#day12

Walking back to the living room, you settle on the couch once more, tucking your hands into the pockets, only to raise a brow in question. 

A small rustle, as your fingers brush over something in the pockets. 

Grasping onto one of them, you pull out a small little wrapped candy. Its wrapper the colour of golden honey, a small quirk of your lips at the sight, while you discover a few of these little Werthers tucked into the pockets of Michael’s hoodie. 

Unwrapping one as you pop it into your mouth, you let the caramel butter toffees simply melt in your mouth. 

Now you understand why Michael sometimes had a slight taste of caramel whenever you kissed him. 

It seemed he had a sweet tooth. 

A little weakness for these caramel candies. 

Laughing softly at the realisation. Amused by the idea.

You quickly stuff the wrapper into the pocket as you hear the doorknob turn, the faint hello from Michael as he walks through the doors. 

You tilt your head up as you see his shadow approach, whilst he ducks down to catch your lips with his. 

Mumbling softly against your lips, “Missed you”

You giggle softly, with a scrunch of your nose, “You were barely gone more than 10 minutes, how could you miss me?”

“Whenever you’re not with me I miss you– even now I’m missing you”

“You’re such a sap,” you tease, shifting off of the couch, his hand slipping around your waist, as he presses a kiss to the side of your head. 

“Only for you,” he furrows his brows as he notices something, “Is that my jacket?”

“And what if it is?” you lift a brow. 

Shrugging, he replies, “It looks good on you” 

Leaning your head against his shoulder as you walk over to the kitchen. Pulling away from him as you grab the plates, while he opens the take out boxes. 

“Hope you’re hungry, cause they insisted on throwing in some free spring rolls” 

“Is this ‘cause you saved their life or something?” you asked, mouth already stuffed with a spring roll. 

Slightly regretting it as it burns your tongue. 

“Something like that”

You grin at him, whilst he smiles softly at you. 

These were the nights he loved. 

Calm. 

Peaceful. 

And so full of love. 

He didn’t realise life could be so peaceful. 

Through the mayhem and madness of working in the Pitt. 

Here he found solace in your company. 

Glimpses of peace amidst his chaos.

“What do you wanna watch?”

“Whatever you want, love”

…

The little discovery you had made, had yet to leave your thoughts. 

As you continued to find the little packets of Werthers loose in the bottom of his bags or in the pockets of his hoodies and jackets. 

It was honestly surprising you hadn’t found them sooner. 

Each time you discovered one a little smile would make its way across your face. 

There were times when you noticed he’d pop one into his mouth when he thought no one was watching. 

But you noticed. 

Whenever things had gone well he would slip one into his mouth. As though it were a little reward. 

It had prompted you to start your own little stash. Picking up a few bags of Werthers and hiding them away. 

Keeping a few on hand. Just in case Michael ever needed a little pick me up. 

It started out as a simple gesture. A mindless idea really. 

Handing the little candies to him every now and again, whenever you thought it was necessary. 

Just offering it to share. 

“Hey do you want a little candy, I’ve got some extra,” you’d offer them. So sweetly, not making a fuss over them. Barely looking his way as you outstretched your hand with the little candies. 

Michael never thought much of it. Simply smiled and enjoyed them as they melted in his mouth. 

It was only after a few weeks of this did Michael clock onto your antics…

Well it was only when Dana pointed it out did he clock on. 

“Who pissed in your cheerios this morning?” she asked dryly. 

Robby had been in a mood. 

Nothing too off, but enough for Dana to notice. With an arched brow as she looked at him. 

A little disgruntled. 

Maybe it was the spilled coffee on his way to work, maybe it was the fact that chairs were already full to the brim when he walked through. Or maybe it was because psych insisted that one of the patients didn’t need admitting. 

You could spin a wheel and land on any of those things and more. All of which could explain his soured expression. 

“I’m fine”

“Sure, you’re a real bucket of sunshine today,” she quipped. 

While he rolled his eyes, glancing over the charts. 

Hand digging through his pocket, hoping to find something sweet just to quell him…

Only to come up empty. 

Lips dipping down even further. Annoyance creeping in. 

Dana catches your eye, as she nods towards Robby. 

“You don’t happen to have anything to get him out of this mood do you?”

Robby only huffs lightly from her teasing words. 

Digging a hand into your pocket you pull out a little Werther, slipping it into his hand. With a small wink. 

His brows crease as he looks at the small little candy in his hand, before looking up to see you, having already wandered off busy working. 

Shaking his head, with a small smile as he unwraps the little sweet, popping it into his mouth. 

“Seriously, a Werthers? That’s all it takes to put you in a good mood,” Dana looks at him expectantly. Amused by what had happened. 

“Don’t you have anything better to do than hassle me?” he asked. 

