Here’s my music app suggestion. I think you should be able to pause listening to one playlist, switch to listening to another, and then later when you come back to listen to the original one there should be an option to resume where you paused the original, both ‘in the middle of the song’ if that applies AND ‘in the middle of listening to all the songs the playlist’ so when you resume it you’re not starting a ‘fresh’ shuffle. Bc you were midway through your list of songs
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pairing – garrett graham x princess!reader
summary – months of staring, jealousy, interrupted hookups, and one very dangerous sleepover finally turn garrett and his best friend into friends with benefits.
warnings – 18+, explicit smut, fingering, nipple piercings, praise kink, dirty talk, friends with benefits, alcohol/weed mentions.
notes from me – AHHHH finally got something out for princess!reader!! i feel like i'm ticking off each trope with each of my !readers hahaha. as requested here, my loves!
word count – 10k
navigation – masterlist |
They’ve just escaped a ninety-minute lecture on behavioural economics that Garrett attended physically and she attended with the kind of detailed, colour-coded devotion that makes her notes resemble something sold in a university gift shop.
The air outside is sharp enough to turn their breath white, the campus paths crowded with students funneling toward the dining hall, everyone bundled in jackets and scarves and expressions of private academic misery.
Garrett walks beside her with his backpack hanging from one shoulder, hands shoved into the front pocket of his Briar hoodie, nodding at the right intervals while she explains the tragic consequences of substituting almond flour without adjusting the moisture content of a cupcake recipe.
“They taste fine,” she says, stepping neatly around a patch of slush while Garrett walks directly through it. “Actually, they taste really good. They’re just very…” She pauses, making a shape with both mittened hands. “Dense.”
“Dense,” Garrett repeats.
“Yes.”
He huffs a laugh and reaches for the back of her jacket when she starts drifting toward the edge of the path, steering her around an oncoming cyclist without interrupting her baking autopsy.
She moves where he puts her automatically, continuing as if this is a completely normal thing for another person to do with her body. Which, for them, it is. “I think the baking powder was old, but I only bought it last month, so maybe it’s the flour. Or the oven. The ovens in my building are fucked.”
“Thoughts and prayers.”
She bumps her shoulder into his arm. “Do you think the guys would eat the failed ones?”
Garrett looks down at her. Her woollen hat is pale pink, naturally, with a little pom-pom on top that keeps brushing his shoulder whenever she moves closer to avoid someone. “Dude, Logan ate a chicken wing he found under the couch.”
Her nose wrinkles. “How long had it been there?”
“We didn’t ask.”
“Why wouldn’t you ask?”
“Sometimes knowledge is a burden, princess.”
She rolls her eyes at the nickname, although she stopped seriously protesting it somewhere around the hundredth time he used it. Now she mostly makes a face because he seems disappointed when she doesn’t. “So that’s a yes?”
“That’s an enthusiastic yes. Bring food into that house and they’ll build a religion around you.”
She nods, satisfied. “Okay. I’ll bring them around tonight. Maybe I’ll do another batch too, so you can compare them.”
Garrett grins, holding the dining hall door open. “After you, Your Highness.”
“You’re so annoying,” she says, sailing past him into the warmth.
It hits them immediately, thick and overheated after the cold outside, carrying the smells of coffee, fried food, tomato sauce and approximately six hundred damp winter coats.
She unwinds her scarf as they join the queue, still talking about whether sour cream might work better than yoghurt, while Garrett collects two trays from the stack and begins assembling her lunch with the efficient resignation of someone who knows exactly how this works.
She doesn’t ask him to. She hasn’t asked him in years. She just follows beside him, pointing out what she wants occasionally, although he already knows she’ll take the soup if it’s tomato, the pasta if it isn’t visibly congealed, the little fruit cup without melon because she claims melon tastes like wet disappointment.
He puts a bowl of tomato soup onto her tray, adds a grilled cheese, grabs the strawberry yoghurt before she notices it’s there and trades the banana from her fruit cup for the grapes in his because she likes those better.
He does all of this while complaining about Coach.
“I’m telling you, he’s on my ass because I missed one pass yesterday,” Garrett says, balancing both trays against his forearms as they move through the crowd. “One. We still scored on the next shift.”
She grabs two forks and slides them onto the trays for him. “Was it a bad pass?”
“That’s not the point.”
She giggles. “That means yes.”
“It wasn’t bad. It was... slightly overly optimistic.”
She gives him a look. “You passed to nobody.”
“There was supposed to be somebody there.”
“Was there?”
Garrett looks at her.
She smiles sweetly. “Just gathering information.”
He mutters something about betrayal and carries their food toward the quieter side of the hall, waiting while she chooses a table near the heaters before setting her tray down in front of her. She immediately steals one of his fries, because their careful food allocation system only applies when she benefits from it.
Garrett sits across from her, stretching one long leg beneath the table until his sneaker knocks lightly into her boot. “Anyway, Coach acts like I personally invented turnovers. He kept me after practice for twenty minutes going through film.”
She makes a sympathetic noise around a bite of grilled cheese, shrugging out of her jacket as the heat begins sinking through her sweater. “He’s riding you because he knows you can take it.”
“Great. Inspiring.”
“No, I mean it.” She drapes the jacket over the back of her chair and smooths her hair down where the hat flattened it, leaving herself in a fitted pale-pink top that clings softly to her body. “He knows what you’re capable of, G. That’s why he notices when you’re even slightly off. It would be worse if he stopped caring.”
Garrett, who has been reaching for his drink, misses the straw entirely. The top is long-sleeved. It covers her from her collarbones to the waistband of her jeans. There’s nothing objectively scandalous about it, except that she’s not wearing a bra and the metal bars through her nipples are pressing clearly against the thin fabric.
He has seen this before. Technically.
The white tank top incident happened months ago, and since then he’s become painfully aware that the piercings exist beneath multiple items of her wardrobe. He's seen them through sweaters, dresses and the tiny pink top that nearly caused him to commit several felonies at his own party.
But awareness hasn’t produced immunity. It's produced a highly specific form of suffering.
She’s still talking, entirely unaware that the captain of Briar’s hockey team has been rendered incapable of operating a straw. “You’re the captain. He expects more from you because everyone else takes their cues from you. That doesn’t mean you played badly. It means one slightly optimistic pass from you matters more than five terrible ones from Dean.”
Garrett nods slowly.
Her eyebrows lift. “Are you listening?”
“Yep.”
“What did I say?”
“That Dean sucks.”
“Garrett.”
His gaze drops again before he can stop it. The little bars make subtle shadows beneath the pink fabric, more suggestion than display, which is somehow worse. He thinks about her dorm room. The white tank. The way she had crossed her arms and accidentally made the situation more obscene. He thinks about what the metal would feel like against his tongue.
Her fork clicks against the bowl. “Eyes are up here, loser.”
Garrett drags his attention back to her face. She’s staring at him with an expression that is mostly unimpressed, although colour has crept faintly along her cheekbones.
“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat. “Totally. Sorry.”
“You’re such a guy.”
“In my defence–”
“There isn’t one.”
“In my defence,” he continues, “you brought weapons into a family dining establishment.”
Her mouth twitches. “I’m wearing a shirt.”
“We’ve had this argument.”
She tilts her head. “And you lost it.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
He leans back in his chair. “Interesting. Doesn’t feel like losing from where I’m sitting.”
She kicks him beneath the table, but her lips have curved around the edge of her spoon. She would never tell him, obviously, because Garrett already possesses enough confidence to power a medium-sized city, but there’s something satisfying about watching his eyes betray him.
She knows what she looks like. She chose the shirt this morning, stood in front of her mirror and watched the pink fabric settle over her chest, the piercings just visible enough that nobody could reasonably accuse her of doing anything deliberate. Nobody except herself.
It’s been months since a man made her come. Not since she has come, technically. Her vibrator is dependable, discreet and considerably less likely than most men to ask whether she’s close after thirty seconds of mediocre effort.
But it’s been months since someone else managed it, and the last hookup had ended with her staring at a boy’s ceiling fan while he treated her left thigh like it contained a secret combination.
She’s had sex. It’s been fine. Fine in the way a cafeteria sandwich is fine: technically sustaining, occasionally pleasant, never something she dreams about later. Garrett, unfortunately, has appeared in those dreams.
Brief, treacherous images that arrive while the vibrator hums between her legs and she’s already warm and pliant enough not to push them away. Garrett’s mouth at her chest. Garrett’s broad hand flattening over her stomach. Garrett saying princess in that lower voice he uses when he stops teasing and means something.
The first time it happened, she had been so appalled that she stopped immediately. The third time, she came hard enough to kick the blankets onto the floor.
Now he’s sitting opposite her, trying not to stare and failing so openly that warmth pools low beneath her stomach. He drops his eyes to his food like he’s imposing discipline on himself, jaw moving as he chews, ears faintly pink.
She takes another spoonful of soup and watches him over the rim. Interesting. Maybe she doesn’t need to stop wearing the shirt after all.
A week later, Garrett has his tongue in another girl’s mouth when she decides she wants to go home. The two things are unrelated. Completely.
She’s been ready to leave for at least ten minutes, which is a reasonable amount of time to spend standing in the corner of an aggressively expensive fraternity house, pretending she cannot see her ex-boyfriend sitting across the room with his new girlfriend folded prettily into his lap.
The fact that Garrett is making out with a blonde against the kitchen counter has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
The party has that sticky, overripe feeling they all develop after midnight, when the floors have become tacky with spilled beer and the music is loud enough to flatten every conversation into shouting. Someone has knocked a decorative framed photograph off the hallway wall.
A group of freshmen are playing a drinking game with rules that seem to involve pointing at one another and screaming. The air smells like vodka, perfume and the warm electrical threat of an overloaded speaker.
She’s wedged between Tucker and Logan on a sagging couch, her legs crossed beneath a short black skirt, trying to contribute to a conversation about whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich while three girls near the drinks table keep glancing in her direction and whispering.
They’re hockey girls. They attend every party, know every player’s schedule and become visibly displeased whenever she sits too close to Garrett. She’s never done anything to them. Except perhaps exist in his immediate vicinity.
One of the girls looks her up and down, her attention lingering on the leather jacket buttoned over the baby-pink crop top beneath it, then turns away with a small curl of her lip.
“Did she just roll her eyes at me?” she asks.
Tucker, who’s absolutely seen it, becomes very interested in the label on his beer. “Didn’t notice.”
“Liar.”
“I’m practicing peace.”
Logan glances between her and the girl. “Maybe she has something in her eye.”
“Both eyes?”
“Serious condition.”
Across the room, Garrett’s hand slides along the blonde’s waist.
Her stomach gives one hard, unpleasant twist. Which is stupid. Garrett hooks up with people. She knows this because she has interrupted him during hookups frequently enough that Dean once suggested they install a traffic-light system outside his bedroom.
Garrett has never cared. If she needs a ride, his notes, help moving furniture or someone to kill a spider while another girl is in his bed, he complains loudly and then does whatever she wants.
He always puts her first. That’s simply how their friendship works.
The blonde curls her fingers into Garrett’s hair, tugging his head down to deepen the kiss, and something inside her turns hot and mean.
She stands.
Logan looks up. “Where’re you going?”
“Home.”
“Tuck can call you a car.”
She shakes her head. “Garrett drove me.”
Both boys look across the room.
Tucker rubs his mouth. “He appears occupied.”
“He won’t mind.”
Neither of them answers, because they have witnessed this particular ecosystem before and understand that interfering would only put them closer to the blast radius.
She crosses the room, stepping around another couple making out. Garrett doesn’t see her coming. His back is partially turned, one arm braced beside the blonde’s shoulder, his mouth moving slowly against hers while she presses into him with considerable enthusiasm.
She taps him on the shoulder. “Garrett.”
He hums without pulling away.
Her jaw tightens. “Garrett.”
He breaks the kiss just enough to glance over, lips swollen and curls mussed beneath the blonde’s hand. “What?”
“I want to go home.”
His eyebrows knit, focus dragging slowly into place. The blonde uses the pause to kiss along his jaw, her glossy mouth leaving a faint pink mark beneath his ear. “Make Dean drive you.”
“Dean disappeared twenty minutes ago to have sex with someone.”
Garrett squints past her into the crowd. “Twenty minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Great. He’ll be back any second.”
The blonde laughs against his neck. It’s not even particularly mean, but it lands that way.
She folds her arms, leather creaking softly at the shoulders. “Garrett.”
“What?”
“Please. I want to go home.”
The blonde’s hand tightens at the back of his neck. “She can get an Uber.”
Garrett’s eyes move to her face properly then. He knows her too well. That’s the problem with best friends. You can arrange your mouth into something neutral and keep your voice level, but they know where to look for the cracks.
His attention traces the stiffness in her shoulders, the way she has tucked one thumb beneath the cuff of her jacket and begun worrying the leather, the fact that she’s refusing to glance toward the couch where her ex is practically eating his new girlfriend’s face.
“You good?” Garrett asks.
“I’m fine. I just want to go.”
His mouth flattens slightly. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Princess.”
“Nothing happened.” She hates the tiny strain in her own voice, hates the sympathetic crease already forming between his brows. “Forget it. I’ll walk.”
“Great,” the blonde says. “Bye.”
She hooks her fingers around Garrett’s neck and tries to pull him back down.
Garrett resists without seeming to think about it, his body going still beneath her hand. He looks from the blonde to his best friend, who’s already turned away, spine straight as she begins weaving toward the front door alone.
The desire he’d been nursing all evening evaporates so quickly it’s almost impressive.
“Hey,” the blonde protests when he steps back. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, no. Sorry.” Garrett grabs his jacket from the counter and follows. “I’m driving her.”
“She’s being dramatic.”
He stops. It isn’t anger. Garrett’s anger is colder than most people expect, shaped by years of learning precisely how dangerous loud anger can become. His face empties instead, the easy warmth dropping out of his eyes as he looks back at the girl.
“She’s my best friend,” he says. “Don’t make me choose.”
The girl gives a short, disbelieving laugh. “What the fuck?”
He catches up with her outside, where she’s standing at the foot of the porch steps with her arms folded against the cold and her chin tipped stubbornly toward the road.
Snow crunches beneath his shoes as he approaches. “You seriously gonna walk?”
She doesn’t look at him. “Maybe.”
“In that skirt?”
“I have legs.”
He scoffs. “You also have no survival instincts.”
She finally glances over, eyes narrowing. “Go back inside, Garrett.”
