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warnings: explicit sexual content(18+), body horror, gore, child abuse, obsessive behavior, stalking, religious fanaticism, unhealthy relationships, dubious consent, power imbalance, teratophilia, etc.
summary: the lads make john a hinge profile against his will, and to everyone’s surprise, he matches with you within ninety seconds
cw: mdni, fem!reader, age gap (30/43), idk how hinge actually works tbh, john price the feminist, alcohol, insecurities, fluff, smut, oral f rec, piv (14.4k)
John has been irritable for months and it's getting worse.
He knows it the way you know a tooth is starting to rot from the inside, tongue prodding at it every hour.
On Wednesday, he reamed Johnny out for being three minutes late to the briefing. It was the kind of reaming that had everyone's eyes turned down into their coffees and files while Johnny stood in front at attention, toes squared, ears hot.
John went on and on, red-faced, telling him that his 'admin's a disgrace', and that he'd better 'get a fuckin' grip before you're explaining your timings to your old CO'.
Somewhere in the middle of it — around ‘disgrace’ — John heard himself.
He finished the dress-down anyway. Ending on a firm threat of a year-long inventory assignment.
It was rough enough to watch that when the room cleared out, Simon hung back. He stayed in his seat, leaning back with his arms folded, eyes following John as he aggressively organized his paperwork at the front of the room,squaring stacks that were already square.
"You need somethin', Riley?" John asked, never looking up.
Simon's mouth was twisted beneath his balaclava as he weighed his options. He wasn't especially eager to be John's second victim of the day, but it'd been miserable for weeks with no stop in sight. In the end, he decided to be straight—
"Y'need'a get laid, boss."
John's hands immediately froze.
That unyielding anger came up his chest right on schedule — insubordinate, out of line — and then couldn't quite find his footing in it because the truth was a trapdoor just under him.
His eyes flicked up and across the room, ears warming up just like Johnny's had an hour ago.
"Bloody ornery, you are," Simon went on. "'ave been."
Simon wasn't wrong, John knew that.
The work winds them all too tight — adrenaline that can't be spent, images that don't erase, choices made under duress that keep them questioning at three in the morning. And everyone's got a valve that lets the steam out. Johnny shouts his out at the football. Kyle has somewhere to be lately that he's cagey about, and Simon has whatever Simon has, no one asks.
And John drives home, shuts the door, and the house is quiet, his walls holding all the built-up pressure.
Ten months since his usual I'm-Home-Hookup found herself a steady bloke and stopped answering his calls. He'd told himself the whole time it was casual right up until it ended, when he learned it had actually been load-bearing.
And was that affecting his mood? Maybe.
His eyes narrowed on Simon and his jaw ticked at the hinge. He threw his chin toward the open door.
"Fuck off out've my briefin' room, Lieutenant."
Simon's chair scraped across the linoleum when he stood, sighing through the cloth over his face.
"I jus' think—"
"OUT."
The door clicked shut behind him, and John stood in the silence for a moment.
Then he squared the stacks again.
——
Johnny never volunteers to bring the beer, yet here he is at half seven with a box of glass bottles rattling on his shoulder, grinning under the porch light. Behind him, the headcount runs long by one. Three men when John only agreed to two. Kyle with a canvas bag full of crisps. Simon at the back, hands sunk in his pockets.
"Thought it was just you and Garrick?"
"Aye, well." Johnny shoulders past him into the hall, close enough that their shirts drag. "Simon heard there was football."
"Simon doesn't care about football," John retorts as the rest of them push their way inside.
"I care 'bout football," Simon lies through a simper no one can see, wiping his boots on the mat.
Unfortunately for John, his team is undoubtedly adept at what they've trained in and he doesn’t always catch when there’s fuckery afoot.
Under his nose, in his very own home, Johnny distracts him with talk about the match while Kyle lifts his phone from the side table just beside his elbow. Simon waits an appropriate amount of time before slipping away to the kitchen to guess the passcode, which he manages in one go.
"Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that…" Kyle mumbles as he swipes to the App Store.
"He textin' anyone?" Simon cranes his neck over Kyle's shoulder. "He used t’see tha’ one bird… wot was her name…?"
"Leah," Kyle answers flatly. "Laura?" he second-guesses as he thumbs in the passcode again to approve the install: Hinge Dating App. "M'not lookin' at his texts, mate. Be lucky he doesn't RTU us just for this. Plus, I think he said she started seeing some—"
"—y'know, Cap," Johnny's voice cuts through, a warning for the men in the kitchen. "I can get ye another beer, y'don't have…"
Simon and Kyle glance up from where they've leaned against the counter and freeze when John appears in the doorway, face screwed with suspicion. His eyes flick between the phone in Kyle's grasp and the faces lit behind it.
His initial thought is that the phone's got a nice, durable case, proper practical. His second thought is to start patting down his pockets with his free hand — which all turn up empty.
The room's gone still, a collective held breath to see which way the tension'll break.
"That's my phone."
"It is," Kyle agrees carefully.
Johnny appears at John's shoulder, squeezing past into the kitchen. "Cap, before you start—"
"When'd you nick it?" His eyes accurately settle on Kyle, the slickest of the bunch.
"Doesn't matter when, sir. We just—"
"It matters to me." John puts his empty beer bottle on the table and uses both hands now to pat down his pockets a second time, not quite believing his own team got the drop on him. "Professionally speakin',” he mumbles.
"Wot really needs addressin' is your passcode," Simon grumbles. "0-0-0-6?"
"Christ," Johnny snickers.
John chooses to ignore them and holds his hand out, palm up. But Kyle doesn't fork it over. Instead, he looks back at the screen and watches the progress ring around the icon close in on itself.
"What're we doin' right now?" John presses, stepping closer.
"Jus' take a seat, boss," Simon suggests, gesturing to the kitchen table just as Johnny yanks a chair out, beaming something mischievous.
John looks at the chair, then looks at Johnny.
"Think I'll stand."
"Suit yourself," Johnny spins the chair around and drops into it, arms folding over the back.
Kyle checks the screen one more time before turning it around. A new little white icon sits on John's home screen, Kyle points at it. John squints to read the little letters beneath it.
"What's Hinge?"
"It's a dating app," Kyle answers and places the phone on the table.
A dating app….
Grown adults sorting through each other like they're shopping. Swipe, tap, Add to Cart. He's heard the lads chat about it for years — the 'ghosting', the games — and always thought: thank god that's not me.
Under the simmering contempt, the idea of typing hello to a stranger who might simply never reply (left on read, whatever ungodly hour of the soul that phrase was invented in) shoots something cold through him.
There's a beat of hesitation before his eyes snap to Simon, the scowl on his face carrying the weight of Wednesday's interaction.
"This is you, then?"
"Team effort," Simon corrects without a flicker of shame.
"It's no' the dodgy kind of app, it's for relationships," Johnny explains. "Says so in their slogan: 'designed to be deleted'. You make a profile, upload a few pics, answer some—"
"I know how online dating works, MacTavish."
Johnny squints. "Do ye, though?"
"You've been rank for months, sir." Kyle tells it plainly. "Whole teams sayin' it."
John feels like he’s been put on a rinse cycle in the wash. His nostrils flare as he snuffs his irritation back down his chest lest he prove them right in his own kitchen.
"So that's what all this is? A Friday night welfare check?"
"It's no' a welfare check," Johnny defends poorly, voice cracking at a pitch too high.
"It's a bit of a welfare check," Kyle shrugs.
"Right." John reaches for his phone. "Well, thanks for the concern, lads. Truly. Warms the heart."
Kyle slides it just out of reach. "Just give it a shot, sir," he implores. "Try it for the weekend. If you still hate it, I'll delete it and we'll never bring it up again."
John's chin tucks to his chest and he glowers at him from under his deeply furrowed brow. "You'll delete it now," he orders, except these men have never listened to him off the field.
"I could," he agrees, wrestling a smirk. "And you can keep spending your Friday nights with us."
It's meant as a joke. It doesn't land as one.
Because John looks around at the three of them and knows in a few hours their engines will fade down the street and that hulking quiet will pour back in, the one he keeps calling peace.
So… he pulls out a chair.
Simon pushes off the counter and Johnny's grin pulls wider.
"Go on," John surrenders, falling into the seat with a sigh. He does not look at any of their faces because whatever's on them’s going to make him cross.
Chairs scrape and Kyle settles down at John’s arm, Simon looms over them from behind, all crowded around the one screen.
The basics go quick — name, age, pronouns. Kyle finds his rhythm working through the questions.
"Drinks? Socially. Smokes…?" Kyle seesaws his head a bit. "We'll say no."
"I smoke cigars," John protests.
"That's a personality trait, not a habit." Kyle scrolls. "Height?"
"Six-two," Johnny says immediately.
"He's six-foot," Simon corrects.
"Aye, and on the app he's six-two."
Kyle selects 6'. "Occupation?"
That one hangs in the air a bit longer than the rest, and John doesn't quite know why. His hands turn palm-up on the table with the question.
"Consultant," Simon offers.
"Civil servant," Kyle tries.
"Military," John answers irritably off the edge of a scoff.
Three sets of eyes come up off the phone — Johnny's eyebrows go high, Kyle's mouth opens to argue, Simon tilts his head just enough, as if to say: if you say so.
"It's not a state secret that I serve," John says, eyebrows pulling close with confusion.
Kyle types it despite whatever he's got hanging on the tip of his tongue. And in the little silence afterward, the obvious question finally comes to mind.
"What've you lot got on yours, then?"
The simple question sends a tidal wave of overlapping chatter and excuses over the table.
"Ah, well—" Johnny starts.
"I actually—" Kyle says, at the same time.
"Different app," Simon adds, under both of them.
"—see, it depends," Johnny goes on, trying to gain volume over the others, "I like to keep the profile fresh. Rotate the pics, the bio—"
"—don't have one," Kyle is saying over the top of him, "because me and Amara are— well, it's not official-official, but it's a thing, so—"
"Been usin' Feeld," Simon finishes.
When the wave recedes, the full picture comes into view: Johnny reinvents himself on a cycle, Kyle has Amara, mentioned now for the first time ever. And Simon—
"What's Feeld?" John asks.
"No," Kyle says before the question has its punctuation, quick and stern, head whipping back and forth. “Absolutely not. We'll talk about that another time."
"It's not for you," Simon adds.
"Right," he mumbles, taking a pull of his beer, settling back against the chair. He inhales and looks off at the window. "M'glad it's amateurs running my love life."
"Enthusiasts," Johnny corrects.
The rest goes quicker.
"What kind of connection?" Kyle reads. "Options are: Long-term. Short-term. Short-term, open to long. Long-term, open to short."
"Short, open to long," John answers without hesitation.
Johnny opens his mouth but Simon glares at him just as quickly through his ragged eyeholes, and he closes it without a word.
His profile photos have to come off the lads' phones since John's camera roll offers nothing but screenshots of maps, car parts, and three random pictures of the K9, Xena, from another unit on base (he’s been trying to snatch her for his own team for months).
He watches the photos of himself go by and it's a strange census, seeing a year of himself entirely through other people's eyes. Makes him queasy, so he takes another bitter gulp to wash the feeling out.
There's a short argument about the proper order the pictures should be presented, Johnny wins.
After, Kyle starts explaining what a good prompt does, how to choose one. He hardly gets any words out before John's holding his hand out the same way he did half an hour ago.
"I'll do these myself."
This time, Kyle hands the phone over.
The lads drift to the far end of the table to finally give John the space they've neglected to all night.
Fresh beers are cracked open and a bag of crisps demolished as they fold into their own conversations. The match they’ve been ignoring comes first, then Amara, whom Kyle spends five minutes refusing to elaborate on, and somewhere in there Simon mentions an oddities shop he’s been meaning to stop by.
John sits with his reading glasses on, typing slowly, brows low in concentration.
When he finally sets the phone down, all three of them quickly move behind him.
"So, their profile comes up on screen," Kyle reaches over to demonstrate. "Have a look, read the bio. If you wanna chat to her, tap the heart. If you don't, hit the X, and you'll never see her again. Simple."
The first woman is on a beach holding a cocktail the size of a fishbowl. X.
"Okaay," Kyle drawls, mouth pulling straight. "Sure. Was there a reason, or…"
"No."
The next woman is at a festival covered in glitter and feathers. X.
So is the one after. X.
A woman in her work scrubs. X.
A woman holding a child. X.
A woman in a bikini on a lake (his eyes linger). X.
It's not that they're not lovely. Some of them probably are. But every picture is a performance — arms out, teeth out, look how much fun I am. Advertisements.
"The fish," Johnny mourns as another goes down, a woman on a small boat holding a big trout up. "Cap, she was fishin'. You love fishin'!"
"Wasn't her fish," he grumbles under his breath.
"Whose fish d'you reckon, then?"
"Bloke she cropped out," Simon says, and John tips the neck of his beer toward him.
"Give me criteria," Kyle pleads, both hands on the back of John's chair, gripping with restraint. "I can work with criteria."
"He's calibratin'," Simon says. "Let 'im work it out."
Simon's giving him too much credit. He's not calibrating. He's not reading these women, he's not even really looking at them. Each X is just the whole premise being declined, proof accumulating that he was right about the app all along, and if the profiles run out, well, he tried. Right? The lads witnessed it. He can get back to his peace with a clear—
His thumb stops and hovers, then pulls back to the outer edge of the phone case.
Huh.
There you are.
Up a trail somewhere, hills of green grass rolling behind you, hood half-blown off, one hand trying to catch it. You're laughing at whoever's taking the picture, smile wide.
John's not sure he's ever seen eyes twinkle before, but that must be what yours are doing, shimmering even under overcast.
You're very pretty.
For the first time, John taps the profile open.
30. Executive Assistant. 4 Miles Away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
Executive Assistant, so you likely work too much. That's familiar to him, something he understands inside-out.
There's a photo of you in office clothes at what looks like a retirement party, smile an edge more saccharine than the one on the hill.
Another of you criss-cross on the floor, a black and caramel cat stretched out and content in your lap, belly-up. Shirt low cut, cleavage to feast on. He is sixty percent gentleman about how long he looks at it.
And at the bottom:
The best way to ask me out is by: using words.
I recently discovered that: I'm better in person than I am on here.
John huffs an amusement through his nose. He spent more time on his profile than he thinks you spent on yours. Seems like you're tired of the same things he's already tired of, one night in.
Behind him, the lads have gone silent, holding their breath.
John taps the heart and his screen goes bright with a wash of confetti, both your photos ringed together:
IT'S A MATCH!
"Oh, shit, she already matched with you," Kyle cranes his neck closer to inspect.
"Gimme that." Johnny plucks the phone from John's hand. "No way," he scoffs. "Fuckin' fit. A bit young for you, Cap, aye?" He looks at John, then back at the screen like the two won't reconcile in his brain.
"Careful," John warns mildly.
Johnny hands the phone back, muttering something in Scots only Simon could translate.
John doesn't hear much of it anyway. He's already looking at your photo again.
Better in person.
Yeah. He'd bet you are.
"Right, sir," Kyle says. "Now we wait. Midday tomorrow the earliest. Message her any sooner and it reads keen."
"It'd be accurate," he deadpans.
"There's rules, Cap," Johnny says. "No messagin' straight away, no double-textin', keep a wee bit of mystery."
John turns in his chair with a scowl to look up at the three of them.
"So, you're tellin' me a woman says she's interested in you and you… make her wait?"
Silence.
"I mean, when you put it like that…"
"Yeah, s'a bit fuckin' rude, innit?" John derides, turning back around.
He's already typing, screen tipped away.
"Sir," Kyle pleads. "At least let us read it."
"This is a two person conversation, not a five piece."
He presses send and quickly pockets the phone.
——
Four miles away, a phone lights up…
——
Your windows are open to the last of a long evening, warm air breezing through the sheer curtains. You’re finally on the couch. Shower taken, its heat still damp in your skin. A glass of off-dry riesling teeters precariously on the arm, cold from the fridge and sweating through its stemless glass.
Twix is a puddled tortoiseshell furnace against your thigh, one paw twitching through a dream, her purr winding down as she drops deeper. And on the telly, Last Christmas is on. You've seen it a dozen times, that's why you leave it — it's mindless.
The second glass goes down easier than the first, tart on your tongue, blooming warm in your belly and over your cheeks.
Somewhere in the lull, your thumb opens Hinge, a reflex to being bored. You don't really expect anything from it anymore.
A man holding a fish, sunglasses on. X.
A man whose photos are all group shots. X.
A man who is 6'2" and it's his entire personality. X.
Your thumb knows the rhythm without you.
The next profile slides into view and you pause, thumb hovering.
He's handsome in that sort of rugged, classic way. His beard is salted at the edges, lines beside his eyes creased deep, cheeks faintly rosy. He's mid-laugh at what looks like a Christmas party, red and green tinsel drooping off the beams behind him; head slightly tipped, one heavy hand flat on the table. He's not cackling, you can tell it's more reserved, but it's probably still more than he usually offers.
John. 43. Military. Four miles away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
The one thing you should know about me is: I'm gone a lot for work. But when I'm home, I'm home.
Most men bury the catch in the fine print, but he's leading with it.
You don't know yet whether that's honesty or efficiency. You suspect that with him they might be the same thing.
His second photo is of him on the tailgate of some enormous vehicle, fatigues taut over his thighs, thumbs hooked through his bulky khaki plate carrier, looking up from under the brim of his hat.
Two truths and a lie: I've never seen Star Wars. I have a lie-in every Sunday. I've had tea with a warlord.
The sky is pink with the morning in his third picture. He's thigh-deep in a lake, turned away from the camera entirely. (You're noticing it's a common theme that he does not look at the camera for any photo.) The sunlight catches the breadth of his back and shoulders, cotton molded around muscle.
Don't hate me if I: call instead of text. It's quicker.
You giggle just enough that Twix's ear rotates toward you in reproach.
It's kinda cute when older men put more effort into their profiles.
But the alarm is already going off somewhere in the back of your skull — too good, probably old photos, probably has a wife — it has never once failed to ring. But you're two glasses in, and the heart really costs nothing even if the conversation seems off.
You tap it, and put the phone facedown on your thigh.
On the telly, Emilia Clarke is busy falling for a man you happen to know has been dead the entire film. You mouth one of his lines along with him, not really invested, wine warm in your chest, Twix breathing slow against your leg.
Then your phone buzzes against you once, and you ignore it, because you have rules about lunging for male attention. But then it buzzes again, and, well, you just turn it over to have a look. Maybe it's your mum, you don't know!
HINGE: You and John matched!
HINGE: 1 New Message
You open it.
Evening. Not much good at using the app, but I really wanted to chat to you. How's your Friday night?
You hum to yourself curiously. Not an innuendo or emoji in sight.
i actually volunteer helping the elderly with technology, happy to walk you through it.
friday's been average. wine and a movie on the couch. how's yours?
You put the phone back down and focus on the film, but his reply comes within the minute.