Dana shrugs, “Hassling you is a perk of the job-sue me for trying to find a little joy” 

Throughout the shift it feels as though you and Michael are always just passing by. Barely able to have a moment together. 

That was just the way it worked sometimes. 

Bones aching, muscles tired as you stretch. Breathing in the cool evening air. 

An arm wraps around your waist, with a soft kiss to the top of your head. “Ready to go home?”

“I could fall asleep right here and now”

“We can’t let that happen now, can we?” 

You sigh with a smile, as you lean further into his hold, feet beginning to move in the direction of his car. 

“So Werthers?” he asked, breaking the silence. 

“What about them?”

“How’d you know I liked them?” 

Glancing up at him to meet his eye, you turn to reach up and gently trace your hands across his features, soothing the furrow of his brow. 

“I’m just that good,” you softly reply. 

He hums in agreement. 

Before you continue, “And you keep a shit load of them in all your pockets” 

You feel his body shake, as he lets out a chuckle, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Featherlight and sweet. 

Peppering kisses along your face, before trailing down to meet your lips. Soft and sweet. As smooth as the little sweets themselves. 

He murmurs softly, “Thank you” 

“For what?” you question, breathlessly. 

“For sharing with me”

A wide smile stretches across your face, you respond in kind, “Thanks for sharing your life with me”

“Always” 

You wander into the night, side by side. Settling into the car, his hand intertwined with yours. You simply admire him as he drives. A feeling of contentment settles between you both. 

Life really is sweeter when it’s shared. 

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little story, based on the fact that Noah Wyle often rewards himself with a little Werther's when he does a good job with a scene (here’s a little insta clip of him saying this). So it's just a little sappy sweetness. Let me know what you thought of this little piece of fluff! ✨ Comments, Reblogs and Likes are welcomed and appreciated 💕 Feel free to find my Dr Robby x Wayne!Reader Rinse & Repeat Series Masterlist here 🩺 or my little two parter Dr Robby x Paediatrician!Reader Paging Dr Daisy 🌼 Or check out my main Masterlist here

It’s your idea at first. You want something to fill the time you and Levi are apart during the day. While he’s still busy tying his shoes by the door, you’re already making a playlist on your phone, tilting it something simple that conceals the loving thought behind it, your thumb moving swiftly across the screen.

“Add songs you like,” you tell him, looking up, already smiling. “We can listen on the way to work.”

Levi pauses, eyeing you like he suspects a trap, like there has to be some hidden layer he just can’t see yet. You usually don’t suggest things like this—things so soft—without a reason.

“That’s it?” he asks.

“That’s it,” you echo, far too easily.

He narrows his eyes, but he saves the playlist anyway.

.

It starts off normal for the first two hours.

You add a couple songs you genuinely like—things that remind you of long drives and late night conversations—and Levi adds calm songs and instrumentals, things that feel exactly like him. 

Then somewhere around midday, it derails completely.

You don’t even remember what possessed you. You just see a ridiculous song in your library—something that was originally made as a joke by the artist to mess with their label—and you add it, grinning to yourself as you imagine the exact moment Levi hears it. He’ll probably pause whatever he’s doing just to process the sheer audacity. You picture it so clearly that you laugh out loud at your desk.

As it turns out, he retaliates. Hard.

By the time you check the playlist again, there are at least five songs with titles that you feel you could only ever come up with if you were under the influence. They’re extremely confusing. You stare at your phone, eyebrows raising higher with each addition.

“What is—” you say under your breath. “Things Will Never Be The Same (I’ve Applied Too Much Ketchup to This Hamburger)... what the hell, Levi?” You press play on it and almost immediately regret it. It’s a somber instrumental—something so stupid that it shocks you something like this even exists as a real song.

Across town, Levi is having a similar experience. He sits at his desk, arms crossed, phone in hand, staring at the currently playing track Zombie Handjob. The lyrics can only be described as bizarre. What the hell is this?

He exhales slowly, dragging a hand down his face, but he can’t help but hear you in the song. He feels your humor threaded through the ridiculousness. He can picture the exact expression you must have had when you added it.

“She’s so stupid,” he mutters.

Without hesitation, he adds another one.

.

By the time you both come home that evening, the playlist is an absolute disaster.

You’re already laughing when you step through the door, shoes half-kicked off as you call out, “You’re evil, by the way,” spotting Levi in the living room, where he’s leaning against the back of the couch with his phone still in hand.

He looks up at you, unimpressed. “You started it.”

“You added that one song with that—no, I can’t even describe it—what was that?”

“You added Rock All Night, Fish All Day. What’s worse than that?” he shoots back immediately, though there’s a faint imperceptible curve to his mouth that gives him away.

You grin, dropping your bag to walk toward him. You sink onto the couch beside him and he takes you into his arms. You don’t say it, but you know you’re going to continue messing with him tomorrow.

You already have a few ideas in mind.