“No.”
“You were busy,” she mumbles.
“I’m aware.”
“She seemed nice.”
“She wasn’t.”
She huffs, kicking some snow with her shoe. “She was nice before I interrupted you.”
Garrett exhales through his nose and holds out his jacket. She stares at it. “Put this on.”
“I have a jacket.”
“Yours ends at your ribs.”
She looks down at herself. “It’s cropped.”
“It’s useless.”
She makes an offended little sound but lets him drape the heavier coat around her shoulders anyway, swimming briefly in the dark fabric while he guides her toward the car with a hand at her back.
The contact is firm and familiar, his palm fitting into the curve above her skirt as naturally as if it was designed for him. Neither of them mentions the girl again.
Inside the car, Garrett turns the heat on high and pulls away from the curb while she works his jacket off, the leather one following because the warmth blasts through the vents almost immediately.
She tosses both into the back seat and settles into the passenger side in only a pink top. Garrett looks over. The car jerks toward the centre line.
“Jesus Christ.” She grabs the door handle. “Are you trying to kill us?”
He corrects hard, tires hissing over wet asphalt. “What the fuck are you wearing?”
“A top.”
“That’s not a top.”
The baby-pink material is thin and fitted, cut just beneath her chest with narrow straps and a low neckline. Under the shifting orange light from the streetlamps, the metal through her nipples presses visibly against it, small hard bars beneath soft cotton.
Garrett fixes his eyes on the road with the rigid concentration of a man attempting to land an aircraft during a storm. She watches the muscle tick in his cheek. Interesting.
She adjusts the seat belt so it sits between her breasts, making the fabric pull tighter. “Sorry for interrupting.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You were having fun,” she murmurs.
“I was making out with someone.”
“That’s usually considered fun.”
He glances at her for half a second, catches the faintly innocent widening of her eyes, then looks forward again. “You wanted to go home.”
“You didn’t have to take me.”
“Yes, I did.”
She frowns. “Why?”
“Because you asked me to.”
The answer is so simple that it presses strangely beneath her ribs. She tucks one leg beneath herself, turning slightly toward him. The skirt rides higher over her thigh, although this is a natural consequence of sitting and not something calculated to make his grip tighten around the steering wheel.
“You always do what I ask?”
“No.”
She bites back a smile. “You do.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“You’re driving me home after I interrupted you with a girl.”
He frowns. “You were upset.”
“I said I was fine.”
“You say you’re fine when you’re actively on fire.”
“I do not,” she frowns.
“You cried because Starbucks discontinued your syrup.”
“It was seasonal and I was hormonal.”
He laughs, the sound breaking some of the tightness between them. “You’re ridiculous.”
She looks out through the window before he can catch the smile tugging at her mouth. The campus passes in wet, blurred ribbons of light, bare trees black against the snow.
When he pulls up outside her dorm, she gathers both jackets but keeps his around her shoulders as she opens the door.
Garrett leans across the centre console. “Text me when you’re upstairs.”
“I’m ten feet from the entrance.”
“Text me anyway.”
She looks at him, his face softened by the dashboard glow, curls still messed up from another girl’s hands. The sight should bother her more than it does. Or perhaps it already bothers her exactly enough. “Thanks, G.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She climbs out, then bends to look back inside. The neckline of the pink top shifts. Garrett’s gaze falls. She catches him. His eyes lift slowly to hers, entirely unrepentant now.
She smiles, small and sweet. “Eyes up here, loser.”
“Go inside, princess.”
She closes the door before he sees how pleased she is.
A few weeks later, she’s on the hockey-house living-room floor with Dean asking why the puck bunnies hate her.
It’s nearly three in the morning. The party has contracted into its final, strange form, leaving behind twelve people who either live there, are sleeping with somebody who lives there, or have become too comfortable to understand that they should go home.
Music plays quietly from somebody’s abandoned phone. Empty cups crowd the coffee table. A girl is asleep beneath Tucker’s good throw blanket, which he keeps glancing at as if worried she might stain it with unconsciousness.
Logan sits cross-legged on the couch eating chips directly from the bag, while Dean sprawls in an armchair with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, looking far too alert for someone who has consumed enough alcohol to tranquilise livestock.
She sits on the floor between Garrett’s legs, her back against the couch, the hem of her little black dress riding high over her thighs.
Garrett’s been quieter than usual tonight and drunker than normal, although the two things appear to be related. His knees bracket her shoulders. Every few minutes, the inside of his calf brushes her arm when he shifts.
Dean studies her over the rim of his cup. “Why do the puck bunnies hate you so much, dude?”
She frowns. “They hate me?”
Dean immediately winces. “Oh. That’s– hate is probably too strong.”
She frowns. “You just said hate.”
“I’m drunk. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
She turns to look at Logan and Tucker. Both avoid her eyes with the speed of men who have already decided Dean can die alone.
“They hate me?” she repeats, voice small.
Garrett’s arm drops around her shoulders before anyone answers, heavy and warm as he hooks her back against his chest. “Don’t worry about it.”
She holds onto his forearms. “I’m not worried. I’m asking.”
“Same difference.”
She tilts her head back to look at him. His face is upside down from this angle, curls falling over his forehead, cheeks flushed slightly from alcohol. “That isn’t an answer.”
“Don’t need one.”
“Garrett.”
He tightens his arm around her and presses his mouth briefly to the top of her head, an absent gesture that makes Dean’s eyebrows climb before he wisely takes another drink.
Tucker clears his throat. “They don’t hate you.”
“They just don’t love how close you are with the team,” Logan says, aiming for diplomacy and landing somewhere near the border. “Especially Garrett.”
She twists around enough to look at him. “Why?”
Four male faces regard her in exhausted silence.
Dean waves one hand vaguely. “Because you’re always here.”
“You’re always here," she replies.
“I live here.”
“So does Tucker. They like Tucker.”
Tucker blinks. “Thank you?”
“And Logan.”
Logan nods seriously. “I’m very popular with women.”
“They don’t want to sleep with Tucker,” Dean explains.
She rolls her eyes. “They definitely do.”
Tucker’s expression becomes pained. “Please stop including me.”
Garrett’s hand spreads over her upper arm, thumb rubbing slowly through the thin fabric of her dress. “Doesn’t matter whether they like it. You’re not going anywhere.”
The certainty in his voice settles low in her chest.
She looks down at her hands. “I want to be friends with them.”
Dean’s face softens, the drunk sharpness slipping away. “Why?”
“Because I’m friends with all of you, and they’re always around, and it’s awkward when they stare at me.”
“They’re jealous,” Logan says.
“Of what?”
Again, silence.
Garrett reaches down and takes her cup before she can finish what remains in it. “You’ve had enough.”
She makes a small noise of protest. “That was mine.”
“You’re stoned.”
“I’m also thirsty.”
“That’s vodka.”
“Vodka’s a liquid.”
Tucker gets up and returns from the kitchen with a glass of water, holding it out. “Here.”
She accepts it with both hands. “Thank you, Tuck. You’re my favourite.”
“Bullshit,” Garrett says behind her.
She drinks, then settles back into him, pleasantly heavy and loose. Somebody changes the subject. Dean begins recounting an experience with a girl who asked him to keep his socks on because his feet were distracting, which turns into a discussion about weird hookup requests and then, somehow, whether women can tell when a man is faking confidence.
She listens with her cheek resting against Garrett’s knee, mind drifting slowly through the conversation. The weed has softened the room around its edges. Garrett’s fingers move through the ends of her hair without rhythm, gathering strands and letting them slide away.
“Women can always tell,” she says eventually.
Dean points at her. “See? This is valuable research.”
“You’re terrible at hiding when you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I always know what I’m doing.”
She laughs. “That’s exactly what a man who doesn’t know what he’s doing says.”
“What about Garrett?” Logan asks.
Garrett’s hand stops in her hair.
She looks up. “What about him?”
“Can you tell when he doesn’t know what he’s doing?”
“I’ve never seen him have sex.”
Dean nearly chokes on his drink. “Thank Christ for that.”
She tilts her head. “I’ve walked in after. And right before.”
“That’s still too much information.”
She thinks about it, lips pressing together. “Garrett usually knows what he’s doing.”
She shrugs, her shoulder sliding beneath his palm. “I don’t know. Men are generally disappointing.”
The room stills almost imperceptibly. Dean lowers his cup. “In what context?”
Her brain, softened by weed and exhaustion, allows the truth to slip out without consulting the part responsible for dignity. “It’s been so long since a man made me come.”
Every pair of eyes turns toward her. She blinks at them. Then the sentence reaches her.
“Oh,” she says. “Fuck. Did I say that aloud?”
“Very much,” Tucker answers.
Logan nods, eyes wide. “Clear as day.”
Dean looks somewhere between fascinated and afraid for his life. “Do you often think things like that while we’re talking?”
“I didn’t mean to.” She covers her face with both hands. “Disregard it.”
Garrett has gone completely still behind her.
Heat moves up her neck despite the fog in her head. “Seriously. Everyone forget it.”
“Already gone,” Tucker says kindly.
“Never happened,” Logan agrees.
Dean taps his temple. “Deleted.”
Garrett says nothing.
The conversation restarts with the brittle enthusiasm of people attempting not to acknowledge a live grenade beneath the coffee table. She sinks lower against the couch, mortification gradually fading beneath the warm drag of exhaustion.
By four, the remaining guests have either left or collapsed into various corners. Garrett nudges her shoulder. “Come on.”
She looks up at him through heavy eyelids. “Where?”
“Bed.”
Her mouth curves before she can stop it. “Wow. Buy me dinner.”
“You ate half my fries earlier.”
“So romantic.”
He gets to his feet and pulls her up by both hands. The room sways gently. She bumps into his chest, laughing when he catches her around the waist.
“No way you’re going home like this,” he says.
“I could walk.”
He raises his eyebrow. “You can barely stand.”
“I’m standing right now.”
“Because I’m holding you.”
She peers down at his arms around her. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
He guides her upstairs, one hand firm at her waist while she climbs with exaggerated care.
In his room, he shuts the door and pulls a clean hoodie from a drawer, tossing it onto the bed. “You can sleep in that.”
She picks it up and presses it to her nose. “Smells like you.”
Garrett turns his back so quickly it might qualify as evasive action. “Change.”
She stares at the broad line of his shoulders beneath his sweater. “You’ve seen me in underwear.”
“Not tonight.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because you’re high.”
She laughs to herself and reaches behind her for the zipper of her dress. Garrett stays facing the wall while fabric whispers down her body, collecting around her boots. She steps out of it, unhooks her bra and lets it fall onto the pile, then pulls his hoodie over her head.
It hangs to mid-thigh, thick and warm, the sleeves swallowing her hands.
Garrett throws a pair of boxers over his shoulder without looking. They land against her face. “Rude.”
“Put those on too.”
She tugs them over her underwear, rolling the waistband once so they stay up. “You can look now.”
He turns cautiously.
His gaze moves over her in a single, helpless sweep: bare legs, his boxers sitting low on her hips, his hoodie hanging loose enough that one shoulder has slipped through the collar. Her hair is mussed. Her mouth is pink from drinking and biting at it all night.
Garrett looks away first.
“Your turn,” she says.
He points toward the bed. “Get in.”
“I want to watch.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve told an entire room you haven’t come in months and now you’re wearing my clothes.”
She considers that. “That’s true.”
Garrett rubs both hands over his face. “Jesus Christ.”
He steps into the small closet alcove, although the door doesn’t close properly and the angle leaves him partly visible in the mirror beside his dresser. She sits on the edge of his bed and watches him pull his sweater over his head, the muscles in his back shifting beneath smooth skin. His pants follow, pushed down over narrow hips and strong thighs until he stands in black boxers.
Her mouth actually waters. Garrett glances toward the mirror. Their eyes meet in the reflection. She doesn’t look away. His jaw flexes.
For one suspended second, the room seems to narrow around them, warm and quiet and threaded through with everything they have been pretending not to notice. Then Garrett grabs shorts and a t-shirt, pulling them on with unnecessary force.
When he returns, she’s still sitting upright, staring at him.
He points toward the opposite side of the mattress. “You stay on your side. I stay on mine.”
Her stomach drops with stupid disappointment. She had been almost certain he was going to kiss her. Maybe not certain. Hopeful enough to feel embarrassed now.
She climbs under the covers anyway, watching him turn off the lamp before lying beside her with a cautious strip of mattress between them.
The darkness makes her braver. “I could be your fuck bunny.”
Garrett goes rigid. “What?”
She rolls onto her side to face him, struggling to arrange the words through the pleasant fog in her skull. “Your puck funny.”
“What?”
“No. Fuck punny.” She frowns. “That isn’t right either.”
“Go to sleep.”
“Puck bunny,” she says triumphantly. “I could be one.”
His voice is tight. “You’re a stoned bunny.”
“I’m a horny bunny.”
Garrett makes a sound that seems physically painful. “Well, sleep, horny bunny.”
She huffs, rolls away from him and buries her face into his pillow. “You’re no fun.”
“I’m being responsible.”
“Boring.”
“Goodnight, princess.”
She intends to say something cutting. Instead, she falls asleep halfway through the inhale.
The fourth time, she wakes with Garrett hard against her ass and his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.
For several soft, disorienting seconds, she doesn’t remember where she is. There is only warmth – the heavy comforter tangled around her calves, a broad palm spread low across her stomach, slow breath disturbing the hair at the back of her neck.
Her mouth tastes faintly like vodka and sleep, her limbs weighted with the pleasant remains of the weed, and she's wearing far more fabric than usual in bed because Garrett’s hoodie has bunched around her hips sometime during the night, leaving one bare thigh tucked between both of his.
Then he shifts behind her. The hard length pressed into the curve of her ass moves with him, unmistakable even through his shorts and the boxers he made her pull over her underwear, and every blurred piece of the night before snaps sharply into place.
His room. His bed. Garrett standing half-naked inside the shallow cupboard while she watched through the mirror. Her own voice declaring that she was a horny bunny before she passed out facedown against his pillow like the sophisticated, sexually irresistible woman she so clearly is.
She should be mortified. Instead, heat gathers between her legs with embarrassing speed.
Garrett’s body is curled around hers as though neither of them spent several careful minutes negotiating opposite sides of the mattress. His chest is firm against her back, one knee wedged between hers, his face pressed into her hair.
The position is intimate in a way that should feel unfamiliar, except everything about him already belongs inside the architecture of her life. His arm around her. His hand on her waist. His clothes against her skin. Garrett is always touching her, always letting her lean, climb, tug and settle wherever she wants.
