimulus.”

“Whatever you say, big guy.”

If he’s honest with himself, his smile isn’t half as bright when the Penguins win an hour later. It only warms back up to critical heat when you wrap him in a hug, gleefully jumping up and down as the puck hits the net right as the buzzer goes off. He’d kiss you for real if you weren’t surrounded by the PTMC staff.

Still, with your arms around the back of his neck, he can’t resist doing something. So he keeps it simple and asks, “It’s been a while since those cheese fries; want to grab dinner with me?”

When you say yes, his heart sings.

After the hockey game, there’s a definite shift in your friendship with Brendon. It’s more playful. Less guarded. The two of you grab dinner together after your shifts whenever Park doesn’t have a late surgery and, if you miss out on dinner, he insists on coffee in the morning. He tells you about his personal life and you do the same, not that it’s hard on your end. Gradually, you start to notice the differences that everyone else in the ED picked up on months and months ago. The way his face goes from hardened to soft when he sees you entering a room. The way his texts have emojis instead of periods. The way he accepts your hugs instead of turning them into handshakes.

Right when you’ve gotten up your confidence to actually ask him out, you overhear him and Robby talking in hushed tones inside Park’s office. The door’s cracked and you’d come up specifically to ask him to go out with you in a few days on Saturday because you both actually have a weekend off.

With an X-Ray in hand, Robby pushes, “Are you sure you can’t do the revision yourself on Sunday? I know you’re not scheduled to be here, but the family trusts you now, and it might be-”

“I told you, man, I’m surprising my girlfriend on Sunday. I’ve been sitting on these ballet tickets for weeks already and I don’t do shit like that,” Park tells him sternly. No room for argument. “You’re in good hands with Torres; she’s as good as me any day – maybe better since people actually like her.”

You don’t wait for Robby’s response. Losing your ability to breathe, you scamper to the nearby staircase and start stamping your way down to the ED. Your heart shatters into a thousand pieces. No, a million. They fall down the stairs like glass, so heavy you’re surprised you can’t hear them echoing.

Stopping just shy of the ED entrance, you tuck yourself away underneath the staircase to catch your breath, trying not to let yourself cry. Park’s just one of those guys, you figure. Guys with ultra-secure girlfriends who don’t care if they have female friends who drool all over their biceps. Guys who don’t mention their ultra-secure girlfriends because they know what they have at home and they probably don’t even realize you’re flirting because they’re so enamored with their great, successful, probably gorgeous girlfriend who knows exactly what she’s doing in bed and always satisfies him and-

There are the tears.

Feelings of inadequacy and sadness well up and spill over. It’s hard to keep your sniffles and sobs quiet enough not to draw attention when all you want is to ugly sob over a tub of ice cream and your favorite movie. Only one more hour in your shift. You can make it. Right?

Upstairs, you hear the door squeak open and heavy footsteps traipse down toward you. Familiar footsteps. Of course. He probably saw you running away from his office and is coming to find you because you have the luck of a worm after a rainstorm.

When Park comes closer, he spots your elbow sticking out from behind the staircase. Hiding. You’re still crying, unable to stop yourself until you get it all out. Silently, yes, but with puffy eyes and tiny whimpers and sniffles that escape every once in a while. Tucked up underneath the staircase, you blot at your cheeks with the sleeve of your daisy-patterned turtleneck.

Rage devours Brendon’s insides. He beelines for you and demands with a level of anger in his eyes you’ve never seen before, “What’s wrong? Did someone make you cry?”

“No, no, I’m fine.” You try a shaky smile and wipe your face again even though more tears just fall in their wake. “Just, um, I’m on my period and I’m emotional.”

Which isn’t not true. It’s the last day or two and you are emotional. It’s definitely not helping the situation. Park’s a little taken aback you admitted that so freely, but he’s a doctor, dammit, so he doesn’t let it faze him. Instead he offers, “Okay, well, um, do you, ah, do you need anything? I have some ibuprofen in my office if-”

You start crying harder, ugly sobs now at how nice he’s being when he just unintentionally and unknowingly turned you into a 12-year-old girl having her first heartbreak.

Park stammers, unsure how to deal with this situation. “Okay, ah, maybe just a hug, then?”

You nod ardently and he pulls you close with his strong arms. You nestle your face in his chest and breathe deep. If this is the closest you’re gonna get to having him, you’re gonna milk it for all it’s worth. With your nose pressed to his muscles as you start to calm down, you whimper, “You smell really good.”

Still tentative, Brendon murmurs, “It’s Dior. My mom bought it for me.”

Then you start crying even more.

That night, after making some lazy excuse to Brendon for why you can’t get dinner like usual, you curl up on your couch and vow to set some darn boundaries with the guy. You’re only going to get yourself hurt if you indulge in dinners and coffees and stolen gazes and elevator conversations. So you put his messages on silent, only returning them when you actually have a second instead of carving out time. You make a point of ducking into other rooms when you know he’s coming down for a consult, ignoring the desperate calls for Sharkbait from your hapless coworkers.

And by the time you’re clocked out on Friday night, you almost feel better about the situation. Well, that’s a lie. You actually don’t feel better at all. If anything, you feel much, much worse because you don’t have your best friend to hang out with anymore. You’re going to have to resort to drinks with the Pittlings if you don’t find another attending soon.

But at least you have the weekend to wallow.

Walking to your bus stop with Celine Dion blasting in your ears, you try to focus on the pretty sunset and the wins of the shift instead of letting your brain drift to-

Fuck.

Brendon’s standing at your bus stop with his stance wide and his arms crossed like a bodyguard, forearms looking extra delectable in the sunset. He’s not a hallucination from your lovesick mind nor a hologram designed to trip you up on the way home.

You scurry up to him with averted eyes and ask, “What are you doing here? You drive a Rolls-Royce.”

“Yeah, and that Spectre is my damn baby, but you take the bus when you’re ignoring my offer for rides. So here I am.” His eyes drill through your forehead and your resolve. “Can we talk now?”

Weakly, you mutter back, “My bus is in five minutes.”

“You’re not taking the bus. I’m driving you.” The firmness of his voice makes your knees wobble. He nods over his shoulder toward the small park next to the hospital. “We’re talking. Come on.”

Then he takes your hand – you want to throw up – and leads you through the park entrance to a shaded spot under a tree where the light makes his chiseled features agonizingly beautiful. Like a fucking Roman marble sculpture. He doesn’t wait for you to say anything, instead taking charge and launching in, “What’s going on with you? Why have you been ignoring me the last few days? If I did something to hurt you, tell me and I’ll fix it. I know I’m a dumbass about the feelings stuff sometimes, a lot of the time, but I’m not going to mess shit up with you, so you have to let me know what I need to do better.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” you whimper. You hate how pathetic you sound. How downtrodden and heartbroken. But Brendon looks hurt, too, which makes you feel ten times as bad. So you rush out a hasty version of the truth, “I came up to your office on Wednesday to ask you on a date this weekend, but then- then I heard you telling Robby about your girlfriend who you’re surprising on Sunday and it just, like, crushed me so bad even though I know it was so silly for me to think I’d ever have a chance with someone like you in the first place since you’re this sexy strong surgeon and I’m so not but I thought maybe in the last couple months-”

“Woah, pipsqueak, hey.” Brendon cups your cheek in his hand to cut you off once the shock of your words wears off. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Unable to meet his eyes, you start to feel the tears coming. Dammit. You stare at your pink sneakers – the same ones you were wearing when the two of you met, you realize – and let them fall to the ground. After a minute, you manage to admit, “I just- I don’t think I can be this close to you if you have a girlfriend. It’s great that she’s so cool about you having female friends, but I’m just so sensitive and I know that’s not your fault but-”

“Hold on.” Brendon places both hands on your shoulders, staring at you like you’re an alien making first contact. Baffled beyond his wildest dreams, he explains slowly, “You’re my girlfriend.”

Between sniffles and shaky breaths, you whimper out, unable to process anything, “Huh?”

“My girlfriend. Who I’m surprising on Sunday. That would be you.”

Now it’s your turn to go catatonic, eyes wide and shimmery. “What are you talking about?”

“I asked you out to dinner after the hockey game,” he tells you, exasperated in the cutest way you’ve ever seen. Like you’re dumb but like maybe he’s also dumb. “I paid for your dinner. I insisted you get dessert. The whole thing. And we- Sweetheart, what do you think all the dinners we eat together are? Why else would I always be inviting you for coffee? Why would I always pay? I don’t just dump a couple hundred bucks a week on casual coworkers.”

Starting to feel silly instead of sad, you cover your laugh and protest, “I don’t know; I thought you were being friendly! You make $500,000 a year; you should be paying for all your friends’ coffees!”

“$650,000, actually, I have a sub-specialty in pediatric surgery,” he replies as though you wouldn’t drop your panties right here in the park. “More importantly, I am the least friendly person in the entire hospital. Maybe the entire city.” He runs a hand through his hair and replies a bit bashfully, “I kind of figured you like that about me or we wouldn’t be dating.”

The last two months recontextualize in your head in rapid succession. Little moments appear lit up by neon lights that blare, HEY DUMBASS! Brendon tied your shoes last week instead of telling you they were loose, dropping down on his knees right outside the ED where anyone could see just to make sure you wouldn’t trip. He always takes your backpack from your shoulders before walking you to the parking garage and opening the door of his gorgeous navy blue sedan for you. Even the way he looked at you at the hockey game.

God, you’re an idiot.

With your lips parted and your eyes rapidly blinking, you come up with a new protest: “You’ve never even tried to kiss me, Brendon. What the fuck? You should be kissing me all the time! You could’ve been jumping my bones ever since the hockey game; that would’ve made things pretty clear to me!”

“Jumping your bones?” He suppresses a laugh since you’re still flustered. He just kind of scoffs and explains with a shrug, “I guess I’m still old-school about that. A gentleman. I wasn’t picking up signals that you wanted me to, y’know, make a big move. Figured we should take it slow. I mean, you’re new to Pittsburgh, you’ve had some big life changes. And I have a history of being too, ah, too intense for some women. I didn’t want to mess that up with you.”

“That’s actually really sweet, Bren,” you reply, sniffling back tears. Waving a hand in front of your face to cool down your burning cheeks, you pinch your eyebrows together and point out, “Okay, well, then we never did, like, a ‘what are we?’ talk.”

“That’s because I’m 38 years old,” he replies bluntly. “When I’m with my woman, she has my full attention. My devotion. Everything. I don’t need to have that talk.”

My woman. The phrase makes you feel kinda bubbly like soda. You smack him on the chest and poke him, “Clearly you do, dummy!”

After you nudge him, Park catches your hand in his, fingers enveloping yours. Fuck, his hands are so big and sturdy. Then his eyes soften and he kisses your fingers. He leans down slightly to make better eye contact. “Okay, I’ll have that talk if you want it.” Crystal clear, blue eyes positively sparkling with amusement and adoration, he asks, “Would you like to be my very, very official girlfriend?”

You let out an absolute squeal. It’s delighted and silly and so cute his stomach turns. God, how did a girl like you get your claws in him? When you throw your arms around his neck and he spins you around, he doesn’t care why or how. He just cares that the first words out of your mouth are, “Yes, of course, obviously.” You nuzzle into the crook of his shoulder, feet barely touching the ground, and murmur against his ear, “This is my favorite night ever.”

“You’ve got me wrapped around your finger, princess,” he assures as he sets you down on your own balance. Then he holds your face in his palm and finally bends down to kiss you properly.

But you stop him with your pointer finger in his lips, his eyes widening. “No, no, no, I can’t have our first kiss be when I’m all puffy and snotty from crying.”

He gives a pretend growl but concedes, “Fair enough. Whatever you want. C’mon, let’s get you home.”

Before he turns away, though, you step on your very tippy toes (and then some) and kiss his forehead before asking so sweetly, “How about you come over tomorrow? I know we already have plans Sunday – by the way, I really love the ballet, so good job – but maybe we should have a first date that I know is a first date beforehand?”

“Yeah, of course,” he replies wistfully, still feeling your lips on his skin. On his thick fucking skull. “I’ll go anywhere you ask me.”

Like you asked, Brendon knocks on your door at 3PM sharp. You promised to entertain him and make him dinner and he could absolutely care less about any of the details beyond getting to be with you like he craves. He’d agonized over what to wear to an embarrassing extent, nearly caving and texting his mother for her approval. But that would be a fate worse than death, so he settles on dark jeans rolled at the ankle and a black tee because a little old lady told him he looked hunky when he wore them to the pharmacy a few weeks ago.

You answer the door wearing nothing but the oversized Penguins sweater he bought you, a pair of panties he can barely see under it, and knee-high socks.

Park’s pupils dilate.

In that one look, you can finally see why they call him Shark. He’s a predator latching onto you, ready to devour you alive. You take a step back and he steps forward like you’re pulling him by a string attached to his gut. He doesn’t even notice himself closing and locking the door, too fixated on the expanse of your legs and the Pittsburgh Penguins logo on your chest. He tentatively puts one hand on your waist and sighs reverently, “Yup, this is the singular sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

You look away from him, bashful under his praise: “Well, y’know, I wanted to surprise my boyfriend since he’s planning on surprising me tomorrow.” Then your attempt at a sultry voice goes away and is replaced by your usual glittery one when you see that he’s carrying a bouquet of pastel pink, soft orange, and angel white gerberas in the hand not touching you. “Brenny, did you get me flowers?”

‘Brenny’ might be too far, but he can’t bear to tell you that. You could call him anything and he’d accept it. He lifts the flowers up and offers them to you. “Um, yes. Is that still romantic or is it really, really lame now?”

“Still romantic,” you assure him with misty eyes, taking the bouquet and skipping away toward the kitchen.