Ouch. Friday's alright. The lads invited themselves round for the match. Still here, unfortunately.
you're messaging me with guests in the house? terrible host.
They invited themselves. Hosting rules don't apply.
What movie are you watching?
You glance at the telly where a dead man is mid-song and weigh lying about it.
You could be watching anything. You could pick something more interesting, something with a deep lesson, educational, historical, something niche to come off cool and worldly.
you're not allowed to judge me.
Judging is sort of my life's work, but I'll do my best.
You snort. Twix relocates to the far cushion in protest.
it's called 'last christmas'. i don't know why it's on in july, but i've probably seen it twelve times. it's good background noise.
The reply takes slightly longer this time. You picture him all big hands, small phone, and then stop picturing him, because that's how it starts.
Twelve times? Must be decent.
it's objectively not. the love interest is dead the entire film lol
Dead?
it's a twist. it's festive!
You and I have very different definitions for "festive". I've got a few questions. But I'll save them.
You smile.
so, your lake photo. did you catch anything that day?
Not a thing.
hours in freezing water for zero fish?!
The fish aren't the point.
do tell, what's the point?
The mist off the water. The quiet. The no one expecting anything from you.
It's the first real answer a man has given you on this app in, like, six months.
You feel oddly like you've been handed something and should keep your hands still so it doesn't spook.
that actually sounds really peaceful.
i've never been fishing, but i do love nature in the mornings. i have a trail by me that i like to trek early on weekends.
That the trail from your photo?
it is! my best friend actually made me go that day, i wasn't in the mood. complained the whole way.
Doesn't show.
Good photo of you.
Beautiful, actually.
You stare at the screen and feel warmth tickling your nape, sliding lower, molten and slow.
Every instinct you have reaches for deflection.
oh! thank you. the wind did most of the work lol
No it didn't.
— and he just takes the deflection off you, like being returned something you've dropped. You press the cool curve of the wine glass against your cheek and remind yourself, sternly, that this is a stranger on the internet.
well, for the record your photo's not bad either. handsome smile.
Somewhere past ten, you notice the conversation keeps not ending.
how long have you been on hinge?
It's my first night, actually.
first night???
Profile's about two hours old.
yikes, so i'm just the practice woman then, huh?
Practice implies I'm planning to do this again.
——
John's still at the kitchen table, reading glasses pushed up into his hair now, beer gone warm at his elbow. The lads have migrated to the living room doorway — close enough to monitor, far enough to pretend they aren't.
He knows they're watching, and he's been watched by better.
What he can't seem to manage is his fuckin' face — it keeps doing things beyond his control, and every time your reply comes he has to reel it back to neutral, and he can tell by the quality of the silence behind him that he's not reeling nearly fast enough.
"He's smilin' again," Johnny murmurs, elbowing Simon in the ribs.
"Shameless," John mumbles, without looking up. "All of you."
He's typing when the floor creaks jus to his left. When he glances up, Johnny has drifted to his shoulder under the pretense of collecting empties.
"Need another, Cap?"
"I need you three feet back, MacTavish," he replies, thumbs tapping away.
A minute later it's Kyle from the doorway, "If she asks about hobbies, don't lead with the cigars. They poll badly amongst females."
"'Females'?" John grimaces, face down, thumbs still at it. "Say it with me Garrick, 'women'."
Then Simon, who hasn't moved or spoken in twenty minutes, asks, "Wot's she sayin', then?"
John rolls his eyes and sets the phone face-down, pushing himself up out of the chair.
"Time to go, lads," he says with an obviously fake smile, gesturing his arm out towards his front door. "Goodnight."
"It's no' even eleven oclock!" Johnny complains.
"Then the night's still young. Go on, fuck off."
They go — bottles gathered, snacks cleaned up, Simon herding Johnny down the hall as he’s still negotiating.
Then their engines fade down the street, and the quiet pours back in, right on schedule. Except tonight it arrives and there's a phone lit on his kitchen table with your name on it, and the quiet — for the first time in a long while — has to wait.
He locks up, kills the TV, then drops into his armchair with the phone already unlocked.
did the football finish? who won?
He glances at the dead telly. Hasn't a clue.
Couldn't tell you.
omg lol you had ONE reason for guests tonight!
I got distracted.
by what? 😇
I think you know by what.
Nothing comes back for a minute. He pictures you on your couch, that cat beside you, deciding what to do with it — and it occurs to him, mildly horrifying, that he's enjoying this. The wait. The little emoji with the halo, transparently unrepentant. He finds himself smiling at the ceiling like there's something written on it.
anyway!
Anyway.
He'll allow it: retreat granted. There's no rush.
The cat in your photo. Yours?
yes! that’s twix. she's a menace.
Good name.
she prefers men that ignore her.
Then we'd get on fine. I'm very good at ignoring cats.
It goes on just like that: easy.
You ask if he's a morning person and learn he's up at five most days by choice; he learns you consider five the middle of the night.
He talks about the Brecon Beacons — the actual Beacons, the ones he loves, not the ones that nearly killed him at twenty-two. You tell him you've always wanted to go, and he catches himself already planning the route he'd take you. Then quickly chastises himself.
How's the average Friday held up?
certainly improved
Mine too.
He puts the phone on the arm of the chair and sits in his quiet house, and for once it doesn’t feel so desolate.
——
The following morning he's up at five. He starts drinking his coffee at the counter, looking out the window over the sink, the sorbet summer sky bleeding morning.
He thinks of you before he can stop himself. Asleep, presumably, five being the middle of the night and all. Then he takes the coffee out to his back step for some fresh air.
He wonders if he was any good with the messaging last night. It's the longest he's ever sat with his phone in his hand, period. Let alone chatting with someone. There's no debrief for it, that's the trouble. No one to tell him whether ‘I got distracted.’ read as charming or desperate.
He runs the entire two-hour exchange back over and over and finds no actionable errors, but remains unconvinced.
He goes for his run at six. The route climbs uphill around klick seven, and somewhere on the hill he thinks about your photo, your smile, your mouth. He wonders what you smell like, what you sound like when you're being sarcastic.
By noon he's under the Land Rover draining the old oil, and he catches himself pondering what you might do on a Saturday. Whether you slept in properly. Whether the cat allows it; he grew up with one himself and knows how demanding they can be when they're ready for a feeding.
He hasn't messaged yet and neither have you.
He couldn't say exactly why he's held off. Something the lads said about being keen, and rules, and mystery lodged somewhere he can't reach to dig it out. He's not normally a man that takes doctrine from Johnny MacTavish, and yet… here he is.
It's a stupid fuckin' rule.
The afternoon goes long and gets quiet in the old way.
The house at four o'clock has a particular acoustic he knows down to the plumbing, and today, for the first time, he notices himself noticing it. It never used to be so obvious. Years of Saturdays like this one and it took his phone going quiet for half a day to show him the loneliness so plainly.
By the evening he's got Chinese takeaway at the kitchen table, eating it straight from the carton, chopsticks shoveling fried noodles down his gullet while he does the crossword from the morning paper in his head.
That's when his phone lights up for the first time all day, buzzing three times in succession — he absolutely hates how quickly it's in his hand.
spent six hours wedding dress shopping with my best friend. i need a glass of wine and a lie down.
thought of you on the tube home
He reads the second message again.
Thought of you.
He’d been drafting the same admission since noon and something in his chest going catastrophically hot.
are you still up? i know sundown is bedtime for your generation.
And there's the sarcasm.
Outside the window, the sun is — he checks — still up. Barely. He's got that going for him, at least.
Just in time. Was about to take my dentures out.
Thought about you as well.
He types the second line fast before he can be a coward about it. If you can say it, he can say it. Fair's fair.
I do have a question now though. It's not your wedding we're shopping for, is it? That'd be proper inconvenient for me.
lol no! maid of honor. today was purely supervisory.
don't really see myself getting married anyway.
the dresses were stunning though!
He’s picking up on a pattern. Three messages arriving like one exhale — the vulnerable thing said flanked with distraction.
Nothing wrong with that.
Successful trip then? Or is there another six hours coming?
successful! she found it. there were tears and champagne.
what about you, how was your saturday?
He’s had a day spent purposefully not doing the one thing he wanted to do.
Quiet. Nothing worth typing.
hm. sounds like you should ring me then…
He looks at that one for a moment and blinks, the inside of his cheek finds itself between his teeth.
For all their blabbering, the lads did not warn him about this bit. Not that he can't speak on the phone, he prefers it. You're essentially quoting his profile back at him. But he's been thinking about something since roughly the fourth time you crossed his mind today, and a phone call isn't the ask he's been building up to.
Could do.
Truthfully, though. I was just working up the courage to ask you for a drink.
Courage. He's used that word in citations, for men who ran toward gunfire, heroes. Now he’s using it to describe the act of asking a woman on a date, and the genuinely undignified part is that it's regrettably accurate.
Your reply takes a minute. He watches the dots start and stop, and start again. God, he's been shot at with less suspense.
Then your message comes through and it's just a number. Ten digits. It buzzes in his hand once more.
for logistics.
He stares at it for a beat and then he's up out of his seat. Takeaway abandoned, at the fridge with his phone still in one hand, snapping the cap off a beer on the lip of the counter, and then he's out the back door into the garden where the evening's gone navy and the air’s still warm from the day.
He saves your number first. Then he stands there a moment, beer sweating in one hand, thumb over the call button in the other.
——
You’ve just tipped the bottle over your glass when the phone starts buzzing against the counter.
Unknown Number. Local.
“John?”
“Evenin’.”
Fuck.
His voice lands an octave lower than you were braced for. A honeyed gravel that seeps into your ear and slides thick over your spine, pooling somewhere behind your ribs.
You set the bottle down before you drop it.
“So you actually do ring,” you manage.
“Said so on the profile, I think.”
“I half thought it was a bit.”
“I don’t really do bits.”
“No,” you say through a grin, picking up your glass and drifting toward the couch. You drop your voice into a gravelly impression of him: “You’re a very serious man.”
The laugh that comes down the line is quiet — more breath than sound, warm at the bottom of it, like you’ve caught him somewhere he doesn’t usually go.
“That meant to be me?”
“It’s uncanny, I know.”
The line goes quiet a moment — the good kind, neither of you rushing to fill it — and in it you catch the sounds of his side: a whirl of breeze, the faint ring of a glass set down on iron. He’s outside. You picture a tidy yard with tall dark hedges, a big man pacing slowly with a beer.
“Am I interruptin’ the wine?”
“The wine and I are happy to share the time.”
“Good.” There's a pause that you can hear his smile in. “I have a beer out here. Seemed only fair we’re both suffering the same.”
“Are we having our drink right now? Is this it?”
“No,” he says immediately, unamused even — which is very amusing for you. “This one doesn’t count.”
The speed of his reply sends something fizzing under your sternum. You tuck your feet up under yourself and take a slow sip.
“No?” you tease.
“I had imagined I’d see your face.”
“Been imagining, have you?”
You are very glad he cannot see your face right now. Cheeks warm and strained, you press the cool of the wine glass briefly against them in turns
“Nothin’ mucky if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”
“Mm, no, 'course not. You’ve been a proper gentleman. Haven’t even thrown me a cheeky pick-up line.”
“I could workshop somethin’ for you if you’d like.”
“No thanks,” you giggle into your glass. “It was a relief when I opened your first message and it wasn’t a riddles-three about your dick.”
You can hear his scoff and recoil on the other end.
“Is that what it’s come to?”
“Unfortunately.”
There’s a short silence you’d swear is him coming to terms with the modern world, and you bite down on a smile.
“Right,” he says, and there's a controlled shift in his voice. “My question...”
Your stomach does a free-fall, nauseating and fluttery, fifteen again on the Detonator at Thorpe Park.
“Mm?” you hum around a sip, deeply casual, a woman entirely unbothered, curled so tight around the phone that Twix doesn’t have a leg to lie on.
“There’s a pub about halfway between us, Lamb & Flag. I’d like to take you for that drink tomorrow. Will you come?”
Then you remember what tomorrow is and sigh, immediately irritated with your whole family.
“Ugh, I want to say yes,” you sulk. “But I’ve got Sunday dinner with my family tomorrow. My mum would hunt me for sport if I flaked.”
“Fair. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
“I could do a weeknight? After work?”
There’s a pause on his end.
“I’d rather not promise you a weeknight,” he admits. “I rarely get away on time, and I’m not startin’ this by standin' you up.”
You go quiet for a beat, you were ready for the usual ‘ahh, well, we’ll figure something out’. But instead got a man mindful of your time; a unicorn, really.
“Also fair. And— and thoughtful.”
“Friday, then?” he tries hopefully, you catch the small lean in his voice.
“Friday’s perfect,” you agree. “It’s a date!”
“It is,” he agrees, smiling.
The conversation should end there but it doesn't.
You learn things no profile has a field for; that he talks slower than he types, that he hm's real low in his throat when he’s considering something, that when you make him laugh it rumbles, so rough at the bottom that you feel at the back of your knees.
Somewhere past the hour mark you stop scrutinizing the call for red flags and just talk, and you only notice you’ve stopped when Twix jumps onto the couch and you realize you’ve been lying down for a while, phone balanced on your ear like you’re seventeen.
Eventually, you yawn.
“Right,” he says, and you can hear him moving, standing up by the way he tries to muffle a stiff groan. “That’s my cue.”
“Aw, no! I’m fine, really.”
“It’s late, love. And you’ve got your family tomorrow.”
“True. And you’ve got… whatever it is old men do on Sundays.”
“Lie-in, according to my profile.”
“Ha!” you bark, vindicated alone in your living room, having forgot about his little 'two truths and a lie'. “That’s the lie, I bet. I don’t think you’ve ever had a lie-in in your life.”
A low sound of amusement rolls down the line. “Goodnight,” he says, declining to confirm.
“Night, John.”
You sit a minute in the amber shine of your lamp after the line goes dead, phone loose in your hand.
——
Sunday morning, you text him at 8:12 AM.
good morning. how was the lie-in?
Wouldn’t know. Been up since five.
the lie confirmed!
He doesn’t dignify it. You don’t expect him to. You grin at your phone while you wait for the kettle to boil.
Your mum will later describe you, over dinner, as ‘suspiciously cheerful’.
The day swallows you — the drive, the roast, your mum’s questions, your brother’s kids. It’s near ten when you’re finally home, shoes off, replying to the last thing he’d sent that morning.
survived. my mum sends her regards to whoever put me in a good mood. her words.
Regards received. Sleep well.
——
Monday morning, John’s at his desk with his coffee going cold because somewhere between the canteen and the walk to his office, his phone buzzed, and it was you and he hasn’t stopped looking at it.
good morning :) big meeting today. does this say “promote me” or “she tried”?
[ PHOTO ATTACHMENT ]
You, in your hallway mirror — chin tipped, black short-sleeve blouse with a wide collar exposing the smooth skin of your upper chest and collar, grey pencil skirt stretched over the curve of your hips and thighs, one knee bent like you’d just been lowering your foot from fitting on your heel.
His eyes are stuck on the soft-looking flesh just above and between your knees when a rap lands on his door and forces a cough from his throat.
Johnny eases it open with Kyle behind him holding a folder, Simon's behind them both, holding nothing, not even a pretense.
His phone goes face-down on the desk at a compromising speed, shifting to sit up straigher.
Simon’s eyes go to John’s hand over the phone, then to his face before he leans in the doorway with his arms folded.
“Mornin’, Cap. Good weekend?” Johnny asks, falling into the side chair in front of the desk with a theatrical groan.
“Fine.”
“Aye? Do anythin'?” He smiles, waggling his eyebrows. “Anyone?”
“You’ve got thirty seconds to develop a work reason for being in my office, Sergeant.”
It's an empty threat and everyone in the room knows it.
Kyle sets the (empty) folder down and steps back behind Johnny. “How’s it going, sir? Did you have any luck with Hinge?”
John could make them work for it. He’d planned to. But all three of them are standing in front of him trying so hard to look casual it’s a wonder none of them have pulled something.
"Have a date Friday. Drinks."
Johnny is ready to blast out of his seat, but Kyle shoves him back down by the shoulders, digging his fingers into the pressure points on either side of his neck until he relents with a hiss.
"That's great. Same woman or…?"
"The same."
“Good, good, good,” Johnny says, and means it — John can hear that he means it, he can also hear the restraint he's keeping from unloading shite advice.
“We'll stop buy Saturday for the debrief,” Simon says, already turning around, and Kyle picks the folder back up like it had a purpose all along, and they file out the way they came.
"I'm not debriefing you on my date. Don't come!" John calls to them half-heartedly, but the door's already shutting on top of his words.
He turns the phone back over.
Promote you, he types.
You look lovely.
Your reply comes before he’s picked his pen back up.
well now the meeting feels easy. thank you x
He gets on with his morning, but by noon he suspects he's looked at that damn photo a dozen times.
——
The rest of the week goes standard. Your Tuesday runs long and his Wednesday runs longer, and the messages carry throughout it all. His texts arrive before your morning alarm even sounds, your replies go mid-commute — nothing heavy, just remaining in each other's orbit of interest as Friday chugs slowly into view.
Thursday night, near nine, he rings you, having first texted to ask if he could, which you’re beginning to understand is just how he’s built. It’s a short call by your new standards with him. He only wanted to confirm you’re still on for the pub, but he had you grinning into your pillow until you fell asleep.
———
You leave work at five on the dot, and you’re in front of your open wardrobe by six.
The little black dress comes off the rail first. Goes back. Comes off again. Back. The floral one gets as far as your shoulders before you pull it off over your head and drop it on the bed, where Twix immediately sits on it.
The silky baby blue halter’s been hanging on the door since you bought it. You put it on like you hadn’t already decided and do the tie at the back of your neck twice before the bow sits flat and neat. You pull on some jeans and rummage the closet for your chunky heels.
You press some strawberry perfume to your throat in the mirror and try to comfort the nerve-ridden woman in the reflection.
“It’s just a pub,” you tell her.
She doesn’t seem convinced.
———
The pub is exactly the kind of place you imagine he'd frequent — quiet, all old mahogany and low brass lamps, no telly anywhere. You claim a stool, hook your heel over the rung, and decide not to order anything yet simply because it just feels polite to wait.
You're fifteen minutes early which means you're left alone with your anxieties.
The last of the sun lies across the bar top in warm stripes, and you trace one with a finger while you wait.
You’ve done this before, and it almost never goes how the phone promises. There was the guy whose photos were six years out of date. The one who spent both drinks talking about his ex and then sent a payment request for half the tab. The one who, two hours in, hadn’t asked you a single question about yourself. And John has been too good to be true for a week, and you know how that saying ends. Tonight is where you find out how, find out he really is just a man between deployments looking for entertainment and a shag.
It felt good, though. All week. Being excited about something. You’d forgotten the feeling.
You pick at the hangnail on your thumb until it stings.
You don’t have to wait much longer for him.