The only new thing is how badly she wants more.
His breathing is still deep and even. She lies perfectly still, staring at the thin bars of morning light stretching across his wall while her pulse begins beating in places it has no business being this early. Garrett’s hand flexes against her stomach, fingers spreading as though even asleep he is making certain she’s still there, and the movement draws the hoodie upward another inch.
She could leave it alone. She could untangle herself, find her dress and spend the rest of their friendship pretending she never woke up with his erection pressed against her while yesterday’s confession sat between them like a match beside gasoline.
It's been so long since a man made her come.
Garrett heard her say it. Garrett, who stared at her piercings through the pink top in the dining hall until he forgot how drinking straws worked. Garrett, who abandoned a girl mid-hookup because she asked him to drive her home. Garrett, who had clenched his jaw when she offered to become his puck bunny and then tucked her into his bed instead of taking advantage of how stoned she was.
Garrett, who is hard against her now.
She moves before she can talk herself out of it. Only slightly at first, a slow backward press of her hips that could almost be blamed on sleep. The reaction is immediate. Garrett’s breathing catches against her neck, his entire body tightening behind her, though his hand remains motionless across her stomach.
Her lips curve against the pillow. She does it again.
This time she rolls her hips deliberately, letting the soft curve of her ass drag against him through the thin layers separating them. Pleasure flickers low in her belly from the pressure of his thigh between hers, nowhere near enough but more than enough to leave her suddenly, painfully aware of how wet she's becoming.
Garrett wakes with a rough inhale.
“Shit.” His arm loosens and his hips jerk back as though he's touched something hot. His voice is wrecked by sleep, low enough that it moves through her body before the words fully register. “Sorry. I didn’t–”
She has spent months wondering what his mouth would feel like. She has spent weeks wearing thinner tops and pretending not to notice every stolen look.
She has spent an entire night aching beneath his attention, only for him to place an honourable strip of mattress between them and tell her to sleep.
She's finished waiting. She rolls over, fists one hand into his curls and kisses him.
Garrett goes completely still beneath her mouth. For one terrible heartbeat, he doesn’t kiss her back. His lips are warm and slightly parted, his body rigid beside hers, and humiliation begins crawling up her throat – but then she hooks her leg over his hip, presses herself against the hard shape beneath his shorts and makes a small, impatient sound into his mouth.
Something in him gives. His hand clamps around her waist and he kisses her back so hard that the breath catches in her chest. There's no careful, uncertain exploration, no fumbling attempt to determine whether best friends are allowed to do this.
Garrett kisses her like he's already imagined it too many times to need instructions, his mouth opening over hers, tongue sliding hot and sure against her own as he rolls her beneath him.
The mattress dips. His body settles between her thighs, broad and heavy enough to make her feel trapped without placing his full weight on her, and the sensation empties her head of everything except him.
Her Garrett. Her best friend, who carries two trays through the dining hall because she doesn’t like balancing her soup. Who knows she wants the strawberry yoghurt and hates melon. Who always does what she asks, even while complaining like she has sentenced him to hard labour.
Except he isn’t waiting for her instructions now.
She reaches for his face, wanting to pull him closer, but Garrett catches her wrist and presses it into the mattress beside her head. The abrupt restraint sends a sharp pulse of heat straight through her.
He pulls back just enough to look at her, his chest rising hard beneath his shirt. His curls are ruined beneath her fingers, his mouth flushed from hers, but his eyes are startlingly clear now, fixed on her with an intensity that makes her stomach clench.
“Tell me to stop,” he says.
She shakes her head immediately.
“Words, princess.”
“No.” Her voice emerges breathless and embarrassingly soft. “Don’t stop.”
His gaze drops to her mouth. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
She expects him to tease her. Instead, something almost hungry passes over his face, quick and raw before his mouth comes down on hers again.
She melts beneath him. There's no other word for it. All the sharp little remarks she might ordinarily use to protect herself disappear the moment Garrett’s hand tightens around her wrist.
Her body seems to understand the arrangement before her mind catches up: Garrett above her, Garrett in control, Garrett deciding how fast and how hard while she clings to him and lets him.
He shifts his hips, pressing himself firmly between her thighs. A thin whimper escapes her.
Garrett stills for half a beat, as if the sound surprises him. Then he does it again, slower this time, grinding the thick ridge of his erection directly against the place already pulsing beneath her underwear.
Her free hand flies to his shoulder. “Garrett.”
“What?” he asks, mouth brushing the corner of hers. The word is too calm for what he's doing.
She cannot remember what she intended to say. He moves again and her head falls back, throat exposed to him, every nerve beneath her skin drawn tight.
His lips find the sensitive place beneath her jaw. He kisses it once, then opens his mouth against her neck, teeth grazing softly enough to make her toes curl inside the sheets.
“This is what you wanted?” he murmurs.
She nods.
His fingers tighten around her wrist. “Wanted me to wake up and fuck around with my best friend?”
The filthy edge to the question sends another helpless noise from her throat. Garrett has always had a dirty mouth – on the ice, during video games, whenever Dean says anything remotely provocative – but she's never heard it aimed at her like this, lowered against her skin until the words feel like touch.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“How long?”
She turns her face toward him, cheeks hot. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
His other hand slides beneath the hem of the hoodie, palm moving slowly up her bare stomach. She feels every roughened patch of his skin, every subtle drag of his fingers. The hoodie lifts with his wrist, cool air following the heat of his hand.
“Months,” she admits.
Garrett’s mouth stops against her throat. The silence lasts only a second, but she feels the answer move through him. His hips press more firmly into hers. His breathing roughens.
“Months,” he repeats.
She nods, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “Since you– saw me... the tank top. Maybe before.”
His thumb traces beneath her breast. “You’ve been thinking about me since then?”
Her body arches toward his hand without permission. “Garrett, please.”
“Thinking about what?”
She squeezes her eyes closed. She cannot say it while he's looking at her like this. Not when the fantasies felt illicit even alone in her dorm, her vibrator between her legs while she imagined his dark head lowered over her chest.
Garrett releases her wrist only to catch both hands together and press them above her head with one of his. His other hand cups her breast beneath the hoodie, warm and possessive, thumb finding the metal bar through her nipple as though he has known exactly where it would be all along.
He strokes it once. Her entire body jerks beneath him.
“Oh.”
Garrett exhales through his nose, the sound nearly a groan. “That sensitive?”
She nods, breathing too quickly. He rolls the piercing gently beneath his thumb, watching her face while pleasure sparks through her in sharp, bright bursts. Her thighs tighten around his hips. The friction between them makes her ache, but he refuses to give her the rhythm her body is beginning to chase.
“Was this it?” he asks. “You thinking about my hands on these?”
She tries to pull her hands free, because she needs something to hold onto. He keeps them pinned easily.
“And my mouth?” His thumb circles her nipple. “You think about that too?”
“Yes.”
The answer breaks out of her before embarrassment can stop it.
Garrett’s eyelids lower. “Fuck, princess.”
He pushes the hoodie higher, baring her breasts completely. The fabric gathers beneath her raised arms, leaving her trapped inside his clothes and exposed beneath his gaze. Garrett simply looks for a moment, and the undisguised want on his face makes her feel more naked than she is.
She has seen him stare before. Across dining tables. From the driver’s seat. In her dorm room when the white tank turned translucent beneath the light.
This is different. There's no joke waiting behind his eyes, no exaggerated plea for her to cover up before he fights somebody. His attention moves over her slowly, the muscles along his jaw tightening as he takes in the silver bars and the way her nipples have already hardened under his hands.
“I knew they’d look good,” he says, voice rough. “Didn’t know they’d look this fucking good.”
Her stomach turns molten. “G.”
He lowers his head. The first touch of his tongue is directly over the metal.
She gasps, back lifting from the mattress, but his hand keeps her wrists firmly above her head. Garrett traces the bar with the tip of his tongue, slow enough that she can feel the contrast of warmth and cool metal, then closes his mouth around her nipple.
Her eyes fall shut. “Oh my God.”
His groan vibrates through her breast. He sucks with controlled, deliberate pressure, tongue moving around the piercing while his free hand cups the other side, fingers kneading the soft weight before his thumb begins teasing that bar too.
Every fantasy she has had was inadequate. None of them accounted for the size of him over her, the scratch of morning stubble against her skin or the way he keeps grinding lazily between her legs while his mouth works at her chest. None of them sounded like Garrett groaning because he finally has her nipple on his tongue.
Her hands strain uselessly in his grip. “Please.”
He lifts his head, lips wet, eyes dark. “Please what?”
She looks down between them, frustrated tears almost prickling at the corners of her eyes from how badly she wants him. “Touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
“You know what I mean.”
His mouth curves slightly, but there's none of his usual bright humour in it. “Ask properly.”
Ordinarily, she would tell him to go fuck himself. She would roll her eyes, call him an idiot and take whatever she wanted through persistence alone. Now, with her body shaking beneath him and his thumb sliding over her piercing, there is nothing she would not say.
“Please touch me,” she whispers. “Please, Garrett. I need you.”
His expression changes again, satisfaction and something heavier moving beneath it. “There’s my good girl.”
The praise pours through her like heat.
Garrett switches breasts before she can recover, mouth closing around her other nipple while his hand slips back down her stomach. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of the boxers she borrowed and drags them slowly over her hips, leaving her underwear beneath.
She lifts herself immediately to help him.
“Eager,” he murmurs against her skin.
She cannot summon enough dignity to deny it. “Yes.”
He pushes the boxers down her legs and tosses them aside. Her knees fall open around him almost instinctively, the pink fabric between her thighs already damp enough to cling.
Garrett looks down. A sharp breath leaves him. She feels the attention like another touch, direct and scorching. Some small remaining instinct makes her knees begin to draw inward, but Garrett catches one and presses it back into the mattress.
“No.”
The single word makes her still.
His palm slides along the inside of her thigh, spreading her wider as he settles beside her. “You wanted my attention so badly, you can take it.”
Her lips part. He keeps his eyes on her while his fingers reach the damp centre of her underwear, pressing lightly through the fabric.
Pleasure jolts through her. Her hips lift toward his hand, searching for more before she can pretend otherwise.
“Look at you,” Garrett murmurs. “All that bossing me around, and this is all it takes?”
She shakes her head, though she has no idea what she's denying. He moves his fingertips in one slow stroke and her breath trembles out of her.
“Please,” she says again.
His eyes snap back to her face. The sound seems to affect him every time, as though he's never heard her ask instead of demand and has already become addicted to it.
Garrett hooks his fingers beneath the waistband and draws her underwear down. She helps impatiently, kicking the fabric away the moment it reaches her ankles. The exposure should embarrass her, but the only thing she can think about is his hand returning to her.
It does. His fingers slide through the wetness between her thighs, unbearably gentle at first, gathering it slowly as though he has all morning to learn her.
Both of them exhale.
“Jesus,” Garrett says softly.
She grips the sheet beside her, already fighting the urge to lift her hips into his palm. “What?”
“You’re fucking soaked.”
Heat burns across her face, but he sounds pleased rather than mocking, his voice roughening as he strokes through her again, spreading her open with two fingers and watching the slick gather against his hand.
“This all for me?”
Her eyelids flutter. “Maybe.”
Garrett looks up at her. “Maybe?”
His thumb drags over her clit, slow and deliberate, and her whole body jerks.
“Yes,” she gasps.
“Yeah?” He circles again, firmer this time, mouth curving when her thighs twitch around his wrist. “You get this wet thinking about me?”
She swallows, embarrassment dissolving beneath the ache building low in her stomach. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” he repeats, like he doesn’t believe a word of it.
His middle finger presses against her entrance, not entering yet, just teasing there while she tries not to move. She fails almost immediately. Her hips tilt toward him, chasing the pressure, and Garrett lets out a low laugh that makes everything inside her tighten.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Can’t even wait for me to put my fingers inside you.”
“Garrett.”
“What, princess?”
“Please.”
He slides one finger into her slowly. Her mouth falls open.
The stretch is slight, nowhere near enough, but the feel of Garrett inside her – Garrett, her best friend, the man she has imagined with his hand between her legs more times than she would ever admit aloud – makes a thin, breathless whimper escape her.
His eyes sharpen instantly. “That’s the noise you make?”
She turns her face into the pillow, mortified, but his free hand catches her jaw and draws her back.
“No. Don’t hide.”
He pushes his finger deeper, curling it inside her, and her lashes flutter as pleasure sparks hard through her.
“G–”
“There?” he asks, already doing it again.
She nods quickly. “Yes. Right there.”
Garrett keeps his eyes on her as he begins moving, drawing his finger almost all the way out before pushing it back inside, slow enough at first that she feels every inch of it, every deliberate curl and drag against the place that makes her stomach tighten. Her legs fall wider.
“Good girl,” he murmurs.
The praise pours straight through her. She moans, soft and helpless, and Garrett’s jaw flexes like the sound hurts him.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “You like that?”
She can barely answer. “Yes.”
“Like me telling you how good you’re being while I finger you?”
Her hips rock into his hand.
Garrett smiles, dark and pleased. “Yeah. Thought so.”
He adds a second finger. The fuller stretch makes her gasp, fingers flying to his forearm as he pushes them into her together, watching her face the entire time. “Oh my God.”
“Too much?”
She shakes her head frantically. “No. No, don’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping.”
His fingers begin fucking into her properly then, the rhythm steady and deep, his palm pressing against her clit every time he pushes back inside. The wet sounds are obscene in the quiet room, each slick thrust loud enough to make heat crawl over her chest.
Garrett hears them too. “Listen to you,” he says, voice dropping lower. “So fucking wet for me.”
She whines, head falling back as his fingers curl harder. “Garrett, please.”
“Please what?”
She has no idea. More. Faster. Everything. “Please make me come.”
The words leave her on a broken breath. Garrett’s expression turns almost feral.
“Yeah?” His fingers drive into her again, faster now, finding the exact angle that makes her thighs shake. “You need your best friend to make you come?”
She nods, unable to stop the sounds spilling from her.
“Say it.”
“I need you.”
“Need me how?”
Her nails dig into his wrist. “Need your fingers. Please, G, please–”
He groans and kisses her hard, swallowing the next whimper as his hand works between her legs. His fingers thrust deep and curl with every stroke, firm and controlled, while his thumb finds her clit and begins circling in time with them.