Brendon toes off his shoes and follows you into the house, not surprised to find the place decked out in pastel colors and soft fabrics and dreamy artwork. You dig through your cabinets to find a porcelain vase you thrifted years ago and arrange the flowers inside of it.

As you place them on the windowsill, you give him a soft gaze, softer than any he’s been on the receiving side of. “This is the sweetest thing any man’s ever done for me.”

Brendon pulls you into a warm embrace, holding your chin with his thumb and forefinger, and says, “Baby, you’re about to have your bar raised, because flowers are the least you deserve.” When your lips part into a shy smile, he asks, “Can I kiss you now?”

You nod eagerly and rock up onto your toes, tilting your chin to get as close to him as possible. Brendon’s gentle, boyish smile makes your heart pound in your throat in the moments before he closes the gap. He takes a second to admire the slopes of your face when you’re gazing up at him like he means something.

And then he kisses you.

It’s eager and bright, the way you kiss after prom night. You have to fight not to smile when he holds your face between both hands, so much desire in his touch that you can feel his resolve to take it slow with you melting away.

Suddenly, at the sound of you giggling for only a second, Brendon’s arms loop around your back. Before you know it, he’s lifting you off your feet and spinning you around. You hop up, knowing he’ll catch you, and lock your legs around his hips. When you feel his smooth, cold belt buckle against your panties, you gasp out a moan at the contact.

Brendon chuckles and buries his forehead in the crook of your neck. He groans quietly, “Baby, you can’t make all those little sounds or you’re gonna kill me.”

Breathless, you tease back, “Then you definitely can’t call me baby.”

He smirks, kisses you again, and asks in a lower and more pointed voice, “Where’s your bedroom, baby?”

“It’s right upstairs; if you wanna put me down, I can-”

He shakes his head and keeps you balanced firmly in his arms, walking back toward the staircase. “No point in having these muscles if my girl ever has to touch the ground again.”

As he carries you up the stairs so easily that you’re turning into a person made more of giggles than anything else, you ask him, “Are you gonna carry me around from patient to patient forever?”

“If that’s what you want,” he replies with a laugh as he pushes through your bedroom door. Guiding you down onto the bed, which you’ve meticulously made, Brendon murmurs against the pulse point just beneath your ear, “I’ll give you everything you want, kitten.”

At the tender pet name, you can’t help but moan, encouraging him to touch you as he pins you to the bed just by virtue of how big his body is. He pulls back and gazes down at you so gently. Your heartbeat is slow again, comfortable, safe, but the heat between your legs is undeniable.

Brendon lowers himself down to kiss you once more. The energy between you shifts in that kiss, like he’s become painfully aware of being in your bedroom, your body pliant beneath him, your eyes full of trust and adoration he hasn’t experienced in years. His kiss is slow and sweet and simple. He shifts onto his side so one of his hands can cradle your cheek while the other gingerly takes your waist. You can tell he’s being painfully careful with you, his gentle touch revealing a certain level of fear – that he’ll hurt you or break you or scare you off.

So you reach forward and twine your fingers in the short hair at the base of his neck, gently scratching his scalp, and press your body against his. One leg thrown over his hip so that he can feel the heat of your barely clothed cunt. You arch your back and wiggle a tiny bit so that his hand almost has to move to your ass. He chuckles into the kiss and that makes you whimper. But he doesn’t do more, doesn’t grab or push or demand.

You pull back an inch, stare at him seriously, and murmur, “You’re not gonna break me, Bren.”

Mischief flickers in his blue eyes. He knows perfectly well what you’re asking, even if he’s tentative to give it to you. “What are you trying to say, sweetheart? Use your words.”

Mimicking his own voice, you bat your lashes and offer, “What’s the point in having those muscles if you don’t throw your girl around a little? C’mon, Shark, I know you’re not a shy lover.” You sit up just enough to reach down and lift the hockey sweater up and over your head. Underneath, you’ve got a black lace unlined bra, filled out only by the weight of your breasts, and it’s absolutely sinful. “Touch me like you mean it.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, this is one hell of a surprise,” he rasps as he grabs your tits through the fabric, a rough sting buzzing through your body. The sight of his hands against the lace flips the switch in his mind and he’s hunting for blood in the water. “I didn’t know you owned anything black.”

As he pinches your nipples, mean and certain, the fabric of the lace adding a scratchy friction, you gasp, “It’s a special occasion.”

“Yeah?” His hands run down toward your thighs, kneading the thickness of your waist and hips with a greed that approaches true obsession. You lose the ability to think when he bends down and bites the side of your waist, his teeth quickly becoming less and less gentle as your moans get louder and louder. “What’s so special?”

You can only whimper as he roughly manhandles you upwards so that he can unhook your bra, using only one hand. Fucking surgeons. All you can think about is what else those hands of his can do. You’ve noticed how thick his fingers are a million times and now you might actually get to feel them the way you want.

Brendon can see the lust laid bare over you, chest rising and falling faster, eyes wide and waiting, skin prickled with goosebumps. Hooking his fingers beneath the edges of your panties and pulling them down, he teases, “Out of words now, pretty girl?”

You take five seconds to breathe, swallow hard, and order, “Take your clothes off.”

He throws his head back and grins. “Good choice of words.”

While you prop yourself on your elbows for a better view, Brendon steps off the bed and tugs his shirt off first. He even does that thing buff guys do where he pulls it off by the back, his arm muscles offensively large as he reveals his abs. His muscles are less defined than they are sturdy, built less like an Abercrombie model and more like a lumberjack or, y’know, a fridge. The way his obliques cut down into his hips is downright pornographic.

You let out a long breath. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Perfectly and completely aware, he gives you a hunky grin. “What? Something wrong?”

You bite your lower lip and physically try to stop yourself from staring, but you just keep failing. Because he’s your boyfriend. Sitting on the edge of the bed now, gradually drawing closer to him like a magnet, you attempt to tease, “Are you always this much of a cocky bastard about your hot bod?”

“My hot bod?” His hands go to his belt and he slowly removes it. Then, once he’s stepped out of his jeans and you’re blinded by the outline of his, yes, proportionally long and thick cock against his black boxer briefs, he says, “Yeah, I always am.”

Eyes greedily drinking down every inch of his body and imagining all the ways you could play with it, you manage to mumble out, “You should be.”

God, he even makes taking off his underwear hot. It must be those damn thighs. Or the everything else. With your eyes trained squarely on his fat cock, mouth actually watering, Brendon steps toward and lifts your chin. “Like what you see, princess?”

With that same confident smirk on his lips, he takes your small hand and wraps it around his shaft. Suddenly you get the whole ‘beer-can-sized-dick’ thing you’ve read in way too much erotica because you can’t close your hand around his girth. “Oh.”

“What? Bigger than you thought? You intimidated?”

“Honey, I think everyone you’ve ever met knows you have a big dick.” Your eyes flick up to his playfully. “And I’m definitely not intimidated.”

“Really?”

“You’ve never intimidated me. Not like you do everyone else.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m so into you.” As you smile coyly, Brendon thrusts between your fingers, watching every miniscule change in your expression – which is rapidly growing less patient. He cups your cheek with his hand and asks, “Want a taste?”

You open your mouth. Obedient, immediate. When his tip touches your tongue, you eagerly lap up the sticky drop of precum and then take him between your lips. Brendon has to grip your headboard hard to tolerate the sight of you sucking him with such a precious, adoring, sweet look in your eyes. It feels like you’re thanking him with your mouth, making the prettiest damn noises for him to memorize and play on repeat.

When you lift your hand to gently tug and roll his balls, Brendon hangs his head and groans, loud and low, gravelly in a way that tickles the back of your mind. “Fuck, baby, that’s- that’s perfect.” Your happy hum in reply makes his toes curl into the carpet. “Jesus, you drive me crazy, you know that? I’ve never been this obsessed with someone.”

You pull off him and beam, lips shiny and slightly swollen now. “Really?”

Brendon pushes you back on the bed and crawls on top of you, easily maneuvering you so that your head’s back on the pillows and his hands are on either side of your face. He kisses you hard, claiming, and says, “It’s actually become a huge problem for me. You’re all I can think about.”

You giggle breathlessly and ask, “Is that a complaint?”

“Mmm. There’s that little laugh of yours. That’s how you got me,” he groans before kissing you again. “I made some stupid goddamn joke during surgery and the whole team was exhausted but you laughed. Just like that. And I was done for.”

You cover your face, embarrassed and delighted all at once, and remember, “Then I said you have a cutting-edge sense of humor.”

“And I thought that was funny,” he goes on with a fond chuckle. His hands have never stopped roaming over your body, playing with your breasts or digging into your hips. “You’re so gorgeous and perfect I thought that was funny. You don’t even realize how deep you’ve got your hooks in me, baby.”

Biting your lip, you try to come up with something to say to match his sudden deep sweetness, but he stops you from being able to think at all. His lips drag down your neck, biting and kissing in equal measure until you’re squirming and bucking beneath him. Then, just beneath your ear, he growls, “Can I leave marks?”

The sound you make is nothing short of pathetic. You clutch the back of his head, tugging his hair a bit to push his teeth against your neck, and whine, “Please.”

“Yeah?” He’s grinning, now, but he can’t bear to let you see. “Want the whole world to know you’re mine now?” You whimper and nod, tilting your head to the side to give him better access.  He murmurs, “Good girl.”

Fuck, you’re soaked.

As Brendon sucks hard over your pulse, branding you with the dark shape of his kiss, his right hand goes between your legs, pushing them apart. Two of his thick fingers dip between your folds to collect your wetness before smearing it over your clit. “All this for me? You’re easy to work up.”

You laugh and tuck your forehead into his bicep. “Are you surprised?”

“Not even a little,” he chuckles. Making sure to kiss you and hold you as his fingers work firm circles around your clit, Brendon purrs, “I’ve thought about all the sounds you must make a thousand times. How you must be so enthusiastic to be a good girl. You’re so easy for me to read; I knew I could get you off better than anyone else.”

You nod against his arm and moan when he finds just the right tempo on your clit, his fingers ridiculously skilled. “Just like that.”

“Whatever you need, sweet girl,” he assures, listening to you and keeping his fingers exactly the way they are. Methodical.

“Brendon,” you gasp as your pussy pulses wantingly around nothing, “I really need you to fuck me.”

“I love the enthusiasm, kitten, but I’m not gonna hurt you,” he replies simply. Reluctantly. There’s a tenderness to his voice that shouldn’t fit with his harsh attitude and masculine features, but it does. It’s him, beneath everything he shows the rest of the world. He drops down between your legs and nuzzles loving kisses over your sensitive inner thighs, worshipping into your skin, “If I’m gonna fuck you to sleep tonight, then I can’t leave you sore from the first time. Let me make you cum before I’m inside you, kitten. Can you be good and do that?”

With your eyebrows knitted together and sweat on your brow, you nod and whine, “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask,” he tells you. It’s insane that a man being offensively cocky with all those smirks and chuckles is so hot. He leans back, sitting between your legs, and begins to plunge his fingers inside of you. Just his two middle fingers have to be as thick as any dildo you’ve used before. He bends at the waist so he can keep biting and sucking on your body, the most brutal on your nipples but sure to get ample coverage over your waist and stomach and hips. When he feels you clamping down tight around him, the pleasure so much you can’t come up with any response besides your body’s natural reactions, he teases lightly, “Careful, baby, my hands are my livelihood.”

Eyes large and glassy, you breathe, “Sorry about that.”

Brendon’s thumb goes to your clit and your walls tighten again. This time, he doesn’t tease you. He works your clit intently, trying to find what he’d found before, and doesn’t rest until he’s right there. Your delicious gasp gives him all the cue he needs. With his thumb flat and firm, he rubs your clit in time with his fingers curling back toward himself. His eyes focus on your expression, each detail, and he’s addicted to your every sound and twitch.

“There you go,” he praises while your pussy tightens up slowly, threatening to snap into sparkles. “That’s right. Just trust me. All I want is to make you feel good.

Your orgasm bursts like waves against a hull, building and building until it crashes over you, rocking your gravity and stealing your breath. Brendon’s there with you through it, his blue eyes a lighthouse, his stupid smirk your shore. His free hand holds you down by the hip as he lets you enjoy the fluttery aftershocks, not quite forcing you into overstimulation but not letting up until you’ve had as much as you can take.

When you’re finally completely breathless and satiated, Brendon slowly withdraws his fingers and then licks them clean. He leans down for a moment and laps at your inner thighs, tasting your tart juices and salty skin. Your hips buck instinctively when he presses one tiny kiss to your clit and then laughs at your reaction, breath ghosting down your hot cunt. With his slick-wet hand, he fists his cock and asks, “How do you want me, sweetheart?”

You take a few seconds to think and admire the view before asking, “Can I ride you? Whenever I’ve fantasized about us having sex, that’s what I’m doing.”

“You can do literally whatever you want to me, baby,” he reminds you as he reclines on the bed next to you. He steals one more kiss from you before you start moving to your knees, collecting your balance. “What exactly do you fantasize about?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” you reply as you climb into his lap, hands going straight to grabbing his pecs with your nails digging deliciously into the flesh, “but you have these giant fucking tits I’d like to fondle.” Then, as he laughs, you rub your sloppy cunt up and down his shaft, watching his eyes close and hearing his breath go shaky with lust. “I wanna see your arms when you hold onto my hips and thrust up into me. Wanna feel how strong your thighs are underneath me.”

Brendon shakes his head and snickers, “Wow, I had no idea how much you were going to objectify my muscles.”

“Shut up; yes, you did.”

You roll your eyes and sink down on him, nice and slow, savoring the way he has to resist slamming up to meet you.

He groans, hands finding purchase on the curve of your waist, “Yeah, you’re right.”