He casts a shadow when he comes through the door. Broad. Tall. Smart olive polo fighting for its stitching across his chest and where it grips into his biceps. He’s tidied his beard in comparison to his photos, hair less kempt in a purposeful way.
He scans the whole room before he finds you and stops looking anywhere else. He smiles tight and restrained, pleasant, but like he’s pacing himself, and by the time he crosses to you, your tongue has gone dry and whatever you’d planned to open with has shriveled away.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi,” you smile.
He smells clean, a bit like pine and amber, and faintly like there’s tobacco somewhere on his collar.
“You’re early,” he adds, almost pleased.
“So are you.”
“I’m always early.” His eyes drop to the empty bar top in front of you, then come back. “You haven’t ordered?”
You shake your head once, legs shifting to cross. “I wanted— I was waiting for you.”
The lines beside his eyes deepen and he holds out his hand, says your name for the first time, and his hand swallows yours — big and dry and calloused across the palm where yours is soft — and you hold on a beat too long. He doesn’t mention it. You add that to the list of things you like about him, which is getting embarrassing for something four minutes old.
“What’ll you have?”
“Uhm, whatever you’re having,” you decide.
He signals the bartender with two fingers and opens his mouth — and there’s a brief second where he looks at you first, and you notice for the first time that his eyes are blue, and you get stuck, and it seems so does he. By the time he looks back, he’s lost the name of the beer he’s drunk here a dozen times.
“Two of the, uh— the local,” he manages.
You pretend not to notice. He knows you did.
He pulls out the stool beside you, and more of his cologne wafts around you as he sits, turned to face you, legs spread, one knee pointing between yours.
The pints arrive wet from the tap, and for a second neither of you says anything at all. You trace a bead of condensation down your glass.
“Funny, isn’t it,” you offer, sheepish. “We’ve talked every day for a week, and the second we’re actually in front of each other…” You trail off, cheeks warming, eyes fixed on the fizz jumping over the rim of your beer.
“You’re nervous?” he asks, a cheeky lilt on it.
“A bit, yeah. Aren’t you?”
“Not at all.”
You squint at him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”
“Hm.” He takes a sip that lasts a little too long, and the tips of his ears have gone pink.
Your cheeks are doing about the same. You drink your beer — cold, hop-bitter, helping — and let him have his lie. It’s a generous lie anyway. It’s a lie shaped like a man trying, and you’ve been handed far worse shapes.
“So,” you start. “I haven’t asked why you’re even on Hinge. You don’t seem the type.”
“I’m not,” he chuckles, and offers nothing beyond it.
You wait. He just sips his beer. You hike a brow.
“That’s it? That’s your answer?”
“Well, it wasn’t my idea. The lads put me on it.”
“The lads — your guys from work?”
“Yeah.”
“They what, talked you into it?”
“No.” He turns his glass a degree. “They nicked my phone and made the profile behind my back.”
“And what made them do that?”
He takes a moment with that one. He could give you a cover story — you can almost watch him weigh one — but then he doesn’t.
“Their assessment,” he laughs to himself, “was that I’d been… cranky. Needed gettin’ out of the house.”
“Cranky?” you repeat, delighted.
“Their exact words were a bit different.”
“Hm.” You look at him — at ease, half a smile living in his beard, one arm resting along the bar. “You don’t seem cranky to me.”
“Yeah, well. Guess they were right, then.”
Your neck goes hot and you have to look away from him. “Well,” you manage. “They do good work, your committee.”
He huffs into his pint, and lets you recover.
“Okay, next one, then. Military.” You tip your glass toward him. “What do you actually do?”
He sets his beer down and you can see him carefully choosing which door to open. “What d’you want to know?”
“I don’t know. What’s your day look like?”
“Depends on the day. Paperwork, mostly. Meetings.” A beat. “Sometimes we go away.”
“Away?”
“Away.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Doing…?”
“Whatever they need me to,” he says easily. “S’not me being mysterious. I’d tell you if I could.”
“That must be so strange, though. Having this whole— like, most of your life you can’t talk about.”
“You get used to it.” Then, because you’re still looking at him expectantly, not filling the space the way people usually do: “There’s loads I can say. Ask me what six weeks of rain in a jungle smells like. Or what a month in the desert does to your skin.”
“What’s a month in the desert do to your skin?”
“Nothing good, love,” he answers, shifting to face you better. “The beard’s load-bearing.”
You laugh into your beer, and it makes the next one easier to ask.
“Do you like it? Like, the whole life of it?”
He goes quiet on that one. Longer than he’s gone quiet on anything else you’ve asked. You can see him thinking on it.
“It’s what I’m best at,” he says finally. And then, mostly to his glass: “It’s all I’ve known, really. Been doin’ it since sixteen.”
You turn that over. There’s a whole life folded up in that sentence and you notice you want to ask about all of it, which is not a thing you’ve wanted to do with a man in a very long time.
The second beers arrive, and the conversation stops keeping to lanes — his lads and your best friend, the wedding in October, the neighbor whose bins are apparently a whole saga. You’re midway through the story of your work feud when a birthday party arrives loud and glittering behind you, and John, without so much as glancing down, reaches down and hooks his hand under the edge of your stool, and pulls.
The whole thing drags six inches across the floor with you on it, your knee sliding neatly between his, close enough now that his voice drops to match the new distance. You’re looking up at him, pulse tapping somewhere that has your thighs pressing together.
“Go on,” he encourages. “She said what?”
It takes you a moment to find your place, but you go on.
The bar only gets louder from there, the birthday table multiplying, and when a booth opens up in the back corner, John tips his chin at it.
“Actually—” and you hesitate out of nothing but habit, out of years of a man’s face going tight when you complicate an order, “—could I do a vodka cranberry this time? I could get the round—”
His brows furrow with something akin to bafflement, brief and genuine. “You can have whatever you’d like,” he says, and suddenly you feel silly, your hand crossing to grip your elbow.
“No—I know. I just—”
“Whatever you’d like,” he repeats, gentler. “And—” he grimaces, like what he’s about to say pains him deeply. “Don’t ever offer to pay on a date with me again. Properly wind me up, that will.”
“S-sorry,” you shake your head, like you can rattle the habit loose.
“None of that either,” his eyes have gone crinkled at the corners, warm all the way through, and he raps two knuckles soft on the bar top like the matter’s settled. “Vodka cranberry. Go, sit.”
“Actually— I’m gonna go freshen up quickly. Two minutes.”
And you go, biting down on a smile, ears hot — embarrassed and looked after all at once, which is apparently a combination that works on you.
The bathroom is cooler than the bar and a quiet that leaves your ears ringing. You reapply some lipgloss and wash your hands and look at yourself in the dirty mirror, buzzing warm at the collarbones, eyes shiny, mouth half-curved.
It’s going well.
It’s going suspiciously well.
And every time it’s gone well before, this is exactly when you started hunting for the catch. So you dry your hands on the rough paper towel and leave before you can start.
He’s in the booth when you come back, settled against the wall side, the last of the evening gone from the windows and the lamp above him glowing gold over the table. Your drink is waiting — pink, iced, a lime wedged on the rim — set neatly across the table at the seat opposite.
You look at the seat opposite.
Then you slide in beside him instead. Your thigh a heated inch from his, reaching across to relocate your drink.
You don’t look at him, but you can tell John’s a bit curious of the arrangement. His arm comes up and settles along the back of the booth behind you, and it oddly feels like it was always going to end up here, his thumb grazing the bare skin of your shoulder. He picks up his beer with the other hand.
“Comfortable?” he asks, low, and with entirely too much satisfaction.
“I am,” you say, and the first sip of the vodka cranberry is cold and tart and sweet all the way down, blooming behind your sternum right where his voice has been landing all night.
The booth is easier than the bar, somehow — closer, quieter, the birthday party more muted — and the talk drifts wherever it wants, his low laugh arriving against your shoulder through the arm behind you. At some point the lull comes; ice softening in your glass, his thumb resting an inch from your shoulder. And maybe it’s the vodka, or the arm, or the running list of things you like about him that you’d need both hands to count now—
“How long ago was your last relationship? Like a real one.”
He takes a deep breath before answering. “Honest answer?”
“Preferably,” you giggle softly, and he smiles — most of it lost in the beard, enough that you wonder if there are dimples under there.
“Longer than what sounds good out loud,” he admits through the pull of it.
“Say it out loud anyway.”
“I was thirty-two. So, almost ten years ago.”
“Ten.”
“Mm.”
“A whole decade.”
“You can stop countin’ the years to me at any time, love.”
“Sorry, sorry.” You’re grinning. He is too. “It’s just, quite the gap in romance.”
“It went quick,” he says, and it’s a joke, and it’s also not. “What about you?”
“Ended about a year ago, we were together four.”
“Mm.”
“It was fine. Amicable— mostly,” you shrug.
“Mostly,” he repeats — not pushing, just setting the word down where you can see he heard it.
“Mostly,” you confirm, and leave it there.
The ice ticks in your glass. And the next question’s been sitting in your chest, so you take it out while you’re brave.
“Can I ask something and you not be offended?”
“Startin’ well,” he says, nodding on for you to continue.
You settle further into the booth and your shoulders press against his warm arm behind you, his fingers brushing over your shoulder. You lean your head back, turned to his face.
“What’s changed? Between thirty-two and now that you’re trying dating?” You mean just to ask the question, but you find yourself rambling on. “Because if the honest answer is nothing, and this is just— a-a hookup with, like, really good manners, that’s fine. Genuinely. I’d just rather know now.”
“Fair,” he says. “Asked myself the same thing this week.”
“Yeah? And what was the answer?”
“I’m tired of the quiet,” he starts, pausing as his eyes drift away in thought. They come back to you just as quick. “Used to come home to it like a reward. Now it just feels… empty.”
Something in your chest slides sideways.
“So, no. Not a hookup,” he continues with a breath. “But I can’t promise you’d be happy with the alternative either. I can be gone longer than I’m home.” His thumb brushes along your shoulder, once, like an apology.
“Guess I wouldn’t know unless I gave it a go.”
You say it lightly, and the exhale he lets out has a smile riding on it — and something in his shoulders comes down, some held thing you didn’t notice until it let go.
“No,” he agrees, low. “You wouldn’t.”
You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you — or the lack of it. Somewhere between sitting down and the vodka you’ve ended up awfully close: near enough to count the grey threaded through his beard, to catch the beer on his breath, near enough that the light between you has stopped reaching the space. Near enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and your heartrate has picked up on it before the rest of you has.
His eyes flick down to your mouth. Quick — half a second, there and back — but you catch it, and it lands low in your stomach and stays.
Neither of you leans back.
And the pub carries on behind you — glasses clinking, the birthday table shouting, a till drawer slamming — all of it arriving from somewhere far off and dreamlike.
You move closer. Barely. Imperceptible. Your pulse is in your ears now, drumming out the last of your sense—
“You know,” you say, quiet, pitched for the six inches between you and nobody else, “you can kiss me. If you’d like.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mhm,” you grin.
“Well,” he says, matching your volume, low enough that it lands somewhere below hearing, “I was going to be a gentleman about it. Wait til I walked you out.” His gaze drops to your mouth again, slower this time, no secret. “But if you’d rather have it here in the booth, I won’t argue.”
“I suppose I could be patient.”
“Mm,” he says, and doesn’t move.
Somewhere in the world, presumably, time is passing.
His jaw shifts.
“I’ll go pay the tab,” he decides.
And you’re both up and out of the booth quick, and you watch him stand at the bar with his back to you, shoulders set, and you press one cool knuckle to your own cheek and find it burning.
You two make it out the door.
The night’s gone hazy and July-thick, and you get maybe four steps down the side of the pub with his hand a light at the small of your back before you glance up at him and he glances down.
Whatever was left of patient dies right there on the pavement.
He moves you.
One hand finding your hip, the other your jaw, and then your back meets brick, warm through the thin of your blouse and against your bare shoulders, and his mouth is on yours.
Whatever mindful version he’d planned for the end of his gentlemanly walk out must have been spent in the booth — this is the interest. The kiss opens on a low rumble out of his chest, one you feel travel through his ribs into yours, and his tongue slides against yours, all beer and him, and you grip the front of his shirt with both fists just incase the wall behind you vanishes.
He kisses you thoroughly, his beard catching along your chin, a chafe you know you’ll feel tomorrow. A thigh slots half between yours, not pushing, not touching, but it’s not any less inviting. You could bare down on it, get the friction your body is craving, he’d let you, but you restrain yourself. His thumb strokes a slow line along your jaw in obscene contrast to what his mouth is doing — and it blooms down through you, fervid, liquescent.
He pulls back just far enough to breathe — forehead near yours, both of you loud with catching your breath — and when you open your eyes his are dark.
“Very gentlemanly,” you croon.
“I walked you out first, yeah?” he says, unrepentant.
You giggle against his mouth, and he claims it for himself with one more gentle kiss, and then he steps back a seemly distance, hand smoothing once down over his beard, shoulders resetting, breath evening out, everything going back in its place except his eyes.
“Walk me home?” you ask.
“I drove. I’ll give you a lift.”
You look up at him, all vodka-warm and enjoying yourself. “Well, just so you know, I share my location with my best friend and she knows exactly what pub I’m at, and has your name and photo, so—”
“Good,” he replies, no hesitation. “Smart girl. Keep it that way.” He finds his keys, fishing them out of his pocket. “I’m taking you straight home. You have my word.”
He draws an X over his heart, your lipgloss shining at the corner of his crooked mouth.
——
The car smells like-new — clean upholstery and faintly of engine oil, everything squared away, nothing rolling around in the footwells.
The drive is short. The radio murmurs. His hand rests easy on the gearstick a few inches from your knee — close enough that you spend two full streets aware of nothing else — and the streetlights slide over him in slow bars, catching the grey at his temple and the small satisfied set of his mouth.
The kiss is still thrumming under your skin like a struck glass, low in your belly, at the back of your knees — and you catch yourself doing the thing you swore off doing: imagining forward. Him in your doorway. Him in your kitchen on the weekend. Him coming home from wherever away is and it being your door he—
You look out the window. Four miles has never taken so long.
He pulls up outside your building and sets the handbrake, and the engine idles, and neither of you move.
The dashboard glow makes everything blue.
You want to ask him up. That's not the question; that got settled somewhere around the second kiss in the alley, possibly earlier, possibly around the moment he walked into the pub, or whatever. But there's the other thing you can't evict from your head: do you really want to sleep with him on the first date?
"So," you say.
"So…”
You look at him — streetlight in the grey of his beard, arm along the wheel, he’s in absolutely no hurry to resolve you.
"Did you have a good time tonight?"
His head turns. There's a beat where he just looks at you, and you watch him physically decide not to make a joke of it.
"Yes. Best night I've had in a while," he says.
"Would you—" and god, you're thirty years old and your heart is doing this anyway, "—want to see me again? Like this?"
"Was already plannin' to ask you to dinner." A small crease starts at the corner of his eye. "Was workin' out whether to do it now or ring you tomorrow, so I didn't seem overly—"
"Keen?"
"Keen," he confirms, gravely, like the word's been a burden to him all week.
And that lands warm and the relief does something reckless to your mouth, which is that it stops guarding it.
"Okay. Then I'm going to say something, but you can't look at me while I say it."
“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his twitching lips and looks out the windshield, obedient.
"I want to ask you up."
"Mm."
"And I'm having a whole debate about it."
"I can hear it," he says. "Been losin' to the engine for about a minute now."
"Just—,” you sigh, “—shut up." But you're smiling at the dashboard. "It's just— I spent all week wondering if this was a hookup thing for you. And you answered that, and I believe you, I do. But there's this small, paranoid part of me that's like, well, that's exactly what a man would say at the pub, isn't it? And then there's this other, stupider part that thinks if you come up, you'll—" you take a deep breath, your fingers hooking into each other on your lap, and make yourself finish it, "—think less of me. First date and all."
He's quiet for a second, lips pursing.
“Can I look at you now?” he tries.
“Yeah.”
"You want to know where I'm actually at?"
"Truly just desperate for a man to be honest so I know what headspace to put myself in."
“Alright.” He shifts to face you, wrist still hanging over the wheel. “I want to come up. Badly, if you want some extra honesty.”
The badly goes straight between your thighs.
“Okay,” you manage. “Noted.”
“I haven’t lied to you once tonight. And I’m takin’ you to dinner whether I come up or not.”
“And, like— you wouldn’t think—”
“Think less of you?” He frowns, like the math’s not mathing. “For doin’ the same thing I’d be doing? Together?”
“When you put it like that…”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sat here havin’ a version of the same debate. Been out of this a long time. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that’s all I came for. So if you’d rather I kiss you at the door and drive home, I’ll do that and consider it a perfect evening.”
And maybe it’s the ease of him, the total absence of pressure you’re always braced for on nights like this, that settles it for you.
“Would you like to come up?”
——
The stairwell smells of somebody's late dinner and warm dust, the day's heat still trapped in it, and you take the stairs ahead of him to the second floor.
John is a gentleman.
John has been a gentleman all night.
John gives himself the length of one flight of stairs off the clock — the sway of you in those jeans, the shift and give of you with every step, the smooth line of your bare shoulders under the halter's little bow — and by the landing he's a gentleman again, and if you felt his eyes like a brand on you, and by the half-smirk you throw over your shoulder you did, neither of you says a word about it.
Your flat smells like you — the perfume he got to know at the pub, but underneath it, clean laundry, a candle burned down sometime this week — and a blur of black-and-caramel bolts across the living room and vanishes down the hall before he can so much as get a look at her.
"That was Twix," you say, her paws still pattering away. "She'll start her background check and circle back."
"Sensible."
And then the two of you are standing in your living room with the whole car’s worth of honesty sitting in the middle of the floor, and you look at him, and look at the kitchen, and say:
"Do you want a drink? I have wine. Or, um. Tea? I might have a beer from—"
"I'm alright," his mouth pulls at one side.
"Water? I'm gonna have water."
"Then I'll have water," he says like he’s surrendering.
He watches you go — and he could laugh, not at you, but because he knows exactly what he’s looking at. The two of you agreed in plain English on why he’s standing here, and now you’re in your kitchen filling glasses neither of you want, and wiping down a counter that, from where he’s stood, was already clean.
So he gives you room. Settles against the arm of the couch, takes a slow lap of your shelf with his eyes — you and a woman he guesses is the October bride, you on a hike somewhere sunny, you and Twix bravely on the balcony — and he wants you the whole time, low and patient, in his back teeth, but doesn’t move on it.
Your pace. Your move.
You come back with the waters, and hand him his, and hold your own in both hands like you might drop it. He takes a sip, looks at you over the rim of it.
“You’re nervous,” he says.
“Not at all.”
“Mm.” He nods slowly, deeply unconvinced and taking a page from your own book. “Don’t know if I buy that.”
He watches it land, watches the laugh come up out of you before you can stop it, head tipping back, throat bare, and half your nerves seem to leave with it.