The pleasure climbs so quickly she can barely breathe. She clings to his shoulder, moaning into his mouth as he fucks her with his fingers, every thrust sending another hot pulse through her.
He knows exactly when to speed up, when to press harder, when to drag his thumb over her clit in tight, relentless circles that make her hips buck helplessly against him.
She had wondered whether this would feel awkward. Whether she would become too aware of every ordinary thing she knows about him – how he takes his coffee, the face he makes when he loses at cards, the exact pitch of his snore after an away game.
Instead, it feels terrifyingly natural. He knows her even here. He feels the way her body clenches around his fingers before she can tell him she needs more. He hears the pitch of her moans changing and immediately fucks into her harder, curling his fingers against the spot that makes her vision blur.
“Garrett,” she whimpers.
“I know.”
His voice is rough now, every ounce of control in his hand rather than his mouth.
“You’re taking me so well,” he murmurs, watching his fingers disappear inside her. “Fuck, princess. Look at you.”
She squeezes around him, and his breathing stutters.
“That feel good?”
“So good.”
“Better than those other guys?”
The question should make her laugh. Instead, the jealousy underneath it sends heat through her. “Yes.”
“How much better?”
Her voice breaks when he drives his fingers into her again. “So much.”
Garrett’s mouth brushes her ear. “That’s because they didn’t know what to do with you.”
His fingers curl. She cries out softly.
“Didn’t know you needed someone to take their time,” he continues, filthy and tender all at once. “Someone to keep going when you start getting all sensitive.”
Her thighs begin trembling. “G, I’m close.”
“Yeah, you are.”
He fucks his fingers into her faster, thumb moving firmly over her clit while she writhes beneath him. She tries to turn her face away, overwhelmed by his attention, but Garrett catches her jaw again.
“Look at me.”
She forces her eyes open. The approval in his expression nearly destroys her.
“That’s it,” he says softly. “Want to watch you come on my fingers.”
Her stomach tightens violently. The pressure becomes almost unbearable, pleasure building so hard and fast that panic flickers through her. “G–”
“I’ve got you.”
She shakes her head, fingers closing around his wrist even as her hips keep meeting every thrust. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“It’s too much.”
“No, baby.” He presses a kiss against her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, never slowing his hand. “You’re just not used to somebody doing it right.”
A broken whine escapes her. Garrett smiles against her skin.
“That’s it. Let me hear you.”
Her legs try to close around his hand, but he shifts between them, using his body to keep her spread open while his fingers continue fucking into her.
“Don’t run.”
“I’m not–”
“You are.” His thumb presses harder against her clit, and her back arches. “Stay right here. Take it for me.”
She nods frantically, tears prickling at her lashes from the intensity.
“Good girl.”
The praise hits at the exact moment his fingers curl deep inside her. The orgasm tears through her. Her body clamps hard around his fingers, a cry breaking loose before Garrett covers her mouth with his.
Pleasure pulses outward in fierce, breath-stealing waves, her hips jerking helplessly against his hand while he keeps fucking her through it.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against her lips. “Come for me.”
She whimpers into his mouth, fingers tangled desperately in his shirt as another wave rolls through her.
“Fuck, you’re squeezing me so tight.” His voice is wrecked now, proud and filthy. “Such a pretty fucking girl.”
The words make her clench around him again. Garrett groans and slows his fingers only slightly, dragging the orgasm out while she shakes beneath him, every stroke making her twitch and gasp.
“G– please–”
“I know, baby.”
She tries to curl away when the pleasure turns too sharp, rolling onto her side with a broken sound, but Garrett follows her, arm wrapping around her waist while his fingers remain inside her.
He gives her one last slow curl. Her whole body shudders. Then he finally stops. For several seconds, she cannot speak.
Her heart pounds beneath the hand he settles over her ribs. Her face is pressed into his pillow, chest rising in shallow, uneven breaths, Garrett’s body warm along the length of her back.
He withdraws his fingers carefully, and she whimpers at the sudden emptiness.
Garrett kisses her shoulder. “That okay?”
She lets out a weak, incredulous laugh. “Okay?”
Garrett’s mouth moves against her skin. “Need to know.”
She turns her head enough to look at him. His expression has softened, the sharp control from moments before giving way to the Garrett she knows – the one who checks that she has texted after walking ten feet into her building.
“That was so good,” she whispers.
The admission makes his grin appear slowly. Stunned and pleased, as though he cannot believe he's the one who finally gets to see her like this. “Yeah?”
She nods, too blissed out to pretend otherwise. “Really good.”
“Shit.” He drops his forehead between her shoulder blades with a quiet laugh. “I’m barely awake.”
A giggle escapes her, loose and helpless. “Me too.”
When she shifts, she feels how hard he still is behind her. She turns in his arms and reaches for him immediately, wanting to give back even a fraction of what he has just done to her, but Garrett catches her wrist before she can get beneath his waistband.
“We’ve got time for that.”
She frowns. “But you didn’t–”
“Later.”
“Garrett.”
He kisses her before she can argue, slower now, his hand cradling the side of her face. “You were the emergency.”
A stupid, warm ache opens beneath her ribs. She studies him when the kiss ends. His hair is a mess from her hands. His mouth is swollen. He's still her best friend, entirely and unmistakably, except now he's held her down and made her come so hard she briefly forgot her own surname.
Nothing is broken.
The room is still his room. The radiator still clicks beneath the window. Downstairs, somebody drops something heavy and Logan groans loudly enough to be heard through the floor.
She still knows him. Maybe she knows him better now.
“Can we be friends with benefits?” she blurts.
Garrett blinks at her.
She pushes herself higher on the pillow, ignoring the fact that the hoodie is trapped around her elbows and her underwear is somewhere near his desk. “It makes sense.”
“Does it?”
“Yes.” She gestures vaguely between them. “You can actually make me finish. Apparently very easily, which is irritating, but useful.”
“Useful,” he echoes, mouth twitching.
“And I won’t have to interrupt your hookups anymore.”
“You’ll absolutely still interrupt my hookups.”
“There won’t be hookups to interrupt,” she says, then pauses. “I mean, unless you still want to hook up with other people. We haven’t discussed exclusivity. This proposal lacks detail.”
Garrett laughs softly, staring up at the ceiling for a second before looking back at her. “You’re negotiating naked.”
“I do my best work under pressure.”
His hand slides along her bare waist beneath the tangled hoodie, thumb moving in a slow, absent stroke that makes her want to climb back on top of him.
“Friends with benefits,” he says.
She nods. “Nothing else changes.”
“Secret?”
“Definitely," she nods. “But Logan will walk in on us within a week.”
“Probably.”
She smiles. “But until then, nobody knows.”
Garrett watches her for a long moment, something unreadable sitting quietly behind his eyes. “And if it gets weird?”
“We stop.”
“No drama," he tilts his head.
“No ruining the friendship,” she agrees. “It’s us. We’ll be fine.”
The words feel true while she says them. Garrett holds out his hand.
She looks down at it, then back at him. “Are we seriously shaking on this?”
“It’s an agreement," he shrugs.
“You just made me come while holding me down.”
“And now I’m being professional.”
She laughs and places her hand in his. His fingers close around hers, warm and firm, his palm roughened in familiar places. He gives her one solemn shake without taking his eyes off her.
“Deal,” he says.
“Deal.”
Garrett releases her hand only to slide his arm around her waist and pull her beneath him again. She squeaks, laughter catching in her throat when he settles between her thighs, mouth already lowering toward her chest.
“What are you doing?”
“The deal started.”
“It started ten seconds ago.”
“Long ten seconds.”
His lips close around one of her piercings. Her hands fly into his hair and the argument dissolves into a breathless moan.
Garrett smiles against her skin. “Thought so, princess.”
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PAIRING: Retired-ish School Nurse!Jack Abbot x Teacher!Fem!Reader.
SUMMARY: You’re the teacher that everyone adores, so it’s no surprise that the kids always come to you and ask you to take them to Jack. A bond develops through this, and you find yourself stuck with him when you have your own medical emergency.
NOTES: Not fully an AU but Jack has left the Pitt, hurt/comfort vibes but heavy on the comfort, fluff, sickness bug, mentions of vomiting, reader is fairly sunshine coded, age gap not mentioned but it’s there in my mind.
NAVIGATION | PITT MASTERLIST | KO-FI
A/N: This is my first Pitt fic, please be nice! I have opened requests for a few characters, so please feel free to send one in!
You don’t realise it’s become a pattern until someone points it out.
It happens on a Tuesday, a Tuesday that drags its heels and hums under fluorescent lights. Your ninth grade class has just settled, or at least the closest they ever get, when there’s a quiet knock on your classroom door. Not urgent or panicked, but habitual. You already know what it’ll be.
One of yours, hovering awkwardly in the corridor, sleeve pulled over her hand, eyes flicking between the floor and your face like they’re waiting for permission to exist.
“Miss,” she mumbles. “Can I…?”
You don’t make them finish it. You never do. Your voice softens without you thinking about it, the same way it always does with them, careful and warm and not too loud.
“Come here, sweetheart. What happened?”
She steps closer. Show you the problem in pieces. A headache. A stomach ache. Something else that she can’t find the words for. Something bigger that sits under the surface and leaks out as physical things.
You crouch a little so you’re level with her. You always do that too.
There’s a quiet understanding in the way they relax when you lower yourself, like you’ve made the world smaller, less overwhelming, easier to handle.
“Alright,” you say gently. “I’ll take you down to the nurse, okay?”
They nod, relief immediate and visible, shoulders dropping as if they’ve been carrying something heavy all day. It’s nothing unusual. You walk them down yourself, because you always do. Because they always look like they might bolt halfway there if left alone.
You knock once, then open the door, and that’s when life changes.
He’s not what you expect.
The school nurse, in your head, has always been a very particular shape. Soft cardigans. Gentle smiles. A certain gentleness that mirrors the children.
He isn’t that.
He’s leaning back in the chair like he doesn’t quite belong there, sleeves rolled up, pen balanced loosely between his fingers. There’s something sharper about him. Not unkind. Just precise. Observant in a way that makes you feel seen in seconds.
His eyes flick up as you step in. They linger. You feel it. Annoyingly.
“Another one?” he says, not unkindly, but with a hint of something amused threading through it.
You blink, you pause, caught between mild offence and confusion. “Another… one?”
He gestures vaguely, like he’s indicating a queue that only he can see. “From your class. I read the past notes. It’s always someone you teach. I’m starting to think you’re doing something to them.”
There’s a beat where you don’t know how to take that. Your student shifts beside you, suddenly self-conscious again, and your attention snaps back where it belongs.
“Hm, okay,” you say quickly, softer again, reassuring. “You’re alright, sweetheart. Go on, sit down.”
He watches that. You can feel it. Not just looking, but noticing. Taking in your every movement. It makes something warm and uncomfortable settle under your ribs.
You step back once the student’s settled, giving him space to do his job. You expect him to get on with it. Maybe ask a few questions. Send them off.
Instead, he glances at you again. “Name?” he asks.
You hesitate, then you realise that he doesn’t mean the student.
“Oh. Um—” You give it. “Yours?”
He repeats it under his breath like he’s filing it somewhere. “Jack, or Dr Abbot,” he says. “I’ll try not to hold it against you when the next one shows up in ten minutes.”
Your mouth opens, then closes again. A laugh almost escapes, caught halfway between embarrassment and something else you don’t quite want to name.
“They’re not— I don’t—”
He smirks, just slightly. “I’m kidding.”
You nod, a bit too quickly. “Right. Yes. Obviously.”
You leave before you can make it worse.
It keeps happening. Not the exact same way, but close enough. Kids come to you first. They always have. You don’t question it. It’s just what you do. It’s what feels right.
What you don’t expect is Jack starting to notice.
“Let me guess,” he says one afternoon when you appear in the doorway again. “Headache. Maybe a bit of nausea. Emotional distress becoming physical?”
You stare at him. “How did you know?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Pattern recognition.”
The student beside you huffs out a small laugh, tension easing instantly, and you feel something shift again. The way he handles them. The way he doesn’t make it a big thing. You hadn’t expected that.
“I promise I’m not making them ill,” you say, quieter this time, like it matters more.
His gaze flicks to you, sharp again, but softer underneath. “I know.”
The words land heavier than they should. “Then why—”
“Because it’s interesting,” he cuts in, not unkindly. “They come to you first. Not their friends. Not straight here. You.”
You don’t know what to say to that.
He studies you for a moment longer, then looks away, back to the student. “Alright,” he says, all business again. “Let’s see what’s going on.”
You linger a second too long before leaving.
It turns into something else. A rhythm.
You start to recognise the sound of his voice through the door before you even knock. Low, steady, a little rough around the edges. You start to anticipate the comments, the quiet teasing that never quite crosses into mean.
“You again.”
“Should I start charging you for referrals?”
“Do you just keep a stash of mildly unwell teenagers in your classroom or…?”
You roll your eyes every time, but you never stop going. There’s something about the space that feels easier than it should, and it keeps pulling you back whenever you get a chance. Maybe it’s the way he doesn’t fuss. Maybe it’s the way he treats the kids like people instead of problems. Maybe it’s the way he looks at you like he’s trying to figure something out.
It settles under your skin before you can stop it.
The first time he comes to you, it throws you completely.
You’re halfway through lunch, picking at something you’d made the night before, when there’s a knock at your door.
You expect a student. You don’t expect him.
Jack leans against the doorframe like he’s always belonged there, eyes scanning the room in that same quiet, assessing way.
“This where the magic happens?”
You stare at him. “…sorry?”
“All the mysteriously unwell students.”
You huff out a small laugh despite yourself. “I don’t make them unwell.”
“That’s still under investigation.”
He steps inside without waiting for permission, glancing at the desks, the posters, the half-finished displays. There’s something strangely intimate about it. Having him in your space. Seeing your world the way you see his.
You feel exposed.
“They just…” You shrug, searching for the right words. “They need somewhere to go first, I think.”
He nods like that makes sense. “Yeah.”
Silence settles, not uncomfortable, just unfamiliar.
He gestures vaguely towards your desk. “You eating that?”
You glance down at your lunch, then back at him. “…yes?”
“Shame.”
You laugh properly this time. “You can’t just walk into my classroom and steal my food.”
“Watch me.”
You push the container towards him before you can stop yourself. He pauses, looks at you with something you can’t quite place. Something softer flickers there.
“Thanks.” It’s quieter than everything else he’s said so far. It sticks.