You’re completely forgotten how to talk. The stretch of him is divine. Everything you’d imagined and then some. You have to be careful not to get too eager too fast because his length is definitely enough to bruise your cervix if you aren’t gentle with yourself while your pussy adjusts to him. Which is sad, considering the only thing you’ve ever wanted in life all of a sudden is to bounce on Park the Shark’s huge cock until you pass out.

Instead, you slowly rock back and forth, your hands flush on his pecs, with your eyes pinched shut and your mouth falling open. Brendon reaches up to hold your chin, forcing you to open your eyes, and checks softly, “Too much? We can slow down and-”

“Shut up,” you order breathily. He smiles, puts his hands behind his head a moment, and enjoys the view of you being a tiny bit bossy. “Feels so fucking good, I promise. Not too much. Just- just- Jesus.”

“Well, they do say he was hung.”

Your laugh is addictively adorable, sounding almost sleepy from the enormous effort of acclimating to him. “You’re so awful.”

Dragging his hands down and resting them on your ass, he coos back, “And you’re sooooo into it.”

When he gives you a quick upward thrust, your response turns into a squeak, “Yeah.”

From there, Brendon helps you out. He knows he’s not exactly an easy man to take in this position – beyond the size of his cock, his thighs and glutes are so well-developed that your knees don’t even reach the mattress on either side of his hips – so he holds you in place and rolls his hips up into yours, slow and precise.

Once he can tell you’re getting comfortable, breaths easy and moans tumbling out again, he murmurs, “How about you touch yourself?”

Eyebrows knitted together, you sigh, “Already so much, Bren.”

Purposefully missing the point, he sighs back, “I guess I can do it for you, princess.”

When his thumb goes to your clit, your nails dig into his chest. Mean pink half moons rise in their wake, but you can’t stop yourself – and he doesn’t mind. So stretched out, your pussy pulses more than it clamps down, each contraction a fluttery thing that’s somehow more intense than the last. He’s grinning to himself as he feels your orgasm approaching fast. You’re so relaxed with him that he can control your pleasure with the ease of a decades-long lover. He’s going to have to teach you to be less trusting, maybe teach you to fight, but right now all he wants is for you to yield to him completely.

You cum with a long, drawn-out whine, sweat shiny on your hairline, and Brendon has to take over completely as your thighs twitch and falter. It’s impossible to hold yourself up through the roiling pleasure that overtakes you in a deluge. Your wetness drips down his balls and onto your bed and you’re not sure you’ve ever been this soaked from how much a partner’s turned you on and worked you up.

“Aw, my sweet baby,” he purrs as you fight hard to stay upright, your thighs burning for relief in the wake of your second orgasm, “trying so hard to keep up.”

While you let out tiny, cute whimpers, Brendon pulls out slowly and stands up, ignoring your complaining whine at the lack of contact. He goes to your bedside table and muses, “Let’s see what we have here.” Your cheeks burn as he thumbs through your admittedly maybe-too-ample sex toy collection. Taking out your baby blue silicone mini wand, Brendon grins. “Hot, young, single doctor – knew I’d find some goodies in here.”

You’re totally gone by now, anything but your desire to be with him gone out the window, and he can tell. It’s his favorite thing in the world. When he says, “get on your knees for me,” your brain is so mush for him that you do it without a single thought or word, presenting your ass beautifully with a placid smile on your lips.

Brendon yanks your hips back so that he can stand at the foot of your bed – which means he can use all his strength to handle you. Lining up the thick, angry red tip, he tenderly rubs your ass and says, “Tell me if you want more.”

All you can do is nod. Usually he’d press you for words just to hear you beg, but the eye contact you make is full of so much pleading that there’s no need for further clarity. You really are so sensitive; there are tears of pleasure and need brimming at your waterline.

“Don’t worry that sweet little head of yours,” he practically growls as his cock slowly fills you deeper than he’d been able to get without being in total control, “I’m gonna take care of you, princess. Gonna keep this pretty pussy stuffed. Gonna make sure you get everything you need. I promise.”

Gripping your pillow tight as you once again adjust to his thickness, you nod and sniffle, “Thank you, Bren.”

“There she is,” he teases as he starts to slam into you. Each time he bottoms out, it comes with a weak, needy cry. “That’s my sensitive girl. Love that about you.”

“That I’m a crybaby?”

He picks up speed at the word and all it means to him. You’re never prettier than with tears running down your cheeks, making your eyes shiny and your lips wobbly. “You know how much of a confidence boost it is making you cry because of how good you feel?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, princess, I fucking love it.” Brendon flicks the vibrating wand onto its lowest setting and reaching one huge arm around your body to press it to your clit. Your corresponding moan turns into a screaming sob, loud and messy and violently sexy. It’s completely overwhelming and consuming. The way your face contorts from the intensity sends Brendon’s thrusts into overdrive, almost putting all his force into it now. As sweat falls from his forehead onto your back, he urges, “Let it out. Let it all out for me. I wanna hear how good I’m making you feel.”

And you weep.

The catharsis of his cock christening you takes over. You’ve cried during sex before, yeah (of course), but this is different. It feels like pure relief and connection. Your mind is totally present in your body, feeling every single place of contact where Brendon’s sweating skin slides against yours. The vibrator between your legs is making you shake in his arms, but you trust him to hold you up, to give you what you need, to take you through exactly what he wants to give you.

“C’mon, honey, focus, you can do one more, I promise,” Brendon grunts when he starts to feel your pussy weakly squeezing him again. He didn’t think he could get you to this point your first time together, but, if he can, he’s not going to stop.

He leans over your body, mounting you now, primal and animalistic, and wraps his elbow around your neck. The gesture pulls your cunt tight to him and snaps your head back, forcing you to take a deep breath that lights your brain up. Tears slip constantly out of your eyes and Brendon’s drunk on the sniffles and whimpers and moans that choke out of your thickened throat. You drunkenly kiss his arm as it muffles over his mouth.

Then you bite him.

Brendon’s hips stutter and his balls tighten up. You bite him again and again. And you’re not screwing around with it. Your teeth are ravenous on his flush, cutting in nearly enough to draw blood. You’re so thoughtless that you’re just going for whatever’s been put in front of your mouth; it’s irrelevant that it’s your boyfriend’s flesh.

“There it is,” Brendon groans, the pain of your bites sending him spiraling out into a new height of pleasure. “I can feel it coming on. Don’t you dare hold back, baby. Show me how much you can take. Give me another one and I’ll fill you up. I know what’s what you want, isn’t it?”

You nod without releasing his arm from your mouth. Drool spills from the sides of your lips, mixing with your tears, and you’re hurtling into the orgasm more than it’s welling up within you. The thought that really does it, though, isn’t Brendon’s encouragement or the vibrator unrelentingly stimulating your clit. No. It’s the idea that Brendon’s going to cum inside of you. Even on birth control, it’s a sign that he’s claiming you completely, making you his, being totally naked with you in every sense.

Bliss blows your brains out like a volcano finally giving into the pressure. Brendon holds you tight against him with his free hand, so tight that his thrusts are short and deep. The final few, he grinds into you, totally enveloped in your cunt, letting himself feel each millimeter as it grabs down on him and milks it out. When his cum coats your walls, both of you collapse onto the bed into gasping breaths.

Brendon kisses and kisses your shoulders while he goes soft inside of your pussy, gently pulling your chew toy away and shaking it out because it fucking kills in the most satisfying way possible. He makes a mental note to buy himself a long-sleeve to wear to work as he admires the egregious display of total horny thoughtlessness from the cutesy, angelic doctor.

He sits up and then murmurs, rubbing your back softly, “I’m gonna carry you to the bathroom to get you cleaned up, okay?”

You nod lazily, eyes half-lidded. You make no effort to help him, which only makes him smile to himself and shake his head. He’d do anything for you already. Cradling you like a baby, he pushes open the bathroom door with his foot and hits the light with his elbow. He’s absolutely done for. Setting you down on the toilet, he orders, “Go pee, baby. No UTIs allowed.”

Under normal circumstances, you definitely wouldn’t be able to pee in front of your boyfriend and you would definitely be mortified by the mere thought. But you’re so relaxed. Your whole brain is like a nice cozy hot tub, warm and bubbly and nothing to worry about. So you do as he instructs without question, some part of your brain acknowledging that he’s correct.

Brendon leans down on his knees, a posture that would be condescending in most situations but is nothing but adoring right now, and suggests, “Now, you said you were gonna cook, but how does delivery on my tab sound? We can get pizza.”

You give a hazy smile and nod. “That’s so nice, Brenny.”

“We’re gonna have to talk about that nickname,” he chuckles, booping the tip of your nose.

You pout out your lower lip. “I’m gonna call you whatever I want.”

“Yeah, alright, tough guy.”

“Mmm.” You lean up to kiss him. “Good boy.”

Brendon laughs and then stands up to fiddle with the handles of your shower until he’s happy with the temperature. Then he guides you to your feet and brings you under the water, not too hot or too cold on your over-sensitive skin. You’re glad you went for the house with the rain shower when you moved, both of you fitting comfortably beneath the stream at the same time. For a while, he just holds you, hands roaming up and down your back, as he kisses the top of your head.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs quietly, barely audible above the running water. “You’re gonna turn me into such a softie.”

You giggle, “Or you’re gonna make me a big mean gym bro.”

Brendon shakes his head and reaches for your shampoo. “Maybe we stick to our current roles.”

“I think they suit us,” you agree as he squirts some into his palm and orders you to turn around. With his fingers working devotion into your scalp, you hum gently under your breath and trust him to hold you up. During the course of the shower, you gradually come back to life. Once you’re sudsing his abs with your lufah, maybe being a touch too thorough by going over every spot with your hands, you lilt,  “You fucked my brains out. I didn’t know that was actually a thing.”

“I did set a high bar for myself,” he concedes with a self-satisfied laugh, “but I’m guessing it’s only gonna get better from here.”

You stand on your toes and kiss him. “Does this mean we’re doing paperwork when we go back to the hospital?”

“I love paperwork,” he tells you, mock serious. He chuckles and whistles, “My first time to HR for something besides another doctor filing a complaint because I hurt their precious feelings by ensuring my patients get the highest quality care possible.”

“Big bad scary Park the Shark,” you agree as you turn off the water. You gently brush his cheek and coo, “My softie.”

Brendon rolls his eyes affectionately, shakes out his hair, and steps out, grabbing a towel and wrapping you up in it before taking one for himself. With a towel hanging low on his hips, he’s scrumptious enough to have your mind wandering toward round two even though your body wouldn’t even consider cooperating for a few more hours.

You head over to the mirror for your moisturizer and catch a glimpse of yourself with clear eyes for the first time since your sex brain turned off. Looking at the myriad of bite marks littered over your body, the flesh swollen and indented, you laugh, “Jesus, now I know why they call you Shark.”

“Yeah?” Park bares his left forearm to you, the one that had been in your face while he destroyed your cunt, to show off an absolute minefield of neon pink bites, some deep enough that they’re bruising already. Your eyes widen with guilt, but he quickly yanks you close and kisses you hard, nothing but lust and gratitude on his lips. He nips your neck and teases, “They’re gonna have to start calling you Sharkette.”

He was trying very, very hard to understand the person standing in front of him—a panicked foreign with bright orange hair sticking up from humidity, a shirt that was slightly damp from the walk in the sun, his phone clutched in one hand, and a burnt-out bulb in the other.

You assumed he was a tourist. Thought you might help. And honestly? He looked adorable—like someone had dropped a golden retriever into a foreign language exam. His expression showing a desperate blend of determination and impending meltdown.

You were halfway down the aisle, weaving between shelves full of screws, nails, and tools you were pretty sure you didn't know how to use, when you heard a soft stream of Japanese.

"Chotto... chigau... What was the word in Portuguese? It's… laito… No, that's English," he let out a small, frustrated sigh. "Come on, you practiced this…"

You couldn't help smiling.

This was cute. Very cute.

You stepped closer—slow enough not to startle him but confident enough that both he and the clerk looked up. He was mid-typing something into a translation app when you reached toward him, gently placing your hand over his and lowering his phone. His eyes went wide immediately at the contact: warm brown, huge and a little frantic, like he wasn't sure if you were here to save him or witness his demise.

"Ele quer uma lâmpada," you said lightly, turning to the clerk. [He wants a lightbulb.]

Relief washed over the man like a blessing. "Ah! Sim!"

When the clerk left to get the lightbulb, you looked up and winked at him with a smile—just a conspiratorial little gesture.

But it hit him like a spike to the chest.

He made a tiny sound. Not quite a gasp. Just… a noise of pure overload. His ears turned red. Then his cheeks. Then the back of his neck.

Partly because of the wink, mostly because your hand was still in his, and absolutely because he thought you were stunning. An angel. A stunning Japanese-speaking angel.

"Ah—obri—THANK YOU!" he blurted, the words tripping over each other like he couldn't decide which language to malfunction in.

You laughed softly, and it felt like a breeze cutting through the heat for him.

"You're welcome."

When you slowly withdrew your hand, his breath hitched like he'd been holding it the entire time.

The clerk returned with two different types of bulbs. Hinata picked the cheapest, bowed far too deeply, thanked him far too many times, and then turned back to you—still flustered and glowing with gratefulness.

"You—you speak Japanese?"

You nodded with a soft smile, asking the clerk in Portuguese for screws before switching languages as you glanced back at him.

"A little."

"A little?! Your Japanese is amazing!"

You couldn't help the slight blush on your own cheeks as you shook your head.

"I'm still not there yet..."

"No, no, no. It's amazing!" he insisted, hands flailing just slightly. "My Portuguese is still… terrible. I practiced the word for lightbulb last night, I swear, but then the clerk looked at me and I forgot everything."

"That happens," you said, tilting your head. "And your Portuguese isn't terrible. You're trying, and it shows. People here appreciate that."

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing came out.