He likes that.
He sets his glass down. Then, gently, he takes yours out of your mid-fidget hands and sets it down too — he tips your chin up with one knuckle, and kisses you.
Easy-like, cold from the water, cranberry still faint on your tongue, your breath catches once against his mouth and then lets go. Your hands slide flat up his chest and stop over his heart — which is going quicker than he’d care to admit, and he feels the exact moment you find it out, the little hum of discovery you make.
When you pull back to look at him, whatever nerves were left in you are gone from your eyes, and they’re twinkly a lot like the first photo he ever saw of you.
You take his hand off your waist, lace it through yours, and guide him backward toward the short hall.
In your bedroom he finds the tie of your halter at the back of your neck and pauses with the ends between his fingers, silk warm from your body. One pull and it gives, the fabric sighing loose, and he follows it slide down with his eyes first, then his mouth — the slope of your throat, over your shoulder, then the soft skin below your ear that tastes of strawberry perfume and salt. His beard drags over your neck and a shiver flows through you so he does it again, slower. You shiver harder, fingers curling into the front of his polo.
Good.
You tug the hem of his shirt up and he reaches back, pulls it off over his head one-handed, and drops it somewhere he’ll look for later. He unhooks your bra just as easily, and when your palms spread into the coarse hair over his bare chest and down his toned stomach, the muscle jumps under your fingertips, he hears his own breath go rough.
“Okay,” you say, a little wonder in it. “Wow, yeah, that’s….”
“Mm?”
“Nothing. Just— I knew military, just didn’t realize… this much military.”
“Lodging a complaint?” he askes, amused.
“Definitely not.”
The rest goes gradually — his belt, your jeans peeled down warm thighs with his calloused palms flat against your skin the whole way, a hop and a giggle when the denim catches your ankle and he steadies you by the elbow — and then you’re bare in front of him, lamplight pooling gold along your shoulder, your hip, the soft curve of your stomach. He stops with his hands at your waist and looks.
“Say something,” you murmur, half a laugh, shy at last under the attention. “You’re oggling.”
“I am.” His thumbs press slow arcs into your hips. “Give me a minute. Been picturin’ this since Tuesday and I did you no justice.”
You pull him down onto the bed by way of an answer, and the mattress sinks with a soft complaint, and then it’s just skin — so much warm skin, soft everywhere he’s hard, giving under his hands, smelling of perfume and the clean sweat July dampens into everyone.
He stretches out alongside you, one heavy thigh over yours, and takes his time. The curve of your waist. The full weight of your breast, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaks and your breath stutters. The inside of your thigh, where the skin is finest and the heat pools. You move under his touch the whole time, restless and rising, fingers in his hair, at his shoulders, and the small sounds you make land somewhere at the base of his neck and prickle there.
Then he shifts down the bed, kisses the soft of your stomach, the plush crease of your hip, and looks up the length of you.
“Can I?”
“You— yes,” you breathe, trembling feebly. “Yes, obviously, you don’t have to a—”
His mouth is on you before the sentence ends.
You’re sweet and slick against his tongue, already so wet the first slow lick slides easy, and the sound you make is high and caught somewhere low, thigh twitching against his ear, one hand flying to his hair. He hums — feels you feel it — and settles in. No rush. Long soft strokes of his tongue until your hips learn the rhythm and rise to meet it, then his lips close warm around your clit, sucking gently, and your whole body pulls tight.
“Oh my god— okay— okay—”
“Mm.”
“Don’t be smug—” and your voice climbs off the end of the sentence as he slides two thick fingers into you, curling them, tongue still working, and whatever the rest of that scolding was, he never learns it.
“Could do this all night, sweetheart,” he murmurs against you, and feels the words land in a shudder. Your breathing changes. Your thighs start trembling, your hand fists in the sheets — and he keeps the pace exactly the same until you’re pulling at him. Hair, arm, anything you can reach.
“John— John— come— I want you. Now,” you whine, “Please.”
He comes up the length of you slow, mouth mapping stomach and sternum and throat on the way, and settles over you on one forearm—
"I should've said this in the car," he starts, eyes on yours. "I don't have a condom. Wasn't assuming tonight would end up here."
"I don't have any either. I actually checked the drawer before I left tonight." You push his dampening hair back off his forehead. "I'm on the pill, and I trust you. But I'd still feel better if you pull out. Is that okay?"
He nods assuredly. "Then I'll pull out," he says flat and plain. "You have my word."
"You and your word—" but you're smiling, and then you're not smiling, because he's already moved and taken himself in hand and dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in you, and notched against your entrance, and the smile falls open into something much, much better.
He pushes in slow, watches your face the entire way — he couldn't look elsewhere if a grenade went off — your brows drawing up, your lips parting around a breath that doesn't finish, your nails biting little crescents into his forearms — and fuck, the feel of you: scalding, soaked, tight enough that he has to stop twice, jaw clenched, sweat sliding at his temple, feeding you his cock an inch at a time and pulling back, then giving you more; the slick easy give of you around him unspooling something in his stomach.
"Talk to me," he murmurs, gravel-low. "Alright?"
"Yes." Your voice has gone breathless and small and blissed. "You're— god—"
"Christ, you’re snug," he exhales shakily, eyes finding yours. “Relax for me, baby. Breathe.”
"I am breath—oh. Oh—shhit—"
John’s seated all the way, hips flush to your backside, and both of you go quiet — a shared beat of stillness, you fluttering around him hot and full, his body coming down, forehead dropping to yours, ten months of silence pulling a sound up out of his chest that he couldn't have stopped if he knew it was coming.
Then you shift your hips, experimental, a slow grind up against him, and that stillness is over.
He moves slowly; long level strokes dragging all the way out so you both feel every hot stretch of the return, your breasts pressing soft against his hairy chest. Your heels slide up the back of his thighs and he budges his hips closer, holding deep and pressing the head of his cock into your furthest wall. Your hands squeeze the meat between his shoulders and his neck as he pushes a small squeal out of you.
"Right there—right there—right there, don't—"
"I won’t," he murmurs against your jaw. “I won’t move.”
"—okay maybe move a little—"
He breathes something restrained through a smile. "Make your mind up, darling," he grunts.
“It’s hard to— mmm—think like this,” you half-moan against his cheek.
“Don’t think, then.”
It’s all your talking that undoes him more than anything, he realizes distantly. He’d forgotten there was a version of this with laughing in it; a version with a woman eagerly gripping him and grinning against his cheek in the second before a moan carries her voice away — and every time you say his name, breathed and broken, something in his chest cinches another notch tighter.
He draws back and drives home again, and whatever you’d been about to answer with comes out as a punched huff.
You don’t think.
He feels the difference in you immediately — your body dropping the manners, hips rising to meet him harder than he’s giving it, heels dragging him in by the thighs on every stroke, a low frustrated sound building in your throat when he keeps the same controlled pace. You’re not asking for anything. You’re taking it in inches, greedy and unaware of yourself, nails dragging down the small of his back, pulling—
“Harder?” he asks against your ear.
"Yes, please."
He hooks your knee up over his hip and opens you wider—“So polite.”—and gives it to you deeper, his weight behind it, your headboard cracking against the wall. You go loud and lovely underneath him, clutching, slick heat and plush skin and your nails scoring lines down his back that he hopes, viciously, will last long enough to admire.
He works a hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, riding the motion you’ve bkth created.
"That's— John— You’re gonna make me come," you sob.
"I know. I feel you. Squeezin' me like— Christ. Go on—fuck."
He watches it arrive before you do, a shiver running ahead of the wave; your spine arches up off the bed, your cunt clenches around him in long pulsing, aching, waves — it takes you under, and you pull him with you.
He holds you, murmuring filth and praise in equal measure against your ear—
How good—
How gorgeous—
You’re mine now, you know that? Hm?—
It’s watching you eagerly nod along with his babbling that finishes him. He lasts maybe ten more strokes on borrowed time, heat gathering alacritous and irrevocable at the base of his groin — and he rears back onto his knees, pulling out of you with a growl that tumbles from his throat, fist working his cock over, soaked with you, spilling hot across your stomach and hip in thick ropes, head hanging, shoulders heaving, your thighs still bracketing his knees.
When he lifts his head, you’re already looking at him.
Glowing down to your chest, lips parted and kiss-swollen, wearing him low on your stomach — and neither of you says anything. Neither of you looks away either. His chest is still heaving. Your knee presses in against his side, and the corner of your mouth starts to curl, and his does too, helpless about it.
He comes down on his side, careful of the mess he’s made of you, one arm heavy across the pillow above your head. The curtain breathes at the window beside the bed and the night comes in and cools the sweat on his back, and he can see your heartbeat going hard at your throat, the rise and fall of your stomach not yet settled. He gently fits his thumb against your pulse, just to feel it going.
He kisses you, your mouth lazy under his, and then your temple, and the crown of your head, and you make a low, boneless sound and turn your face into his hot neck, and the two of you just lie there breathing each other in, tangled and settling, your finger drawing slow shapes on his forearm.
"John?" Small, against his throat.
"Mm?"
"Would you mind grabbing me a cloth? Bathroom's just across the hall."
He's up before the sentence finishes, annoyed at his own carcass the whole three steps to the door, ten months out of practice and it shows, he used to know this part, the part where he takes care of you before you have to ask.
You bathroom is small and smells of your shampoo, fruity, herbal. He runs a flannel under the warm tap, wrings it out, catches his own eyes in the mirror over the sink — wrecked hair, beard ruined and shiny with your lipgloss. He turns, craning his neck spotting a blooming red scratch coming up nicely at his shoulder.
He comes back and cleans you up properly, kneeling on the edge of the bed, one hand steady at your hip while the warm cloth moves over your stomach — thorough about it, frowning slightly the way he does when he’s concentrating — and you watch him do it propped up on your elbows with an expression he can't quite read and doesn't need to. It's warm, whatever it is. And it’s aimed at him, so.
"You're staring," he says, not looking up.
"You're tidying me."
"Should've done it before you asked." He folds the cloth, sets it on the nightstand, and stretches out beside you again, this time gathering you into his chest. "Out of practice."
"I'll allow it," you say, magnanimous, settling your cheek against his pec. "The rest was very in-practice."
He huffs into your hair.
Your fingers trail idle through the hair on his chest, down over old pinked scars, and you ask him about them — whether the jagged line at his shoulder hurt, what caused the puckered one under his ribs — and he answers more honestly than he means to, your weight settling heavier against him as the adrenaline drains.
There's a soft thump from the hallway, then, and a moment later a small shape appears in the doorway — sits, tail wrapping her feet, and surveys the wreckage: the trail of clothes, the stranger man in the bed, you draped over his ribs.
She stares at John.
John stares back.
"We have an audience," he says.
You look over him to see your cat, "Twix, John. John, Twix."
Twix holds his gaze a moment longer, supremely unimpressed, then steps delicately over his discarded shirt and exits the way she came and he feels you giggling before he hears it, the shake of it against his chest.
"That went well," you say, overly pleased.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
"Well, consider me chuffed."
Some comfortable minutes later he feels you surface a little out of the drowse, feels your breathing change, going careful; feels your face arrange itself against his skin before you speak.
"You don't have to stay, by the way." Light. Smooth as eroded stone, polished by use, he imagines. "If you'd sleep better in your own bed. No pressure either way."
And there it is — the same maneuver from your texts, the honest thing dressed up so you can't be caught caring — except this time he can feel your heartbeat while you run it, quick against his ribs, betraying the whole performance from inside.
He keeps his hand moving on your arm, slow, so you know nothing's landed wrong.
"I'll head home," he says. "Not because I want to," he clarifies.
“No?” you ask.
"Believe me. This is about the last place I want to leave." His hand doesn't stop, slow up, slow down, steadying you through it. "I'd like at least one proper dinner between us before I go makin' a habit of your bed."
You lift your head off his chest and look at him — hair wrecked, eyes searching his face for the trick — and he lets you look as long as you need to because there's no trick to be found. He meant it.
“Alright," you agree.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Dinner sounds nice.”
"Mm," he hums, contented. He presses a kiss into your hair and untangles himself, face scrunched with visible reluctance, and dresses while you watch from the bed with the sheet gathered loose around you.
At the door he stops.
"C'mere."
You come to him in the sheet, and he kisses you properly, one hand cupping your face, thumb at your cheek. You go languid against him. He takes his time. Long past politeness. Long enough that leaving starts to look renegotiable, and he breaks away before he starts.
"G’night," he says, low, still holding your face.
"Goodnight."
"I'll ring you about dinner tomorrow."
——
The flat is quiet. But it's a different quiet than the one you left this morning and you stand in the middle of it grinning.
Twix reappears at the edge of the counter and stares.
“I don’t need the lecture, I’m grown,” you tell her and start walking back to the bedroom, you hear her little jump to the floor and her feather steps catching up with you, “I can have sex. I deserve it, even.” You drop into your bed with a sigh. “You’d understand if you still had ovaries.”
summary: After Richter won't leave your side while you're sick with a stomach bug, some google searching says you might not be sick at all. And when you tell Sammy your family might be growing from three to four, he falls head over heels for you all over again.
warnings: all fluff; pregnancy, mentions of throwing up and being sick, no tammy!au, Richter is part of the fam, Sammy being the sweetest. sigh... I have a thing for big men in uniform and their troublemaker dogs.
notes: it's baby fever central over here. this was supposed to be a drabble but somehow it kept getting longer and longer lol.
It's late afternoon. The lazy kind where the television is playing softly, something you're not really paying attention to. The windows of the house are all open, letting in the warm breeze and sunlight.
You're on the couch relaxing, trying to take it easy and hopefully rid yourself of the stomach bug that had been plaguing you the past few weeks. An off and on sickness that left you feeling lethargic and zapped of all your energy, vomiting like this was some lame rendition of the exorcist.
Your legs are propped up on the extra couch pillows, Richter laying between them. The dog's wet nose presses against your palm as you scratch his ears, snout burrowing into your side as he whines. You sigh, a tired you’ve never known settling into your aching limbs.
“We're a sorry pair today, huh,” you scratch the top of Richter’s furry head. The dog replies with a sneeze. You cringe, turning away as your stomach churns. “That’s gross buddy.”
The tv keeps playing, some romcom Sammy had rented along with the big stack of other cheesy movies he'd gotten from Blockbuster in the hopes of keeping your spirits up. He's been really worried about you lately, constantly giving you a sympathetic pout or feeling your forehead with the back of his hand to make sure you're not burning up.
It was strange.
Whatever bug you'd caught wasn't like the typical cold you've had before. It left you feeling sick and exhausted, but there was no outward symptoms besides the vomit. No fever or snot or sore throat. Just an upset stomach and an exhaustion that made you want nothing more than to curl up in Sammy’s arms and sleep the day away.
From the coffee table, your phone rings, Richter’s ears perking up as he turns to look at it. You reach over for your baby pink Nokia buzzing against the surface. The muscles in your arms ache in spite of you having done nothing much all day, fingers tingling as they brush the vibrating object.
You finally get a hold of it, leaning on your elbow as you flip the phone open, pressing the accept button. You hear the click of the line opening, Richter’s paws digging into your thigh as you shift on the couch.
“Hey,” you yawn into the phone, already knowing who's on the other end of the line.
“Hey. You doing okay?” Sammy’s soft voice crackles. You can practically picture your husband, leaning behind some filing cabinet, hiding from Nate who's probably got a hundred case files to sort through.
“I’m okay,” you hum, settling back into the couch.
“Still not feeling good?”
“Eh,” you shrug, watching Richter adjust his snout against your thigh. “It's a bit better. I managed to keep down some crackers this morning.”
“That's good,” Sammy says into the phone, not doing a good job of masking the worry in his voice. “You sure you don't want me to come home for lunch? Just to check on you?”
“No no. It's okay, really.”
“I can. I’ll bring you that chicken noodle soup from the grandma’s diner down the street.” You groan, stomach churning at the thought of the greasy diner food Sammy often frequented.
“Oh gosh, don't even mention chicken.”
“No?”
“No. Bleh,” you shiver, feeling sick just at the thought of meat. “That does not sound appealing. At. All.”
“Okay, alright.” You can hear the amused smile in his voice. You sigh, scratching Richter’s furry head again.
“How's your day been?”
“Oh,” Sammy sighs, his tone shifting more seriously. “You know. Just another day in paradise over here.”
“I’m sorry,” you frown.
“It's okay. We got a bad drug deal case we're working on right now. It's a mess.”
“That sounds awful."
“Yeah… You sure you don't want me to come home?” You smile.
“What, is Nate giving you a hard time over there?”
“Nah. But I’d happily spend the rest of the day taking care of you than going through these records.”
“Aw, Sammy,” you grin. “I love being your scapegoat.” He laughs with you.
“But really, I’m okay. Richter’s keeping me company. Won't leave me alone actually.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He practically breaks down the door when I try and pee.”
“Huh,” Sammy huffs into the line. “Weird.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Richter hadn't exactly been the chill dog he was acting like when Sammy had first brought him home.
He'd been wary of you, barking when you wore certain perfume, chewing up your favorite pair of shoes. Constantly butting against your calf in need of attention, barking defensively when given said attention.
Sammy had told you he'd get used to domestic life. That after years of always being alert, the dog was probably unsettled by the quiet and calm of your home.
The dog had definitely adjusted, practically singing a new tune not long before you first got sick.
From the other side of the line, you can hear a voice calling Sammy’s name. There's a rustling, voices muffled as Sammy covers the receiver and then a loud clang of a drawer
“Sammy?” You frown.
“Hey sweetheart, sorry. Listen, I gotta go. Nate just got a call we've been waiting for.”
“That's okay. Thanks for checking on me.”
“Of course. Got to make sure my girl’s doing okay.”
“I’m fine. Now go crack that case detective Bryant.” Sammy laughs.
“Alright. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
The line clicks and you shut your phone closed with a tired groan. Richter makes a noise, a low whine vibrating against your leg. He almost sounded worried, big brown eyes watching you. You smile, patting his head.
The contents of the fridge stare at you mockingly and you shut the door with a groan. Nothing sounded appetizing or even remotely appealing.
If you were being honest, you could really go for a fat slice of cherry pie with melty french vanilla icecream. Specifically the pie the wife of one of Sammy’s detective buddies brought to a function last year.
But the sugar would probably do you in further, if you were being honest.
You pout, opening up the same cabinets you'd been looking at for the past week.
The same boxes of cereal and pasta and random snacks Sammy brought home. They all rested on the shelves with mockingly bright packages and names that sounded delicious, but made you sick to even think of biting into. You huff, leaning against the counter, your already small energy levels diminishing as you stand around the kitchen.
Richter is right there at your calves, tongue lolling as he looks up at you expectantly. You smile at him, grabbing the bag of dog treats on the counter and tossing him one. He scarfs it down, lips smacking over his pointy canines, immediately going back to watching you. You snort and shake your head.