Jack starts coming back. Not every day. Not even regularly. Just enough that you start to expect it.
Enough that your heart does something small and traitorous every time there’s a knock at the door during lunch. He never announces himself properly. Just appears. Leans. Observes. Talks.
Sometimes about nothing. Sometimes about things that feel bigger than they should in the middle of a classroom with peeling posters and mismatched chairs.
You learn he used to work nights. That he doesn’t miss it as much as he thought he would. That he does, a bit, in ways he won’t fully admit.
He learns about you.
The way you talk about your students like they’re the most important thing in the world. The way you get quietly angry about the ones who fall through the cracks. The way you soften when you think no one’s paying attention.
He always is. It’s unsettling. It’s nice. It’s dangerous.
You don’t say that part out loud.
One afternoon, he watches you longer than usual.
You can feel it.
You’re explaining something at your desk, hands moving without you realising, voice calm and patient even though the student clearly isn’t listening.
They nod anyway. They thank you, and then they leave.
You turn back and find him still there. Still watching.
“What?” you ask, suddenly self-conscious.
He tilts his head slightly. “You do that with all of them?”
“Do what?”
“That,” he says simply. “Like they’re the only person in the room.”
Heat creeps up your neck. “I just listen.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly, smile undeniably fond. “You do.”
It builds in small ways. Not dramatic. Not obvious. Just there like it always has been.
The way he starts bringing his own lunch but still steals some of yours, because he claims you’re a better cook. The way you start saving him a seat without thinking about it.
The way your conversations drift longer, softer, less guarded. The way he stops teasing quite as much. The way you miss him on the days he doesn’t show up.
You don’t call it anything. You don’t let yourself.
Then one day, you don’t feel right. It starts small. A twist in your stomach. Easy to ignore. You’ve pushed through worse. You always do.
There’s a class to teach. Kids who need you. A hundred little things that matter more than how you feel.
You’ve had worse mornings. Worse days. You tell yourself that while you’re stood at the front of the classroom, fingers curled a little too tightly around the edge of your desk, trying to ignore the way your stomach keeps rolling like something unsettled and mean.
You keep your voice steady. You always do.
The lesson moves on. Dates, names, things that are meant to stay neatly in the past. Your students watch you the way they always do, some focused, some drifting, some anchored to you in that quiet way that says they feel safer when you’re there.
You make sure you look okay. It gets harder as the hour drags on. There’s a sheen of something cold under your skin, a faint dizziness that creeps in at the edges of your vision. You swallow it down. Keep going. You’re good at that. You’ve always been good at that.
One of them notices, much to your dismay. “Miss… are you alright?”
You offer a small smile, softer than you feel.
“I’m fine, sweetheart. Just a bit tired.”
It’s enough for them. It has to be.
You push through the rest of the lesson like that, each minute stretching thinner than the last. By the time the bell goes, relief hits you so suddenly it almost makes you sway.
You grip the desk again. Breathe. It’ll pass.
But, cruelly, it doesn’t.
The next class blurs at the edges.
You sit more than usual. Lean a little heavier on the desk when you stand. Your voice stays gentle, measured, but there’s a lag now, like your thoughts are moving through something thick.
A student lingers at the end. “Miss… you look really pale.”
You huff out something that’s meant to be reassuring. “I promise I’m alright.”
They don’t look convinced. You walk them to the door anyway. Smile. Send them off.
The second the corridor empties, you sag back against the wall. The room tilts, just slightly. It’s fine. You tell yourself that again, quieter this time. Less convincing. You just need a minute.
Then, a knock startles you. Sharp. Familiar.
You straighten automatically, pulling yourself back together in the seconds it takes for the door to open.
Jack steps in like he always does. Then he stops.
His eyes land on you and something in his expression shifts immediately. Not teasing. Not light. Focused.
“What’s wrong?”
You shake your head too quickly. “Nothing, I’m—”
“Don’t,” he cuts in, not harsh, just certain. “Don’t do that. Something is wrong. What is it?”
Heat flickers under your skin, equal parts embarrassment and something else you don’t want to name. “I’m fine, honestly. Just a bit—”
“You look like you’re about to drop,” he says flatly.
You laugh, weak and breathless. “I’m not going to—”
The room tilts again. Worse this time. Your hand shoots out for the desk but misses by an inch, and suddenly he’s there, closer than you expected, strong hands on your upper arms to steady you before you can even register moving.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Definitely fine.”
“I just need to sit down,” you say, the words coming out thinner than you’d like.
“Already ahead of you.”
He guides you back into the chair with a gentle hand on your lower back like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Careful, but not overbearing. Like he’s done this a thousand times before.
Maybe he has.
You try to focus on that instead of the way your head is spinning. “I’ve got a class in five,” you mumble.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do—”
“You don’t,” he repeats, firmer now. “You’re not staying here.”
“I can’t just leave—”
“You can,” he says, and there’s something in his voice that makes you pause. Not forceful. Just sure. “You need to go home.”
The word home lands strangely. Distant. Out of reach. You’re always one to stay after school hours, just in case someone needs you. Going home before that comes feels like betrayal.
“I’ll be fine in a bit,” you insist, even though your stomach twists sharply in protest.
He watches you for a second, weighing something.
“You’re not even convincing yourself.”
You don’t have the energy to argue that.
He doesn’t ask again. There’s no drawn-out debate, no frustration. He just moves, efficient and calm, gathering your things with a kind of quiet authority that makes it hard to protest.
You try anyway. “I can sort it—”
“I know you can,” he says, not looking at you. “You don’t have to right now.”
Something about that makes your throat tighten. You don’t push it further.
The walk out of school feels longer than it should. Your head stays heavy, your stomach worse now, a constant uneasy churn that makes you press your hand lightly against it without thinking.
He notices that too. Of course he does.
“Hey,” he says quietly, slowing a little so you don’t have to keep up. “Stay with me, yeah?”
“I am,” you mumble.
“Properly.”
You nod, even though the world feels slightly disconnected at the edges.
Jack stays close without hovering. Close enough that you can lean if you need to. Close enough that you don’t feel like you’re doing this alone. It’s grounding. You didn’t expect that.
The car is a blur.
You don’t remember getting in properly, just the quiet click of the door and the low hum of the engine starting. The motion makes everything worse, the nausea rising fast and sharp.
You swallow hard. “Jack—”
“Yeah?”
“I think I’m going to—”
He reacts instantly, pulling over with a speed that’s almost impressive. “Door,” he says, already reaching across to help you with it.
You barely make it out before you’re sick. It’s quick. Messy and mortifying. You brace your hands against the side of the car, breathing uneven, heat flooding your face despite how cold you feel everywhere else.
“Sorry,” you manage weakly.
“Don’t be silly,” he says immediately, a hand steady at your back. “You don’t need to apologise for that.”
“I’m just… that’s disgusting—”
“It’s a stomach bug, sweetheart,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Seen a million before. It happens.”
You shake your head, still embarrassed, still too aware of him being there for it. “I’m sorry.”
He sighs, softer this time. Not fed-up, not annoyed, but somewhat sad that the thought of apologising even crossed your mind. “We’re not doing that.”
You don’t argue again. You don’t have the energy.
The rest of the drive is quieter. You lean your head back against the seat, eyes half-closed, focusing on breathing through the nausea, through the ache settling into your body.
Jack doesn’t push conversation. Just glances at you every so often, checking. Always checking.
You notice. Even like this, you notice.
Getting into your apartment feels like crossing a finish line you didn’t realise you were running towards.
You fumble slightly with your keys. You feel your cheeks warm as Jack steadies your hand without comment. You don’t miss the way he makes sure you’re inside properly before following.
It should feel strange, having him here. You’re pleasantly surprised that it doesn’t feel that way at all.
“Bed,” he says gently, guiding you through the small space like he’s mapping it out in his head as he goes.
“I should—”
“Bed,” Jack repeats, brows raised as if he can’t fathom you being anywhere but there.
That’s when you listen. You don’t even question it.
The second you’re horizontal, everything hits at once. The exhaustion. The nausea. The ache in your limbs that you hadn’t fully noticed until now.
You curl slightly on your side, pressing your face into the pillow with a small, miserable sound you don’t quite manage to hide.
He hears it. Of course he does. One hand is smoothing over your hair before you can even see it coming. “Alright,” he murmurs, softer than you’ve ever heard him. “I’ve got you.”
The words settle somewhere deep. Too deep.
You drift in and out. Time blurs. At some point, there’s a cool glass pressed gently into your hand.
“Small sips,” he says. “Don’t rush it.” You obey without thinking, too tired to do anything else. “Good,” he adds quietly.
The praise shouldn’t matter. It does.
You don’t remember falling asleep properly. Just the sense of him still there. Moving quietly. Staying. You cling to that more than you mean to.
When you wake again, it’s worse.
The nausea hits hard and fast, dragging you upright before you’re fully conscious. You barely make it to the bathroom, hands shaking, vision blurred at the edges.
Jack is there again. You don’t even question how. A hand at your back. Steady. Grounding. Another hand is pressed against your forehead, half to keep you steady and half to subtly check your temperature.
“It’s alright,” Jack says, low and calm, wincing at the heat radiating from you. “I’ve got you.”
You hate this. You hate how vulnerable it feels, how messy and how seen you are in this moment.
“Sorry,” you whisper again when it’s over, voice rough.
“Still not doing that,” he replies.
You let out a weak, humourless laugh. “Bit late.”
“Not really.”
You don’t have the energy to argue.
He helps you back to bed after. Slower this time. More careful. You sink into it like it’s the only place you can exist without everything tipping over. He pulls the covers up without asking. You don’t stop him.
“Try and sleep,” he says quietly.
You nod. You don’t think you will, but you do. You fall asleep faster than you have in a long time with the security of Jack near you.
Waking up feels like dragging yourself through something thick and heavy.
Your head aches, your stomach still unsettled but quieter now, like the worst of it has burned through and left you hollow in its wake. For a moment you don’t move. Just lie there, blinking slowly at the ceiling, trying to piece together where you are.
Then it comes back in fragments.
School. Jack. The car. Your flat.
Jack.
You push yourself up slightly, wincing at how weak it feels, and glance towards the doorway. He’s still here.
Sat on the edge of your sofa, sleeves rolled, one arm draped loosely over the back like he’s been there for hours. There’s a glass of water on the table beside him, your phone, and something that looks like a packet of crackers.
He notices you almost immediately, a gentle, barely there smile growing on his face. “Hey,” he says, voice low, careful not to startle you. “Welcome back.”
Something soft and embarrassed curls in your chest. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah,” he replies simply.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know.”
It’s not dismissive. Just steady and certain, like there’s nowhere he’d rather be than on a couch belonging to someone with a possibly contagious sickness bug.
You swallow, looking down at your hands. “Sorry.”
There’s a pause. Then a quiet exhale, like he’s deciding how much to push. “We’ve talked about that.”
You huff a weak little laugh. “I’ve been throwing up in front of you all afternoon, I think I get one apology.”
“Denied.”
That almost makes you smile. You shift, pulling the blanket a little tighter around yourself.
There’s a strange sort of awareness sitting under your skin now. Not the sharp embarrassment from earlier, but something softer. More fragile.
He stayed. That thought keeps circling, quiet and persistent. He stayed.
“You should’ve gone home,” you mumble after a minute.
Jack tilts his head slightly. “Probably.”
You glance up at him. “But you didn’t.”
“No.”
Silence stretches, but it doesn’t feel awkward. It’s full of something that you can’t quite place. You pick at the edge of the blanket, words catching somewhere behind your teeth.
“I didn’t mean to be, um…” you start, then falter. “… this much trouble.”
His expression shifts, something firmer settling in.
“You’re not.”
“I am,” you insist quietly. “You’ve had to do all of this.”
“All of what?” he cuts in gently. “Take care of someone who’s sick?” When you don’t answer, he leans forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees. “This is my job,” he says. “Or it was. Either way, it’s not exactly new territory.”
“That’s different,” you mumble.
“How?”
You hesitate. Because you don’t have a clean answer for that. Because it feels different, even if you can’t explain why.
“Because it’s me,” you say eventually, softer than you meant to.
He goes very still. That lands. You can tell it does.
“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “It is.”
Your chest tightens. You shouldn’t say anything. You know that. You’re still not fully with it, thoughts drifting in that slow, unsteady way that comes with being sick and worn down. Everything feels a bit closer to the surface than it should. Less guarded.
It would be easy to leave it there. Let the moment pass. You don’t.
“I like it when you come to my classroom,” you admit, staring at the blanket like it might swallow you whole.
There’s a pause. “Yeah?”
You nod, small and uncertain. “Even when you’re being annoying.”
“Charming,” he mutters.
You almost smile again. “It’s nice,” you continue, voice quieter now. “Feels like.., I don’t know. I just like it a lot.”
You risk a glance up at him. He’s watching you in the same way he always does. Careful. Focused. Like he’s listening to more than just your words.
You push on anyway. “You make it easier,” you say. “With the kids. With everything.”
Your throat feels tight now.
“I think about it when you’re not there,” you add, the admission slipping out before you can stop it. “Which is probably not great.”
He exhales slowly, shaking his head despite the smile he’s trying so hard to suppress. “Probably not,” he agrees, but there’s no bite to it.
You swallow. “I think I—”
The words catch. You know what comes next. You can feel it, sitting right there, waiting to be said. You don’t stop it.
“I think I like you,” you say, barely above a whisper.
Silence. Thick. Heavy. Real. Your stomach twists again, though you’re not sure if it’s the illness or something else now.
“That’s, um…” you start, panicking a little at the quiet. “Shit. Sorry. God, you don’t have to… I know this is, like, um, I’m not exactly—”
“Sweetheart. Hey, hey. Look at me.”
It’s soft, but it cuts through everything. You stop. Look at him.
He’s closer now. You don’t remember him moving, but he’s there, right at the edge of the bed, gaze steady on yours.
“You’re sick,” he says gently.
Heat floods your face. “I’m aware.”
“I mean it,” he continues, quieter. “You’re not thinking straight.”
Mortification spikes, sharp and immediate.
“Right. Yeah. Of course. Ignore me, I just have a fever and whatever. I’m being stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were being stupid. Why would I even say that?”
You falter. “…you didn’t?”
“No.”
There’s something careful in his expression now. Measured. Like he’s picking his way through something that matters.
“I’m saying we’re not having this conversation like this,” he explains, hand gently wrapping around yours. “Not when you feel like this.”