A tiny spark of triumph lit your chest. Making such a cute guy flustered should not have been that satisfying—but oh, it was. You could tell he was sweet. Honest. You could read everything he felt right off his face, and you really liked that.

"Are you here enjoying the beaches?"

He nodded.

"Sorta. I moved here recently. I'm training for beach volleyball."

"Oh. I see..."

And it made sense now—the broad shoulders, the steady legs, the lean but athletic build, the spark of energy around him like he constantly ran on warm sunlight.

"Are you a Libero?"

He visibly deflated at that.

"Do you say that because I'm short?"

You couldn't help but laugh, hiding behind your hand. That earned you an embarrassed-but-amused smile from his end.

"No, no," you said in between laughs. "I said it because you have a lot of energy..."

"Ah, I see... I was a middle blocker in high school, actually."

"Interesting..."

"How did you learn Japanese?" he asked suddenly, making you happy that he asked about you, too.

"I like traveling. I'm not originally from here either—I'm on a study program," you explained as you paid for your screws and thanked the clerk. "Obrigado. Are you liking Rio so far?"

You turned to leave, half expecting—and half hoping—he would follow. He gave one more quick bow and a breathless thank you to the clerk, who was looking between the two of you with the mischievous smile of someone watching a romcom in a language he didn't understand but was absolutely rooting for anyway.

Hinata hurried after you, stepping into the heat-bleached sunlight.

"I do! I really like it here," he said quickly, answering your earlier question. "The water's warm—way warmer than Japan's. There's always so many people at the beach, and everyone is so nice. Even if it's hard to… You know, talk."

"Have you made any friends yet?"

The shift was instant.

Just a soft flicker in his expression, like the word friends tugged at his heart. Like a cloud passing over the sun.

That bittersweet saudade. You could see it. Relate to it, too, when you thought about your loved ones back in your home country.

"Not yet..." he admitted, voice small but honest.

A gentle smile curved your lips before you even realized it.

"You know… I have a group." You nudged his arm lightly with your shoulder. "Sorta like a club? A few more Japanese speakers—not natives, though. If you ever feel homesick, we meet every Thursday night at a bar not too far from here."

The effect on him was immediate. The shadow in his eyes vanished like it had never been there. And sunlight poured back in—bright, warm, and honestly breathtaking.

And then...that smile.

That huge, open, and absolutely beautiful smile. The kind of smile that felt like it reached straight inside your ribcage and squeezed your heart like a hug, sweet and warm and a little terrifying.

Time didn't freeze like in romcoms—but stretched instead.

The heat outside had softened into a gentle breeze, carrying the scent of pressed sugarcane from a nearby kiosk, mixing with the salt of the sea. A sweet-salty blend that wrapped around you both.

"Oh god," you thought, "Oh god, you could totally fall in love with this guy."

Hinata bowed again—awkward and sweet, like he didn't know what to do with all the gratitude piling up in his chest.

"Thank you," he said softly. "Really."

You stepped back toward your street, smiling with newly found fondness.

"No problem. Try not to start any more crises in hardware stores, yeah?"

He let out a breathy, helpless laugh. "I'll try!"

"It was very nice to meet you," you added, and the words felt truer than they should have for someone you'd just met. "Hopefully we'll see each other again."

You meant it—but the realization of how much you meant it burned under your skin. Embarrassment, excitement, something dangerously close to longing.

So you turned and started walking. And five steps later, you glanced back over your shoulder.

Hinata was still standing exactly where you'd left him, watching you leave. A little stunned. A lot charmed. Blushing up to his ears so hard it looked like the heat itself had kissed him.

And when he noticed you caught him staring, he waved—way too fast.

You only saw his flustered smile as you turned the corner, grinning to yourself.

You didn't hear the way he muttered to himself after:

"Yabai… kawaisugiru." [Oh no... She's too cute.]

It was only when you got back to your apartment that you realised you hadn't even asked for his name, nor had you given him yours. It hit you right as that painting hung nicely from a screw on the wall, and you'd wanted to bash your head against it.

It was silly, really.

The way every time you and your group of language-addicted university friends gathered at the bar over the next few weeks, you couldn't stop your eyes from looking up each time the door creaked open, half-expecting a bright pop of orange hair to appear.

And it was even sillier how the tiny sting of disappointment would settle low in your chest when it didn't.

But you'd been looking for him anyway—the whirlwind stranger with the sunlit smile who'd crossed your path for mere minutes and branded himself into your mind like he'd been there for years. It didn't make sense. It wasn't logical. You barely knew him.

But something about him had stayed with you, this bright and warm feeling, like catching the sun itself on your hand.

"Looking for your lightbulb guy again?" your friend Nina asked, nudging your arm with her elbow, that infuriatingly perceptive grin of hers adorning her lips.

"No Portuguese!" came the sharp scolding from across the table. 'The general', another of your friends—nervous intellectual, relentless rule-enforcer of language nights, and resident panic machine—adjusted his glasses without looking up from his notebook.

Nina rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Yeah, yeah. German night or whatever."

"No Portuguese!" he repeated, more distressed this time, because she was 100% doing it on purpose.

She stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to you with a wicked little glint in her eyes—one that made him sputter softly. He always acted like he hated her playing games with him, though the faint blush of his ears said otherwise.

"So?" she pressed—still in Portuguese, but The general had given up in correcting her for he was too busy being flustered. "Why hasn't he shown up yet? I'm starting to believe he doesn't exist. Maybe it was a heat-induced hallucination?"

You laughed, lifting a glass of sugarcane juice to your lips. The ice clinked gently in the dim, warm lighting of the bar—ceiling fans whirring lazily overhead, wood tables buzzing with multilingual chatter all around.

"It's alright, he'll show up if he wants, no biggie," you said, though the flutter in your stomach disagreed.

"You did tell him the name of the bar, right?"

Oh.

You bit your lip, an embarrassed smile creeping in as realization slapped you in the face.

No name. No bar. No way to ever see him again.

Nina burst into laughter as you hid your warming cheeks behind your hands.

"You didn't," she gasped in between laughs. "Are you dumb?"

You were laughing with her, begging to be left alone, when the bell over the entrance chimed, a sharp ding that sliced clean through the noise.

You looked up, didn't expect much.

But there he was.

Hinata Shōyō in the flesh.

A little breathless, a little flushed from the warm night outside, clutching the strap of a backpack like he'd been running around for hours.

His gaze swept the room, searching.

And when his eyes found you, they lit up. His whole face brightened with that same smile you'd replayed in your head more times than you cared to admit.

"What is it?" Nina asked, taking in your amused expression.

"It's him."

"There's no way—" she whispered as her eyes landed on Hinata, stunned.

The general beside her nearly knocked over his beer when he heard you.

"It's him! It's actually him!"

Nina jumped on the opportunity without a second to spare, looking at him with narrowed, mischievous eyes. "No Portuguese~"

But you barely heard any of it.

Hinata approached, steps hesitant but hopeful, still unconvinced that you were real and not some mirage he'd conjured out of homesickness and desperation.

He stopped right in front of your table, cheeks a soft pink.

"H-Hi," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I, um… I've been trying every bar around here for… a while."

Your jaw nearly dropped. "Every—every bar?"

He nodded earnestly, somehow both sheepish and proud of himself.

"I forgot to ask for the name, so… I just kept checking all of them on Thursdays."

Nina snorted beside you. "That's either romantic or crazy."

You slapped her arm without even looking at her.

Hinata flinched, embarrassed. He hadn't understood much, but he'd caught "loucura" at the end.

"Ah—sorry! I didn't mean to sound creepy. I just really wanted to—um—see you again!" He waved his hands frantically, even redder now. "Not in a weird way! Just—because you were kind! And nice! And you helped me! And—"

You reached out without thinking, placing your hand over his to stop the verbal tailspin.

He froze.

"It's okay," you said softly, smiling. "I'm really glad you found us."

His blush went absolutely nuclear.

The general, meanwhile, had completely malfunctioned.

“My god—An actual Japanese native here—AT THE BAR—this is the greatest day of my life—okay we switch immediately—no more German night!! Japanese night!! We must honor our guest—"

Nina laughed. "You're fanboying so hard right now. You're going to scare him."

Hinata laughed too—a bright, warm, slightly shy sound.

"Thank you for having me!" he said, and the whole table melted a little.

You scooted, patting the chair beside you. "Sit. Please. If you want."

He sat carefully, like he was afraid he'd mess something up. You leaned a bit closer—your natural style, friendly and warm—and you could practically see the thoughts scrambling inside his head like hamsters running on a wheel, and the wheel was on fire.

"So..." you started, a little embarrassed at the admission. "I realised I never asked your name."

"Ah, yeah. Hinata Shōyō."

"Shōyō... I like it, it's pretty."

He nodded, posture straightening and still a little red. He'd gotten used to people calling him by his name without honorifics, but somehow hearing it from your lips made him feel a little bashful.

"And, um… what's yours? I never… um… asked either."

You laughed, cheeks warming. "Guess we're both idiots, huh?"

He brightened. "Then we match!"

It was ridiculous how fast your heart stuttered at that.

As you introduced yourself properly, the general was already drawing up makeshift new rules for Japanese night, Nina was teasing him mercilessly, and Hinata looked equal parts overwhelmed and delighted.

He kept sneaking glances at you. Every time he did, he smiled a tiny, private smile, way too happy at the fact he'd found you again. (He was starting to lose hope after the fifth bar)

And he stayed close—close enough that your arms brushed now and then, close enough that he could whisper to you quietly:

"Hey… um… you're really good at making this feel less scary."

"Scary?" you asked.

He nodded, eyes soft. "I'm a little nervous. But you're here, so… I'm okay now."

Your heart did not handle that well. Not even a little. It was too easy to be fond of him, too easy to enjoy the warmth of his presence and resent the cold in his absence.

And after that first night, you and Hinata slipped into a friendship so easily it felt like you were picking up where something had already started a life or two ago.

He'd join your group whenever he wasn't working—always arriving a little out of breath, always with a smile that made your chest tighten in ways you refused to unpack. Other days, you'd meet him at the beach, watching him play volleyball with literally anyone and everyone who needed a partner. Sometimes you'd help him translate—but you quickly realized that once Hinata was in his element, communication barriers didn't exist.

Volleyball was the language he was fluent in.

He adapted instantly to every new teammate—old man or teenager, tourist, first-timer or seasoned player—falling into their rhythm like he was born to match whoever stood beside him. You'd watch him, always astonished, always caught off guard by just how bright he was when he played.

Stronger, sharper, and quicker each week. He was truly a sight to behold.

And after every match, he'd jog toward you with that proud, boyish grin, sand sticking to his shins, and you'd hand him a bottle of water like it was your assigned role from the universe. He'd flop beside you in the sand, cataloguing everything he still needed to improve on. Listing weaknesses the same way other people list shopping items—no shame. Just determination.

And every time, after another match or two, he'd fix everything he was not happy about.

You'd pretend you weren't staring. You'd pretend your heart wasn't squeezing itself into tiny origami shapes.

The number of times you almost said "fuck it" and kissed him on that beach was… Embarrassingly high.

And the physical proximity didn't help.

Hinata had been startled at first by how touchy people were in Brazil—handshakes that turned into hugs, cheek kisses from strangers, friends who always touched an arm, a shoulder, a knee during conversation. But he warmed to it quickly, melting into it like sunlight.

The "Japanese nights"—that only happened because he showed up—were both a shelter for when he felt homesick, and a place where he could learn from the culture. Every time he came, whatever language chapter you were supposed to study got tossed out immediately.

"Japanese night!" The general would declare, already flipping through his notebook like a man seeing God for the first time.

He'd try to enforce the 'No Portuguese' rule, only to fail spectacularly once the bar glowed with soft string lights and the haze of too many caipirinhas. And after a couple rounds, everyone would be hugging, singing, dancing, and slurring half-Portuguese, half-Japanese sentences that sometimes made absolutely no sense and sometimes helped him greatly in learning the language. Someone always pulled out a guitar and sang tunes that everyone knew the lyrics to.

And he found it beautiful. How the warmth of the Brazilian sun seemed to warm everyone's hearts as well, how everyone seemed to be so open about loving and liking each other, much different from the poised—and arguably a little cold—Japanese society.

Hinata looked around one of those nights, admiring the chaos with a soft kind of longing. You were leaning against The general's shoulder, cheeks rosy, singing and laughing into the music, and you caught Hinata watching you with an expression you couldn't translate—warm… confused… something else.

"Are you two... dating?" he asked suddenly.

Drunken group vocals drifted behind you as you turned to him.

You laughed. "No, he's just a friend. Over here it's super normal for friends to be this close. There's nothing more to it."

Hinata blinked, trying to process that. You gently nudged his foot with yours, then pointed—subtly—to The general.

"Besides, he's already head over heels for someone else." You grinned. "Watch."

Hinata followed your gaze. The general, half-lidded and singing quietly to himself, was watching Nina as she swayed and laughed with such open, unguarded affection that even the dim bar lighting couldn't hide it. Absolutely smitten.

Hinata's breath hitched in soft amazement—and a little jealousy.

Not necessarily of them, but of the ease of that emotion, of how freely it was allowed to love in the open here. Kinda wishing he could do the same.

He pressed his lips together, chest tightening.

Your eyes widened when you felt his weight settle on you as he rested his head on your shoulder—hesitantly, like he was testing the weight of a dream.

"Then I guess I can, too," he murmured.

Your heart stuttered.

He smelled like salt and lime and sunscreen. And when you looked down at him, feeling the brush of his hair on your cheek, he was red up to his ears, eyes squeezed shut in mortified determination—like if he opened them, he'd lose the courage to keep leaning on you. His whole body vibrated faintly from nerves, as if he was fighting the urge to pull away.

A tiny, gentle laugh escaped you, and you rested your head on top of his.

He let out a breath you didn't know he'd been holding and sank into you completely.