“What is with you lately Richter?”
The dog just watches you. You sigh, rubbing your forehead with frustration.
“I swear this is not what I meant when I said I was thinking about losing some weight.” Richter barks, and you nod. “Right. I’d rather run a mile than have to throw up again.”
You sigh tiredly, just wishing your stomach would settle enough to eat something. Anything. Nothing sounded good. Not between the disgusting smell the leftover steak and macaroni was giving off in the fridge and the sheer desire for that stupid cherry pie you were feeling.
You wander over to the fridge again, opening it to the same disappointment you were greeted with like the last three times. The sound of Richter’s nails against the tile follows you again and you glance at him.
“What is with you, huh? You’re acting all clingy. What am I dying…”
Your laughter trails off as you pause. Richter looks up at you, tongue still lolling happily. You stand there frozen, a sudden worry carving its way through your heart.
Something Sammy has said to you once about K-9 dogs and training their smell.
“You know they’re training dogs for all kinds of stuff too. Not just drugs.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know. Cancer and health stuff. Heard they’re trying to catch illness early.”
“Wow. That’s crazy. Can Richter smell that stuff?”
“Dunno. His sniffer is a little on the fritz. S’ why he retired.”
“He still knows when dinner is ready.”
“That’s just cause your cooking is great hun.”
“Aw, Sammy-”
Richter’s wet nose bumps against your shin, bringing you back to the present. Your mouth is dry when you try to swallow. The dog looks up at you, eyes big and wide.
Did he know something you didn’t?
The house feels too quiet, the desert neighborhood surrounding you less peaceful and more eerie. Suffocating at the thought something might be wrong. You crouch down beside Richter, hands fluffing the fur around his torso.
“Is there something wrong Richter?”
The dog doesn’t say anything. Of course he doesn’t, dogs don’t talk. But the worry is making you feel nauseous again, and you don’t know if you can wait for Sammy to get home to have your worries quelled.
You stand up with a quiet grunt, trudging down the hall to Sammy’s office room, the dog right at your heels again. The sunlight shines in through the big room, painting the bookcases crammed full of binders and books in soft light, illuminating the messy and crowded desk Sammy was always complaining he needed to organize.
The boxy computer the station lent him fires up with a loud hum, the equally boxy housing system whirring at your feet. You settle into Sammy’s big office chair, the leather worn and comfy, smelling like your husband’s cologne. Richter spins, settling on the floor next to you, eyes still trained on your slouched frame. Like you would disappear.
You laugh in spite of your newfound worry.
The computer screen finally blinks to life and you straighten to attention, fingers clacking against the clicky keyboard. You fire up the search engine system, the big blocky GOOGLE appearing.
Your fingers quickly begin to input questions, your eyes scanning the results as they appear.
Dogs and throwing up.
Can dogs smell you being sick?
Dogs smelling illness.
Dogs and-
You pause as you read the third result.
Dogs and pregnancy.
The chair creaks as you lean back, like the result personally offended you.
Like the thought that crossed your mind wasn’t totally and completely crazy.
No.
That wasn’t… that couldn’t be.
You glance down at Richter who’d become very interested in sniffing at one of Sammy’s ties he’d left draped over the chair’s arm. You blink and click on the search bar again, your searches beginning to change. The hope settling in next to your fear becomes almost as overwhelming as the sick feeling still etched into the walls of your stomach.
Can dogs smell pregnancy?
The question was absurd considering you hadn’t even touched the possibility at all these past few weeks. Although now that the door had opened, it seemed almost the perfect explanation.
You rarely got sick in a normal year and never as bad as the past few weeks had been. Hormone pills weren’t exactly your favorite form of protection and Sammy had a bad habit of reassuring you he was the ‘gun drawing’ champ. Of course, you knew in the back of your head your less than consistent protection methods weren’t exactly full proof.
And maybe.
Just maybe.
There was a teeny tiny part of you that didn’t mind.
You and Sammy had talked about starting a family.
Plenty of times.
You’d watch diaper advertisements with a big smile or pass by little onesies in the store with longing glances. Sammy was always talking about the kids involved in his cases, how he often felt paternal over their situations. It was one of the first topics that had risen during those early stages of dating. There was no doubt that a baby was something you both wanted.
But you? Pregnant right now?
“I can’t be pregnant,” you laugh as you stare at the screen. “I mean that’s- that’s…”
You trail off, looking down at Richter. The dog is staring up at you again. Looking slightly bored as he chews on Sammy’s tie idly.
“It’s crazy Richter. I mean, don’t pregnant women get sick later in pregnancy. And doesn’t everything else get… bigger?” You gesture questioningly to your body. Still the same as it had been.
There was only one way to really tell. If you were spiraling or not.
You push away from the desk after shutting down Sammy’s computer, padding down the hall towards the bathroom. Richter barks, scrambling up onto his paws and following you.
He pushes through the ajar door as you begin rummaging through the toiletry basket beneath the sink, looking for the familiar pink box. The dog sits unashamedly at the door as you hurriedly toss the toilet lid open and make quick work of the pregnancy stick in your hand.
You set the test down on the counter and step back, waiting. It’s the longest three minutes of your life. The clock ticks mockingly slow, your eyes glued to the moving hands as you sit back on the toilet.
“It won’t be positive. It can’t.”
Richter’s tail flops against the bath mat as he sits patiently. Your leg bounces against the porcelain lid.
“I mean,” you chuckle, “It’s flu season. I probably just have a really bad case, y’know.” You look down at the dog. He doesn’t look all that impressed with your reasoning. You sigh and lean over to ruffle the scruff of his neck.
“What if it is positive Ricky? What am I gonna do?” Richter licks the palm of your hand, whining. “I know, I know. Sammy and I have talked about kids. We both want them. But he’s been so busy lately. And the economy is kinda in shambles right now and to bring a baby into all this…”
You trail off with a defeated sigh.
“I just don’t know.” Richter licks your forearm, like he’s trying to help. You smile, glancing up at the clock.
“Wel… it’s time.”
You stand and nervously look at the test, reaching out for it with shaky hands. The stick feels heavier than before. Like just knowing it now carried the results for your future made all the difference.
You swallow thickly, flipping it over-
Your heart sinks as you stare at it.
One pink line.
Your brows furrow, mouth pulling into a frown as you reach for the box, checking the instructions again.
“But I thought…” you trail off, the words lost as you stare at the test.
The negative test.
Richter stares up at you, waiting for you to say something else. But you don’t.
You’re not sure what you’re feeling right now. You should feel some semblance of relief. Weren’t you just saying a baby wasn’t exactly the best plan right now? Weren’t you just sick with the worry of what bringing a baby into the world right now would mean?
But something in your heart pulls, twisting into something resembling disappointment. The small and not so secret part of you that really did want a baby. In spite of all the trials it would bring and the aches and pains. You had actually been waiting to see that positive-
Richter whines, making you blink back to reality.
“I’m sorry boy. I just… I really thought....”
You shake your head, stuffing the test into the box and tossing it in the trashcan with a quiet clang. A chill runs down your back and you shiver, sighing as you realize how tired you felt, the sickness you were still dealing with not relenting.
“Come on Richter,” you gesture towards the living room, trying to pretend like you were fine. “Let’s go back and watch some tv.”
Everything was fine. It was fine.
A negative test was a good thing. Right?
You were just sick with the flu. Richter was finally adjusted to being a member of the Bryant household.
There was no baby.
But as you lay on the couch again, the dog settled against you comfortingly, your heart broke a little at the thought.
The house is dark as he quietly sneaks into the living room, the messy evidence of the day’s battle with your illness still strewn about the house. Sammy doesn’t even really have the heart to pick any of it up, the ache in his back pulling his mind towards his bed, the low rumbling of his empty stomach guiding him to the kitchen.
Sammy sets down his briefcase and coat, kicking off his shoes before he beelines it to the fridge. He pulls out the first container of leftovers he lays his eyes on, grabbing a piece of silverware from the dish rack.
He shovels a few bites of cold mac and cheese into his face while he stares blankly at the tiled backsplash. It’s so quiet in the house, rightly so for it being close to ten.
Although Sammy is surprised Richter hasn’t come running.
A little high strung and wary of any visitors, the dog is always the first one to check out who’s coming through the door. Sammy can see from his position against the kitchen counter that Richter is not in his dog bed like usual. The plush and cozy bed is empty, save for the chewed and abused rabbit toy you’d bought for him. The one with the leg chewed clean off.
Sammy’s too tired to dwell over it. He tosses the container back into the fridge, throwing back an alka seltzer tablet before he pads down the hall towards the bedroom.
The hardwood floor creaks beneath his weight, the soft moonlight illuminating through the half closed door. Sammy nudges the door open slowly, standing in the doorway for a moment as he loosens his tie, watching the rise and fall of your chest.
You were tucked cozily under the covers, Richter curled up against your backside. Sammy can’t help but smile at the sight, even if his heart hurt knowing you weren’t feeling good.
You barely move when he pads into the room, the soft smell of chamomile tea long gone cold filling the room, Richter’s soft snores making everything feel together. Stitched like a homey portrait; a scene of perfect domesticity, it made Sammy’s heart ache even more.
Because every night he got to come home to something soft and wonderful and so unlike the violence and horror his job threw at him day after day.
All the awful things LA tried so hard to hide, the awful aftermath of fights gone wrong, kids who didn’t know actions had consequences, people who just wanted to find a way out only to fall into the wrong hands.
But here.
Here in his bedroom, with a closet filled to the brim with your pretty skirts and his collection of mediocre suits, the bed with mismatched sheets and a cozy chair the two of you had found at an estate sale not too long ago.
Here, everything was as it should be.
Warm. Quiet. A kind of peace that couldn’t be tucked into concrete apartment complexes or busy freeways.
It was the heart of everything that Sammy loved about this place.
You.
Sammy smiles tiredly as he slips his belt off, setting it carefully on his nightstand so the holster didn’t clatter. He nudges Richter, trying to get the dog to wake, sighing when Richter just turns away from him, snuggling closer against you.
“Richter,” Sammy whispers, slipping the straps of his suspenders off his shoulders. “Hey, come on bud. No dog on the furniture, that’st he rule.”
Richter just puffs at the reminder, eyes glowing in the dark. Sammy makes a face, trying to tug at the dog’s collar. Sammy, as much as he loved the dog, had a hard rule about the animal sleeping in bed with the two of you. It was his job to keep you company at night, not the dogs.
But tonight, Richter didn’t budge.
In fact he growled lowly at Sammy, turning over further into you.
“Rick…” Sammy sighs. You mumble groggily into your pillow at the sound, your hand coming up to brush a strand of hair caught in your mouth.
“Sammy?” You whisper tiredly. Sammy’s face softens as the mattress dips beneath his weight, his hand reaching out to brush the hair away from your face.
“Hi baby. Didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispers.
“S’ alright,” you blink, leaning into the kiss he presses against your cheek.
“You feeling okay?” Sammy asks. It was a casual question. Almost routine after you being sick for so long.
“Yeah. I’m okay.” There’s a pause in your voice. Almost imperceptible, but Sammy catches it. He frowns, noting the way the soft lines of your face almost look sad in the dark.
“You sure?” He asks, thumb brushing along your hairline comfortingly. You give him a smile, opening your arms wide in a silent request as you speak.
“I promise. Just missed you.” Sammy obliges, lowering himself into your arms, being careful to not crush you beneath his big frame.
“Yeah? I missed you too pretty girl.”
You hum, the sound vibrating against his chest. Sammy chuckles, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. You turn your head away from him, eyes closed as you hum quietly again.
Peacefully. The content sound of everything being as it should be.
“You need a shower,” you whisper.
“Wow. That’s your best greeting?”
“I’m tired Sammy,” you chuckle. “It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs into your hairline. “Me too.”
“Well hurry up then,” you push him away, your hand lacking any real force. Sammy just shakes his head and peels himself away from you, giving Richter a resigned pat to the side.
The shower is cool against Sammy’s broad frame, refreshing after the hot LA sun. The water runs off of his freckled face and shoulders, washing away the grime and grim tension of the day’s events.
Sammy is hanging his towel on the rack, dried and changed into an old academy shirt and a clean pair of boxer shorts, when he accidentally knocks his watch off the sink. It falls in the space between the toilet, bouncing off the little trash can there.
Sammy grumbles, too tired to deal with it. But he does. It’s his only watch, the one you’d spent way too much money on as a gift for his 30th birthday.
Sammy crouches down, water droplet still dripping off his damp hair as he reaches for the watch. He pauses, his eye catching something in the trash.
A familiar looking box.
He pulls it out by the ripped cardboard flap, the flimsy material pressed between his index and middle finger.
It’s a pregnancy test box.
Of course it was, he’d recognize the magenta and pink box anywhere. It was hard to miss in your mostly drab bathroom. Sammy frowns, forgetting the watch for a moment as he fully pulls out the box, curiosity getting the better of him.
He can’t help but rifle through it, looking for the used test. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust you to tell him these kinds of things. Of course he did.
But Sammy had a bad habit of sticking his nose into places it didn’t belong. Nate says it’s what made him a good detective. Curiosity helped find answers.
Save lives.
In this case, curiosity revealed that Sammy Bryant was about to be a father.
Sammy stares at the test, squinting at the double pink lines.
The second one was faint, barely glinting beneath the light. But it was there. Any semblance of being tired is zapped as he blinks at those two lines, his mouth falling agape in shock. You were pregnant?
Something clicks in Sammy’s mind. The sickness you’d been fighting. The way Richter had been acting. Like pieces of a puzzle finally laid into a full picture.
Sammy shakes his head, sitting back on his haunches.
But… you hadn’t said anything.
You hadn’t even given him a hint that something else might be happening. That you might be hiding this perfect little secret. In fact, you had almost seemed… sad.
Were you sad? Did you not want this?
Something tightens in Sammy’s chest, a hint of doubt. Maybe he should just ask you about it. The station’s couples counselor always says ‘communication is key’, and Sammy knows even the hardest conversations are part of maintaining a healthy relationship.
Sammy sits on the bathroom floor for a while, thinking, thumb tapping against his lip, leg bouncing nervously.
Nervous. He shouldn’t be nervous.
Who was Sammy kidding? He was practically buzzing at the idea of being a father.
Sammy finally grabs his watch, standing with the test and padding back down the hall to your bedroom. You let out a soft noise when Sammy gently prods your shoulder, head lulling against his forearm.
“What took you so long?” You mumble quietly, not opening your eyes.
“Honey… can we talk?” You crack your lashes open, blearily staring into the dark at him.
“Wha-” Sammy holds out the test.
He knows you can’t see it, eyes straining to focus in the dark. He reaches over for the lamp, giving you a quick apology as he flips the switch on, the room bathed in a soft orange glow. You moan, covering your eyes.
“Samuel-”
“I know, I know.”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. But this is kinda important honey.”
You blink, sitting up in bed. Richter isn’t pleased as your legs jostle him, the dog puffing as he rolls over to Sammy’s side of the bed, legs splayed out over the comforter. You squint at Sammy, your hair mussed from sleep, licking your lips as you half glare at him.
“What’s so important?”
“This.” Sammy holds out the test for you.
“Oh,” you say, something sad crossing your face. “I was gonna tell you tomorrow.”
Sammy scoffs, a mixed sound of amusement and disbelief as you take the test from him.
“Tomorrow? You were gonna wait that long?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s not like it’s gonna change anything.”
“Not gonna change… WHAT?!” Sammy half hisses, confusion written across his face. “What do you mean this isn’t gonna change anything. Of course it does.”
You frown, making a strange face.
“Sammy… what on earth are you talking about? It was a negative test, of course I wasn’t going to tell you about it at 11 at night.”
Oh.
You had taken the test earlier and it had been negative.
Oh.
Sammy bursts into bright laughter, the sound echoing off the walls. You don’t look even half as amused as him and Sammy doesn’t blame you at all. Not even when you try to push him away when he cups your face and presses a wet kiss to your face.
“Sam-”
“Honey, I think you need to check the test again.”
You pause, frowning.
You glance down at the test, squinting. Sammy watches, his smile brightening further the moment he knows you see it. Your eyes widen slightly, your hands quickly bringing the test beneath the light.
And there they were. Two pink lines.
“But…” you trail off, mouth searching for the words. “It wasn’t- these weren’t there before.”
Sammy grins, his hand reaching out to rest against your thigh.
“I think you’re pregnant, baby.” You don’t say anything, just stare at the lines. Sammy tries to catch your eye, but you refuse to look at him. He thinks you might be in shock. “Honey?”
Sammy shakes your thigh gently, finally drawing your attention.
“I don’t… I don’t even know what to say.” He frowns.
“Do you not want to-”
“No,” you interject before he can even finish the sentence. “No, of course I want a baby. I really do. It’s just- earlier when it was negative I thought something was wrong with me.”
“Oh, honey.” Sammy pulls you into his arms, your legs curling beneath you as you settle against him. “You’re okay. We’ll be okay.”
You look down at the test and then back up at him.
“What if it's a false positive? Those can happen.”
“They can?” He frowns.
“I mean, it wasn’t positive before. Maybe-”
“Well, just take another test. There’s no harm in that, is there?”
“Sammy,” you tilt your head. “I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
Sammy smiles and kisses you softly.
“I’m always looking on the bright side of things honey. If it really truly is negative, then maybe it’s time we start trying.”
“Really?” Your eyes brighten.
“Really,” Sammy nods as he tucks a piece of hair behind your ear. “I think it’s time for a baby.”
You smile brightly. You still look tired and exhausted from being sick all day. But you’re eyes are sparkling. And Sammy doesn’t think he’s ever loved you more than he does right now. At the prospect of you carrying his child.
Richter’s snout pokes between the space of your bodies and Sammy throws him a glare. The dog pushes him away from you, pressing his furry body against your torso. Sammy pouts.
“Although I really don’t think it’s negative, sweetheart.”
You laugh.
“I think he’s just nosey. Always needs to be a part of things, huh,” you scratch Richter’s ears fondly.
You stand in the front of the fridge, the door open as you stare.
But you’re not staring into the lit insides, the cold air seeping through the fabric of your dress. Your eyes are directed upward, glued to the ultrasound photo pinned to the metal surface by a giftshop magnet.
A baby.
Three positive tests and a doctor's appointment to confirm it.
Sammy reaches out to squeeze your hand on the fridge door, pressing a kiss to your shoulder as he passes by you.
“You’re gonna waste the electricity just standing there baby.”
You hum in question, not really listening. Too busy thinking about the future baby Bryant and not enough about the cold bowl of cherries had come over to grab.
“What was that?” You ask dreamily.
“I said-”
Sammy turns back to you, going to repeat his statement. But he pauses, taking in how beautiful you look standing there. The slight glow you had, the pure and excited thrill that washes over him as he looks at you.
You were pregnant. He was going to be a dad.
You turn to look at Sammy, reaching into the fridge for the bowl of juicy, red fruit.