Your chest tightens again, but for a different reason.
“Oh.”
It comes out smaller than you meant. He softens, just slightly. “That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring it.”
You blink at him. “It doesn’t?”
“No.”
The word settles, slow and deliberate. Relief creeps in around the edges of your nerves, quiet but undeniable.
“Oh,” you say again, a bit breathless this time.
“Yeah.”
There’s a beat. Then, softer, “We’ll come back to it. When you’re actually conscious.”
A weak laugh slips out of you. “I am conscious.”
“Debatable.”
You nudge his arm faintly with your hand. It barely has any strength behind it. “Shut up.”
“There she is,” he murmurs.
The moment shifts after that. Not gone. Just tucked away. Waiting. You feel it lingering between you, quiet and warm and a little terrifying.
Jack stands after a minute, adjusting the blanket around you again like it’s second nature now.
“Try and get some more sleep,” he says. “You’ll feel better for it.”
You nod, even though your eyes are already starting to droop again.
“Will you…” You hesitate. “Are you staying?”
He pauses. Then, “Yeah.” Simple. Certain.
You don’t try to hide the way that settles something in you. “Okay,” you whisper.
Sleep comes easier this time. Softer. Safer.
There’s a vague awareness of him moving around your apartment, quiet and steady, the occasional clink of a glass, the low rustle of something being set down nearby.
You drift in and out of it, never fully waking, never fully gone.
At one point, you feel a hand brush lightly over your hair. Gentle. Careful. You lean into it without thinking. It lingers for a second. Then pulls away.
When you wake properly, it’s morning. The light is softer. Your head is clearer. Your body is still tired, but no longer fighting itself in quite the same way.
For a moment, everything feels still. Then you remember everything.
Your stomach flips, though for entirely different reasons now. You push yourself up slowly, glancing towards the doorway again.
He’s there. Of course he is. Leaning against the doorframe this time, coffee in hand, watching you with something that’s almost a smile.
“Morning, sunshine.”
Your face warms instantly. “Morning.”
There’s a pause. Neither of you look away.
“We should probably talk about it,” you say, voice quieter now, but steadier than before.
He nods. “Yeah.”
Jack pushes off the doorframe, stepping a little closer. “Good thing you’re actually conscious this time.”
You huff out a small laugh. “Barely.”
“Conscious enough.”
He stops at the edge of the bed, close but not crowding you. Giving you space, even now. You notice that. You always notice that. Your heart does something soft and uncertain in your chest.
“Okay,” you say, more to yourself than anything.
“Okay,” he echoes.
And this time, you’re ready to hear whatever comes next.
This is a STRUCTURED LIST as well as a MAINS &/OR EXCLUSIVES CALL.
If anyone is interested in being a MAIN &/or EXCLUSIVE, give this post a like &/ or comment to show your interest !! Obviously this is for MUTUALS ONLY & it doesn’t matter if you’re apart of a DIFFERENT fandom, I do lots of crossovers. Let me know if you need me to remove you, or if I’ve removed you & you want to be re-added.
If you’re a multi & I have some or ONE of your characters here & not others, it’s just because we haven’t talked about it—–& if you want those characters to be considered a main &/or exclusive as well, just let me know !! & OC’s can be mains &/ or exclusives too, you’re welcome to talk to me abt it !! If we haven’t written yet, the possibility of mains is open for starters if we vibe well together.
If you’re a MAIN & you’d like to be EXCLUSIVE, also just let me know & we can discuss !!
wordcount: 1879
summary: Fresh out the lab and into his new superhero persona, Homelander needed more than a little help getting his social queues in line. (This is chapter 6, previous chapters up on my masterlist)
warnings: fluff/crack, fem!reader, young homelander, (might be ooc for him because i love a goofy young homelander instead of the batshit version of him) he's a bit oblivious to social queues, slightly autistic coded homie, basically training him like a dog, john being protective of reader cause vought workers are assholes n give her a hard time, he’s a smug little bastard too don’t get me wrong– think that’s it !!!
The day had been going perfectly– which should've been your first warning. No PR disasters, no reporters asking invasive questions, no executives breathing down your neck. Honestly? It was suspicious. You should've known something was coming– the universe liked balance, and apparently Vought did too.
"With all due respect–" The executive said, in the exact tone people used when they meant the complete opposite to whatever they were saying. " –your attachment to the asset is beginning to affect your professional judgement"
You blinked. Across the conference table, three other executives suddenly became very interested in their paperwork. Cowards. "The asset?" You repeated, genuinely confused.
"Homelander"
"Oh" You sat back, looking up at his intimidating presence. The executive’s suited form looming over the conference table and casting long shadows over your paperwork.
The executive sighed at your reaction. "You've become too involved with this project"
"I was assigned to him" You point out, setting down your pen and fully focusing on the workers around you.
"That's not the point"
"Then what is the point?"
His smile tightened– the corporate kind, the fake kind, the kind you hated and usually meant a thinly veiled threat. "The point is that you've begun treating him like a regular person"
The room went silent, all of them quietly nodding along in agreement while you laughed. Actually laughed– a short, disbelieving and bitter sound. "I'm sorry?"
"It’s an extremely serious concern"
You looked around the room but nobody looked surprised, nobody looked uncomfortable, nobody even looked confused. Like this was a completely normal thing to say. They’d probably been talking about these for these past months, planning and reasoning the pros and cons of all your work.
"What exactly is the issue here?" You asked. The executive folded his hands, his gaze unwavering.
"You've allowed emotional involvement to interfere with objectivity"
"Oh, fuck off" You didn’t mean to say it outloud– months ago you were extremely professional, keeping your head down and not sticking out. Now? You’d just told a direct superior to fuck off in front of a full conference room.
Several people inhaled sharply, the executive's face darkened. "You need to remember your position"
What the Hell, you’re already deep in it, might as well go the full way. "And you need to remember he's sitting right outside" Silence. "You all complain he doesn't understand people" You stood, gathering your folders and paperwork to make a calculated run for it. "Then the second someone actually treats him like one, suddenly that's a problem"
The executive's expression hardened drastically, his jaw tight enough to cut through paper.. "Careful" The warning hung in the air– cold, deliberate. "You are very replaceable"
The words hit harder than you'd like to admit. Not because they hurt, but because they were true. Everyone at Vought was replaceable, everyone except the products.
You hugged your things to your chest, nodded and left.
The hallway was empty. (Thank God) You exhaled slowly, counted to five– then ten. Trying not to think about it, trying not to let it bother you. By the time you reached the elevator, you'd almost convinced yourself you didn't care.
Then you heard shouting. Loud and unmistakable– your stomach dropped. Because there was only one person in the building who could make grown executives sound terrified, only one person who could get away with yelling in the middle of Vought tower. Quickly, you turned around, speedwalking back towards the conference room. The door was wide open– which was weird as is, given you’d just walked out and definitely closed it behind you. People were standing outside– watching, nobody daring to step inside and interrupt the tantrum. You pushed through the crowd and froze.
Oh.
Oh, no.
There he was– Homelander. Standing at the far end of the room, back rigid, shoulders tense and every muscle in his body wound tight like a predator about to pounce. The executive from earlier looked significantly less confident now. Funny how that worked.
You try to call out to him: "John" Nothing, his eyes never left the executive.
"You called her replaceable" The supe spoke firmly– the room felt colder somehow after his words cut through it.
The executive laughed nervously, trying to backtrack. "Homelander, this is an internal discussion–"
"No" His answer was immediate. Sharp– not loud. Somehow that made it worse.
"No?"
"No" His jaw tightened. "You were rude"
The executive visibly swallowed. "It was a performance review, criticism is imprescindible–"
"No" Again. "You were rude" The exact same way he'd repeat an interview answer when he knew he was right. Except this wasn't funny anymore– this wasn't stickers and small talk. This was anger. Raw and unfiltered, barely contained. The kind nobody had ever taught him how to manage because they were too intimidated to do so.
"John" This time he looked at you. Immediately. The room collectively relaxed– which was honestly insulting. They’d just been chewing you out, why did they assume everything was alright now? You walked closer– ignoring the terrified stares, ignoring the executive, ignoring the fact that Homelander still looked two seconds away from throwing someone through a wall or committing multiple manslaughter. "Come on"
He frowned. "They were mean" The simplicity of it almost broke your heart– not because he was wrong, but because he genuinely didn't understand why everyone else was acting like that wasn't the problem right now.
You lowered your voice, carefully doubling down. "Come on" A pause. Then finally– he followed you out of the room.
The elevator doors slid shut behind the both of you. Silence, heavy silence. Homelander tightened his fists once– twice, then crossed his arms. Still angry, still thinking about it. "They can’t talk to you like that"
You leaned against the wall. Tired, suddenly very tired– the day’s events finally catching up to you. "Welcome to corporate America"
"No"
A sigh escapes you. "John–"
"No" His head snapped toward you, blue eyes bright with frustration. "That's not normal" The conviction in his voice caught you off guard. Because three months ago? Three months ago he would've had no idea what ‘normal’ looked like. Now he did. (At least enough to recognize when something wasn't, following his criteria) "They were rude"
"Yes" You nod softly.
"They were unfair"
"Probably"
"They upset you"
You rubbed your temples. "John..."
"No" Again. Stubborn, frustrated, almost hurt. "They can’t do that" The elevator continued descending. Neither of you spoke during the descent.
Finally you looked up and really looked at him. At the clenched jaw, the rigid posture, the way his shoulders were still locked tight with tension, the way he kept glancing over towards you as if checking you were still there. He was clearly still angry, still stuck thinking about it. The elevator dinged but neither of you moved quite yet. "You scared them"
His expression didn't change. "Good" The answer came instantly, without hesitation or regret.
Your stomach dropped– not because he'd said it, but because he'd meant it. "John"
"What?" He frowned. "They were being cruel"
"That doesn't mean you get to scare people"
"They scared you" He retorts quickly, stubborn as ever. The words hit harder than they should have. You opened your mouth but then closed it again, because the frustrating thing was that he wasn't entirely wrong. You had been upset. Embarrassed. Humiliated, if you were being honest.
But: "That's different"
"Why?"
You hated that question. (Mostly because you didn't have a good answer) "It's just how things work, specially in this company"
"No" Again. Stubborn. Immediate. "No" The elevator doors slid open and this time you stepped out. After a second, he followed. His boots echoed behind you through the hallway. "They said you were replaceable" You stopped walking and slowly turned around– Homelander looked genuinely bothered by the concept. Not angry now– confused, offended. Like someone had told him the breathing was optional.
You laughed softly, tired but fond nonetheless. "John, everybody's replaceable"
"No"
"Yes"
"No"
You rubbed your face. "John–"
"No" He stepped closer, just enough that you had to tilt your head up to look at him. "They're wrong"
You huffed out a soft chuckle despite yourself. God. Sometimes talking to him felt like arguing with a brick wall that could fly and throw whole buildings around without breaking a sweat. "That's not how jobs work"
His brow furrowed. "Then your job is stupid"
You laughed. Actually laughed. A tired, startled sound that escaped before you could stop it– Homelander immediately looked pleased with himself. Like he'd accomplished something. Which, annoyingly, he kinda had. The tension in your chest eased slightly. Just enough to breathe comfortably again.
"Y’know–" You said, shaking your head in fond disbelief. " –most people don't threaten executives on behalf of their publicist"
"I didn't threaten anyone" The response came far too quickly.
You raised an eyebrow. "John…"
"I didn't"
"Everyone in the building thinks you were about to throw him through a wall"
He hums to himself, tilting his head to the side in amused interest, deep in thought. "I was definitely thinking about it"
"John"
"But I didn't" The supe points out with a raise of his eyebrow.
You opened your mouth. Then paused, because he was looking at you expectantly. Waiting. Like there was something important about that distinction. And then it clicked– you sighed. "You didn't"
His shoulders relaxed instantly. The anger that had been simmering beneath his skin all afternoon finally easing. (Just a little) Because that was what he'd been waiting for. Not praise, not approval– recognition. Someone noticing he had stopped himself, that he was getting better and improving his behavior.
Your chest tightened. Three months ago, he wouldn't have. Three months ago, nobody would've expected him to– the executive would’ve been as good as dead. Slowly, you reached into your bag. His eyes immediately tracked the movement.
You froze. He froze. The realization hit both of you at exactly the same time. "...Seriously?" You asked, with a reluctant, amused huff of breath.
"What?"
"You know exactly what"
"I don't"
Liar. Suppressing a smile, you pulled out the sticker sheet. The supes gaze dropped immediately, following every move. Traitor– absolute traitor. "You do realize this is emotional manipulation, right?"
"I don't know what that means"
"You absolutely do" You glare at him half-heartedly, barely holding back your smile at his very deliberate (non believable) innocent act.
A pause. Then: "Am I getting a star?"
The hopeful note in his voice nearly killed you– how could an alleged ‘killing machine’ America’s golden boy be this adorable when emotionally bribing you. You peeled one from the sheet. "One star" His grin appeared immediately. Bright, victorious, boyish. "You showed remarkable restraint"
"I did"
"You still scared half of Vought"
"They deserved it"
"John"
"They did"
You pressed the star onto the front of his suit anyway. Right over his heart, like always. For a second he looked down at it. Then back at you. (Looking entirely too pleased with himself) The headache was still there– your job was probably still in danger, tomorrow was going to be a disaster. But as the two of you started walking down the hallway, Homelander glancing down at his newest sticker every few seconds like he couldn't help himself—
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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summary : after accepting a stupid bet from sion, a twenty-eight day countdown began where you have to confess to your long time crush, kim jaehee, or else you don’t talk to him ever again.
warnings : fluff, crack, lots of overthinking and second-hand embarassment, mutual yearning (i think?), very cute !!, featuring sion :>
a/n : i made this in april… hehe enjoy !!
queueing : 3 minutes - nct wish, for: you - kali uchis, wishful thinking - grentperez, trouble - laufey, all i can say - kali uchis
00:00 — our time is running out, not long to go
you’re two days away from a full blown emotional crisis, and sion is making it worse.
he's lying on your bed, legs crossed in the air like he owns the place, scrolling through his phone while your heart slowly melts into the floor. across the room, your whiteboard sits smugly above your desk, mocking you with thick black marker.
“CONFESS TO HIM BEFORE THE 30TH - or never speak of it again !!”
"so," sion says, popping a chip into his mouth. "do you want me to play sad violin music now, or should i wait until you actually chicken out?"
you groan, face planting into your pillow. “i’m not chickening out.”