You thought it was innocent.

Truly.

You thought it ended on that warm bar night, that little shared moment on your shoulder.

Little did you know how much he'd make your heart suffer as months passed and your friendship developed. Because once you gave him a green light to touch you, Hinata became very touchy.

Very.

He hugged you tight every time he saw you—full-body, earnest hugs that lifted you a little off the ground, like he'd missed you in a way that didn't make sense for two people who'd seen each other less than twenty-four hours earlier. He'd bury his face in your shoulder, saying things like:

"Ahhh, I needed this!"

And your heart?

Your poor, dumb, heart? Melted into a puddle every single time.

He rested his head on your shoulder constantly. On buses, on bar stools, in line at açaí stands. He did it like it was second nature—like leaning on you was simply where his body preferred to be.

But the worst of all were the beach days.

Those were lethal.

Because Hinata very quickly became obsessed—obsessed—with using your thighs as a pillow. At first, it was a drunken decision, then a sleepy one, then it became a habit so natural you didn't know how to survive it anymore.

He'd flop down next to you in the warm sand with his hair sticking up in all directions, and murmur:

"Can I?"

And before you even answered, he was already lowering his head into your lap, smiling up at you with the softest, most devastating expression imaginable. Innocent. Trusting. Sunlit and breathtaking.

You were just friends, though.

Of course. Obviously. Totally.

You watched anime together on your couch, knees touching, arms brushing, his laughter vibrating against your ribs when he leaned into you during funny scenes. You took naps together, limbs tangled so naturally it felt like you'd done it your whole lives. The general nearly had an aneurysm each time he caught you two asleep, spooning on the couch during movie nights. Nina kept taking pictures. And with all that, even when there was no space between you bodies most of the time, when you both cuddled, even—fully, openly, shamelessly—you'd still shook your heads violently every time someone asked if you were dating. (Which was very often.)

Specially at the beach, where strangers would always asume you were a couple.

Hinata always panicked, waving his hands in frantic denial while still lying on your thighs.

"No, no, no—we're just friends! Just—just friends!" He'd let out, while your fingers were literally in his hair.

The day he introduced you to Oikawa was chaotic in ways only Oikawa could bring.

You showed up to the beach as usual, expecting to spot Hinata stretching near the nets or chasing a stray ball barefoot through the sand. Instead, you found him already looking for you—practically vibrating with excitement, jumping up and down as he waved you over like a kid who'd found something shiny and couldn't wait to show it off.

You smiled before you could stop yourself.

It felt good to see him like that—because lately, your bright sun had been dimming a little.

It wasn't anything dramatic. Hinata still laughed, still talked with his hands, still showed up every day. But his smiles had been arriving a second too late, like they had to travel farther to reach his face. He'd been sleeping more, stretching longer, rubbing at his shoulders with a quiet little frown when he thought no one was looking. Some days, he moved like gravity had decided to be cruel to him in particular.

You could tell he was struggling—with work, with volleyball, with learning how to exist in a country that wasn't his, under a sky that didn't quite feel like home.

Even when the Japanese nights with your group helped—late dinners, loud conversations, shared laughter that echoed off concrete walls—you could tell they didn't fix everything. It softened the edges, sure. But something in him still felt… unsteady. Like he wasn't sure where to set his feet anymore.

You didn't know what to do about it, not really. So you did what felt right. You stayed close without crowding him. Gave him space when he went quiet and offered your ear when he was ready to talk. Let him lean without making it obvious.

You had no idea how much that meant to him.

So seeing him now—eyes bright, grin easy, energy sparking off him like sunlight on water—made your chest warm with relief.

And maybe a little jealousy.

Because whoever this "Great King" was, he'd managed to pull Hinata back into himself.

"You're gonna love him—!! Oh—actually—he's a little—uh...—just, don't believe everything he says."

"Shōyō, that is not a reassuring introduction."

"It's fine! He's fine! Mostly!" he assured you, already waving him over.

Oikawa strutted across the sand, sunglasses on, shirt unbuttoned one button too many. He fit every description Hinata had ever given from his high school days perfectly—radiating that unmistakable 'I'm the protagonist' energy.

"Well helloooo~," he sang in Argentinian-accented Portuguese, "So you're the mysterious friend Chibi-chan kept talking about—"

Hinata smacked him in the arm so fast you barely saw it.

"I DID NOT—!!"

"You did," Oikawa hummed innocently, eyes sparkling.

Hinata blushed hard enough to turn into a huge, pouting tomato, and you could only hide a laugh behind your hand because it was too cute—dangerously so—and if you hadn't rein yourself in, you might've actually done something reckless. Like kiss him. Right there. In front of everyone.

And yet, beneath the laughter, something shifted.

Meeting Oikawa—this living, breathing fragment of Hinata's past—made the future feel closer. Sharper.

More real.

Hinata's departure was a silent, ticking clock that the two of you pretended you couldn't hear. But you knew it. He'd go back to Japan when his two-year training ended. You'd always known. Even when you let yourself believe—just a little—that this could last forever. That he would always be beside you. That you could keep bathing in his warmth, in his laughter, in the steady comfort of his presence.

That he would always be your sun.

And for the first time, the thought of losing that light hurt.

But you swallowed the feeling. Watched the duo lose against the infamous 'Buy-me-a-beer' brothers, watched Hinata's fiery eyes sparkle even in defeat—already lit with the promise of next time. Watched him laugh it off, already thinking ahead, already chasing something brighter.

Watched them train the next day.

And then the rematch.

Electric.

Hinata in full competitive mode—eyes sharp, movements precise, all instinct and fire. Oikawa barking orders like a true Great King, voice cutting clean through the air, while the brothers yelled absolute nonsense every time they scored, laughing like chaos itself.

You cheered your lungs out for him, hands cupped around your mouth, screaming "VAI, SHOYOU!!" until he nearly tripped from laughing mid-sprint.

They won in the end—because of course they did—and Hinata sprinted to you immediately afterward, high on adrenaline and sunlight, practically throwing himself into your arms.

"You saw that?! We won!"

You screamed and laughed as he lifted you from the floor and spun you around.

"You were incredible, Shōyō!"

He set you down and pulled away from you only briefly, with his arms still around you, and that spark in his eyes you loved so, so much.

"They say they're gonna buy us dinner! Wanna come?"

And just like that, the countdown in your chest ticked louder. The joy stayed. But it hurt now.

You smiled, small and crooked, and avoided his eyes. This was his moment—shared with an old rival, a piece of his past—and it felt wrong to anchor him to you. To pretend you weren't already starting to loosen your grip.

You were trying to teach yourself how to step back. Because you knew that only that way, his departure wouldn't kill you.

"That sounds amazing, but..." you murmured. "I think I'll pass. I have to study..."

He seemed a little sad at that, but he recovered quickly—because he always did—giving you a thumbs-up and one of those beautiful, earnest smiles that had undone you from the start.

"Okay! Gambatte!"

You nodded. Said goodbye.

And cried the entire walk back to your apartment.

Every week, the sands of Rio felt warmer, the sunsets sweeter, the nights longer—but the calendar kept thinning anyway. And even though Hinata always answered your questions with bright smiles and big energy, he never brought up Japan unless absolutely necessary.

And you didn't bring it up at all.

You kept hanging out like always: late-night anime marathons, naps tangled together, bossa nova at the beach to help him learn Portuguese, volleyball in the sun. You let yourself be happy and tried—really tried—not to think about the fact that the happiness had an expiration date.

Sometimes, though, you caught him watching you.

Not with worry or sadness—Hinata never liked showing either—but with a soft, lingering look, like he was memorizing you. Your smile, your hair, your voice. The way you said his name.

He pretended he wasn't doing it.

You pretended not to notice.

Two cowards in love, dancing around it beautifully.

One evening, after he'd had a first match with Nestor Santana as his partner, the two of you stayed at the beach as the sun dipped toward the water. The sky was turning honey-gold, and the sea breeze had softened into something gentle, almost shy.

Hinata stretched out beside you, head once again finding your lap like gravity had chosen you specifically.

"Portuguese practice?" you teased, pulling up the playlist you'd curated for him.

He perked up immediately. "Yes!"

As usual, you put on some bossa nova—soft guitar, warm vocals, the kind of music that sounds like sunlight feels. Hinata hummed along, his foot tapping lightly against the sand. The waves rolled in, rhythmic, slow, and for a moment, you forgot the world had anything else in it besides this.

After a few songs, he tilted his head back to look at you, eyes filled with curiosity.

"Ne… you hear this word a lot."

"What word?”

"Saudade."

You smiled softly. "Ah. That one."

He waited—bright, trusting, and eager to learn.

"It's a feeling that's… hard to translate," you began, combing your fingers gently through his hair. "It's like natsukashii, but… sadder. Emptier. It's missing something or someone so much that the feeling itself becomes kind of… beautiful."

Hinata's eyes softened, lashes fluttering as he processed it.

"Beautiful sadness…" he whispered.

"Yeah."

He was quiet for a moment, listening as the next song mentioned the word again and again.

Then he laughed, a small, embarrassed puff of air.

"I think… I think I'll feel saudade of you when I go back to Japan."

Your heart clenched so suddenly you almost dropped your phone.

Hinata didn't notice—or pretended not to—because he looked away toward the sea, face glowing pink from the sunset, or maybe from the honesty he hadn't meant to let slip.

You swallowed.

"Shōyō…"

"I mean—" he rushed in, waving his hands a little, "—just, you know—Because you're the first person who made me feel at home here. And you teach me so much. And you're always with me and you laugh with me and—"

He stopped. Shoulders tight, voice small.

"…and I like being here with you... So much."

The waves kept crashing. The sky kept glowing.

And your fingers kept moving through his hair like you weren't fighting a small war inside yourself.

You leaned down just a little.

"I'll feel saudade of you too," you whispered.

And Hinata's breath hitched. Then he closed his eyes and relaxed fully, sinking into your lap with a small, somewhat sad smile that made your chest ache in places you didn't know existed, looking down at him and playing with his hair of fire.

And as the sun disappeared behind the waves, turning the sky into a deep coral pink...

your suffering had officially begun.

You shouldn't have cried at Nestor's wedding.

But you absolutely did.

It was impossible not to—everything was too beautiful. Fairy lights strung between palm trees. A warm breeze carrying the smell of tropical flowers.

Nestor and Nice looked stupidly, beautifully in love—hands trembling as they held each other, vows spoken with voices that cracked halfway through.

Hinata sniffled so loudly during the ceremony that the couple snorted in the middle of their vows. You squeezed his hand. He squeezed yours back.

You watched the couple kiss, watched everyone cheer and clap, watched love spill everywhere just like the champagne in their glasses—loud, open, and unapologetic.

And something traitorous bloomed in your chest.

A little bit of sorrowful envy.

Hinata found you at the edge of the venue a little later, sitting alone beneath a string of lights, blinking rapidly to keep your emotions from spilling over. Everyone danced barefoot on the grass, the kind of dancing that's more swaying than anything, with warm bodies pressed together, and music so soft and happy it seemed to float between guests.

He crouched in front of you, worry softening his features.

"Hey. Are you okay?"

You nodded—planting a smile on your lips a little too quickly. Without hesitation, he sat beside you, legs brushing yours, shoulder touching your shoulder.

The music drifted from the dance floor—a rendition of 'Besame Mucho' by João Gilberto that made it feel like it was laughing cruelly at you.

You looked at him. At his bright eyes, his sun-kissed skin, at the smile that held a sadness nehind it he tried to hide because he knew you were sad, too.

"Shōyō…" you started, but stopped yourself.

I love you.

It was right there—on the tip of your tongue, trembling, begging to be said.

But you swallowed it.

Because how could you do that to him now?

Hinata Shōyō, your sun—who came here for a dream, who worked every day with fire in his chest, who was leaving soon because he had to, because he was chasing his place in the sky.

You couldn't be the gravity that held him back, no matter how much you wanted to keep him close.

So, with tears pricking your eyes, you whispered with a smile instead:

"...I'm going to feel so much saudade of you when you leave."

His breath hitched. You watched as his eyes searched for something in yours, and you feared for your secret. But whether he found what he was looking for or not, you couldn't tell.

He pulled you into him—not the usual eager hug, but something deeper, tighter. Arms wrapped around you fully. Chin pressing into your shoulder like he was trying to anchor himself to the moment.

"Me too," he murmured, voice trembling just enough for you to notice. "More than you think."

You closed your eyes. Held him back. Pretended it didn't break your heart.

And the day Hinata finally left, something in you left with him.

Not in a dramatic, fall-to-your-knees way—no. It was way quieter than that. Hollow. Like someone had scooped out the warm center of you and forgotten to put it back. Like the days had no sun and no moon. Only cold.

You kept moving, because life didn't stop for a heartbreak you weren't even allowed to admit. You still went to class, still met your friends at the bar every Thursday; still listened to guitar chords drifting over the sand; still watched volleyball games spark and dissolve in the glow of late afternoons.

But the world felt… muted.

You laughed a second too late. Smiled a little too small. Stared at the sea a little too long as if calculating swimming distances your body wouldn't ever survive.

Your group noticed. Of course they noticed—they weren't blind, and you weren't exactly subtle.

Nina cornered you one night, on a Christmas party you'd forced yourself to go to because you thought it might help you. Instead, you just sat outside the venue, a bourbon instead of a caipirinha. No chaser. The melted ice in the glass had numbed your fingers minutes ago, but you didn't care.

She watched you for a second, leaning her elbows on the railing of the balcony, overlooking the water. The waves rolled in and out, slow, lazy, and uncaring. You felt like shouting at them for not noticing your world had ended.

"C'mon," she said gently. "O que houve contigo? What's with you lately?"

You didn't look at her.

Couldn't.