Watching a movie with Gentle!Pope and he's spooning you on the couch while you use his bicep as a firm pillow, his hand fidgeting with the hem of your shirt when he can't quite focus on the movie.
But then towards the end of the movie when the unexpected sad ending comes- he feels your breath slow, small pauses in between as your eyes lock on the screen and he's rubbing up and down your sternum as he pulls you in closer and lets you wipe the subtle tear on his sleeve. Kissing the top of your head as his other hand grabs the remote to turn off the credits.
"s' okay sweet girl, just a movie yeah? C'mere what's wrong, hm?"
And he's rubbing your skin up and down softly trying to soothe you but you keep tearing up and talking about how sad the ending was— he can't fully understand why a movie is making you so emotional but he still wants to make sure his pretty girl is okay :(
( In my head he talks to reader the same way he talks to Lena— like all sweet n shit to make sure she knows shes safe<3)
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A/N: i had fun writing this! I hope you guys enjoyyy :P were just gonna act like this fic has had a name the whole time and i didnt just pull it out of my ass 😭😭 oh and abbot's and readers relationship is up to you... me personally... i think abbot likes reader a little, and we all know how posessive he is. i think he tells reader to stay away from park mainly because he knows park likes them and he just cant have you around park at all. also i dont know if it's obvious but i am writing abbot with a slight undertone of manipulation and controlling wtv... okay bye love yall
Pairing: Brendon Park x shy/fawn-like!reader, idk i forgot
Part one
You got lucky. Real lucky.
Abbot came to your rescue. “Hey, Bambi,” he mutters. You lock eyes with Park again on accident before turning towards Abbot. His hand happens to brush your arm; a gentle gesture that shows he knows. Park slowly continued whatever path he was on. “Give me a hand, would ya?” You give Abbot a subtle “Thank you,” look before he pulls you into a nearby hall.
Thank God for that.
Abbot crosses his arms as he raises a brow. “I saw Santos run off, why didn't you go with her?” He asks bluntly. You shrug; you really don't know why you froze. Were you scared, or were you captivated by this so-called madman? God forbid, God fucking forbid.
You hear the pit-pat of footsteps and turn your head away from Abbot, but he holds eye contact just until Santos lets her words spill – some half-assed apology for leaving you in the predator's den. She's not sorry for bolting, she's sorry because she knows.
She knows that you're absolutely fucked, now.
Now – you are working right beside him; Park. You're only here because Robby, your attending, dragged you in here. You protested; of course you protested. You spotted Park in here before Robby even mentioned it – you could sense him, almost.
That's where you are physically. Mentally, you're stuck replaying how he's brushed his hand against yours six times already. His hands were rough and very clearly bigger than yours – it's kind of hard to just brush past that; and also the fact that you can feel his eyes boring into you. Even before you stepped into the room– before you spotted him; you felt this light, intense pressure on you.
The patient stabilizes, thanks to Robby. You look up at him, and you dare to glance at Park – he was looking at you first. You look away immediately; not at Robby, not really at anything specific. Robby's lips press into a flat line as he watches Park cross his arms and open his mouth with that know-it-all look. You saw Robby's expression in your peripheral, and tilted your head up to make eye contact with Park.
“Where did you learn that, Bambi?” He sounds mad – he's never spoken to you before. Only ever waited and watched from across the room; preying on you. He had to have been, because only Abbot calls you that. You stare up at him awkwardly – fuck, where did all the words go? “Uh, learn what- exactly, Dr. Park?” You glance off to the side at Robby who is leaving the room; head down with a pitiful look displayed for only you. Damn you, Robby. Park follows your eyes to Robby, like it just clicked to him that you guys are alone– yet, he remains stoic. The big, bad shark cornering someone too docile.
Your eyes snap back to his at the same time his snap back to yours. “You performed a fem-distal bypass too good.” The words shoot off his tongue like an insult, and they almost sting until you realize what he really said – the shark is complimenting you. He watches your face, waiting for something, anything really.
You can feel the raw, burning sensation in your skin from you picking at the corner of your thumb. Park watches as you nearly back into the wall instead of out the door; muttering “Sorry,” and something along the lines of “I– I think Abbot is paging me,” before you turn and bolt out the room. Just like before, you can feel his eyes boring into you.
Except you feel his disappointment seeping through your spine – your spine that you wish he'd bend, twist, and tangle until you can't run from him next time.
And if that’s what it takes, that's exactly what he'll do. He’ll take his strong jaw and rip you to shreds; rip you until he can't any more and you're sorry for what he did.
Lately, you’ve been thinking about having a baby.
Or: the fertility clinic au
Part 2
masterlist
You walk around town like it’s written on your forehead that you’re about to let some strange man get you pregnant.
It might as well be a scarlet letter pinned to your breast. A sign taped to the back of your shirt. Kick me. I’m letting some guy knock me up. Or better yet, I’m with stupid, with the arrow pointed up at you.
Obviously that’s not true. You’ve done a good job at keeping this under wraps for the most part, not even your closest friends hearing about the man that propositioned you in the fertility clinic waiting room. You might've had half a mind to call one of them about it on the drive home, but by then you’d already filed it away as future gossip material, imagining bringing it up at drinks to the shock and delight of your friends.
Then night falls, and you grow weak.
You wake up with post-text message clarity the next morning, but there’s little you can do to backtrack now. You gave the man your name and number. You spoke to him on the phone about it, albeit briefly. Sure you could call John again and tell him that you thought it over a little more and decided against it, but then—
“It’s gonna cost four thousand dollars.”
Your coworker lets out a hissed breath, wincing. “That’s not cheap.”
It’s a pea-soupy summer morning, all hot and humid with the sky tinted a yellowish colour from forest fires up in the country, the hazy light seeping in through the windows in the office kitchen. Not a cloud in sight. You wouldn't call it a particularly pleasant morning, with the weather as overcast as your mood, but it could always be worse.
She’s the first person outside of a few close friends that you’ve told about going to the clinic at all, but she reacts exactly as you thought she would. It’s both affirming and annoying; it’s not so bad hearing from someone else that four thousand dollars is a bit pricey for a single person, but part of you wishes she’d try to convince you to go through with it. You need someone to push you in a direction—in any direction.
You nod, mouth screwed into a grimace. “And that’s only for a single try. I think she said it would be closer to, like, twelve thousand dollars altogether.”
“So are you gonna do it? Or are you gonna keep looking around?”
“I have another appointment next week,” you half-answer, getting cagey all of a sudden.
The truth is, that appointment isn’t the only thing you’ve got on the books. There’s another dot in your calendar for a few days before, one that seems to glow ominously when you stare at the date as it slowly approaches, lumbering forward one ground-shaking step at a time.
You wonder how long you can go without telling anyone. Theoretically, you could keep up this ruse for the rest of your life, pretend you always went through with the treatment. Lie through your teeth when your friends ask you if you know anything about the donor. No, they didn’t tell me anything, I just picked a profile with a good medical record and family history.
Don’t think about how you live in the same city. Don’t think about the likelihood of running into him around town with the baby in tow.
You shake your head. Those are concerns that you can foist off onto a future version of you. All the current you needs to worry about is making this all a reality.
You don’t know what to wear out to dinner with him. It’s both a date and not, more of a prelude to the later events of the night. Part of you wonders if you should just text him your address and tell him to skip the preamble and come on over.
The only reason you don’t is because a little voice at the back of your mind insists that you at least do your due diligence and screen him a little more over dinner. You can always back out at the last minute if a few too many red flags pop up.
(You tell yourself that as if a strange man offering to knock you up within five minutes of meeting weren’t a big enough red flag on its own.)
John meets you at the restaurant looking every bit as handsome as the day you met him, once again nearly taking your breath away. A little more buttoned up this time though, actually quite dashing in a proper dress shirt and suit jacket, even his shoes polished.
You have a second to think about calling it off. A second to consider turning tail and getting as far away as possible. Maybe, with enough time, you could scrape together the money for IUI. You could wait a year, or take out a loan with your bank, or pray for a decent enough raise to manage it on your own.
But then, as the time before, he turns his head and locks eyes with you.
It would probably be a good idea to take a picture of him, maybe even a picture of his ID, and send it over to one or two of your friends, on the off chance that he turns out to be a dangerous man, but you don’t need to be inundated by a barrage of text messages and phone calls from your friends trying to talk you out of it. You’ve made up your mind.
Walnut and burgundy furnishings decorate the large room, and the amber glow of candlelight and antique wall sconces saturates the restaurant in a dark, sensual bloom. A server guides John and you to a table right in the middle of the room, a better table than you might’ve hoped to get on your own. You eye him sideways when he pulls your chair out for you.
His demeanour is so relaxed that if you didn’t already know the purpose of this dinner, you could be forgiven for assuming that you were out on a real date. John certainly acts the part.
“You know, we didn’t have to do this,” you start awkwardly, eyes gliding over the room to look at all the other well-dressed patrons, some presumably out on actual dates.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I was taught that dinner comes before the rest of the evening.”
“I just mean you didn’t have to. I would’ve been fine just…” getting right down to business, you leave unsaid, hoping that he doesn’t make you spell it out.
“We’re two civilized adults. I thought we might get to know each other first.”
“Well, what do you want to know about me?”
“This is as much for me as it is for you—don’t you want to know anything about the father of your children?”
You wish he’d keep his voice down. He isn’t wrong though; it would be a good idea for you to take his candidature more seriously, actually ask him questions about himself and his parentage. He already emailed you a recent STI panel and bloodwork results, both done through the fertility clinic back when he was still keen on donating, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn a little more about him.
“Alright. How old are you?”
“Forty-six.”
You nod, pleased with yourself for guessing it right. “What do you do for work?”
“Just some work for the government,” he says, brushing the question off. “What else?”
That piques your interest though. “Oh, come on. What are you, M16 or something?”
“No, nothing like that,” John laughs, genuinely amused enough for you to believe him.
You roll your eyes when he doesn’t elaborate any further though. “Fine, leave me in the dark. Anything else you want to know about me?”
“Where are you in your cycle?” he asks, blunt as a hammer.
A classic spit take moment. It’s a good thing you haven’t ordered a drink yet.
“I think it’s, uh…it’s coming soon actually. Um. Next week or so.”
He chews on that for a second, mulling over the timing. “That’s fine. We should still be able to make it work.”
There he goes again, making comments that leave you fish-mouthed and stunned, jaw slack with disbelief. Never able to conjure up a good enough retort.
When the server comes by to take your drink orders, both of you still deliberating over your food, John orders a beer for himself and a mocktail for you, not even bothering to consult you about it.
“No alcohol,” he reminds you before you have a chance to ask.
To be fair, the spicy blackberry-basil concoction that the server comes back with a few minutes later is a refreshing burst of fruit and fresh herbs, but that doesn’t excuse the overstep. You ignore it only because you know there’s no use getting worked up when you’ve already made your mind up. It’s a peccadillo in the grand scheme of things considering what he’s doing for you.
Conversation flows surprisingly well over dinner, but at the back of your mind, you can’t stop thinking about how at the end of the night, he’s going to take you home and fuck you. It creeps back in whenever you let your guard down for a split second.
So, do you have any hobbies? (In three hours, this man is going to strip you naked and have sex with you)
Do you have any siblings? Any twins running in the family? (In two hours, this man is going to climb on top of you and fuck you until he puts a baby in you)
It’s a lot to keep in your head at the same time.
“How long have you been thinking about doing this?” John asks apropos of nothing, the earlier thread of your conversation evaporating on the spot.
“I mean, I’ve wanted to have kids for a long time, but actually planning to have them…maybe a couple months?”
“Why now? Why not wait a little longer? Wait for someone to start a family with?”
You’re not sure why he’d ask you that, why it would matter. It’s none of his business, quite frankly. You almost want to tell him that, let yourself get righteous, get angry, but you find you can’t fully commit to the anger. It wouldn’t change anything. You aren’t being forced to answer him.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m not much of a family man myself. ‘Least not when I was younger, when it counted. Never had the time nor the inclination. Work took me all over—it just wouldn’t have been fair if I had a wife or kids waiting around for me. But since it didn’t seem like having a family was in the cards for me, I thought it would be a waste of good genetics.”
“Oh.” It’s arrogant, but it’s as good an answer as any.
He waits a beat then lifts an eyebrow when you don’t reciprocate. “So? Why didn’t you wait?”
“I did try, but there wasn’t much out there, and I wanted a baby more than I wanted to be with someone, so…”
Leave him to fill in the blanks. He met you at the culmination of that longing after all, even changed the course of it, disrupted your plans to place himself at the centre of them.
At the centre for a time, you remind yourself. Not forever.
After that, he keeps the conversation light, only delving into superficial topics to help pass the time. You excuse yourself after finishing your meal to go to the bathroom, and come back to two coffees laid out on the table with sugar and cream in pretty porcelain cups laid out between them. John must have ordered for you again in your absence. Good thing you like coffee.
The bill is also there, discretely tucked under John’s napkin, and that makes your stomach flip, realizing that only a coffee now sits between you and the end of this night.
Then, at a certain point, when all that’s left in your cup is the dregs, sugar spoon bone dry on your plate, John gives you a look from across the table that says it’s time for you both to go.
Well, here we go, you think a little hysterically as you push back your chair to stand, nearly jumping out of your skin when his hand comes down on your back.
At your car, you sway back and forth on your heels. “You can, uh…follow behind me, if that works.”
“Why don’t you give me your address and I’ll meet you there?”
You bite your lip, pretending to deliberate, then acquiesce.
Let him think he’s pulling one on you. You’re bringing him home instead of the other way around because you don’t want to have any memory of a man’s bed when you think about your pregnancy journey. If it’s going to be you alone, then it should be about you alone. Your decision to go out and pick a man to father your baby.
His participation will be a short blip in your life. A minor footnote. You’ll remember it in bursts throughout the rest of your life: staring at a carton of cream in the dairy aisle of the local grocery store; garden spade buried hilt-deep in a plot of soil, blue bigleaf hydrangea in a pot beside you, sweat dripping down the bow of your lips; your baby’s face, for the rest of your natural life.
In your foyer, his hands glide around your hips, pulling you into his chest, and you realize abruptly that ‘short’ might not have been the most accurate interpretation of what’s about to happen.
(Honey, you’ve got a storm coming)
“This off first,” John rasps, pulling the bottom of your shirt up and over your head, blinding you for a split second before he yanks it over your arms.
“Getting right to it, huh?” you joke nervously.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asks, staring down at you assessingly, as if staring into your soul. That cuts the humour from the moment. Vacuums it from the room, leaving behind only the crackling, blistering heat of his gaze and his intentions.
“Yes,” you whisper. Neither of you mention the tremble in your voice and how unsure you sound.
It doesn’t stop him from undressing you though. Bra pulled down under your breasts, pushing your tits up into his face like an invitation, one he accepts without question, pulling your nipples into his mouth one by one, hands on your hips to hold you in place when you try to squirm away. Not that it’s bad—it’s amazingly good after all, toe-curlingly good to have a man run his tongue over your areolas and suck each sensitive nipple to a stiff peak, until you’re on the verge of coming—but it’s a lot, a lot that you have to wrap your head around, your bra pinched off shortly after that and underwear next.
Your touch is hesitant at first, fingers barely gliding down his arms and fisting in the fabric of his shirt to jerk it up, but he makes it easy for you to get lost in it, your nerves fizzling out in the heat and fervor.
You don’t even notice that John has walked you backwards into the bedroom until he pushes you down onto the bed, the mattress bouncing under you. “One second, love—need to get all of this off myself.”
You watch transfixed as the suit jacket comes off first, shrugged off and discarded. He undoes only a few buttons before wrenching it over his head, eyes on you the whole time, his stare never breaking. Scalding hot.
That’s how you know that despite all his lofty words, this isn’t some favour he’s doing you. He wants this just as badly—wants it with a vigour that you don’t even know if you’ll be able to handle, aware that you are just flesh and blood. There’s a prickle at the back of your mind, a whisper reminding you that nobody knows that he’s here, that he’s a hot-blooded man about to slake his lust with your body.
Then he slides the elastic waistband of his boxers down his thighs and your mind goes blank when you see the flushed, heavy shaft droop between his legs.
The two of you work together to shove a pillow under your hips, John fetching it from the top of the bed and you lifting your hips to give him easier access. You don’t have to ask why.
Nestled between your thighs, John looks up at you with heavy-lidded eyes and says, “Let’s get you all softened up to start, alright, love?”
The first touch of his lips to your sex sends a lightning bolt up your spine, and then it’s practically an open mouth kiss. Tongue running up the seam of your lips, pushing into the clenched hole at the centre, the bristles of his beard scraping up the insides of your thighs and the thin skin of your labia.
It’s good, but it’s taking too long and your heart is a rabbiting mess and you can barely think or see straight, so you tangle your fingers in his hair and try to push his head away. “That’s okay, John, I just wanna—oh fuck, can you please just put it in?”
“No, baby, it’s good if you come first,” he murmurs. “Helps it take.”
That floods your system with a frenetic, crazed exhilaration. Baby fever bubbling and boiling, frothing spilling over the top like a pot left on the stovetop for too long.
You gasp when he tucks a couple fingers into your hole to stretch you out, a perfunctory, almost clinical motion. Just enough to loosen you up for him, unmindful of the way you squirm and whine, rolling your hips to get him to go faster. He does not.
It doesn’t take much effort on his part after that to get you to come, too worked up and wound up, core squeezing his fingers like a vice until he gives your clit a suck and you squeal, oh, too much, breath ripping through your chest.
They’re wet when he pulls them out, and he dries them off by rubbing them on your belly.
The shadow of his body draws over yours as he climbs on top of you. It’s as physical as it is visual though, John’s hands always on some part of your body, dragging up your legs and over your arms, fingers spreading over your belly before he runs a hand up between your breasts and over your throat, lingering there just long enough to close around your throat and hold for a second, then skating up to cup your jaw.
And then he’s all big body on top of you, coaxing your legs around his hips, one hand squishing your cheeks when he bends down to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his lips, the tongue pushing into your mouth musky with the flavour of your cum. You’d protest if you could, but you can’t, his mouth slanted over yours and demanding.
“C’mere,” he mumbles against your lips when he draws you in for another kiss, sawing his cock up and down between your folds, coating his length with your juices, until it’s there suddenly, breaching you.
You have to grab him, loop your arms around his shoulders and squeeze to ground yourself. It’s a lot to take in. He’s a lot to take in.
“I know, love, I know,” John murmurs soothingly. “Deep breaths, okay?”
You listen to him, letting a shaky breath out. It helps you relax. Barely, but enough to ease the strain a bit.
He nuzzles his nose into your temple, his breath fanning out against your ear. “A little more, love, alright? You gonna be brave for me?”
“Oh—just get on with it,” you gasp when he eases in another inch, and John laughs in your ear.