"suureeee.”
he's not wrong. the bet felt easy four weeks ago. just something dumb to say when you were tired and frustrated and in denial about liking jaehee since the beginning of time. it wasn’t supposed to be real.
but now it’s the 28th. you’re running out of time.
and because you're stupid, you're gonna stick to your word and drop the entire idea of liking him if you don't muster up the courage to confess soon. 'it's a waste of time if it continues any longer, right?'
"c'mon y/n, do it sooner or later." sion cuts off your rambling thoughts. he probably knew that you were overthinking again.
"okay but what if-"
"what if this, what if that. keep making up excuses, time won't stop for you." he says, rolling his eyes at how repetitive you are with each excuse you make. "just do it, if he likes you, you get together. if he doesn't, life goes on"
ugh, sion makes it sound sooo easy. you just want it to be perfect, something you won't look back and start visibly cringing.
“why did i take this stupid bet” you say, burying your face into your pillow once again.
“because you’re sad and delusional.” sion answers almost immediately, like his answer is default. he pops another chip in his mouth. “also because i basically dared you to, and you’re, tragically, a people pleaser.”
your groans from the couch grow in sound causing sion to chuckle.
it was all supposed to be some stupid joke. seeing jaehee open a door for a random sophomore and the signature smile he gives was just so boyfriend coded.
‘he’s nice to everyone’ you repeat to yourself but you can’t stop your heart from beating a little faster when he’s around or your face from heating up when he smiles at you.
especially not since the rainy day after exams
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။|||| |
you’re darting across campus, arms wrapped around your textbooks like a shield, and rain starts to pour down. now you’re left crouched under a lone tree, drenched and muttering to yourself.
then jaehee appears, umbrella in hand, offering the perfect half‑circle of coverage.
“you look like you’re auditioning for a depressed main character,” he jokes, voice calm as raindrops drip onto his hair. “mind if i…?”
he tilts his umbrella just enough so you can slip underneath. you mumble “thank you,” but he waves it off.
“it’s nothing. i do this for anyone who’s caught in the rain.”
and you believe him because every time you see him, he’s doing exactly that. opening doors, carrying groceries, dropping off lost phones. yet in that moment, shoulder to shoulder and both soaked at the hem, it feels undeniably, achingly… personal.
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။|||| |
you peel the pillow off your face and sigh.
“i’m going to throw up,” you mutter into the ceiling.
“just confess,” sion says. “three minutes. that’s all you need. you’ve liked him for forever. what’s the worst that happens?”
you don’t answer. sion sets a three minute timer and slams his phone on the desk.
“you’ve got three minutes to tell me how you would confess”
you freeze. no rehearsed speech. no mental preparation. everything was gone except embarrassment and panic.
0:57 — ballads, classic music, they sure are great, not my style though
random drafts clutter your desk. on a normal day it would be covered with neatly color-coded notes, but today, it’s a messy group of small notes and crafts, things you wanted to give to jaehee. a letter of random yaps stand out from the rest.
“i like the way you say my name”
“your hands are really nice”
“do you wanna get ramen sometime..? or never speak to me again. either works”
you stare at the page and seriously consider setting it on fire. only thing stopping you is the fire alarm going off… and sion
“stupid sion, stupid ideas…” you mumble quietly, crumpling the draft and throwing it at the garbage where it misses.
to your surprise, sion starts humming behind you before walking over, grabbing the draft, and tossing it back to you. he definitely heard you slandering him behind his back.
“like you have better ideas. remember when you spent three days trying to find out and memorize his schedule to try and ‘bump into him’ coincidentally?” he spits out while rolling his eyes like you’re a lost cause.
you throw the pen that you were using at him, only for it to hit his leg with no reaction.
“you folded without him even seeing you and you walked past him. god, it was so embarrassing, i wish i recorded it.” sion continues.
“okay so what is this slander i’m recieving.”
“i’m just saying, you’re gonna have to try harder” he says as he goes to his own room.
when he finally walks off and stops bothering you, you cover you face with your hands, trying to come up with ideas.
dramatic scene? cute promposal? letter in his locker?
you give up, but nothing feels worse than how jaehee keeps acting normal.
he likes your stories, replying to them with things like, “LMFAO ur so unserious.” he even waved to you this morning. the sleepy eyed, hoodie-draped, and unbothered jaehee. doing literally anything like your heart isn’t currently on life support.
you wish he’d do something, anything, to give you a reason to run or stay. instead, he keeps being, well… jaehee. kind, warm, and impossibly close.
[queue a confession plan montage]
you draft text messages before deleting them. you consider fake crying in front of him to get his attention. you rehearse dramatic lines in the mirror like, “if i don’t say this now, i never will”
sion just watching all of this happen in horror. “you need a nap and a divine intervention.”
and just like that, time passes by a little too fast and the clock hit’s midnight.
one day left
sion sighs, “enough. it’s not about the how. just do it. three minutes of courage, remember?” he says, reassuring you with each hand on your shoulder. “doesn’t matter what you say. it matters that you say it.”
you’re almost out of time and somehow you’re still not ready enough to tell the boy who’s always been there that you’ve had feelings for him for a while now. it doesn’t help that you guys can have a normal conversation and he stands there, completely unaware that you’re counting down the minutes like a ticking time bomb, like the world was going to explode.
1:57 — skip the intro, need no outro
you wake up after staying up till two in the morning. it’s not like it’s easy to sleep after finding out you have less than 24 hours to confess.
the sound of the alam is screaming at you. not ringing, not chiming, screaming.
sometime last week sion changed you alarm’s name to “WAKE UP OR DIE” which is quite fitting actually since you’re halfway to cardiac arrest when you see the time.
class started 15 minutes ago.
the last class with jaehee
your last chance.
you bolt upright, take a deep breath of regret, and trip over your own feet before trying to get out of bed. your voice croaks on impact.
“ow- what the… i sound like a dying goat.”
of course you get a sudden sore throat that makes your voice extra raspy, not the best for confessions.
and just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, you go to your bathroom for a mirror check. disaster confirmed.
your hair looks like you just lost a wrestling match with a random squirrel and your hoodie is wrinkled beyond saving. gotta love that bed hair and sleeping with your hoodie.
“i can’t confess like this,” you mutter, voice still raspy, a little better though after you chug a glass of water. you yank your hoodie’s hood up in shame.
but you have two choices.
1. hide in your room forever and never speak to kim jaehee ever again.
2. show up to class, late, looking like someone’s worst picture day photo and pray he still looks at you the same.
of course, you choose humiliation.
getting there was… an experience. your bag was bouncing like crazy, slung on your shoulder. you can’t count how many times it almost fell off of it.
but by some miracle, you arrive outside the lecture hall just as class ends. time is actually running out and it’s all hitting you now.
your heart is pounding. you’re seconds from turning around and admitting defeat when-
you see him
jaehee. leaning against the wall in the hallway. backpack slung over one shoulder, scrolling through his phone, waiting for no one
or maybe you.
your breath catches. not because he sees you, but because he doesn’t. not right away at least
suddenly, your care about the way you look disappears. because if you turn around you, you’ll regret it forever.
you step forward, voice gone, thoughts racing, hands shaking.
jaehee looks up. his eyes catch on you instantly. and he smiles. that same smile that is so precious that it makes you want to frame it.
“yo, you look like you just fought a wind tunnel. you okay?”
you open your mouth. nothing comes out. not even a word. just-
“i—uh—hh—hi” you manage to get out.
your voice breaks. like, full on voice crack catastrophe. jaehee blinks then laughs like nothings wrong.
“you sick or something?”
you shake your head, clutching your chest like it’ll steady your heart. “just tired”
he tilts his head, feeling like he’s watching you a little longer than necessary. “you sure?”
you nod. and somehow that gives you the nerves to say, “can we talk? after school?”
his expression shifts. just slightly. curious. gentle “yeah. of course”
and that’s it. you don’t run. you don’t faint. you just walk away, hoodie clutched tight and stomach flipping.
it wasn’t the best confession, but it was something.
2:47 — turn the beat up, volume up, tune out the noise and now listen here.
you don’t see the text.
you’re halfway through spiraling in your locker mirror, trying to flatten your hair with your sleeve and mouth a pep talk to your reflection. when jaehee’s message comes in.
[jaehee: where should we meet?]
[jaehee: or i can just wait outside?]
you don’t check your phone, you don’t check anything. but you begin to make your way to the same hallway you encountered him earlier.
you’re too deep in your head. rehearsing lines you won’t remember. praying your heart doesn’t fall out of your chest and onto the hallway floor.
and then you turn a corner.
so does he.
he’s looking at his phone. you’re completely zoned out.
bam.
it’s not a full-on crash, but it’s enough to knock you off balance, hands flailing, a soft “ah !” slipping out, heart immediately doing parkour in your chest.
“oh—sorry—”
you look up.
jaehee. his hoodie. his smile. his dumb, perfect face.
“whoa, that’s my bad,” he says, already steadying you by the arm. “you okay?”
your mouth opens. and before you can stop yourself, it all comes out, “i like you.”
you don’t even realize you’ve said it until it’s out in the air. soft, sudden, too fast. like slipping on a step you thought was solid.
jaehee freezes.
you swear you see his eyebrows twitch, just slightly, and his grip on your arm loosens in slow motion. he blinks. then stares. not confused, not shocked. just… processing.
and your body goes cold.
“i—” your voice shakes. “i didn’t mean to say it like that. or here. or now. it wasn’t supposed to be in a hallway after i almost headbutted you—”
he doesn’t say anything.
you keep going. rambling like your brain is sprinting to outrun your shame.
“i had this whole plan. i mean, kind of. okay not really. i panicked, like, a lot. there was going to be a letter. then a conversation. now it’s just—word vomit.”
you force a laugh. it dies halfway out of your mouth.
“i like you. surprise, i guess. i swear i’m not usually this much of a mess.”
you glance up. he’s still looking at you. and then, finally.
he smiles.
not a huge one. not a smirk. just this soft, lopsided curve that starts in his eyes before it hits his lips. like the truth of what you said has landed and he’s letting it settle.
“do you want to try again,” he says quietly, “but slower this time?”
you stare. “what?”
he shrugs, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “i want to hear you say it again. but, y’know… like you mean it.”
“i do mean it,” you say, breath catching.
“then say it. slower. this time I’ll listen with both ears.”
he’s teasing, just a little. but his voice is so calm. so real. like he’s trying to make it easier for you to breathe. so you do. you inhale, exhale, and look him in the eyes.
“i like you,” you say again. “you’re kind. and funny. and too nice sometimes. and i’ve been trying to ignore it, but every time you smile or laugh or say my name like it’s not a big deal, i just—” you pause. “i like you. a lot.”
he watches you. his smile softens. and this time, he steps closer.
“i was hoping that’s what you were going to say,” he murmurs. “i’ve kind of been waiting.”
your breath hitches. “you have?”
he laughs. quiet, sweet, like the sound of a secret being kept safe. “you think i just replied to all those 2 a.m. memes and came to study sessions for fun?”
your mouth gapes. “i thought you were just… being nice!”
“i am nice,” he grins, “but not that nice.”
you both laugh. and it’s quiet again, but not the heavy kind. this silence feels full. like the space right before a song drops.
like waiting for the best chorus to begin.
3:00 — a whole three minute song is a weird flex
you’re not sure how long you walk.
you don’t even remember where you were going anymore. the hallway doesn’t matter. the clock doesn’t matter. it’s just the two of you, side by side, your hand almost brushing his, your heart still caught somewhere between your ribs and the ceiling.
jaehee is smiling, not the ‘too polite’ kind, not the ‘just being friendly’ kind, it’s small and real, like he’s holding this moment with both hands.
“you’re really quiet,” he says eventually, glancing over at you.
you blink like you just woke up from a dream. “am i?”
“you haven’t said a full sentence in like… five minutes.”
you groan softly and rub your hands over your face. “sorry. i think my brain exploded.”
he laughs. “it’s okay. i kinda liked the word vomit version too.”
you glare at him playfully. “can you not call my deepest emotional breakthrough vomit? only i can call it that.”
“fine,” he teases. “emotional confetti. better?”
you roll your eyes, but the situation makes your cheeks burn. because this is real. this is really happening. you said it. he heard it. he smiled.
but your chest still feels tight. your thoughts still loop like a broken record. you mumble, mostly to yourself, “i don’t know what i’m supposed to do now…”
“what do you mean?”
you shrug, eyes fixed on your shoes. “i’ve never actually… gotten here. past the crush part. past the chaos. this is the part where i usually, i don’t know, daydream?”
you laugh, but it’s fragile. your voice trembles on the edges. “what if i mess it up? or get weird? or scare you off?”
jaehee stops walking. you feel his hand barely graze yours again.
then, he laces your pinky with his. just that. not a full handhold. not a bold move. just a promise in miniature.
“then we take it slow,” he says. “we figure it out. together.”
you stare at your tangled pinkies. your voice is a whisper. “you really like me?”
“is that a serious question after like three confessions and a hallway collision?”
you grin. and it finally sinks in.
he likes you.
you like him.
and somehow… that’s enough.
▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။|||| |
somewhere across campus, sion is binging some show in your shared dorm room, phone in hand, waiting for your dramatic all-caps text. instead, he gets this,
[you: i did it.]
[you: i think he likes me.]
[you: like. actually.]
ten seconds later:
[sion: SHUT. UP.]
[sion: YOU ACTUALLY SAID IT?!]
[sion: OMG YOU’RE A LEGEND I’M GOING TO FRAME THIS]
[sion: did you cry. be honest.]
[sion: IS HE HOLDING YOUR HAND.]
you smile down at the screen.
jaehee peeks over your shoulder. “who’s that?”
“sion. he’s been emotionally invested in this since day one.”
“should i say hi?”
“if you do, he might rub it in my face that he was right and that you did like me.”
jaehee grins. “we’ll save that for the next confession, then.”
and you just… laugh. because maybe love doesn’t need fireworks or speeches.
maybe all it needs is a little chaos, a little courage, and someone who smiles when you stumble.
Extracted from the game’s code (17th January 2026)
At the Temple
If PC is wearing a chastity device which is not from the Temple (eg. The Golden Chastity Belt from the lake)
Sydney smiles, but it soon fades. "I thought about something. Your device... it's not from the temple, is it?" You nod, and Sydney frowns.