Instead, your eyes followed the dark line of the horizon, where the water melted into the sky—the direction you'd been unconsciously staring at every day now. Wondering whether the ocean was thinner somewhere out there. Whether it was as cold as Shoyou had told you once.

Your throat tightened.

And before you could stop yourself, you whispered:

"É que… eu… sinto tanta falta do sol, Nina." [It's just that... I... miss the sun so much, Nina.]

It wasn't about the weather. It was summer, after all.

Her face softened instantly, and she wrapped both arms around you from the side, pulling you close in a wordless, protective hold.

"Oh, amiga…" she murmured, pressing her cheek to your temple.

And you hated yourself a little for feeling so deeply when the entire time you'd been 'just friends', so broken when on occasions you'd denied it yourself, so betrayed, when you'd been the one who stopped your own words when you were about to confess.

But grief doesn't care about labels, does it? It doesn't care about deadlines, or longing confirmation, or cowardly loves that never get to be and stay in stories you'll tell friends once the wounds heal and in soft bossa nova songs you cry yourself to sleep to while they haven't.

You closed your eyes, breathing in the familiar salt of the sea. The night breeze lifted your hair, warm in that uniquely Brazilian way that always felt like a gentle embrace. You wished for the hundredth time that Hinata had stayed to watch the sunset with you just one more time. Just one more golden hour with him laughing beside you. Just one more evening where you could pretend he'd never leave.

Little did you know, all the way back in Sendai, in a room still half-filled with unpacked suitcases, Hinata Shōyō curled forward on his mattress, phone clutched to his chest like it could anchor him to the life he'd left behind.

Bossa nova trickled softly from the tiny Bluetooth speaker on his nightstand. The same songs you'd played for him on the beach, watching the sun hide behind the waves, explaining what saudade meant while he rested his head on your thighs.

He understood it now. He understood it too well.

His chest tightened, and his eyes stung, then overflowed—sudden, embarrassing, and impossible to stop. He swiped at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie, but the tears kept coming, dropping onto the album cover glowing on his phone screen.

Outside, the snow poured steadily, softening the world into pale silence. The quiet Sendai landscape felt suddenly so small compared to the vastness of the sea he'd fallen in love with—that sea that smelled like salt and sun-warmed skin and the laughter of strangers who welcomed him like family.

He missed Brazil.

He missed the freedom in the air, the warmth of its people, the open affection he'd never experienced so deeply before.

But mostly…

God, he missed you.

He curled in tighter, shaking a little and letting the quiet guitar and soft Portuguese vocals wash over him.

If anyone asked, he'd say it was just jet lag.

Not heartbreak. Not loneliness. Not the ache of missing you so much it hurt to breathe.

Because the truth was cruel and simple:

Japan had his dream. Brazil had you.

And he didn't know how to live in a world that kept both so far apart.

"Nii-san! Christmas dinner is ready!"

Natsu's voice rang from the living room, pulling him back. He swallowed hard, wiped his face again, and prayed he could sit at that table and tell his family all the stories they were waiting to hear about Brazil—without breaking down in tears and admitting in front of all of them just how badly he wished he'd brought you with him.

But life kept happening, the show must go on.

Time didn't heal everything, but it softened the edges. Slowly, too slowly. Clumsily. Like both of you were learning how to walk with a bruise you kept bumping into.

Hinata threw himself into volleyball the way he always had—with every atom of energy his body could muster. Morning runs in the cold, solo drills before sunrise, practices that left his legs trembling. Scrimmages where he pushed himself until his lungs felt like fire.

Tryouts began. Then callbacks. Then more training.

His body grew steadier, sharper, stronger…but the ache in his chest stayed the same.

And every night, when he finally collapsed onto his bed, Brazil crept back in—and he would always dream of that same sand under his toes, the warm press of your thigh under his cheek, and the sound of bossa nova floating through the breeze.

Sometimes he'd open your chat.

Not to send anything. Just to look.

Your last conversation full of cheerful emojis and polite support, both of you pretending not to read between the lines.

Every now and then he'd send you a picture—a snowy street, some silly food he tried, a selfie where he looked unbearably homesick but smiled anyway.

You always replied. Not instantly, maybe not in paragraphs. But always there.

And that was enough for him to breathe again. Sometimes.

Your days went back to being what they'd always been—classes, studying, part-time work, your language group… the things you used to love without thinking.

But now everything carried the faint aftertaste of him.

A stray volleyball on the beach made your heartbeat stutter and then hurt, someone laughing brightly made you look twice. Bossa nova felt like someone had unfolded those origami shapes in your ribs into sheet music.

You finished your study program. Your friends celebrated you. You smiled and danced.

But every night, when your painted and decorated apartment went quiet, you'd open Hinata's messages and read them again.

And again.

And again.

You sent him pictures too—sunsets, your group's goofy outings, Nina hugging the general while he pretended not to blush.

Short messages, kind, warm.

Careful.

Always careful.

Neither of you mentioned the beach. Or heartbreak. Or how much it hurt when you accidentally said saudade in front of someone else and had to swallow tears.

But you sent him a voice note once—just you laughing at something your group did—and Hinata listened to it seven times, smiling so hard his cheeks cramped.

So you both kept going.

Life kept happening, the show must go on.

But your routines had a new, quiet rhythm.

Shōyō☼: Good luck on your exam tomorrow! : Ganbatte on your tryouts! You're going to crush them. Shōyō☼: Look at this curry I made! It's kind of ugly www. : Looks delicious???? Don't disrespect the curry like that. : Nina and the general won a trivia contest today. Shōyō☼: Ehhhh so cool!! I wanna see you guys again. : Saudades. Shōyō☼: (typing… deleting… typing again…) Me too.

Hours. Days. Sometimes weeks between messages. But the connection never faded.

It was quiet and gentle, as it always had been. Like a low tide that never fully receded.

One quiet Wednesday night, you were on your bed, half-studying, half-asleep, half-bored, when your phone buzzed.

Shōyō☼: Today was kinda rough.

You paused.

He rarely said things like that. Not without stuffing them between emojis and sunshine.

: You okay?

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Then came back.

Shōyō☼: Yeah just… tired. I miss Brazil a lot today.

Your chest tightened softly.

: Brazil misses you too. Some days will be heavier.

A minute passed.

Then:

Shōyō☼: Is it weird that I miss talking to you the most? Even when we text all the time it feels like… I dunno… not the same.

Your breath stilled.

It wasn't a confession. But it was definitely close enough to hurt a little.

You stared at the screen, heart thumping painfully with that familiar mix of joy and sorrow curling in your stomach.

And then typed carefully, fingers trembling:

: Not weird at all, Shōyō. I miss you too.

He didn't answer right away, and it made you wonder if you said too much. But then your phone buzzed again.

Shōyō☼: Oh!! Also!! I have my official debut next week!! Like… my actual first pro match! MSBY Jackals vs Schweiden Adlers! I'll finally show Kageyama what I can do.

You smiled—a real one, warm and involuntary.

Shōyō☼: I wish… I wish you could see it. It'd calm me down a lot if you were in the crowd. I don't get stomach aches before matches anymore tho, don't worry.

Your eyes softened, drifting instinctively to the corner of your room, where an already-packed suitcase sat.

Your flight was in three days.

And the tickets to the match were bought weeks ago—courtesy of Oikawa Tōru, who had somehow gotten your number and sent them with a cryptic:

"He'll want you there. And you'll want to be there. Don't be late. And don't spoil the surprise~ (๑>؂•̀๑)"

Your fingers hovered above the keyboard.

You almost told him. Almost typed: I'm coming, you dummy. I wouldn't miss your debut for anything. I miss you too much to stay away.

But you swallowed the confession.

Instead, you wrote:

: You'll do amazing. I'll be cheering for you, don't worry.

He responded immediately.

Shōyō☼: Haha sorry for being clingy! Just thinking a lot today. But thank you… hearing from you always helps.

You held the phone to your chest with a fluttering heart. He didn't have to thank you. In three days, you'd be close enough to touch him again. Close enough to feel the warmth of him, to hear his laugh in person, to see that first brilliant spike with your own eyes again.

And maybe… maybe this time you wouldn't look away when the feelings got too big.

Maybe neither would he.

You hadn't been that nervous since finals week—maybe ever.

Your hands were sweating, your heart was dancing frenetically, and the stadium lights felt too bright—like they knew you were hiding a secret under your jacket:

You were here for him.

For Hinata Shōyō.

Your sun. Your saudade in human form.

The arena buzzed around you as you waved through the crowd to your seat, warm and alive, filled with gold, black, and white. Flags waved, fans shouted chants you didn't know, and your seat vibrated faintly from the bass of the speakers. You sat down, curling your fingers around the strap of your bag like it could anchor you to something, anything. You inhaled slowly—

—and then froze when you heard a familiar name.

"You think Hinata is at the toilet right now?" a small blonde girl whispered, hiding a small laugh behind her hand.

"He said he didn't get stomach aches anymore..." the freckled boy beside her murmured.

"You think that's even true?" came another, unamused voice from behind them.

You turned your head just an inch.

And recognized them instantly—not from real life, but from Hinata's wallpaper.

Yachi Hitoka—tiny, blonde, and vibrating with anxiety. Yamaguchi Tadashi—kind-faced, freckled, and clutching a Jackals towel a little too tightly. Tsukishima Kei—tall, blond, and unimpressed by the entire world.

They were talking about him.

Their Hinata. Your Shōyō.

A strange dizziness hit you, and you laughed to yourself. The universe had a sense of humor, and tonight it was being loud. Out of the entire stadium… You were seated next to the people who shaped him, who loved him, who knew him in ways you only saw glimpses of.

You were trying very hard not to stare when Yachi bent down too quickly, panickedly searching for something in her bag, and elbowed you right in the arm.

"AH—! I'M SO SORRY!" she squeaked in English, bowing so fast she nearly headbutted you next.

You quickly shook your hands. "No, no, I'm okay! Don't worry!"

She sagged in relief—mostly because you were chill about it, partly because you answered in Japanese.

"…Thank goodness. I would've died if I bruised a stranger before the game even started…"

You smiled, soft and warm.

"Are you... Hitoka by any chance?"

She blinked. "…Y-yes? Do we know each other?"

"Oh! No, I just recognized you from some photos. I'm a friend of Shōyō's. From Brazil"

And all three of them went completely still.

Yachi's mouth fell open. "Are you... Are you Y/N?"

When you nodded, their shock only grew. Yamaguchi's eyes widened comically. Tsukishima choked on absolutely nothing.

You stared at them, suddenly a little confused.

"…Um. All good?"

They exchanged looks—silent, intense, chaotic telepathy happening in real time. Then Yamaguchi, bless his sweet heart, blurted:

"Hinata talks so much about you."

Yachi nodded violently.

"Like—so much. You're gorgeous by the way!"

Tsukishima groaned, burying half his face in his scarf. "Oh my god, he actually didn't make you up.”

"I—he… talks about me?"

"Constantly," Yachi said, small fists clenched to her chest. "He won't shut up about you—uh—sorry, that sounded rude—! He's just—happy? Like really, really happy when he talks about you."

Yamaguchi tilted his head, careful, but so curious he couldn't afford to not ask right now, with you right in front of him.

"Are you two…?"

"Oh—no, no," you said quickly, waving your hands, heart hammering. "We're just friends."

They all shared a look, and it suddenly felt nostalgic, seeing that look again. That loud, judgmental, liar look you got used to back when Hinata was in Brazil.

Your heart stuttered so hard at that you almost missed the lights dimming. You cleared your throat, staring back down at the court as the Jackals jogged out for warm-ups.

And then—There he was.

Same bright hair. Same brilliant energy. Same smile that hit you like summer.

He looked… different. No—he looked the same. But also so, so different.

The boy you met in Brazil had been bright—all potential, all warmth, all eagerness. The man warming up on the court now was that same brightness distilled into purpose. Focused. Sharper. Radiant.

His body moved like it knew exactly what it was made for. His smile lit the entire stadium.

And your heart… oh, your heart hurt. It swelled. It cracked. It overflowed.

Because he looked so happy. Because he looked like the dream you used to fall asleep next to on the sand. Because distance hadn't dimmed any feeling you thought it had—not about him, not for you.

Your chest tightened at the sight of him jumping, running, laughing with his teammates like your world hadn't tilted the day he left.

Tsukishima noticed. Because of course he did. And seeing those eyes, the way they shone, following Hinata's every move, made him smirk faintly and mutter:

"…Sure. Just friends."

Yamaguchi elbowed him. He smirked harder.

The match finally started, and every jump made your pulse spike. Every receive made you exhale in relief. Every spike made your whole body react—muscles tightening, breath hitching, the kind of involuntary joy that comes from watching someone you love do what they were born to do.

And you reacted exactly like someone who knew just how many dawns he trained through. Someone who witnessed the first steps toward this very court.

He was brilliant, beautiful. And you were so proud you thought you might cry.

Hinata spiked—and scored—and you nearly jumped to your feet.

Yamaguchi grinned. "He improved that angle."

"He improved everything," Yachi agreed, eyes shiny.

Tsukishima glanced your way again, noticing how emotional you looked.

"He's been different since he came back from Brazil," he said casually.

You swallowed.

"Yeah," you whispered. "He's worked really hard."

Tsukki hummed—a knowing, almost annoying hum—and looked back at the court.

The match ended in roars and applause. Your ears rang, your cheeks were wet, and you didn't even remember when you started crying.

Yachi tapped your shoulder gently.

"Um... Y/N-san?"

You wiped your eyes quickly, hoping you didn't look as wrecked as you felt, and smiled at her.

"Y-yes?"

"We're all celebrating Hinata's debut later... Would you like to come?"

"It's a Christmas party!" Yamaguchi added.

Your answer was instant.

"Absolutely. I'd love to. Thank you, Hitoka-san."