It feels genuinely romantic like this. Your arms wrapped around his neck and his hips slowly rocking into you, whispering sweet nothings like, there we go, you’ve got it, that feel good, love? When he fits his hand around the back of your neck and lifts your head up for a kiss, you swear you see stars.
The kiss is too much. Too intimate. You wish you would’ve set that boundary ahead of time. It feels pointless now, trapped under the heavy weight of his body and impaled on his member, sucked into it, lips slotting and melting over each other, his tongue running over yours. He’s a good kisser at least, practiced from a lifetime of it. No awkward schoolboy tonguing.
Too good. You wonder distantly how many other women he’s slept with (probably more than you have any business knowing). If he’s ever gotten anyone else pregnant. Your nails dig into his back instinctively at the thought and he gasps a wet and guttural sound, hips bucking harder.
He gets rough enough to loosen a bolt of fear in your chest. All of a sudden, it becomes bright and clear in your mind. There’s a grunting, sweating man over you, all two hundred plus pounds of him laid out on top of you, with no protection between you. Raw cock plunging into your pussy. You can barely get a full breath in.
“Fuck, I’m close,” John grunts, and your eyes flick down instinctively, trying to see past the dense mass of hair on his chest towards the length of his cock sliding into you. He’s pressed too close though. When he catches you looking away from him, he clamps his hand around your face again, forcing your gaze back up. “No, none of that. Eyes on me.”
You think you must gasp. Some horrified sound must escape you because you can feel the aftereffect of it, the big hollow where it used to be.
His other arm wedges under your back to pull you closer to him, thighs spreading to brace his weight against the mattress before driving into you harder, deeper, the big, concentrated energy of him inescapable.
You can sense it the second before he’s about to come, his eyebrows digging in and his jaw going tight, the vein in his forehead prominent.
“Christ, you’re gonna take it, aren’t you?” he snarls. “All this fucking cum.”
On the next stroke in, you dig an ankle into the muscle of his ass and squeeze your inner muscles around his length, grinning hazily to yourself when that makes him shout.
And then, oh, he surges in and you feel it, hear it, sense it all around you, his fingers from the hand wedged under your back digging hard into the side of your breast. Hips forcefully pumping into you and pushing his cum in deep, your own orgasm lost somewhere in there, a small, forgettable part of it all.
Eventually, he stops moving over you, letting his cock slip out of you on the next stroke out. You hiss when he does, clenching up involuntarily. With nothing plugging it inside though, his cum leaks out, dripping down the crack of your ass and onto the pillow under your hips.
John’s hot breath fans over your face as he pants, slowly winding down as well, the red flush in his cheeks still stark, though gradually fading. It’s only in the cooldown that you realize how claustrophobic it is being trapped under him, the sheer weight and heat of his body flush with yours becoming more and more uncomfortable, almost unbearably so.
When he slumps off to one side, you can finally breathe again, the air rushing into your lungs. There’s sweat in your skin and tears in the corners of your eyes, everything tacky and humid, the frantic beat of your heart only beginning to slow down. The stiffness in your shoulders only dawns on you after a few minutes like that, and you push yourself up onto your elbows just to try to work some of it out.
“No, don’t get up, love. We’re just gonna lie here for a bit,” he instructs, pushing your shoulder back down. “Better chance of my boys getting the job done if we keep it all in you.”
Of course he just wants to make sure that it takes. That way, you don’t have to do this again. “Oh yeah. I, uh, I didn’t think about that.”
He doesn’t just mean lie there, of course, though your body would like nothing more than to sink into the plush embrace of sleep. Instead he means keeping your hips propped up on the pillow now saturated with cum, and curling you into his side, separating your thighs again to palm your cunt, sliding his fingers through the wet.
It’s a goopy, sticky mess that John plunges his fingers into, pushing it back up inside of you and shushing you when you whimper, a little gaped from his cock but sore to the touch.
For much longer than you anticipated, he lies there on his side beside you and keeps two fingers pushed up inside you, blocking any cum from leaking out.
“How long do we have to do this for?” you ask, voice all high and tight in your throat.
John hums, unconcerned. “Ten, fifteen minutes.”
True to his word, he keeps you there for the full fifteen minutes. Only the sound of your breathing fills the room, quiet otherwise aside from the enormously large weight of his presence, too familiar now with the private corners of your world.
He doesn’t warn you before idly circling your clit with thumb. You jerk, nearly biting through your lip. “John!”
“Relax, honey, I’m just making you come again.”
“I know that, John—ah, ah, ah—”
A leg hooks over yours, his thigh heavy enough to keep you pinned without even much strength behind it. His fingers don’t so much as twitch inside of you, buried to the fattest knuckle while his thumb circles the tight bud of your clit over and over again until you—
You haven’t finished the thought by the time he draws his fingers out, pearlescent strings of cum webbed between them. He hums approvingly when he sees that, pulling your thighs further apart to admire his work. “Gorgeous. That ought to do it for now.”
Your heart skips a beat and you stare up at him, exhausted, the sweat on the back of your neck now cold.
When they first started dating, and before Robby got weird, Brendon found an unexpected benefit in dating a doctors kid being Robinavitch Readers understanding patience for his last minute date cancellations and late shows plans. She knows how it is. She knows it’s out of his hands. She gets it, really. He’s a game changer.
But then, you know. When Brendon can he shows up. He makes the time. He carves out days off and scheduled days to make time for her. Sometimes it’s a last minute call to see if she can squeeze him in, but he does his damndest to show he wants to be there. Wants her. That he’ll put in the work for her.
And she realizes very quickly just how much time her dad could have made for her but didn’t.
i just KNOW jack gets physically sick whenever teenager chubby does regular teenager milestones such as prom or graduating, like he actually cannot (or will not) compute that his little baby is growing up and she isn't a little bean that babbles anymore
Prom is awful. Everyone sees a seventeen-year-old girl in a dress that put a dent in Jack's bank account. He sees the glaring little bread roll they brought home from the hospital. Gummy smiles. The toddler who used to put toys on the bed while he was sleeping. The little girl who called his prosthetic Leggy.
You're already crying while putting on Chubby's necklace for her, and Jack looks ill.
"Dad, you look like you’re gonna throw up."
"I’m fine."
You look over your shoulder and take a glance at him. "Sit down before you ruin her pictures with a cardiac event."
"I said I’m fine."
Jack is sweating, and when Chubby's date arrives, he tries his best not to be mean. He'd chew off his remaining leg than become the reason her prom memories feel ugly. No, no. He is polite.
He's just curious, is all. He asks where they’re eating, who is driving, who else will be with them in the car, whether his phone is fully charged, whether he knows how to perform first aid---
"Dad, stop interviewing him! You know him."
"I’m checking for competence. And making small talk. I can't make small talk?"
When Chubby's date tells her that she looks beautiful, Jack realizes he can't punish the boy without indicting himself. She looks so much like you when he first realized he was already ruined over you. Bright, nervous, trying to pretend she doesn't know how beautiful she is.
This adolescent bastard is looking at his daughter with the same expression Jack once wore for you.
Still wears. To the point that he's surprised his face hasn't gotten stuck and that his heart hasn't given out by now.
He can only stare at the floor and grow nauseated while you cry and hug Chubby. He has prepared himself for a quick hug. He's not gonna embarrass her. No speeches and no asking her to stay home and watch movies with them instead.
...She already promised she'd do that with him and you tomorrow, anyway.
But then his girl, not so little anymore, is shockingly brave enough to wrap her arms around him first, whispering softly enough that her date probably can't hear.
"I'll always be your and Mommy's baby. So stop freaking out."
When she leaves, Jack throws up.
Graduation is worse for simpler reasons. It's hard to stand up when Chubby crosses the stage. It's the folding chair. By the time he stands, she's already got her diploma in hand.
Three seconds of her graduation are wasted because his baby's moving faster into her future than he can physically keep up with. Maybe it's irrational to be devastated over that. He doesn't give a shit.
He applauds anyway, though. Hard enough that his palms sting. His face stays static until Chubby finds them in the crowd and waves.
She does the same floppy-handed wave she would do as a toddler.
When he begins to cry, you think it's his heart first.
"Jack?"
His baby is not gone, but he can't pick her up again. Where did the nightmares she would cry out to him for go? He did too good a job of scaring them away. Good parenting is supposed to make your child need you less. Fucking awful.
"...Thank you for giving me a family, Sleepy."
After graduation, everyone comes back to the house. Chubby's still wearing her cap, moving between relatives and coworkers, accepting gifts and hugs. But Jack disappears.
You find him in Chubby’s childhood bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed with one of her many stuffed animals in his hands. She got that from you. You and your girl share a collection.
Still, although she's like you in that manner and still embraces her inner child with complete confidence, the room hasn’t looked so obviously like a child’s room in years. Chubby's replaced most of the pink with darker colors, posters, books, makeup. But her beloved Bun-Bun sits on her bed. Always.
Jack runs his thumbs over the ears. You lean against the doorway before coming over to sit beside him.
"You're missing the cake."
Jack swallows what is probably bile.
"I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all the versions of her that are gone, kid."
At that, you can only rest your head on his shoulder.
"They’re not, Jack. They’re inside the one downstairs, eating frosting with her fingers even though she’s technically she's going to be an adult in less than a month."
"I keep thinking I had more time."
...And how do you tell him that he did, but that it was never gonna be enough for him? That no amount of prep could've readied him for her growing up?
That he could've had fifty more years of babbling, sticky kisses, tiny shoes, and Chubby falling asleep against his chest, and he would still demand a thousand more nights where his little family was kept in his grasp?
"Dad! Mommy! Uncle Robby’s trying to cut my cake all wrong! Uncle Robby, stop!"
Jack shoots up from the bed.
"Fucking knew it."
And how can you get him to stop obsessively thriving on the fact that she still needs him? That both of you do?
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sleepy having to sit on jacks lap, for whatever reason, and him feeling her pulse in her pussy cause it’s pressed against his thigh…
PULSE // JACK ABBOT MASTERLIST // NSFW
When you settle fully, your back rests against his chest, legs draped on the sides of his thigh. It's domestic. It's tender. It's everything he feels immediately in the blood that rushes to his fat cock as his arms slip around your waist.
He doesn't think to push it further there. No. Even with all his want, the need to keep this moment solely domestic and sweet is undeniably there.
"You're comfy."
Obviously. Your body, dreadfully perfect and guilty of turning Jack's dick and hellbound soul into mush, settles itself onto his lap like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Your hips angle, your center settling against the solid line of his thigh.
Jack freezes.
It's subtle. There's fabric, layers of your jeans, and enough distance to pretend nothing is happening.
But the pulse of your cunt is unmistakable.
It's a faint, steady clenching that Jack feels in the burning of his ears in a half-second, and the hand resting at your waist goes still. He chooses stillness as if it were the only moral option left.
But...Jack remembers. Right.
You're my woman. Why does he have to have a good head about the filth you've drowned him in, kiddo? Especially when he'll always take care of you. You love him now.
When you shift again, barely as you chase comfort, Jack feels your pussy pulse against his thigh again. Little thumps.
"You okay?"
It's your murmur.
Of course, you'd catch the change in him, because why wouldn't your body be in tune with his defilement?
"Yeah," His voice is low, even. "Just--don't move for a second."
You don't question it. You've always been too trusting of a woman. You breathe slowly and easily, like you have no idea what you're doing to him. Sneaky.
Jack stares at the wall, breathing in your scent to ground himself in the sensation of your pussy pressed into his body with its own beat.
"Jack! I--"
"I said. Don't move."
You squeak as he shoves his hand down your jeans, his middle finger pushing its way between where your slit and denim meet, but you listen to him anyway.
...No underwear. Again. He's told you that's not healthy, as much as he's cummed to the thought of you going commando around him, him none the wiser---that one time you mentioned it at work. Before he had you.
"I buy you underwear for what? Just so you can parade your cunt around?"
Jack closes his eyes when your cunt pulses at his finger pressing on your slit, and he lets out a deep, nearly groaned breath when he pulls on your labia. Blissful punishment for both of you.
...What did he expect when he put you on his lap? Your little bitch cunt, in all his perfection, has a tendency to go crazy on him. He should've guessed that from the first time he dreamt about stuffing it.
cw: this will eventually become sexually explicit, so mdni from the jump. this is not a dark fic, however, so major tags don't apply.
reader gets an anonymous message at work. this is an anonymous identity x cis-fem reader fic. tags + story blurbs will therefore reflect this. for future readers, please refrain from commenting any spoilers (i will delete + block if they come up).
have fun!
navigate to: part 1
part 2
"It's gotta be him. No?" Sasha sips at her coffee eagerly.
"Maybe?"
"But G could also be like, a version of bro or whatever, too," she admits. "He didn't say anything obvious? Make you feel like he's noticed you before?"
"Definitely not." You tap robotically on the lid of your coffee cup. "We didn't even exchange names."
"Yeah, 'cause he already knows yours. Also, how do you get locked inside an elevator with a single person for over two hours and not know each other's names by the end of it?"
You sigh heavily, throwing up a hand in defense. "Listen! I was stressed out and he made me fucking nervous. I don't know, dude. I really didn't get a vibe from him that he was like…messing with me."
Sasha rolls her eyes and her chair back to her desk. "You're on your own then. Call up maintenance and see if they send him. Be a damn detective."
You stomp away dramatically to her light laughter. It's been over a week since the elevator incident.
A telltale blink on the screen when you return.
» Bored?
» Look, I don't want to be rude, but your messages aren't funny to me. I don't like this mystery or thing you're doing. If you want to talk to me, just approach me
» Ah, I'm sorry.
» I really don't mean to scare you.
» You're not scaring me. It's just weird.
» Do you want a hint? Maybe it'll make you feel better.
» Or you could just tell me who you are. Or I could just submit a ticket to IT.
» You could.
» Do we work on the same floor?
» No. But I see you around.
» Do I pass you or do you pass me?
» Both.
That narrows it down to approximately two floors and far too many departments and teams. Time to put the elevator theory to the test.
» Have we talked before?
» I'll say this: you have a very lovely smile.
» Gotta run. Talk soon.
You stand up and go refill your water bottle at the station so you don't shatter your work laptop out of frustration.
—
A grimy July day drips into evening. A few teams, yours included, all banding together to descend en masse to a restaurant with a huge outdoor patio and cold-ass after-work drinks. You tentatively decline until Sasha bullies you into accepting. "Cinq à sept! Cinq à sept!"
Should socialize more rattling around your heat-dumb brain.
Sasha texting you before you guys lock up your computer for the night:
» maybe G will be out there amongst us woooohhhhh
That idea almost makes you decline again until she's parked her ass in front of your cube, firmly entrenched and not budging. "Let's goooo. One drink."
You walk together and your nerves twist in nauseated bundles under your skin as she yaps amiably the whole way. It's your first social outing with anyone other than her, so you quickly order a drink and stand with her, being gradually introduced to a wide variety of folks from accounting, HR, marketing, comms, and so on. When the sept part of cinq à sept passes, you lean over to her. "Do people usually get this drunk at these?" She laughs breezily. "Well. Depends on the group, but I think it's just this fuckin' weather. Oh, I think those guys are from IT. Hey," she elbows you. "Let's ask about your message."
Some people left after a drink or two — like you should've — and more continue to drift in. The IT guys are two tall men that don't look like IT men in the first place. Not that there's a look, but…there can be a look. You let your eyes land on them, taking them in: white with blue eyes and some trendy haircut, and Black with sweet eyes and a dentist's dream of a smile. Sasha needles you. "Let's go say hi, I'll introduce you."
"Sasha," you plead, but she taps her glass to yours and pulls you over.
"Hey! John, right?" She says, easy as anything, to the one with shaggy hair. She introduces you to them both, and they both smile warmly at you. "And sorry, you fixed my workstation last week but I'm totally blanking on your name."
"Kyle," the other guy says with a grin, and you all laugh over the mix of handshakes between the four of you.
"Kyle! Oh my god, right." She throws her head back dramatically. "You saved my fucking ass."
He laughs, taking a slow sip of his drink. "No trouble at all."
Sasha perks up. "I have a fun question for you both then!"
Fuuuuuuck.
"Excuse me, I gotta—" you say just as Sasha tries to grab your arm, but you cut yourself off, slipping away to the washroom before she can make a scene. You are not interested in what the IT team thinks of your fucking messages, and you're annoyed that she's making it a joke. Obviously if you cared enough, you'd have submitted a ticket already and gotten something resolved, but it's a new job and you don't want to make waves. Why couldn't she just let it lie between you both?
If you could get away with it, you'd stay parked in the washroom until IT left. Or just dip and run, but neither of these are viable solutions. Instead, you swipe away the gathered sweat from your neck and hands, pat your face with cold water, and try to make with a facade of confidence back to the group. You spot Sasha still with John and Kyle, so you beeline for another member of your team. Sit down in the safety of numbers, and order another drink.
A little while later, there's a hand that hovers slightly at your elbow. You turn to see Kyle having sit to your far left, where your back had been turned.
"Oh, hi," you say weakly. Sasha's off somewhere else now.
"Hey, just wanted to check if you're alright?"
Your eyebrows pinch together and you sip from your drink nervously. "Yeah? Why?"
"Ah, good. You just seemed bit out of sorts back there with your friend. Summat we said, or?"
You laugh, relieved. "No, no. It's all good." You have no idea if Sasha explained your issue. And you don't feel comfortable revealing it if she did decide to keep her mouth shut. "Just getting used to a big company with lots of people to meet. I guess I'm not used to the big get-togethers. My first one."
He smiles brightly, a lazy laugh coming out of him. "Ah, that's nice then. Bit of a shy one, eh?" His eyes crinkle nicely in the corners when he smiles like that. He looks like a man you would've admired in the men's sleepwear pages of the Sears catalogue; handsome and sweet. Doe-like eyes.
Your cheeks heat under his soft gaze. "Well, I don't know about that. Just getting used to it, is all. How long have you been here?"
He sucks his teeth a little, hems and haws. "Little over two years, I reckon? John headhunted me personally."
"Oh, nice."
"You got any plans this summer? Goin' on holiday?" He props an arm loosely along the back of the booth you're sat on, the relaxed cream linen shirt he's wearing pulled a bit snug over his arm muscles. The sun close to setting now, he seems to glow and gleam in front of you, while you just wilt and sweat. Some are just chosen ones.
You laugh. "I just started. Not taking any time off yet. I might just take off a Monday over a long weekend, maybe."
"Lovely." He smiles. Those're fun," he says, reaching his hand out and tapping his fingertip against your manicure, a reptilian pattern you'd tried last night.
"Oh, thank you." Another self-conscious laugh, the desire to pull your hand back.
"—arrick!" A boisterously loud voice calling over the patio, stopping most people's conversations as heads turn to the source: John, waving at the exit gate. "C'mon, mate, ah dinnae want tae get another ticket!"
Kyle's face breaks down into a seriously, mate? expression, turning back to you to smile ruefully. "Next time? You'll be here."