"Then there's nothing we can do, at least not yet. The keys here are only for belts or cages issued by the temple. You'll need to find a way to remove your device before we can do anything."
Corrupt Sydney breaks PC’s chastity belt
Sydney lets out a feral growl, pinning you to the cushion. "Why?!" he hisses. "You brought me back here with that thing on! That... damned mockery! It's between me and... I can't..." He dives to the floor and begins tearing at your chastity belt, digging his fingernails into it with a feverish passion.
Your chastity belt shatters into pieces.
Sydney's face freezes in shock for a moment, before twisting into a mad grin. "Finally," he says in an eerily calm tone. "Nowhere to run. And nothing to hide behind. You're mine. Mine to defile."
Being Evaluated by Jordan
Requirements:
Sydney is Pure.
PC is wearing Rose Wedding clothes (can either be the headpiece or dress, you don’t need both)
"The evaluation will focus on the aspects of your bond with each other, as well as your individual contributions to the order," Jordan explains as he shuts the door behind you. He motions for you and Sydney to take seats at an ornate table as he produces a small notebook from his robes.
"You've already answered these questions, but since this is a fresh evaluation, I must repeat them."
He begins to ask both of you questions about your devotion to the temple. Sydney's answers all seem to please Jordan. He turns to you and asks you many of the same questions.
"Your devotion is remarkable, as has been proven in the past. You're a credit to our faith, and every one of us could learn from you. I have faith that you will pass this evaluation already, but we must continue on."
"You've been an upstanding member of our faith. I trust your words."
"You've been a satisfactory member of our faith. I trust your dedication, but you must strive for improvement still."
"I question your true devotion,"he says. "We know you can do better."
*depending on Grace.
He runs his thumb against the roses on your clothes. "While not necessarily appropriate for this Rite, I can appreciate that you're wearing your heart on your sleeve with this wedding attire."
Sydney blushes. "I... I hope to see her wearing that again some day."
Jordan produces a small bell from his robes, and rings it four times. An older monk enters the room, and nods to Jordan. "Please stand," the monk says.
At the Opening of the Adult Shop
Requirements:
Sydney is Neutral (neither Pure nor Corrupt)
PC wears the babydoll
The last of the queue outside filters in. There's still a crowd outside, but made up of people who have finished within. Some are comparing purchases. Sirris walks by, and smiles at the sight of you.
"Thank you for wearing the babydoll," he says. "They've been selling well, and now I know why."
"You shouldn't ask your students to wear such a thing!" Sydney replies.
"There's nothing wrong with 'such a thing'," Sirris says. "The temple—"
"The temple isn't saying it. I am."
Sirris opens his mouth to reply, but is interrupted by a crash from the corner of the shop. He hurries over to investigate.
Chatting in School
If PC is not in uniform:
You talk with Sydney. "You're out of uniform, you know." He looks around. "The Headmaster’s behaviour policy is pretty flexible. I can mark down prices for people I like, too."
You try to chat with Sydney. He points at you with a pen. "You need a uniform, right? You can just ask, and I'll lead you to the changing room."
If PC and Sydney are both wearing glasses:
(Corrupt)
"Mind if we swap glasses?" he asks. "I just want to see."
Before you can answer, he plucks your glasses off your face and puts them on hers, passing you his own pair of glasses. "Huh, all blurry. I guess I should've expected that." He takes his own glasses back and puts yours back on your face. They're a little askew, and you need to correct them.
(Other)
"Mind if we swap glasses?" he asks. "I just want to see."
> Accept
You nod, and Sydney takes your glasses off and hands you his. He places the (glasses) on his own face. "Huh, all blurry. I guess I should've expected that." He passes your glasses back and puts his own back on. You take a moment to adjust them to your liking.
> Refuse
You shake your head, and Sydney nods in understanding. "Right. I wouldn't want someone messing with my glasses either."
If PC is wearing glasses and Sydney is not:
"Remember when I wore glasses?" he asks, glancing at yours. "Not having to replace them constantly is a relief."
Reactions to “cool” clothing that is worn on the face:
(Pure)
He looks at your (item) and frowns. "You aren't allowed to wear those at school."
He plucks the (item) off your face. "I'll send these to your locker in the locker rooms," he says, placing them in a cabinet. "You can pick them up later. Why were you wearing them anyway?"
(Pure + Love is above 40)
He looks at your (item) and frowns. "You aren't allowed to wear those at school."
He reaches for your face, but draws his hand back. "I'll let you off with a warning. Please don't wear those. Why are you wearing them anyway?"
(Neutral)
He looks at your (item) and frowns. "You shouldn't be wearing that at school." He thinks for a moment, before shaking his head. "I'll let it slide, but please don't wear those here. Why are you wearing them anyway?"
(Corrupt)
He looks at your (item) and grins. "Looking good. Some of the teachers might get anal about that, though. Be careful."
If PC is wearing the Feathered Hair Clip:
His eyes catch on your unusual hairclip. "Wow, those are real feathers! It's very pretty." He reaches up and runs a finger along the edge. He keeps stroking it, and your head, absentmindedly for some time.
If PC is wearing a Holy Pendant:
(Pure/Neutral)
He looks at the holy pendant around your neck, and smiles at you.
"Doesn't it just make you feel so much safer?"
He rubs his own pendant.
(Corrupt)
He looks at the holy pendant around your neck, and smiles at you.
"Even after everything, I still won't go anywhere without mine. It represents a lot to me."
He rubs his own pendant.
If PC is wearing a Stone Pendant:
He looks at the stone pendant around your neck, and he looks interested. "That isn't the standard pendant, but... I think I've seen that around somewhere."
If PC is wearing a Dark Pendant:
He remains silent for an unusually long time. You look over to him, and see his eyes glazed over, staring at your dark pendant. You snap your fingers, and he gasps before placing his hands over his mouth, suddenly looking nervous. "Sorry. Must be more tired than I thought."
If PC is wearing a Cat Bell Collar or Cow Bell:
Morning: You catch him dozing off. You ring your (item). The sound is enough to jolt him awake. "Thanks. Cute collar. I think I saw a few of those in packages at Mom/Dad's new shop."
Other: You hear a ring. Sydney is poking your $worn.neck.name. "This is a really cute collar. I think I saw a few of those in packages at Mom/Dad's new shop."
If PC is wearing a Spiked Collar or a Spiked Collar with a Leash:
Sydney spares a glance at your spiked collar. "That looks... wicked. Vicious, even.
Meek PC: It contrasts with how gentle you are."
Bratty PC: I think it suits you, in a good way."
Other PC: I'm not sure what to think about it."
If PC is wearing a Scarf:
(Line 1)
Morning: You feel a tug on your neck. Sydney plays with the end of your scarf absentmindedly.
Other: You feel your scarf get lifted from your shoulders. You reach for it, only to find it being wrapped back around you. "You were wearing it wrong," Sydney says.
(Line 2)
If Sydney is romanced: He grasps it and pulls you in, kissing you on the cheek. "Got you."
If not: He smiles at you.
If PC is wearing a Collar:
(If Sydney is Corrupt and Romanced)
You feel a tug on your neck. Sydney holds your collar's leash, looking at it with curiosity.
He grins and pulls you in, kissing you on the cheek. "Such a good girl," he whispers. "My good girl."
(If not)
You feel a tug on your neck. Sydney holds your collar's leash, looking at it with curiosity.
"Why are you wearing this?" he asks, blushing. He tugs on the leash. "Can you even take it off? Huh."
If PC is wearing a Familiar Collar:
(If Sydney is Corrupt and Romanced)
You feel a tug on your neck. Sydney examines your familiar collar with curiosity.
"The little heart is so cute! I think it suits you well. I've never seen anything like it at Mom/Dad’s shop."
(If Sydney is Corrupt and Romanced + The collar is cursed)
You feel a tug on your neck. Sydney examines your familiar collar with curiosity.
He gets a static shock upon touching the golden heart. "Ow. I was going to say the little heart was cute, but it doesn't seem to like me."
(Other)
You feel a tug on your neck. Sydney examines your familiar collar with curiosity.
He touches the golden heart, before pulling away. "This is a strange design. I've never seen anything like it at Mom/Dad’s shop." He frowns. "It feels heretical, like something the temple would burn."
Lines during encounters
If PC is wearing a Nun’s Habit or Monk Robes:
Corrupt: He runs his hands over your (clothes). He almost seems nostalgic.
Other: He looks over your (clothes). "Does... wearing that make this all okay?"
If PC is wearing a Holy Pendant or a Stone Pendant:
Corrupt: He stares at your (pendant). He almost seems nostalgic.
Other: He looks over your (pendant). "Does... wearing that make this all okay?"
If PC is wearing a Dark Pendant:
Corrupt: He stares at your (pendant). He seems to get lost in it for a moment.
Other: He looks over your (pendant). "It's... so pretty, but also a little unsettling..."
If PC is not wearing school attire and is in school:
Corrupt: He looks over your clothes and giggles. "That's not proper school uniform. Don't worry, I can help you take it off."
Other: He looks over your clothes. "Y-you should really adhere to the dress code, before you get in trouble..."
If PC is wearing a Strap On:
Corrupt: He looks over your (strap on) and giggles. "Oh, these toys are fun."
Other: He looks over your (strap on) and blushes. “Mom/Dad’s always talking about these."
a/n: Call me weird, call me a geek but AU where theo is like a model/actor dating a weird programmer girl sounds perfect to me. Honestly thought about making more one-shots about this if it goes well, just because its cute.
Summary: As you sit and wait to get out of the low priority que, your boyfriend decides to pop in your stream and create a wholesome moment talking about how you two met
The timer on the screen ticked slowly.
9:52 remaining.
You sighed, stretching your arms above your head as your League of Legends client counted down the latest low priority queue sentence—five games, each with a ten-minute wait, because someone (you) had rage quit during a dodgy ranked game three nights ago.
"Guys, I swear this system is rigged," you muttered into your mic, spinning slightly in your gaming chair. "I’m gonna be out of low priority when I’m 40."
The chat buzzed.
- girl ur gonna age like milk before that queue ends
- low prio AGAIN?? lmao
- karma for locking in jungle and then leaving
You smirked. “Y’all are fake. You know I’m the best jungle you’ve ever seen.”
The minutes crawled by, and you leaned back, looking at your second monitor. The other screens were lit up with VSCode, a half-finished Godot project, and a Twitch dashboard. Your mug of coffee was cold. Your hoodie sleeves were half-pushed up. Your hair was messy, your eyeliner slightly smudged, and you were exactly where you wanted to be.
A soft knock echoed from off-camera.
“Babe?” came the warm voice.
You turned, grinning instinctively. “You wanna join me while I suffer?”
Theodore Nott appeared in the corner of the frame like a cutscene character unlocking mid-game. Tousled hair, worn grey T-shirt, sleepy blue eyes. Your chat lost it.
- OMFGGGGGGGG
- IT’S HIM. THE FACE.
- how is HE real. no bc HOW
- chat behave 😭 this is a sacred moment
Theodore sat beside you and slipped one ear of your spare headset on, resting his chin in his hand as he scanned the chat with a lazy smile. “What are we playing?”
“League,” you muttered. “But I’m in timeout.”
He laughed. “Ah, the punishment corner.”
The chat pinged again, and then came that message. Bold. A bit rude. But... not entirely unexpected.
- Not tryna be mean but like… how did he fall in love with her? No offense. Y’all just seem like total opposites.
The chat stalled for half a beat. And then:
- uhhhhhh bro??
- MODS??
- 👀 this is gonna be good
You blinked. “Oh no,” you whispered. “Here we go.”
But Theo didn’t flinch. Instead, he leaned in a bit, resting one arm on the back of your chair as he looked into the camera—calm, amused, completely unbothered.
“How did I fall in love with her?” he repeated aloud, with that slow, melodic accent that made everything he said sound like it belonged in a Netflix drama. “Easy.”
You glanced at him, raising a brow.
He smiled, eyes still locked on the chat. “She didn’t care who I was. Not once. First time we talked, she rolled her eyes at me. Called me a distraction.”
Chat: 🔥🔥🔥
- STOP THIS IS SO MOVIE CORE
- SHE WON
- calling a model a distraction = power move
- I’m kicking my feet
“She had this setup—screens everywhere, cables like some futuristic spaghetti. I asked what she was building. She said, ‘A better world than the one you’re walking around in.’”
You slapped a hand over your face. “I DID NOT SAY THAT.”
“You did,” he grinned. “Exactly that. And I just thought, Dio mio, who is this girl who talks to code like it's poetry?”
- SHAKESPEARE WISHES
- i would combust if someone said that about me 😭
- I need a Theo in my life. rn.
“She built her own PC. Built her own games. Built a community. And she still thinks she’s the ‘weird one’ in the relationship?” He shook his head. “No. I’m the lucky one. I get to love the smartest person I know. The fact that she also looks very good in sweatpants is just... bonus.”
You groaned and shoved his shoulder gently, hiding your face in your sleeve. “Theoooo.”
He chuckled. “It’s true!”
Another question popped up in chat, and Theodore read it aloud.
how did y’all even meet??
He grinned, glancing at you.
“Oh, this one’s my favorite,” he said. “So. I walk into the wrong building in Milan. Looking for a press junket for this indie film I was promoting. I see flashing lights and think, ‘Cool. Art installation.’ Turns out it’s not art—it’s her, setting up this monster of a computer at a tech convention.”
You leaned into the mic. “He asked me if it was a robot. I told him to move because he was blocking the airflow.”
Chat:
- LMAOOOOO
- pls she negged him into love
- girlboss levels: MAX
- blocking airflow = grounds for breakup tbh
“But I was intrigued,” Theo said, shrugging. “So I stayed. I asked questions. She answered. I offered to carry her tower rig back to her car and nearly dropped it.”
“You did drop it.”
He looked sheepish. “Yes. But then I showed up to her stream that night. And every stream after. Even when I didn’t understand what the hell was happening on screen.”
You looked at him, your smile softening. “You still don’t.”
“True,” he admitted, nudging you. “But I understand you. And that’s all I really wanted to know.”
You went quiet for a second, watching the queue timer hit 00:18 and counting down. It almost felt like a metaphor.
- BRO SAID “i understand YOU” 😭😭😭
- I can’t even get a text back and she’s getting Shakespeare
- chat’s collectively in love with Theodore now
- someone propose to someone RIGHT NOW
The game launched with a soft chime.
“Welp,” you muttered. “Time to carry.”
Theo kissed your temple. “Don’t rage quit this time.”