The night air outside the restaurant was cold in that late-December Japan way—sharp enough to sting your lungs when you breathed too deep, clean enough that the city felt awake and hushed all at once. Your breath fogged faintly in front of you. Strings of Christmas lights spilled warm gold across the sidewalk, reflected in the thin sheen of melted snow and afternoon rain that still clung to the pavement.

The street smelled like fried food and sugar—karaage and something sweet and seasonal you couldn't quite place. Somewhere down the block, a busker strummed a slow, melancholy tune, the notes wobbling gently through a portable amp, half-swallowed by traffic and winter coats.

You'd been standing there for ten whole minutes. Maybe fifteen. Maybe an hour. Time lost all its meaning when your heartbeat was trying to escape through your ribs.

Yachi had stayed with you, sweet and chatty, filling the waiting silence with little stories about the first time she'd met Hinata—how he'd given her courage she didn't know she had, how he made people feel braver just by being there. She talked about university, about design projects, about life moving forward.

You nodded. Smiled. Tried to listen.

You felt a little guilty, because your nerves wouldn't let you be fully present. Your attention kept slipping back to your phone, to the familiar name lighting up your lockscreen again and again—messages stacked like tiny, impatient bricks:

Shōyō☼: Did you watch the stream?? God, I'm so tired www DID YOU SEE THAT LAST POINT THO??? ARE YOU AWAKE?? HELLOOOOOO

You didn't respond. Not because you didn't want to—but because you didn't trust yourself not to type out the truth the moment your fingers touched the screen.

I'm here. I'm already here. Where are you?

The surprise felt worth the guilt—right up until now, when your brain started whispering doubts in the spaces between breaths.

What if he's too tired? What if this is weird? What if he's moved on?

Your stomach twisted so tightly it felt like your ribs were holding their breath. You pressed a hand to your sternum, fingers curling into your coat, and inhaled slowly—repeating the small prayer you'd picked up in Brazil without ever meaning to.

Calma… calma…

Headlights swept over the sidewalk. A van rolled to the curb. Laughter spilling before the doors even slid open—voices overlapping in post-match chaos.

"Ah! It's them!" Yachi chirped, and the sound sent your pulse into overdrive.

Bokuto jumped out first, already mid-sentence, hooking one arm around Hinata's neck even before his feet hit the ground.

"YOU WERE AMAZING OUT THERE!" he boomed, messing with his hair and shaking him like a bobblehead.

"Bo—Kuto—san—stop—" Hinata wheezed, laughing that loud, sun-crackling laugh you had replayed in your head a thousand times with his hands fumbling uselessly as he tried to pry Bokuto off.

He looked a little tired, a little sweaty, hair mussed from all the movement—but he was glowing in that particular way only Hinata managed: like he'd swallowed the sun and it leaked out in his grin.

You drank him in the way parched people drink water. You drank the sight of him in like someone who's been wandering in total darkness, and finally got a sight of the sun again.

Your sun.

Then he turned.

His eyes swept over the small cluster of smokers huddled outside, the street slick with melted snow, the warm glow of the restaurant window—and then they landed on you.

His smile collapsed like a dropped curtain, and his whole body went still—jaw slack, shoulders folding inward, as if the cold had suddenly reached straight through his chest and knocked the air out of him.

For one terrifying second, he looked almost… lost.

Atsumu, halfway behind him, followed his frozen gaze and let out the most obnoxiously delighted, "Ohoooo?"

Kiyoomi paused mid-step, one eyebrow lifting slowly. Bokuto's hand slipped from Hinata's head, forgotten.

Meian frowned faintly.

"What's up? What are we staring at?" he muttered, craning his neck. Because Hinata was looking at you the way people look at miracles, and that in itself—his shiny eyes, his rising chest as he held in his breath—was a sight for sore eyes.

"…Hi," you managed, the word barely more than fog in the cold air.

But something in the sound of your voice broke whatever fragile spell had frozen him. Tears pooled in his eyes so fast that a surprised gasp escaped you.

"Shōyō—"

But you barely managed to let a sound out, barely managed to open your arms before he was crashing into you.

You stumbled back a half-step from the sheer force of it and let out a tiny, startled laugh as his arms locked around your waist with a force that was half joy, half desperation. His face buried into your neck, and you felt the dampness of his eyes against your skin.

His hair tickled your ear. His heartbeat felt like a hummingbird trapped against your chest.

You didn't realize you'd started to cry, too, until you felt his fingers fist the back of your coat after a first sob broke through you.

He held you like he'd been drowning. Like he'd forgotten how to breathe without you. And when he finally spoke, it was a whisper—ragged and trembling against your neck, in that accent you'd missed so much it hurt to even remember, but was now right here.

"Senti... tanta saudade de você…" [I missed you so much.]

The breath on your skin sent a chill down your spine. His scent—sweat from the match, a hint of citrus shampoo, and something unmistakably him—fled your senses until everything hurt in the sweetest way.

Your voice broke as your hands curled up his back, pulling him impossibly closer.

"Eu também, Shōyō… tanta, tanta saudade." [Me too, Shōyō. So, so much.]

He exhaled like he'd been waiting years. Centuries to hear that.

Behind you two, the team was very much staring.

Atsumu's grin stretched wide, sharp and triumphant. "Is that the Brazil girlfriend?" he called, eyes wicked.

"I KNEW THEY WERE REAL!" Bokuto crowed, beaming.

Meian sighed, long-suffering but smiling despite himself, and planted a hand on each of their heads, making them yelp.

"He said she was not his girlfriend," he hissed under his breath.

"But he said—"

"Well, well," Meian cut in, already steering them toward the restaurant, "let's celebrate inside. Give them some space."

The two rascals protested loudly as he ushered them away, murmuring a few indulgent 'there, there's like he was corralling overexcited children.

Hinata pulled back just enough to look at you, his hands still warm against your cheeks, palms cradling your face as if afraid you might vanish if he blinked too hard.

You were certain he was going to kiss you.

Everyone was.

Even Meian paused at the door, eyebrows lifting as he took in the scene, before Sakusa nudged him sharply in the side with a dry, unimpressed, "Get on with it."

Meian only shrugged, a knowing smirk tugging at his mouth, and finally turned away.

Hinata's eyes were glossy with tears as they traced your face slowly, revisiting freckles, the curve of your lashes, the familiar shape of your mouth. As if he were committing you to memory all over again.

His voice trembled when he spoke again.

"I thought—I didn't— You didn't answer— I thought maybe—" He swallowed, breath shaky. "You're really here. What are you doing here?"

You blinked hard, chasing away the sting in your eyes, forcing a smile that felt a little fragile around the edges.

"I came to see your match, dummy!" you said, letting out a small laugh to steady yourself. "Aaand to apply for a work or study visa. Something like that."

His expression shifted in a blink—concern, then hope.

"Where are you staying?"

"At a hotel. I'm looking for somewhere to rent while I get all the paperwork ready—"

"Come live with me."

The words landed between you like a dropped glass. You froze.

"Eh?"

"I have space, stay with me—" His words tumbled out, urgent and sudden.

"Shōyō—I—"

It was too much, too sudden.

You hadn't seen him in so long, and in the span of minutes he had cried into your neck, held you like he was afraid to let go, and now he was asking you to live with him?

With what intentions exactly? He couldn't have possibly been thinking straight.

And you knew. You knew if you moved in with him now, the careful boundaries you'd drawn would evaporate, and every feeling you'd repressed during his stay in Brazil would bloom open again and probably swallow you whole.

Your mind was a thousand tiny images at once: moving boxes, nights you had spent cuddling with him in Brazil, another "we're just friends" that would tear you apart, the terrifying thought of confessing and losing him, and above them all—the wild, shimmering possibility of waking up next to him every morning.

You couldn't survive the heartache, the uncertainty; you couldn't let him play with your heart again without meaning to.

But god save you—

His eyes, his face in that moment—begging for an answer, begging for a yes.

They made it very hard to not give in.

Yachi, who had witnessed the entire moment with the wide-eyed devotion of a rom-com extra, finally stepped in—like a saving beam of awkward, earnest sunlight.

"Hi-Hinata! Um—maybe you two can talk about this later?" she said, hands fidgeting nervously in front of her coat. "People are waiting for you inside. We'll celebrate first, then—after—talk?"

Her voice carried the careful gentleness of someone trying very hard not to intrude.

Hinata blinked, as if the world snapped back into focus. His shoulders relaxed, eyes softening.

"Right. Sorry."

You offered Yachi a small, grateful smile—one edged with something fragile—and she returned it with a knowing nod that felt like a promise: "I've got you."

You needed to think. Think about it well.

So you swallowed the moment whole, tucked it somewhere deep in your chest like a secret you weren't ready to open yet, and followed Hinata inside. The noise was welcoming and terrible and perfect all at once.

Inside, the restaurant buzzed like a living thing.

Paper lanterns glowed softly overhead, their golden light spilling across polished wooden tables already crowded with food and laughter. Someone had strung up subtle Christmas decorations—pine sprigs, red ribbon, tiny bells that chimed whenever the door opened. Outside it was winter, sharp and cold, but in here, everything steamed and hummed and lived-in.

Plates arrived in waves—grilled meat, steaming rice, shared bowls that vanished as quickly as they appeared. Hungry athletes and proud families clinking glasses. Toast after toast rose into the air, voices loud and a little tipsy as they praised Hinata again and again.

Your head spun a little. In a good way, though. Not from the alcohol—you'd barely had any—but from sheer fullness of it. And from the amount of Japanese your brain was computing and interpreting in your head.

Hinata was everywhere, and he brought you everywhere with him. Laughing, bowing awkwardly at congratulations, waving his hands too much when people praised him, cheeks warm with beer and excitement. He looked lighter than ever, like something in him had finally clicked into place.

If he was disappointed about you sidestepping the conversation earlier, he didn't show it. Not even a crack. No hesitation, no shadow behind his smile. And that eased the tight coil of anxiety in your chest just a little.

For tonight, at least, he was simply happy.

Because of course he was enjoying himself. Hinata Shōyō didn't know how not to.

He introduced you proudly to everyone, hand resting at the small of your back whenever he pulled you into conversations, touch familiar and grounding.

"This is Y/n! From Brazil."

From Brazil. Not my friend. Not the girl I like.

Just enough distance to be safe. Just enough closeness to make your chest ache.

Everyone reacted the same way—eyes widening in recognition, faces lighting up like they'd finally put a voice to a name.

"Ah! From Brazil!" "So you're real." "You're gorgeous!" "How long are you staying?" "He talked so much about you!"

Every time, Hinata laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, ears turning red in a way that felt painfully familiar. You smiled through it—warm and a little dizzy—your heart caught somewhere between pride and a quiet, loving panic.

Dinner went on. Plates emptied. Drinks refilled.

Bokuto started recounting Hinata's every point in the match with wild arm movements. He knocked over a glass, then deflated instantly when the man beside him—his friend with glasses—scolded him under his breath. Then Bokuto leaned in, his friend whispered something in his ear, and then he lit up all over again, cheeks pink, grin soft and unguarded.

You filed that away absently.

Akaashi, you learned, worked as an editor for a shōnen manga magazine. He was soft spoken, but there was a steadiness to his voice that carried easily across the table.

"Hinata mentioned you know many languages."

You smiled, shaking your head. "He's being too nice. I just love learning any language I can get my hands on."

"Have you ever done translation work?" Akaashi asked. "We're currently looking for a localization specialist at my company."

You blinked, caught off guard, then shook your head again.

"I haven't. And I can't really work on a tourist visa, can I?"

Akaashi hummed thoughtfully, nodding as if turning over a puzzle piece.

"That can be arranged."

You laughed softly, unsure if he was joking. "Would you… would you really do that for me? A complete stranger?"

"Only if you plan on staying for a while," he said easily.

He threw a fond look at Hinata, who was chatting with Bokuto next to you.

"And we really hope you do."

Heat rushed to your cheeks. You looked down for a moment, then back up, offering a genuine smile—careful to avoid the knowing glint in Akaashi's eyes.

"Thank you, Akaashi-san."

"There's no need," he replied. "Call me when you've made up your mind. I'll hold the position until then."

His words settled over you quietly as you exchanged contact information.

Everyone seemed to expect you to stay in Japan. Everyone seemed to want you to. You liked that.

Somewhere in the middle of conversation, in the middle of celebration and happiness, and without any ceremony at all, Hinata's hand found yours beneath the table.

You startled a little. Not enough for anyone to notice—but enough that your breath hitched, sharp yet quiet.

His fingers slid between yours easily, like they'd done this a thousand times before, like it was muscle memory—the most natural thing in the world.

At least in Brazil, it was.

There, touch had been light. Casual. Sun-warmed and easy. It never felt like a statement—just affection, just comfort. Just friends who were a little too close, in a place where closeness came easily.

But here?

Here it felt denser. Like this small, hidden contact carried weight. Like every inch of closeness was… deliberate, on his part.

You suddenly became acutely aware of everything all at once: the people around the table, the way his thumb pressed gently against the side of your index finger and traced the skin there, slow and absent-minded. The way his knee bumped yours—and stayed. The fact that no one else could see it, and yet it felt like the loudest thing in the room.

Hinata didn't look at you right away. He kept listening to Bokuto talk, nodding along, smiling politely at the right moments. But his grip tightened just slightly—grounding.

Then, finally, he glanced down at you—just for a second—and his eyes softened instantly.

Not the bright, explosive joy he showed the rest of the table, but the kind of look that said 'I'm glad you're here' without using words.

The kind of look that said something else entirely, too.

Something you couldn't quite name. Or maybe didn't want to—because naming it would mean hoping, and hoping meant risking disappointment.

Your stomach flipped, and for the first time since you'd met him, you looked away first, suddenly fascinated by your drink.

He squeezed your hand once more, gently, and didn't let go.