"Maybe!"
"Nah, you gotta promise that."
You laugh again, his voice carrying as he stands up, grabbing your hand. A couple people looking at you both.
"Sure, maybe I promise."
A smile as bright as the sun and just as intoxicating.
On the walk home to your car, Sasha gripping your arm tightly. "Dude."
"What?"
"Kyle's last name."
You stare at her. "I didn't hear it."
"John yelled it, you didn't hear it?"
"I dunno, kinda? Eric or something."
She laughs at you openly. "Garrick, dummy. G-guh-guh-garrrrrrick."
"No. I think it was Eric or Carrick maybe. I didn't hear a G."
She shrugs, clearly not believing you at all, hands up. "Oookay."
You wait as she waits for her bus, then you head through the secondary parking lot to your car in the next lot. Dozens of moths are swarming each floodlight, forming strange dark clouds that dissipate and reshape themselves.
A truck's headlights turn on in front of you, making you gasp and grab your bag. You squint above into the cab. See a tall shadow. You scurry your feet and hear a door open.
"Just me."
Elevator guy, unfurling his big body from the truck, and stepping down in his uniform and boots. Looks tired in the fluorescent lighting.
"Oh," you twist back, breathless and embarrassed for it. "Hey." The lack of his name gives you pause. "Just getting off now?"
He nods. "Walk you."
You wait as he shuts the engine off and palms the keys as he walks beside you across the swaths of grass and improvised footpaths between the lots.
"Where you comin' from?"
"Oh, the cinq à sept, down the road?" The realization hits you that maintenance and security and warehouse and all those other folks may not get invitations extended their way, and you bite your tongue in shame. "My team invited me last minute." A mollifying shrug offered like you too are on the outskirts.
"Never been," he says simply. You're not sure if you want to get to your car quicker or slower, feeling out of sorts and pulled apart. "They treatin' you nice?"
"Who, my team?"
"Yeah." No inflection, nothing to riddle out.
"Yeah, they're really nice." Wait. "How'd you know I'm new?"
He laughs shortly, not rude but not really kind either. "You got a look to you. Big eyes. Spooked."
You frown down, staring at the hem of your dress and sandals, not realizing people could smell the rookie off you that obviously. "Me? Or new people in general?"
"Don't know anyone else that's new."
You get to your car. Your keys are still in your bag. Sasha's dumb boldness takes root in you for as long as you can harness it.
"Can you tell me your name?"
His brows raise a little. "Simon."
"Full name. Please."
"Riley."
When you look deeply confused and start fidgeting with your keys, he looks around like he's missing something. "Y'alrigh'?"
"Yeah. I just…why'd that guy call you G?"
He looks just as confused as you do. "Who?"
Just gotta admit that I noted every single second of our encounter to replay later and know what a random man called you in a two-plus hour span.
"Your…friend from maintenance? He called you G. Through the speaker."
His expression settles immediately. "Dumb nickname the lads gave me." Even with the dim evening light, washed in deep tangerine twilight, there's colour high on his cheekbones. You stare at it dumbfounded. He is not the type of person — you thought — that would ever blush or seem uncomfortable.
"For what? I mean. What's the G stand for?"
"Ghost." He clears his throat loudly, and kicks your tire with his boot.
"Hey," you say lightly, waving your hands out at him. "That's my…those are my tires you're kicking!"
"Tire's nearly flat." He says, eyes flicking to you briefly.
You spin around to look. Sure enough. Dumb ass fucking piece of shit car. Dumb ass fucking piece of shit you.
"Get in." You do, obedient. Then watch as he gestures to you to wait, and jogs long-legged and slightly stiff, to his truck across the way. You watch in silence as his truck headlights come on. Veer out, across his own lot, then looping around until he's by yours.
"'kay, y'can wait in there if you're not gonna boil. Or y'can help me."
Neither of you speak about anything while he loosens the lug nuts, jacks your car up — not surprised he's got his own jack in his truck — then hauls the spare out of your trunk for you. You do helpful tasks like popping the trunk open. Handing him the occasional item. Staring at him. As you lose the dying bits of sun, holding your phone's flashlight out to see better, which he snorts at.
It's done by the time your roadside assistance would even be dispatching someone.
"Take it for a spin." He gestures, and you climb in, aware of the scent he's left behind — an old but mostly clean sweat — and drive around the parking lot, feeling like an idiot learning how to drive.
"Feels good?"
"Yeah. Thanks." Do you get out of the car? Shake his hand? Hug him? "How—no—can I pay you back, please?"
A solemn shake of his head. "Nah, don't be daft. Glad I was here."
"Me too." Again.
"Can I buy you a drink?" What if he doesn't drink? What if he'll take it as flirting? Do you want him to take it as flirting? What if he's married, or g—
"Alrigh'."
You take his number and don't offer yours in return. You suddenly feel very possessive of that scrap of agency left. "Well, thanks again. Simon."
Head clearing as you hit the highway, realizing you have no better information than you started with.
cw: this will eventually become sexually explicit, so mdni from the jump. this is not a dark fic, however, so major tags don't apply.
reader gets an anonymous message at work. this is an anonymous identity x cis-fem reader fic. tags + story blurbs will therefore reflect this. for future readers, please refrain from commenting any spoilers (i will delete + block if they come up).
have fun!
part 1
The company is large, larger than any you've ever worked for. Huge building all its own, not just some leased office in a commercial space. It has its own parking lot, for Christ's sake. You no longer have to shuttle your little chugger of a car into a daily parking lot that charges out the ass.
You get installed in a small quasi-cubicle with a slight partition. You pin a picture of you and your friends at your friend's cottage after your first few weeks when you noticed that other people decorated their spaces openly. You were never going to be bold enough to do it without tacit permission.
Sea legs take awhile, and this is a huge move for your career. You find sanctuary with a team lead, Sasha, who tours you around leisurely, giving you the dos and don'ts — this washroom is a hidden gem, so don't tell anyone else; she gives you extra scoops of guac if you call her miss; don't bother submitting a maintenance ticket, just grab someone if you see 'em and they'll help — until you're at least more comfortable navigating between the different floors to explore a little on your own when you're bored on break.
Work is more interesting and demanding than any other you've held in the past, so you're constantly nose-to-computer otherwise, navigating the online repository of the company's technical guides and user-created templates. You're deep in one when a little pop-up window for the intra-company chat app appears at the bottom of the screen, then minimizes itself with a flashing icon.
» User G_02 would like to send you a message. Would you like to ACCEPT or DECLINE?
Your team, and even your department, is small. You don't know anyone with those initials. Do you? In your email, you pull up the department group to scroll through all the names; you're still new, you're probably forgetting a few.
Nothing. Well, it's intra-company, so no harm, no foul. It's not as if you're clicking on a suspicious link.
» Accept.
You wait. The longer you wait, the antsier you get. You flick at your thumbnail, your fingertip catching where the nail polish is peeling up. Little flecks of polish in a tiny pile that you sweep off with a scoop of your hand.
Wrong message maybe?
Sighing, you flip back to your manual to scroll through for specific information when the window suddenly blinks.
» Like your hair today
» Hi, sorry who is this?
» You don't know?
Your stomach flips.
» Sorry, I'm new. I really don't know anyone outside my department.
» Shame. Should socialize more.
What?
» Oh, well…I'll start soon, i'm sure lol. Sorry what department are you in?
» Kinda fun to let you figure it out
You minimize the chat window silently. It feels like holding a snake that suddenly turns its head to look at you.
You message Sasha, asking if she knows anyone with the first initial G, without telling her the rest. She laughs and says you might as well be asking if there're any white guys working in big tech.
For the rest of the day, anyone passing by your little cubicle is a suspect. You are in a busy, central spot of your floor; dozens of people float around every hour, many faces still unknown to you. You constantly receive a spectrum polite smiles, blank smiles, warm hellos, but nobody that stares or lingers. Every single person you interact with, hear about, you're training yourself to look for any matching initials.
Judging by their message, G doesn't want you to deduce it right away. Wants to play a bit, and you don't like it one bit. You delete the message history. It won't prevent them from sending you messages, but it's the only thing that works to keep your focus off it.
Pretend it hasn't happened.
—
A week later, you're deep in a document review, eyes bleary, when the window blinks. Doesn't occur to you that it wouldn't be anyone but your team members.
» Forgot to mention I like your cute little picture
Your eyes slam to the pinned picture on your partition wall — you, your best friends, soaking wet on the dock, arms up and eyes closed. A comfort to look at. No different from other people's pictures of their pets or kids or spouses. Suddenly, it feels as if you blew it up and hung it off the side of the building to flap in the wind and let the city gawk at you. Like a nude got published. You're all in your bathing suit cover-ups, nothing untoward to hang up in the workplace, but you suddenly grab it, the little pushpin ripping out with it. You stuff it in your bag, suddenly noticing that your palms and soles of your feet are sweating.
» Make you nervous?
» I don't really know what to say. I don't know who you are.
» You sure?
What the fuck. You close the chat again, pushing your chair out from your desk, and get up to go talk with Sasha. She asks if you want to tell IT; not yet, not really. HR? Definitely not. You both tool around and discover the chat app doesn't let you block other users, considering it's just a company-wide tool.
"Okay, well. I can try to look up directories, if you want, anyone with a G-name. Find an org chart, but those are constantly fuckin' outdated. Do you think they work on this floor?"
"Sasha, how would I know that," you laugh weakly. You scroll up through the chat history to show her. "There's nothing there that tells me what department they work in. How often they see me. They could be mailroom, or someone's assistant, or…anyone!"
She chews her lip, hip bumped against your desk. "Yeah. Fuck. Well, just ignore them for now. Let me know if you want to escalate it." She gives you very serious eye contact until you nod sincerely. "Or if they do something even weirder. Okay?"
You wander back to your desk.
You work later than usual that day. A company this size and given the field you're in, there are still dozens of people on calls, staring at screens, wrapping up meetings. Makes you feel better, safer.
A maintenance worker is waiting for the elevator when you approach. The sheer breadth of him makes you feel small and insignificant, standing there with your lunch bag and water bottle and backpack like a schoolkid. He's got a big yellow maintenance pushcart with him, and when the doors ding open, you motion for him to go first so you can fit yourself in after. He obliges with a blank nod, and you skirt in behind him.
G for you.
B1 for him.
You're staring unseeingly at the smeared stainless steel reflection of the elevator door, picking at your nail polish, when the lights flicker rapidly in a one-two count, and then the elevator car is shuddering, pulling up short and making your stomach roil.
"What the fuck," you mutter automatically. Eyes flick up to the robotic floor read-out, but that doesn't even seem certain where you are. Between 2nd and 3rd floor?
The lights shudder out again, plunging you both in dark for a few moments. You breathe in sharply until some sort of backup system kicks in, running lights on the ceiling of the elevator turning on. A ceiling fan spinning, thank god.
You turn to the maintenance worker — also thank god, someone who might know what to do exactly besides pressing the HELP button — and his mouth is downturned, unimpressed.
"Do you want—?" You gesture to the panel of buttons. He nods silently. Then, with the big-ass cart filling up the space of nearly 4 people, you have to maneuver off to the side like one of those frustrating tile games so he can bring himself up to where you were stood.
Tucked at the back, his broad back blocks you from seeing what he's pressing. Then there's a tinny, crackling voice. "Maintenance."
"Hey mate, it's me. Stuck in car 2 between 2 and 3. Power go out?"
"Oh, hey, man." You can almost detect relief in the other person's voice, like they're grateful not to hear from a panicking employee instead. "Yeah, brown-out. Car should be good though — lights and fan on?"
"Yeah."
"Weird. 'Kay, hold tight. I'll give J a ring." The crackling noise cuts out.
You stare at his back impolitely. Large shapely muscles bulked under a dark grey short-sleeved canvas shirt, tattoos pouring out over thick biceps and forearms. Workman's belt. Matching grey canvas pants and some of the thickest black boots you've seen. Huge, muscular ass. Tree trunk thighs stretching the canvas tight.
Boots turning backward to face you. Your eyes fly up to his face — solemn dark eyes, healed-wrong nose, and full mouth — breathlessly, guilty.
"Y'alrigh'?"
"Yeah?" You almost cough. "Yeah. Good."
"Might be a bit. Stingy fuckers been delaying calling the elevator techs out since spring."
"Oh." You panic because there's nothing to look at except for him and all he's looking at it is the way you're grabbing helplessly at the straps of your backpack. "Well. At least we've got air." You, ever the optimist.
—
The cart forces awkwardness. When you finally slide to sit down, and he follows suit later, you can't even see one another. Two ends of an L shape of space.
The silence is mortifying for no good reason, shining floodlights on your social insecurities.
You've tucked yourself in the back corner of the car, knees pulled up to your chest, unzipping your backpack quietly like you don't want to disturb the man.
It's been an hour and a half. You've stopped caring about the sweat that's peppered along your hairline, under your arms.. You scrape your hair up and find a claw clip to keep it off your skin.
"Whatcha got?" he asks after you crinkle around in your lunch bag too loudly.
"Oh, I was…I was just about to offer. I have some cold noodle salad left. You allergic to sesame or peanut?"
"Nah, no allergies."
You scrape two portions out, using your emptied containers to divvy them up. Big boy; you serve him a bigger portion. Around the corner from you, he won't know any different. Instead of standing, you scoot forward until you're peeking around. His legs are kicked out as much as they can, but he looks cramped and awkward.
He meets you halfway, arms flexing to grab your offerings; a can of grapefruit seltzer water, chopsticks and cold noodle salad, and a two-bite brownie from the dollar store. His expression, so blank before, looks surprised when he sees it.
His big fingers drag against yours as you weirdly try to place it all in his opened palms.
"Cheers," he says bluntly.
You nod politely and you both retreat to your corners like sweating, sad boxers.
"Oh wait!" You call out brighter than anything else you've said to him. "Ice packs."
A repeat of moving forward and then a hand-off a cool-but-better-than-nothing ice pack. He makes a very small sound when it hits his hands. Scuffled back into your spots again. A deeper groan when he puts the ice pack…wherever. You don't want to imagine where he's placed it.
"You get this downstairs?" It's the only question he's asked you except
At first, you think he means the ice pack.
"Huh? Oh, the salad? No, I made it. Why, is it okay?" Properly a character deficiency for you to seek validation from a random stranger in a stuck elevator.
He slurps the noodles loudly. "S'fuckin' good. Can't figure these things out though." You suspect he means the chopsticks.
You laugh lightly. "Sorry, I don't have a fork."
"Don't say sorry. S'good." The crisp sound of the pop can being cracked open and then a long thirsty guzzle. He must be sweatier than you in that canvas uniform. You imagine his Adam's apple working up and down as he chugs the water. "Ah, what the fuck is that" spat out in a strangled voice.
"What?"
"Your pop's gone off."
"Huh?"
"Tastes old."
Realization. You laugh. "It's just seltzer water. Flavoured. Not really pop."
You see the edge of his steel toed boots move slightly, and then a hand appear around the corner, setting the opened drink down for you. He moves back against his wall. "'m good. Thanks."
Are you opposed to drinking from the same can as a stranger? Yes.
This stranger? You grab the can quickly as if he's going to snatch you, and set it beside you. Look down and see where some of the water's pooled around the open tab. In the utter, humiliating privacy of your corner, you silently sniff the top of the can. Nothing. You have a tiny sip, and then dig into your own noodles, awash with whatever has come over you. A bitch in heat.
You gasp very loudly when the speaker crackles to life.
"Ey, G? You good, man?"
The man — you still don't know his name. He doesn't know yours — awkwardly pushes himself up to stand. "Yeah."
"Sorry for the wait there, brother. Fuckin' shitshow with these fools. Someone had to pull up their goddamn contract to check about OT calls. Anyway, they should be here soon. You guys good?"
"Yeah, all good, mate. Cheers." From this angle, stood up tall, he glances back and sees you tucked up tight, staring up at him. A funny look crosses his face, but you don't know him, can't read him.
When the technicians finally arrive, it doesn't take long for you guys to finally arrive at the 2nd floor, doors sliding open, and you finally on more stable ground. The man chats a little with the techs and you shyly say, "Thank you so much," to…everyone there, and then aim for the stairwell. The cold recirculated office air is a fucking relief on your skin, under your dampened clothing.
There's a door slam in the stairwell, echoing loudly in the chamber as you descend, and heavy boots clomping down, not hurried but not slow. You glance back and up: he's followed you. Didn't stay to chat.
"Walk you out." He says simply, and you mouth oh and you don't really have any arguments for that, so you walk self-consciously ahead of him. Aware that your pants and top are stuck unflatteringly to your skin with probably a pool-shaped band of sweat at the back of your top. "You drive or take public?"
"Uh, drive." Nerves rankling your voice like you didn't just spend hours cooped up in a tighter space than this.
He nods. Laughs short and rough when he sees you heading to the single car in the deserted parking lot. Overnight crews must park elsewhere.
An absurd question out of your mouth — "Do you want a drive home? Or…need? I don't know if you drive or…" You fumble with your car keys, press repeatedly on the fob to open the doors just for something to do with your hands. Your car lights blinks obediently as you approach.
"'m good. Drove." You turn your head, too afraid to look back up at him now, but watching his arm lift to gesture at a secondary parking lot. Some trucks parked there.
He stands, crossing his arms across his bulky chest, as you smile unnaturally.
"Okay, well, thanks, I guess." You laugh uncomfortably. "For keeping your cool. Made me feel a lot better."
"Yeah?" An eyebrow, ripped apart by scar tissue, tugging up by a hair.
"Yeah. A lot, actually." And then immediately, your cheeks feel even hotter, feeling like you've revealed something far too intimate to a man whose drink you swallowed.
"Cute."
You hustle into your car, flinging your shit on the passenger seat, sweating furiously and keys bouncing off the ignition cylinder multiple times until it takes, and waving until you can pull out and far away.
In bed that night, showered clean and cool, you're tracing the day's events like fingering a long rosary bead until you realize that the other maintenance person called him G.
Park the Shark looovveeesss being a guard dog bf and loves knowing reader thinks of him that way. That’s it!!
You don't even really notice it at first, either, because he always does it so quietly. Like he's supposed to. Like his body is suppose to be the buffer between you and the crowd.
Sometimes you think it should bother you, that you can always feel his eyes on you. You don't even have to look across the room to see—he knows exactly where you are. Always does. Always watching to see if there's something he should step into, if someone's making you feel uncomfortable, if there's a reason why he should show his teeth.
Most times, you don't get that far from his side. Especially when he has a palm against your lower back. Just resting. Just there.
Because yeah. He is like a protective guard dog.
He's rougher than you are, more willing to go straight for the jugular than you are. It doesn't change the way you look up at him, eyes full of something... real. Wonderful. Maybe sacred.
Because you know that it's something more than Brendon just being protective, and it's not him being controlling. It's something that feels more natural. Like a work dog that needs a command. Like a shark that needs to circle to live.
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