.

The next day, the playlist changes.

Before you can add Unicorn Wizard to the playlist, you see that Levi had added a song. When you play it, it’s a gentle melody. It’s nothing like the war of stupid songs you’ve been fighting with. Dare you say, it’s an almost sweet song. You stare at your phone, blinking. 

He adds another one. And another. Each one is softer than the last. Each title is more intimate than the last. It goes from Until I Found You to My Love Mine All Mine to Sea of Love. You can’t help but wonder what he’s doing. 

Levi, meanwhile, is very aware of what he’s doing.

He scrolls through his music slowly, jaw clenched, his expression neutral in a way to others that doesn’t quite match the heat rising at the back of his neck. 

This is stupid. They’re just songs. It doesn’t mean anything. Right?

Still, he adds another one.

You notice, and you don’t say anything about it—not right away—but you feel the shift, the vulnerability threaded through something as simple as a shared playlist. He’s choosing songs not just because he likes them, but because they say something he won’t.

So you decide to answer with something that feels just as intentional.

 You thumb hovers over your screen for a moment before you add it, heart beating a little faster than it should, because it’s just a song, it’s just a title, it’s just—

It’s not just anything.

You add Archie, Marry Me and then you set your phone down before you can overthink it.

.

Levi sees it.

He notices every change you make to that playlist like it’s second nature now. It’s become a constant part of his routine. It’s important to him now.

So when the new song appears, he freezes.

His thumb hovers over the screen, unmoving, eyes fixed on the title. “What?” he says under his breath. He presses play and listens, and somewhere between the lyrics and the realization that you chose it, that you meant it, that this isn’t a joke in the same way the others were, he swears he feels butterflies in his stomach.

Do you mean this?

The question lingers with him the entire day.

.

When you come home that evening, the house feels different. You notice it almost immediately. Levi is in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, but there’s something off about the way he holds himself.

“Hey,” you say softly, settling your things down. “What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer right away. For a moment, he just looks at you. His expression makes your stomach churn, so filled with vulnerability and uncertainty, so deeply unguarded that it catches you off guard. Did something happen at work? Are his parents okay? Did he have a fight with a friend? 

He finally speaks. “...Do you really want to marry me?”

You blink, surprised—not by the question, but by the fact that he had asked it out loud, that he let it leave his mouth at all.

“Of course I do,” you say without a single doubt creeping in, your voice gentle enough to make his shoulders loosen almost instantly. Relief flickers across his face before he can hide it.

You step closer, reaching for him, and he lets you, arms wrapping around you as you nestle against him, the space between you closing like it always does, like it was never meant to exist in the first place. His cheek rests lightly against your ear. You grip onto his shirt. And for a moment, neither of you says anything, because you don’t have to.

Then, so voicelessly you almost miss it, he says, “I’ll find a ring you love.”

You smile into his shoulder, holding him just a little tighter, because for all the ways Levi struggles to say things out loud, when he does, he means every word.

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divider by: sweetmelodygraphics

The crowd in the lobby parted as her boots clanged against the tile floring, the noise echoing throughout the hall. Even her officers - and they were hers again - stared at her in consternation, not willing to do anything to slow her down.

Reaching forward with her bending, she wrenched the swinging wooden doors forward and out of her line of progress. She squelched the guilt she felt when someone got smacked off their feet.

At the top of the stairs to the third floor, she slammed open the door to the bullpen and shouted, “SAIKHAN!”

Everyone in the room froze. She ignored the gapes, the terrified looks on faces.

Her breaths were harsh and loud, her fists tight with rage.

At the other end of the room, the door to her - hers, not his - office slowly swung open.

And there he stood, in full uniform as if he hadn’t been fired the second she got her bending back.

“Lin, you have to know I didn’t ask for this. I never wanted this.”

With pin-point precision, she latched hold of his chestpiece and yanked him across the room, disturbing nothing else in the room. His head flailed backwards, but he caught himself, and tried to fight back.

One of the first things recruits to the metalbending unit learned was control of their own armor at all times. Humiliation didn’t begin to cover what she was doing to him.

She grasped his armor in her hand when they made contact and she crumpled it like so much waste paper.

“You gave in to Tarlock. You corralled civilians! You harrassed non-benders! You gave them everything they wanted! And for what? So you could call yourself Chief when you looked in the mirror?”

At that, his face hardened, even while raising his hands to either side.

“For my kids, Lin. First Tarlock, then Amon. They lost their bending, then they were in cages, and not even together. They had Ming-Li in city hall as a servant. I didn’t see her for weeks.”

His face crumpled and tears fell from his eyes. He shifted, and the full weight of his armor pulled against her before she could control it.

He had opened his armor at the back and stepped away from her.

Piece by piece, the rest of his armor clattered to the ground as he walked away in nothing but his undershirt and trousers.