You swore you heard him laugh softly.

"Too cute," he murmured against the side of his other hand.

You knocked your knee against his in flustered protest and tried to slip your hand free.

But he didn't let you.

The night rolled on like that—celebratory, loud, and impossibly warm.

And through it all, Hinata stayed exactly where he was supposed to be: laughing, shining, alive. But every now and then, beneath the table, his fingers would tighten around yours.

As if reminding himself. As if reminding you.

Of what, you didn't know.

The celebration dissolved slowly, like sugar at the bottom of a glass.

People filtered out in small, noisy groups—laughing too loud, swaying just a little. Bokuto declared he was not drunk (he absolutely was). Atsumu tried to start a chant that Meian shut down immediately, with the van keys already in hand and Dad Mode fully activated.

"Everyone who's riding with me—now," he ordered.

Groans followed, but compliance followed faster.

Hinata walked you outside with the others, and the night air was cooler now, clinging to your skin after the warmth of the restaurant. Neon still glowed above the street, but softer somehow, like the city was winding down with you.

You lingered near the curb as goodbyes unfolded around you.

Yachi— with flushed cheeks and questionable balance—hugged you tight and exchanged contact info with you, whispering something sweet and earnest you promised yourself you'd remember. Yamaguchi waved with a wide, drunken grin, slurring his farewells, and Tsukishima, sober as ever, gave you a brief look that felt suspiciously like approval before turning away and getting into the car with the other two.

One by one, engines started. Doors shut. Laughter faded.

And then it was just you and Hinata.

He rocked slightly on his heels, with his hands buried deep in his pockets and suddenly shy in a way that made your chest ache with recognition.

"Ah—um," he started, then stopped. Cleared his throat. "So… where are you staying again?"

"At a hotel," you said, smiling. "Still."

He nodded, eyes flicking away, then back to you. There it was again—that look. Like he was standing at the edge of something and deciding whether to step forward.

"Do you—" He inhaled. "Do you wanna… come over?"

You thought of your suitcase, abandoned and lonely in a generic hotel room. Of the way he'd introduced you to everyone he loved, of how his hand had fit so easily in yours under the table. And before your courage could falter, you tilted your head and let a teasing smile curl your lips.

"Wow, Shōyō," you said lightly. "We just saw each other again and you already want me at your place? Japan really turned you into a player, huh?"

Hinata made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a choke.

"EH?! N—NO—THAT'S NOT—!" he rushed, face going nuclear red as his hands flew out of his pockets to cover it. "I didn't mean it like that! I just—I mean—I thought—you're tired—and the hotel is—and my place is close, I—I have space—!"

You laughed softly, stepping closer, saving him from his own spiraling.

"I'm kidding," you said gently. "Relax."

He froze. Because you were close now. Close enough to see the faint shadows under his eyes. And your breath caught—because this time it was even clearer. Intent. Your teasing smile softened.

This… this was it, wasn't it?

Whatever had been hovering between you for years. Whatever had grown quietly in shared caipirinhas, training sessions, and long talks at the beach. Whatever had survived distance and silence and longing.

Your heart beat loud in your ears.

"…Okay," you said. His eyes widened.

"I'll stay with you," you added, quickly, before fear could steal it from you. "Just tonight."

Hinata blinked, momentarily stunned—even though he'd been the one to ask.

"R-really?"

You nodded.

"Really."

He smiled then, small and breathless.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Yeah. Just tonight."

Famous last words.

Hinata's apartment was small.

Not cramped—just… compact. Thoughtfully lived-in.

You slipped your shoes off at the door, instinctively lining them up before you even realized you were doing it, and stepped inside. The place smelled faintly of clean laundry and a lot like him. A narrow hallway opened into a combined living space and kitchen, everything neat in that slightly chaotic way that screamed busy person who tries his best.

By the window, perched on a low cabinet, stood a small Christmas tree—barely taller than your thigh. Simple. A little crooked. Decorated with mismatched ornaments: a few red and gold baubles, a string of warm fairy lights, and what looked suspiciously like a tiny volleyball charm hanging from one of the branches. No topper. No presents underneath. Just… there.

It felt very him.

A low table sat by the tv, in front of it, a small couch. Volleyball gear was stacked carefully in one corner—knee pads, shoes, a worn duffel bag with fraying straps you recognized from Brazil—while another corner held a bookshelf that surprised you. Manga spines. Training manuals. A couple of Portuguese textbooks, dog-eared and heavily annotated.

Your heart squeezed.

The kitchen was tidy but clearly underused: a rice cooker, a frying pan hanging from a hook, instant noodle cups stacked on the counter like a guilty secret. On the wall above the sink, taped slightly crooked, was a photo. A group picture—blurry, laughing, and familiar.

Brazil.

The beach. The sun. Nina. The general.

You.

"—I, um," Hinata said behind you, scratching the back of his neck, ears already pink. "It's not much. Sorry."

You turned, smiling softly. "Shōyō, this is cute. It's so you!"

That only made him blush harder.

You glanced toward the sleeping arrangements, and there it was—one futon, neatly folded in the corner.

You raised a brow, slow and deliberate.

"Only one futon?" you asked lightly.

Hinata combusted.

"I—I mean—! I was planning to sleep on the couch! It's fine! I usually do when Bokuto-san crashes here, and—!" He gestured wildly, then froze. "…You're teasing me again, aren't you?"

You laughed, warm and easy, and his shoulders finally dropped.

"Relax," you said.

You both settled on the couch eventually, the city lights spilling in through the window in soft amber stripes. The television played something mindless—variety show chatter fading into background noise as you both talked over it, filling in the blanks of months spent apart.

At some point, without really thinking about it, you shifted.

You sat between his legs with your back resting against his chest, his knees bracketing your hips. It felt natural. Your bodies remembered this shape from Brazil, even if your minds pretended not to.

Hinata inhaled as you settled, slow and deep, and then sighed.

"I missed you," he said quietly, voice warm against your hair.

Your chest ached most sweetly.

"Yeah," you murmured. "I missed you too."

Your phone buzzed. You frowned slightly and lifted it.

Akaashi Keiji: Spoke to my boss. The company can sponsor you for a work visa if you decide to accept. We'd need to start the process soon—let me know when you want to talk details.

You huffed a small laugh, looking at the time on your phone and wondering how and why he'd talk to his boss right after a celebration, and at these hour of the night.

"God. He's efficient."

Hinata peeked over your shoulder, half-reading the message.

"That's Akaashi-san for you. I think he works even when he sleeps."

You smiled, then grew quieter as you locked your phone.

Hinata hesitated for a second, then squeezed you a little harder without noticing.

"…Are you going to say yes?"

You leaned back a little more into him, eyes on the ceiling. "I don't know yet."

He nodded, though you felt the motion more than saw it.

"I have time," you added gently. "Tourist visa's ninety days. I want to think. Properly."

Silence settled—not uncomfortable, but heavy. The kind that pressed against your ribs and waited. Hinata's arms rested loosely at your sides, not holding you, not letting go either. His chin hovered just above your shoulder.

You didn't know it yet—but somewhere in that quiet, with the city breathing outside and your heartbeat syncing with his, Hinata Shōyō was already standing at the edge of a decision he'd been building toward for months.

Your weight against his chest, the steady rise and fall of your breathing, the warmth of your body fitting against his like it had always belonged there—it was almost enough to make him forget how fast his heart was beating. Almost.

"The next time I see her, I'll tell her."

He'd said it so casually in the locker room after practice, sweat-soaked and laughing, Sakusa shoving a bottle of water into his hands. Bokuto had been talking too loud, Atsumu had been annoying as usual, and Hinata—still riding the high of being back, of finally standing on this side of the net—had said it without thinking.

The room had gone dead silent.

Then—

"Ohhhhhh?" "Brazil girl?" "Knew it." "GO SHOYOU! BE BRAVE!"

He hadn't taken it back. He never would.

Brazil had been a slow, beautiful undoing.

He remembered you walking ahead of him on the beach, barefoot, dress fluttering in the wind, turning back just to smile at him—bright and teasing and so warm it made his chest ache. The sun had painted your skin gold, and for a second, he forgot how to breathe.

He'd wanted to reach for you then. To lace his fingers through yours. To pull you close and feel if your heart raced like his did.

It happened again and again.

You laughing, head tipped back. You calling his name across the sand. You brushing sunscreen onto his shoulders like it meant nothing. You curling into his side on the couch, soft and sleepy and there.

Every time, something in him screamed mine—not in ownership, not in entitlement, but in certainty. In recognition.

But he never crossed that line. Because he knew himself.

If he kissed you, he wouldn't stop there. If he held you, he'd want to hold you forever. If he loved you—he would do it loudly. Openly. With his whole chest and no shame.

And he was leaving.

He couldn't ask you to come with him, nor could he ask you to wait for him. He couldn't ask you to stretch yourself across an ocean just to meet him in the middle.

Long-distance wasn't just hard—it was cruel. And if it broke, it wouldn't break quietly. It would tear.

So he'd chosen silence.

He'd told himself it was kinder, that you deserved freedom, that loving you from afar was better than risking hurting you.

Even if it meant suffering anyway.

Now, sitting here in his apartment. In Japan. With you wrapped in his arms and a message glowing on your phone that could change everything—

He couldn't wait anymore.

If you stayed. If you chose Japan?

Then he wanted you. All of you. Not in pieces. Not in almosts.

He couldn't stand the thought of you belonging to a future that didn't include him. Couldn't imagine holding anyone else the way he held you now.

There was no one else in his heart.

Hinata lowered his chin, resting it gently on your shoulder, breath steadying as he made his decision.

No more guessing. No more assuming. No more silence.

If you stayed, he would tell you. And if he could do anything to convince you to stay, he would take his chance at it.

And if you would take him, he would love you the way he always had: completely.

He didn't move for a long moment.

He just breathed you in.

The quiet of his apartment hummed around you—the low whirr of his fridge, the distant city noise softened by the winter air and the snow that was starting to fall. The glow from the TV painted everything in muted blues and golds, flickering gently over your skin.

You were warm in his arms. To warm. Perfectly so.

The decision settled and solidified, unshakable in his chest. He whispered your name like it pained him, but in the way only a beautiful ache was leaving him.

And then carefully, he leaned in. Breathing you in, brushing his lips on the skin where your shoulder met your neck. They made their way up, softly caressing the skin and leaving the heat of the sun in their wake.

Then, barely there. A soft, lingering press just below your ear.

Your breath caught. You felt him smile faintly against you at the reaction.

Then, in a voice so quiet it felt like a secret meant only for your skin, he whispered:

"Would it be okay... If I asked you to stay?"

His lips lingered there after the question, unhurried, as if granting you time to think. As if offering himself completely and waiting to see if you would take him.

Your eyes softened.

Because you knew.

You weren't an idiot. You'd known, really. In the way he had looked at you all night—soft and awed and like there was something lingering at the edge of his tongue. In the way he had introduced you to everyone at the restaurant, and the reactions of his team. In the fact that you'd been offered a job by one of his most trusted people. In the way his hand hadn't once let go of yours under the table.

This was it.

This kiss.

This plead against your skin.

You slowly turned in his arms until you were facing him, and cupped his face in both hands.

He looked into your eyes like he had been waiting his entire life to be allowed to. Half-lidded, shining eyes. The windows to his soul were open and earnestand utterly unguarded. Lips parted, just lightly, breath shallow. Every thought was written plainly across his face without even trying to hide it.

You smiled. Gentle. Fond. Teasing, if just a little.

"Took you long enough, Shōyō."

His eyes watched your lips as you spoke, and before he could even attempt to respond, you leaned in to kiss him.

The kiss was soft, at first.

Your lips met like they were checking. As if asking permission to one another though you already had it. A careful press, warm and sweet and full of restraint that lasted exactly half a second before he exhaled your name into your mouth like a prayer.

Then it turned a little clumsy. Both of you figuring out the right timing to match eachother.

He was hungry, but unrushed, reverent. Like he was afraid it might be a dream and he didn't want to wake.

His hands came up to your waist, with fingers that trembled just slightly as they anchored themselves on the plush of your flesh. He kissed you deeper, pouring everything he'd held back into the way he fit himself into you.

You tasted home on his tongue.

Brazil sunsets and shared breaths and all the words he'd never said.

Your thumb brushed his cheek, your other hand travelling to the back of his neck, and then melted into you, pressing closer, a quiet helpless sound slipping from him before he even realized it. His forehead pressed against yours when you pulled back for air, breath warm and uneven.

He smiled softly. Shaky. Real.

"I love you."

Always the simplest truth in the world.

And outside, it was cold, so cold. The kind of cold that crept into bones, the city wrapped in silver and stillness as snow fell quietly against the windows.

But in here, in between his arms, in his hands and his tongue as his breath traced along your skin, in the feeling of his skin on yours as layers of clothing fell under tenbling hands, it was warm.

So warm.

Like melting under the sun in the most delicious way.

With Hinata sleeping beside you, breathing slow and even, with one arm heavy around your waist like it had always belonged there, you reached for your phone.

The screen lit the room softly. You opened your messages and typed:

: Thank you so much, Akaashi-san. Whenever you have time, I'd love to meet for coffee and talk about the job.

It was the easiest text you'd sent in your life.

Hinata shifted beside you, pulling you closer in his sleep and pressing his forehead lightly against your shoulder with a quiet hum—like he sensed it even then, even in the arms of Morpheus.

You smiled in the dark, slipping the phone away and sinking back into him, pressing a soft kiss on his forehead.

There was no ache pressing at your ribs. No doubt tugging at the edges of your thoughts, no weight of everything left unsaid in Brazil. Of late nights and unasked questions and longing that had nowhere to go. No weight of the years and miles you'd survived apart.

No coldness, even if snow fell outside.

Only the warmth of the sun.

Your sun.